How could WikiTree look less American?

Question

Yes I know this is a quite provocative question.

First a disclaimer: I've been working on Wikitree for less than three months, but quite actively (2000+ contributions to date), and although I'm not American I enjoy it. 

I've tried to bring in a few family members, and a couple of friends involved in genealogy. All of them French, as myself, some having "their" tree managed in Geneanet, mainly. None having interest in DNA genealogy, AFAIK. Their main objection to joining WikiTree boils down to : too much American stuff : interface language of course (but that's not I think critical), but underlying spirit, so to speak, and data model. How a data model could be culturally biased? It's always so. Ask anyone who was involved in data migration in companies merging how a data model conveys the enterprise culture, and what pain it is to merge them. I won't enter into details here, but obvious examples are the various fields for "name". "Middle name" among others, makes absolutely no sense for a French.

I tell them : come on, the best way to have WikiTree look  less American is to have more non-American on board. But that does not really work. And it's too bad because we have here in France a lot of serious genealogists, and a wealth of solid archives ready to be added to WT.

This is a real issue, because the written mission (which I buy 100%) is to build a single family tree for all of us. It would be too bad to give the impression that this "us" stands for "US" and not "we, the humans".

Of course there are "projects" for non-American coordination (France, Netherlands, Germany, Australia etc) but they look like sort of extensions of the WikiTree core, which stands firmly American.

I'm willing to work on this issue with interested people. There is certainly no silver bullet. This post is just to make sure other people here are aware of the issue and willing to work towards solutions.

Thanks for your attention.

Comments

One thing of note about we Australians .. prick us and we mostly bleed European (French, Swiss German, Prussia n, Italian, wherever), or Scandinavian, or Greek, or African (continent, no specific country), or English, or Welsh, or Irish, or Scottish.

So many of us are only a generation or few away from our roots, unlike many Americans who've been entrenched for hundreds of years. 

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 Not so sure the proportions of Old Family to Newcomers is all that certain, Melanie, since United States is reputed to be the Land of Refuge by so many. And the United States ethnic etc mix is a mixed as what you say is mixed in Australia.  And just as thoroughly. 

My own ethnic mix (a composite of both parents) as told to me is English, Irish, Scot, Welsh, German and French.  And that's none too different from what you cite as "Australian" 

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You are quite correct, Bernard, the way to improve the Presence of Europe at WT is for more Europeans to contribute their own genealogies, to cause thereby a shift in the demographics at WT. 

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Wikitree is heavily "Americanized" as the USA is it's birthplace. It's policy's, structures and procedures are very non-conformist with international standards. The original concept of "one family tree through a co-operative effort " is spot on and resonates with its membership. It will soon reach it's growth capacity in the USA and major changes will be required if it is to succeed as a world class genealogical site. It must move to get away from its complicated procedures which drives new membership away along with some experienced members. So far, I do not see any signs of directional change but if Wikitree is to survive and flourish it must start looking outside the single country box.

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But Susan .. I didn't say "all" Americans.  I said "many" .. and that is very true.  Just look at the number of folk who claim to be descended from PGM (is it?), or Mayflower, or whatever.  Aus doesn't go anywhere near that far back except for the Indigenous Peoples.  Our "history" is barely a nudge and a smidge past the 200 year mark.  (If my one "unknown" from decades ago had turned out to be Indigenous, I could claim a longer heritage there, but she wasn't.  So I can't.  I only go back to 1804.)

It would be very strange if the ethnic make up weren't similar.  We've had similar patterns of migration, except I think North America has seen more Latins than we did/do .. because we have that pesky water all around us.

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Hi Bernard. Good post. Very well-presented.

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 Thank you, Melanie? I now achieve notoriety for something I didn't do. 

I don't think you dropped the dime on the right person in that I don't recall shifting the topic from "many" to "all" -- and having re-read my post I still can't find that shift ... gah! 

 But, still, thank you for highlighting a non-event. Urk! Gah!! 

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Melanie, Americans are quite a mixed bag. I do have one branch that goes back to the 1600's in North America (my mom's mom's dad's side), but all the others came over between 1850 and 1910 - nationally we had big waves of Irish, Italians, Germans, etc.  Of course, we always like to talk about the ones that go back to colonial times, so maybe we give the impression that that's what's common.

Anyway, that's a bit off-topic.  Aussies, Kiwis, U.S., Canada, and the UK all feel like close siblings to me, given their common English heritage.  How do we make this site more relevant to the French, the Slavs, Ethiopians, Koreans, etc?  The family name might not be last name, your common name might be the middle name, etc. It's not easy to search the site based on Cyrillic or other scripts, but converting them into a Latin-based alphabet is problematic.

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@Melanie : Good point that seen from Australia, America is an "old" country, whereas seen from Europe, it is a "young" country. But entrenchment, as you say, is more a question of why and how you get into genealogy to begin with than of nationality or culture. Proud claims "Hey look at my pedigree tracing back to Mayflower" are akin to the ones we have in Europe "Hey look at my pedigree tracing back to Charlemagne". This is IMHO le degré zéro de la généalogie, trying to show off an aristocratic lineage, each culture having its own aristocracy.

But it points as something which seems important to many people involved in genealogy, finding out how their ancestors fit in the great events of History. In France, for example, what did your ancestors do during the French Revolution, or WW1, etc. 

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@Rob : Your comment is spot on. Indeed the entry ticket to WT gets higher when you get further away from the western culture. Latin world (including France) is not culturally that far, and Europe at large can live with a system made in America. Latin America, I'm not sure. How many Wikitreers do we have from Brazil? Asia and Africa are still another story, and they make for more than 75% of world population today.. 

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@Chris : Thanks! And since we did not met before, I take the opportunity to send compliments to the chief for the great work! 

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I have mine all over here by like 1614 I think for my mom's dad's side, a little later fro her mom's - except those that were here which become a brick wall - my Cree and Ojibwe grandmothers - have not got back far enough on Dad's side to know where they are from - I am looking forward to this becoming more and more international - it is happening but it is slow goings - as it takes time to do it right and I know the input on this thread and others about the issues preventing a swifter move toward more inclusion from everywhere are all being considered to this end - and we all need to brainstorm on how to help as this is a volunteer site and we all want it to happen - will be so cool!

Answer 1

Bonjour Bernard, Merci pour votre message.  Your English is tres bon mon francaise et tres mal!  So I will post in English as you seem to be multilingual.  

First of all I would suggest if you have not already done so to join the French Roots Project.  It is led by Isabelle Rassinot a French native.  Help translate any of the English language pages to French and give them the French cultural look and feel as much as possible  

I agree the name fields are anything but internationally sensitive.  But many of the projects have their own style guidelines on how to use them.  So for a French person Jean-Paul as a first name works.  It may trigger a data doctor suggestion but it can be marked as a false error and I think Ales our Data Doctor guru and leader has been noting some common compound names tied to locations.  

So my next suggestion is to join the data doctors project if you have not already done so.  It will give you an idea of what works and doesn't within WikiTree and give you a group of dedicated folks to bounce ideas off of.  

My third suggestion is to keep posting ideas for making WT more user friendly to non-English focused people.  I realize that a computer system cannot be everything to everyone but often there are simple fixes that can make a world of difference.  

We have some new training videos.  One set are the intros to WT found under the Help Menu.  You could translate those for non-English speaking folks.  

I belong to a large French speaking / writing genealogy group as I have French glass and crystal maker heritage.  So while I read it pretty well I am not as good at writing it.  But I know what you mean by pages having a cultural feel.

Comments

Laura, thanks for taking the time for precious and informed advices.

I have joined the French Roots, now renamed France project, and I have been steadily exchanging with Isabelle, She helped connecting my wife's family to the tree without passing by me and my illiterate farmers lineage, but instead by famous families such as Vilmorin and Toulouse-Lautrec.

I've introduced indeed a lot of compound given names such as François-Marie (my grandfather and his father), Jean-Joseph, Marie-Anne and Anne-Marie etc etc w/o any data doctor crying so far.

If I had a suggestion for names, it would be to have a field called "display name" which could be filled freely by the PM, and would override the automatic construction leading currently to weird displays in many cases.

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 Illiterate Farmers' lineage? Hah, Bernard, I out rank you for that lineage. My lineage has been that since the first forefather stepped off the boat and onto the shore here.  That's 200+ years ago. No Judges I know of, only one Mayor I know of, etc. Only in the early 1900's did some of them began in other areas of earning a living. It is said, and rightly so, the farmer is the backbone of any nation. 

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Susan, not to enter a contest, but have you looked closely at my ancestry? 

Starting from my grandfather https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Vatant-3 you can follow all the 32 branches of his tree back to around 1750, and about every one of them, man and woman alike, have been of the same kind, all native from the same area in the center of Brittany called Poher. See http://cghp-poher.net/aire-d-etudes.html. The village of my grandfather, Paule, is right in the middle of the map.

And I have no reason to believe that it was much different in the previous centuries. 

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Bernard so glad you joined  the project.  Lots of great members here.  Isabelle is great

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 Bernard, that is in fact remarkable, for so many generations to actually remain in one area for such a period of time. I have not seen the like in the families I have researched. I concentrate of landing on the shores here in the United States until demise and seldom does more than one perhaps two remain in the same county although they have often enough remained in the same State. 

United States has unincorporated areas, a town/city, county, State, Federal levels of government entities, excepting Louisiana which has parishes rather than counties.

France, as many of the European nations, have been there "forever", compared to the United States which unfolded as a geo-political entity over the course of several hundred years, starting as either mercantile enterprises or religious refuges or for other purposes and added to by purchase or war.  For France, one would have to go backwards in time hundreds of years no doubt to find its origins. 

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Susan I have relatives in France and Scotland that have been in the same place since the 1600s.

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 There remains the central point, that if Europeans choose to avoid WT because it is "too American" and "not enough European", that there is one way to overcome that "Americanism", and that is for more Europeans to participate in WT.  You see many from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Germany, and middle Europe participating even now and they have influence by their presence. 

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Laura : indeed this is frequent. For most countryside communities, at least in France, it's hard to find documents before 1600, but the oldest documents point at communities well settled, which could have been there for centuries, as if they had emerged from the very ground. Of course their ancestors arrived there at some point, but well beyond any possible individual tracking. In such places, a simple arithmetic leads to the conclusion that they all have the same ancestors if you go back a few centuries.

Out of my 306 ancestors I've added so far to WikiTree, the cool "Brick Walls" application identifies 20 duplicates due to pedigree collapse, and this is only in less than 10 generations. I'm pretty sure that if I was able to go back as far as 1400, I woud find about 100% of pedigree collapse.

Answer 2

You can't blame an American baby for looking and feeling American. When I joined there didn't seem to be many British about. That has changed and with it some of the American assumptions, like no one in England gets a suffix at birth, we want to use it for earned "letters after the name". We want to spell our way. Lots of wants. But it takes time, I'm afraid. Lots of good French language profiles will help, I'm sure. I'd like to see more non-English language conversations in G2G even if you have to fake them for a while. What I did find when we were working around Europe was my faltering attempts at French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish and Danish came to nought as my hearers found it easier to talk to me in English than let me go on grappling with my inferior vocabularies. The sooner all the French profiles are in French the better, say I.

Comments

Great comment. It only takes a few seconds to have Google Translate to convert your comments to another language or back again.

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Indeed language is not the main issue. Having an international community means speaking English. That's the world we are living in, scientists do that, etc.

Of course local versions would be cool, but it's a lot of work. I'm supposed to work in the Francophone project, but am currently too busy just adding profiles ...

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Comments, labels, instructions in one language or another is not a deal-breaker.  It just takes time to rewrite them, and while auto-translate tools are pretty good, the results still often sound awkward or downright confusing.

This question really centers around names- how many, the order, the script. Names should remain in their native language, first because that's just right, but also trying to translate to English could have different results because we spell certain sounds so many ways, and don't even have consistent ways to represent sounds some other languages have (Tsar/Czar come from the same Cyrillic spelling, for instance, and how many ways do we spell Hanukkah?)

Dates too could change I suppose.  There's the Hebrew calendar, Chinese, Ethiopians, and others.  I imagine they're used to using the western system by now.  

Even in western Europe, an interesting point of trivia is when each country switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar (Russia didn't do this until 1917). This deleted about 10 days on the year they switched.  Tudor (non-Catholic) England celebrated New Years on March 25 until 1752.  (Which is why some old tombstones during the transition time in England and the colonies have a date like Feb 12, 1753/54 - depending on the system, you could call it either 1753 or 1754).  Usually we just gloss over those differences.

If a period or a comma is a decimal point or a thousands-separator isn't a big deal for WT, although it is used on the home page where we display how many users and profiles there are.  I'm sure there's other localization issues, it might not seriously affect things, but people would notice it's not their native system.

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@Rob : I agree that naming is the core issue. And this is not specific to WikiTree. People have so many ways to be named, private, public, official etc. For example my ancestors  in Brittany are known by official acts written in French, mandatory language since 1539 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance_of_Villers-Cotter%C3%AAts. But in everyday life, those people language was Brezhoneg, they barely understood a few words of French, not to mention reading and writing. Among them, they used names in Brezhoneg, which were not written in the acts. Moreover, the given names at baptism had to be christian names, Françoise and Yves, not Soizig or Ewen. If we had to render their names as they were used at the time, we would be in trouble to find out what they were exactly, because they never were written.

Answer 3

With family naming systems, there will never be a one-size-fits-all.  Scandinavians have their -son and -dotter system.  Or, imagine trying to use Kim as a LNAB for Korean Genealogy.  Germans have the "Johann-Freiderich" dual first name system that Wikitree also flags as an error. Wikitree is flexible enough to handle French naming, albeit improvements would be welcomed.

I hope you stay at Wikitree and encourage your compatriots to join.  Because Wikitree is so American-heavy (and DNA-friendly), there is a great opportunity for immigrant generation lineages of Americans to connect up with trees from their home countries.  It's pleasing to find an ancestor with a lineage that goes back to, say, the European gentrified classes.  When I find one of those, they usually go back another couple of hundred years (and somebody else has already done the research and put the sources on Wikitree).

Comments

Michael, see my above answer to Laura. Display name should be a non-controlled field, that is, not computed from other fields as it stands now.

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I beg to differ. I think the display name should be a computed field, but there should be something like radio buttons to select how it is computed from those other fields. It would take some time to work it out, but if we have enough kinds of name fields (all of which are optional), and enough selections for naming systems, then it should be simple to click on the correct naming system for the subject of the profile, and have the system build a display name which is correct for them.

Naming systems I'm aware of (there are probably more) are:

• Arabic
• Chinese
• English
• Ethiopian
• Mediaeval (single names)
• Russian
• Scandinavian
• Spanish

All of those are "buildable" from the right elements.

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Your comment highlights one solution for the inevitable problem of different naming systems.  If the ultimate goal is a "one world" tree, then Wikitree needs to have a plan for dealing with different systems for different cultures.  I like the radio button idea.  At least it moves the ball forward, even if  the solution is imperfect.

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Greg : this is a good idea indeed. But it would need certainly more fields than we have now, or to be able to adapt the profile edit form to various cultures/languages. I agree that a totally "free" display name is an open door to all sorts of fantasy names. A data model is always a difficult balance between order and chaos.

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I support the idea of specifying the language/naming-system utilized as it would benefit the search facility in the same way as how I can search for a Last Name with or without a letter's accent and they will all appear. If all the page field prompts would also be translated you would need to set the user's preferred language.

I classify "Americanized" as the habit of consistently changing how things are done, or for WikiTree, how to format the various section of the biography and source citations and now Templates. Don't get me wrong, I am American who fully supports the mission statement for WikiTree and as a relatively new member worked with a tutor on formatting all the sections of an individual's profile and a working Data Doctor.

The latest addition are the templates which is a good Idea giving one page to change when DB web url when required; but, who can remember all the formats options for the different types of Templates.

The enhanced edit windows just added highlights to your in-line sources which is nice. How about expanding the citation button (in-line or under Sources heading) to ask what type template and them prompt me for the data that is required to create the template citation/source.

The more WikiTree can automate the largely manual entry process and establish interfaces/links with different genealogical DBs, the more we can offer the general public and attract more and keep more active members. I expect we would also cut the number of DD error suggestions and updates. RootsFinder.com is make good progress towards this type of cross platform sharing.

Answer 4

Hi Barnard,

I personally think that wikitree looks far less "americanised" than ancestry and my heritage. And it comes down to communication. We need to be mindful of cultural differences, listen to members who voice them. And everyone to stay calm and focus on communicating effectively. 

In my personal experience of wikitree, it seems to me like a compromise is more often agreed on. Surely compromises can be made for the overall missions and goals hey.

Comments

Kylie, regarding Ancestry and MyHeritage, the problem is not that they are American, it's that they are Big Business. As a matter of fact MyHeritage is based in Israel. Reading carefully the history of the company at e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyHeritage is really worth the time. Yet another episode of the Tragedy of the Commons, making hundreds of millions $ with something that should be freely shared : our common history. 

Ancestry IMHO is worse, because it makes Big Business under a religious umbrella. Two reasons for me to run away. 

To be honest, the main thing which makes me uneasy using WT is the inclusion in its business model of ads for DNA tests of those genealogy Big Business. So far, I do as if they were not there on the pages. 

For the rest, I completely agree with you.

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I don't see any ads on my pages...

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I have done, when not logged in .. and they're not blocked by the adblock that goes with opera.

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Interesting ... I read the following on your own profile page. 

DNA Connections
Has Kylie taken a DNA test for genealogy? It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Kylie by comparing test results with other carriers of her ancestors' mitochondrial DNA. However, there are no known mtDNA test-takers in her direct maternal line. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share DNA with Kylie:

• David Hewitt  : 23andMe [test details]

Have you taken a DNA test for genealogy? If so, enter it here. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.

Maybe you don't see ads in this, but the quoted DNA test sellers consider it is, and pay for it.  This money is used to support WT servers and technical infrastructure, as said at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:The_Free_Family_Tree 

The costs of operation are covered by modest ads on public pages

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Oh I see what you mean, oh I thought that was to do with the DNA project. There is a project that are very focus on it. So different areas of interest are fine with me.

I never considered them adds. Did not know they were.

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Sorry to spoil your dreams  . 

I'd worked in the Web business for quite a while, I had a lot of dreams 20 years ago, and what I've learnt mainly is that there is no free lunch. So you better know who pays for what you use. As they say, if it's free online you are the product. 

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And everyone to stay calm and focus on communicating effectively. 

Answer 5

Should this topic be tagged as global outreach?

I agree that Wikitree needs to increase its efforts to attract non-American and non-Anglo genealogists. I still think the biggest thing would be more language portals. There should be, minimum, portals for French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. That wouldn't cover everybody but it would give most of the globe at least a chance to participate. Once we actually have Arabs and Chinese people participating, we can work with them to figure out the best name display options and so forth.

I've said this before, but Wikitree should recruit local, experienced genealogists to run the country projects. I remember the old India project on WorldGenWeb, which was 99.9% dedicated to British colonial families in India. Imagine being an Indian, going to your own country's genealogy website, and finding your people are completely and utterly ignored and excluded. Imagine how unwelcome you'd feel. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a subproject devoted to the British Raj, but white families shouldn't be the focus of an India Project! And hundreds of millions of Indians speak English, so in that case the language barrier isn't an excuse.

Comments

Aleš (or Chris) might be able to create a report showing the languages of active WikiTreers. That would help us to determine which languages have the most speakers on WikiTree, and roll out portals for them first.

Answer 6

I should also say that there are already attempts to make WikiTree truly global. Some examples:

• Different Languages Used for WikiTree Profiles
• Global Community Outreach Project
• How to increase a country's presence on WikiTree
• Language Project
• Profile Headers in Different Languages