Biography Builders
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Biography Builders
It is easy to get in a groove creating profiles, tracing ancestries, adding sources, and making connections on WikiTree, and in that groove, forget to build a profile to its fullest. Many profiles on WikiTree, even from our best members, have sources but no substance-what do those sources tell us? What has your research revealed? Who was this person? That's what the biography section is for and this challenge is a personal growth challenge to encourage members to create biographies for the profiles they work on, not just find connections and sources.
Each month, we'll set a theme to the challenge, asking participants to create biographies for different people in their family tree or from certain projects and categories.
Those who participate can challenge themselves to do a little more on each profile by working through our checklist of what makes a profile "complete." We know no person will ever be completely researched, and so no profile will ever be completely done, but there are certain points in building a profile where you hit logical stopping points and can "call it" at least for awhile. Each time you do this, you can share that profile in that month's thread as an example for the community as well as have a chance to get thoughtful feedback on other things that might make nice additions.
Each time you hit a milestone in your participation you'll get a template for your profile to show others you've been making WikiTree a better place to share family history. The first template is placed when you've completed 10 profiles for Bio-Builder challenges. The numbers are cumulative, so it could be the first month you participate that you hit that mark, or it could be 5 months later. It's up to you.
Special Notes
How to Join
- Check the G2G post to determine the current theme (see list in upper right side of page)
- Write a biography (or several) that fit the theme
- Answer the G2G post and create a list of the profiles you worked on
- Add biobuilders to your tags
- (optional) Join the Profile Improvement Project
The List
Data Section.
- birth date/place
- names of parents
- marriage date/place and spouse name
- names of children, if any
- death date/place
Biography Section:
- Written sentences stating the facts above, adding inline sources to each fact.
- As a general rule, biographies should be in your own words. Paraphrase and rewrite, don't copy/paste.
- Is the profile Genealogically Defined?
- Baptism, burial, military, and other life events with inline sources.
- Something to "humanize" the person, such as career or avocation with sources.
- List of children with at least one pertinent fact.
- Explanatory remarks, if needed (i.e. Disputed persons sections, Research Notes, whatever needs extra explaining).
- Photos or pictures. Not a must, but nice (you own the copyright, or photos must be in the public domain).
- Categories.
- Connection to the Global Tree.
- All duplicates merged or initiated.
- Links to persons and events, perhaps from Wikipedia.
- Historical context as related to the person's life.
- Sources, Sources, Sources.
Places you might look for information
Family Search; Find-a-grave; Gengophers.com; google search for the person and their spouse together; look for a genealogy on the family; check for a town or county history to see if the person is mentioned; from the profile ID drop down menu use "Research"; if you have subscriptions to pay sites check those; check for printed ancient town records in the place where the subject lived. Of course if they are related to you, you may have even better information, like birth, death, probate, land, bible records etc.
Monthly Themes
- Alphabetical given/surnames
- Letter ‘A’ surnames Aug 2016
- Letter ‘B’ surnames Sep/Oct 2018
- Letter ‘C’ surnames Sep 2019
- Letter ‘D’ surnames Dec 2020
- Letter ‘F’ surnames Feb 2022
- Letter ‘J’ surnames Jul 2021
- Letter ‘M’ surnames May 2019
- Letter ‘N’ surnames Nov 2023
- Letter ‘S’ surnames Sep 2020
- Letter ‘A’ given names Apr 2020
- Letter ‘C’ given names Dec/Jan 2017
- Letter ‘F’ given names Jan/Feb 2017
- Letter ‘J’ given names Jul 2016
- Letter ‘M’ given name Mar 2024
- Letter ‘R’ given names Oct 2021
- Letter ‘S’ given names Aug/Sep 2017
- School masters/mistresses/teachers
- The Great Depression era (10/29/1929 - 12/7/1941)
- Families with 10+ children Nov/Dec 2018
- Various specific occupations
- Veterans of any conflict Nov 2020
- Veterans from specific conflicts
- World War I Jul 2022
- People
- Popes Oct/Nov 2018
- People born in the 1600's May/Jun 2018
- People born in the 1700's May/Jun 2017
- People born in the 1800's June 2016
- People born in the 1900's Mar 2021
- People who died before their 18th birthday (Remember the Children Project) Apr 2023
- People who never married Aug 2021
- People who were immigrants Apr/May 2018
- People whose name (first, middle, or surname) begins with Q, U, X, or Z Jan 2023
- People whose last name is the same as a currency or coin Feb 2023
- Men named Charles and women named Elizabeth May 2023
- specific relatives, i.e. your third great grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.
- Specific Categories
- specific G2G tags to make profiles for answers to questions
- People with an unknown parent ie Brickwalls Mar/Apr 2018
- For February - people who have same last name as any president. Feb 2020
- For March - Women who've made a mark in history Feb/Mar 2017
- For May - Any mother Apr/May 2017
- For June - Any father Jun/July 2017
- For August - All things Massachusetts Aug 2023
- For October - People named Christopher/Christine Oct 2023
- People who emigrated (born in one country, died in another) Hat trick - Married in a third country. Dec 2022
- People with a Specific Occupation: Miner, Farmer, fisherman, welder, etc.
- People whose surname is an occupation: Farmer, Fisher, etc Jan/Feb 2018 Apr 2022
- Names that have a 'son': Johnson, Anderson, Myerson. Nov 2022
- Pick someone/s who was born in the same place as you (could be town, city, state/county, or country) and write their biography. Might be interesting to compare their life with yours, what has changed and what is the same? Jun/Jul 2018 Jun 2022
- Colors; White, Brown(e), Black, Green(e), Gray/Grey, Gold etc. Oct 2019 May 2022
- Profiles in certain projects
- Spring Cleaning Mar/April 2017
- Holiday Inspired themes
- Thanksgiving Nov/Dec 2016
- Christmas Dec 2021
- People with multiple marriages May 2021
- People with multiple births in the family. Twins, Triplets, etc. First sets if triplets and above in a county or city. Dec 2019
- Maybe use this project to highlight the great work being done in some other WikiTree projects? I was thinking of:
- People who should be added to WikiTree's Roll of Honor
- People who are adopted, or who have adopted children (doesn't directly fit with the Adoption Angels, but we could still bring attention to that project) Apr 2019
- People who are in, or could be added to, an existing One Name Study Mar 2019
- Profiles that include DNA research
- People who have an interesting tombstone or story related to their death or burial (tie in with the Global Cemeteries Project)
- People who are Notables, or who were named after a Notable
- People who emigrated from/immigrated to another country (not a project, but the Immigration category has a template that we could advertise, and we could document these stories)
- People born, married, or died in a specific month
- People born in January Jan 2020
- People born in February Feb 2021
- People born in June June 2023
- People born in July Jul/Aug 2018
- People born in August Aug 2020
- People born in October Sep/Oct 2017
- People born in November Nov 2019
- People born in December Dec/Jan 2016/17
- People who married in January Jan 2022
- People who married in February Feb 2019
- People who married in April Apr 2021
- People who married in June Jun 2019
- People who married in October Oct 2022
- People married in December Dec 2023
- People who died in January Last Half Jan 2019
- People who died in February Feb 2024
- People who died in June June 2020
- People who died in July Jul 2019
- People who died in September Sep 2022
- People who died in December or January Dec 2018/Jan 2019
- Place of Birth
- Place of Marriage
- Letter ‘S’ Place of Marriage Sep 2021
- Place of Death
- Letter ‘L’ Place of Death Aug 2022
- People born in ? (a particular country)
- Source-a-thon sourced profiles Oct/Nov 2016 Nov 2021
- Unsourced profiles Oct/Nov 2017
- Grandparents Sept 2016
- Great Grandparents May 2020
- Great Great Grandparents Jul/Aug 2017
- Great Great Great Grandparents Aug/Sep 2018
- People from one town. (One Place Studies) Nov/Dec 2017 Oct 2020 Jul 2023
Participants
See our Google Sheet for participant data and totals.
Achievement "Stickers"
- August 2022 BioBuilders Challenge - Letter ‘L’ Place of Death Jul 31, 2022.
- May 2022 BioBuilders - People whose surname is a color, also includes a color with man or mon after the color. Apr 30, 2022.
- January 2022 BioBuilders - People who married in January Jan 1, 2022.
- March 2020 BioBuilders - Biography of an Aunt or Uncle, any level (Grand, Gr-grand, etc.) Mar 1, 2020.
- December 2019 BioBuilders - Families with multiple births Dec 1, 2019.
- August 2019 BioBuilders - Connect-a-Thon Aug 1, 2019.
- Login to request to the join the Trusted List so that you can edit and add images.
- Private Messages: Contact the Profile Managers privately: Anne B and Bob Keniston. (Best when privacy is an issue.)
- Public Comments: Login to post. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. Limit 20 per day.)
- Public Q&A: These will appear above and in the Genealogist-to-Genealogist (G2G) Forum. (Best for anything directed to the wider genealogy community.)
Hi guys Could this page please be updated and the comments either answered or archieved?
The spreadsheet is also in need of updating as not been done since January this year!! Once that is done stickers can be awarded.
Please note this page is linked to other pages from which folk, are directed each month, can all the challenges be done from this page so they are easier for folk to find.
Many Thanks
Janet
England Profile Improvement Team Coordinator
All of the challenges are listed on this page. Bob
Bob
Bob
Thank you
Should I register anywhere else as a biobuilder other than doing the challenges?
April showers - water names? bring May flowers - flower names?
cheers