Help:Source-a-Thon

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The 2022 Source-a-Thon has wrapped-up. Thank you to everyone who participated. See you next year!

Contents

Source-a-What?

This is our seventh annual 72-hour sourcing marathon.

The goal of the event is to clear out Unsourced Profiles on WikiTree. Although including sources is in our community's Honor Code, new genealogists don't always record them. Sometimes the source is "Aunt Mabel." This doesn't mean the information isn't worth preserving or sharing. It's a starting point — information waiting to be confirmed.

Like a marathon, this is a competition, but most participants won't be serious competitors. Most of us will be doing it for the challenge of sourcing as many profiles as they can, for the mission, and for the fun of it.

We will be hosting live video chats throughout the weekend to cheer each other on. During every chat we will draw a winner for a door prize.

The previous Source-a-Thons have been great fun and very productive. Last year we sourced almost 57,000 profiles. Join us this year to beat that record!

All the details are below. But if it sounds cool already, register now and get your unique race number. If you have questions, ask them in G2G.

Schedule

  • The fun begins Friday morning at 8am EDT, 30 September 2022.
  • The event ends Monday morning at 8am EDT, 3 October 2022.

Registration

Source-a-Thon "Race Bib"

You need to register in advance. You'll be given the Source-a-Thon badge and assigned a race number. We'll use that number to draw the random winners for the many door prizes.

Registration is free. Like everything on WikiTree.

If you're not already a WikiTree member, join before registering, proceed through the quick steps, and sign the Honor Code. Then simply post an answer here: register. Say "Sign me up!" or whatever and either say what team you want to be on or include a few words about your location or genealogical interests.

I've registered. What is next?

If you haven't already, you will be receiving an email letting you know which team you are on. If you want that team changed you can contact Mindy. On Friday morning at 8am EDT, September 30, you can start working on adding sources to profiles. If you are not sure where to find profiles to work on, contact your captain. You can also read more about participation below. If you are not in Discord yet, check out the Discord Help page so that you can participate in the live chat with your teammates.

Check out our YouTube channel or Facebook for the video hangouts which will occur every four hours to see how your team and others are doing. This is also where the prizes will be announced.

Teams

Everyone who participates in the Source-a-Thon is on a team. Teams are just groups of people working together and encouraging each other.

Any participant can join any team. All teams welcome any members who are interested.

Current teams are listed here. When you register you can state in your answer what team you'd like to join. Anyone not on a team when registration closes will be assigned to one.

Country teams

US regional and state teams

Non-regional teams

Organizing a team

Would you like to put together a team? Anyone can.

  1. Choose a fun team name.
  2. Create a free-space page for your team.
  3. Email mindy@wikitree.com so she can add your team to the list.

You're encouraged to recruit for your team. You might review the G2G posts where members have registered to see if anyone mentioned an interest or locality that might fit your team. You could reach out to project email lists or even outside genealogical groups that fit the team's topic. Posting on Facebook would be great. (Tag it @WikiTreers.) Any outreach you do will be helping raise awareness about the Source-a-Thon so it's much appreciated. We do ask that you do not start recruitment posts in G2G separate from the main registration threads. That has led to confusion in the past.

Leading a team

Free-space pages are for team coordination, e.g. to list potential sources in their research area and coordinate who will be searching for what, as well as where Aleš will include tables of unsourced profiles specific to your team (if possible).

Teams also have "cheer" posts in the G2G where your team members can encourage and cheer each other on.

Team members may be able to help each other claim prizes. The way we're doing these drawings, every participant has a good chance to win, but you have to be online when your number is drawn. Team members might want to watch for each other's numbers.

During our periodic video chats during the Source-a-Thon we will be talking about how the teams are doing.

There will be bragging rights for the most productive teams!

Prizes

Over $5,000 in genealogy prizes will be given away!

Winners will be drawn at random in the Hangouts that happen every four hours during the weekend.

To be eligible you need to:

  1. register in advance, so you have a race number, and
  2. be actively participating in the event.

If you're not present when your number is drawn, you'll have until the next Hangout starts to claim your prize. Winners will be posted in a G2G message that will be linked here.

If your number is drawn you get to pick from available prizes. You make your selection by posting a reply on the above G2G thread.

If you don't claim your prize before the next drawing, your number will go back in the hat so you get another chance.

After someone wins and claims a prize, their number will come out of the hat. In other words, you can't win more than one prize.

With so many prizes, the odds of winning are good.

Here's the current list of prizes. This list is growing every day!

Website subscriptions

DNA tests

Gift certificates/cards

Genealogy Online Courses

Research assistance

  • One hour consultation with Kitty Cooper. She specializes in DNA or Norwegian genealogy. ($90)

Books

Other prizes

Donate a prize

Prizes are donated by individuals and organizations in the genealogy community.

Will you donate a prize? It can be anything that would be fun or valuable to genealogists, as long as it has a $50+ face value. If it's a physical object you need to be willing to ship it to the winner, who could be anywhere in the world. Please specify if you are only able to ship within the United States or another region.

E-mail Mindy at mindy@wikitree.com or post in the

How to Participate

Participating means removing profiles from the Unsourced Profiles category. They cannot be new profiles that you create.

Select an Open (white) profile from anywhere in the category or one of its subcategories and search for sources to back up the facts of the person's life.

Valid sources include census records, BMD records/index references, military documents, land documents, wills, etc. A source cannot be another user-generated family tree, such as Geni or an Ancestry Member Tree.

When you find a source:

  1. Edit the profile to add the source, according to our Sources guide.
  2. Remove the {{Unsourced}} Research Note Box tag.
  3. Save the profile and click the Challenge Tracker button.
  4. On the Challenge Tracker, select the Source-a-Thon checkbox.

If you don't find a source after searching, considering adding Research Notes saying where you looked. For example: "Looked for John in the US Census records for 1900-1940 and couldn't find him on FamilySearch or Ancestry." This way the next researcher knows where to start.

More help:

Leaderboard: Live Tracking

When the challenge is live, see this link: Statistics by Team and User.

Badges source_a_thon_2022.gif source_a_thon_winner_2022.gif

Every registered participant will get this year's Source-a-Thon badge.

The 10 participants who remove the most profiles from the Unsourced categories over the 72-hour period will get a Source-a-Thon Winner badge, as will all the participants of the winning team (both by team total and by team average). There are no prizes for winning — just the badge, bragging rights, and the community's appreciation.

There will also be a Profile Sticker that you can put on your profile after the race is over to show your race number, number of sourced profiles, and final ranking.

Official Rules, Terms and Conditions

In addition to WikiTree's main Terms of Service:

No purchase is necessary for the prizes. Void where prohibited.

Door prize donors are independent and not officially affiliated with WikiTree. Prize winners will be put into contact with prize donors for delivery. WikiTree is not responsible for prizes that are not delivered or otherwise unsatisfactory.

WikiTree is not responsible for technical outages or problems that may prevent an individual from participating or claiming a prize.

By participating, you agree to release and hold WikiTree harmless from any and all losses, damages, rights, claims, and actions of any kind in connection with or resulting from acceptance, possession, use or misuse of any prize.

By participating, entrants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of WikiTree and waive any right to claim ambiguity in the rules. All decisions regarding the Source-a-Thon, including, but not limited to, selecting winners, will be made by WikiTree whose decisions shall be final.

Prior Source-a-Thons



This page was last modified 15:02, 20 January 2023. This page has been accessed 77,102 times.