WeRelate.org

Click here to visit http://www.WeRelate.org.

What are the differences between WikiTree.com and WeRelate.org?

WikiTree and WeRelate are both entirely free wiki family trees. We share similar missions and operate in similar ways.

WeRelate is hosted by a non-profit organization. WikiTree is hosted by a for-profit business named Interesting.com, Inc. See Is WikiTree non-profit? for more explanation.

Both websites are based on the same Mediawiki software developed by the people behind Wikipedia. Both have customized Mediawiki extensively in order to make it work for a family tree project.

The user-interface and structure of WeRelate is more powerful in some ways. In particular, the way they store sources is appreciated by advanced genealogists.

WikiTree has made many compromises for simplicity and to be user-friendly.

The privacy difference is very significant. All information on WeRelate is entirely public. WikiTree has carefully-designed privacy controls.

Because WeRelate doesn't have privacy controls you can't add information on living people. WeRelate only contains information on non-living people. This has many advantages for wiki genealogists. Free-flowing information makes collaboration easier.

WikiTree's privacy controls slow down some advanced collaboration, but they enable the community to create a full family tree. This is especially important for non-genealogists. Genealogists know how they connect to their distant ancestors and may keep their full tree on desktop software. Their non-genealogist family members may not.

This is the heart of the difference. WeRelate is designed to enable genealogists to collaborate with each other. WikiTree is designed to enable genealogists to collaborate with each other and share their genealogy with the rest of their family members at the same time.

This page was last modified 15:09, 23 April 2013. This page has been accessed 9,743 times.