Your first visit to WikiTree might be a little overwhelming, and you may be wondering how to navigate a WikiTree profile. If that sounds like you, then this example should help. As a reminder, everything at WikiTree is free, and much of what it has to offer can be viewed as a guest visitor to the site. However, we strongly recommend that you register (again this is free) so that you can see everything that it has to offer.
WikiTree Profile Page
Here is an example of a WikiTree profile. It is for Alexander Rowland, who was born in 1826 in Lawrence Township, Stark County, Ohio, and passed away in 1876 in Wood County, Ohio. His WikiTree ID is Rowland-1190, which is used in his page name of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rowland-1190. You might find it useful to open the page while reading through this example, although that might require that you have a double-monitor setup up on your computer, or that you print out this example.
As you can see, there is a wealth of information here, and this is just the beginning. The best way to learn is by adding your own profile and those of family members. His profile includes an image of his headstone (which looks like an Aspen or Birch tree) displayed to the left of his name. The green open padlock icon at the far right signifies this is an Open Profile, and any registered user can add to it or edit it. However, it is proper etiquette to always discuss significant changes with the Profile Manager first.
Main Profile Area
The text in the left-hand column shows his name, birth information, parents, list of siblings, spouse (spouses if more than one), list of children, and then his death information.
Highlighted in yellow is the Profile Manager, which happens to be me. Each profile gets a unique ID in the format of Last Name At Birth (LNAB)-nnnn, where nnnn is the next sequence number available for a given surname. For Alexander, his ID is Rowland-1190, which you can see in the next line and near the upper right-hand corner as a menu item. It is also used as part of the URL. Below the Profile Manager information, it shows that the profile was created on 28 Sep 2013 and has been accessed more than 1,000 times.
The Contents indicate there are four sections to his biography. The Biography text is in a narrative style, and inline citation of sources is used wherever possible. Only a few lines of his biography are visible in this image, and if you were on the website, then you could scroll down and view the rest. To the right of the opening paragraph is what is known as a “sticker” on WikiTree. This one is a Civil War sticker, showing that Lieutenant Alexander Rowland served in the 111th Ohio Infantry.
The Right-Hand Column
The right-hand column shows the DNA connections and DNA test identification for further research. The groupings are separated by DNA test type. This profile shows that there is one Y-DNA test-taker and three autosomal DNA test-takers that likely share DNA with Alexander. If there were any mitochondrial-DNA test-takers with shared DNA, they would show up in a third grouping.
Images are next, and in the case of Alexander, only one has been uploaded to his profile. The next section (out of view in this image) is labeled “Collaboration” and includes links allowing you to discuss changes with others and potentially edit the profile.
WikiTree Ancestors
Between the left and right columns are two handy buttons with white text on a dark green background. The upper one is labeled “Ancestors” and if you click it, then you get this pedigree chart view.
It shows five generations, the person whose profile you are looking at plus four more generations, out to and including his 16 great-great-grandparents.
Clicking on any name will take you to that person’s profile. If you look at the far right, the last visible name (7th one down) is Thomas Pribble. There are little blue and red triangles after his name, indicating he has additional male and female ancestors with profiles. The six names listed above Thomas do not have any further ancestors documented yet.
Descendants
The other green button that was below “Ancestors” is labeled “Descendants,” and here is a view of what you see when you click it.
Once again it displays five generations, but it does so in an indented-list format, and some of these lists can be quite long. Alexander had seven children, and this view is showing the descendants of less than two of his children. This means it will require a lot of scrolling to get through the entire list.
If you click the “Hide Descendants” button in the upper right-hand corner, it will take you back to Alexander’s main profile page.
Back to Main Profile View
Between the place for his picture and where the main text begins, there are two rows of tabs and buttons. The one labeled “Profile (private view)” appears as black text on a yellow background, indicating that it is the page I was on when I took this screenshot. The others are Profile (public view), Edit, Images, Family Tree & Tools, Changes, and Privacy. Most are self-explanatory, but the Family Tree & Tools deserves extra attention. If you click it, you are taken to a page with so many tools that it is divided into three major categories.
The “Genealogy Research” category has 21 sections. The “WikiTree Tools” category has 9 sections, and the “Contact” category has 5 sections. But wait, there’s more! There are five major menu items at the top of each page in the upper right-hand corner. Each of them has many sub-menu items. For example, the My WikiTree menu has 20 items, the Profile-ID menu has 22 items, Add has 8 items, Find has 16, and Help has 16 (these figures are likely to change).
The best way to learn is by doing. Create your own profile and connect it to your parents. Then start exploring.
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