2026 WikiTree Challenge 8 for Jen Shaffer - Kick-off @theformidablegenealogist

[music] Thank you everybody for joining us for the Wiki Tree Challenge 2026. This is our eighth challenge of the year. Our guest star is with us, Jed the formidable genealogologist. Thank you, Jed, for being on the kickoff call with us. Uh really love to have our guests with us. So, I'm just going to walk through uh an outline for any new people to the challenge. I know a lot of you uh love this challenge and have been with us for many of them, but we'll go ahead and do a walk through here. And I wanted to start off first by saying if Wiki Tree looks a little bit different to you, it's because I am running the Wiki Tree browser extension. Uh which you can see up in the upper leftand corner of the screen here. Um that I am running that. So just a just a note about that. So, let's go ahead and get started. So, just right here at the top of the page are your quick links to the challenge help page and a video on the challenge. It's an introduction. So, if you haven't done one before, you can go check that out. I think it's about 12 minutes long, so it doesn't take very long, but it kind of gives you a highle view of what the challenge is and how to participate. Also, next up on the list is our Discord help page. Discord is a real-time chat application and where we do a lot of collaborating. G2G is great, but uh Discord is really the best option for getting help right away um or sharing information back and forth. And we have our own channel for the challenge. So, I'm just going to show what that looks like real quick. So, this is the current challenge channel. That's what that looks like. You can see the first co comment here is from me and it's sharing all the quick links for the challenge and information u about the Zoom schedule and the reveal. And right here at in the upper right hand corner is what looks like a push pin and that's where you can find this first post because as the challenge week goes we get a ton of messages. This is way back up on the thread. So, it's kind of like, well, where was that? So, it's pinned to the top there. So, you can always jump back up to it. Um, and then also on the left hand side here under the current challenge, you'll see I have some threads started for us. So, if you are not comfortable doing categories, but would like to have a category created, there's a thread there where you can request that. If you have a profile that needs profiles added, but you don't want to go down that branch. You're working off another branch, [laughter] feel free to add that in there and somebody else can find somewhere to work there. And then the last thread there is for the Wiki Tree team assistance needed. That's where you can request that for um anything to do with last name at birth changes, merges, or privacy changes as well. We expedite those for you and any team member uh which is a very small group, but AON and I usually are the ones that take care of those for us. So, if you just post those in there, we'll get to them throughout the week as we're able to. All right. And let's go back to here. This is our space page. Um, a space page just for anybody who is not aware is just a free space to share information on Wiki Tree. And so that's what we have here is we've created one for the challenge. And this is your place to collaborate and ask for help and do this is where you do all the work basically um together. It's your workspace. So, you should feel free to uh make edits to this page. And thank you. Thank you to our guest star. This next section is notes from our guest star. And she's already loaded it up with lots of information for y'all to check out and work from. So, please, if you haven't already, I'm sure a lot of you have already kind of pre pre looked at this, but if you haven't before, take a look and uh get some ideas maybe to where where to work. So, back up here, I just want to make sure you know uh who to get into contact with, too. So, uh Sandy is your team captain. Thank you, Sandy. She's on the call with us today, but I think she's just listening in because she's at work, I believe. So, uh, thank you, T Sandy, for being our team captain again. We really [snorts] appreciate our captains. Uh, if anybody's interested in doing that, just reach out and we'll get you set up. We do have challenges for the rest of the year that we'll need those for. And the scoreeet is the last link here at the top. And the scoreeets's already up and ready to go. Remember that that updates once an hour. Connections refresh twice an hour, though the scoreeet won't reflect that. So, let me go ahead and show you what that looks like real quick. So, there we are. That's the scoreeet. It looks like we already have some [clears throat] on the on the the page. So, we've already got started. Great job everybody for starting to work. We love it. And then of course this is a page we love to see that's attached to the scoreeet. It's this distances tab. And so here is where we're starting out um for our distance to all the participants distance to our challenge guest. Right now, there are no um participants that are connected through a common ancestor yet, but I'm sure we'll probably see that change quite a bit over the week, which is always a lot of fun. And then here is the suggestions report for the challenge. Another place you can work. So, take a look at those. Uh those are links across the top of the scoreboard there for you. And back to our space page here. The next section of the page is where you can ask for help. We have what's called a maintenance category set up for the challenge. And this is a place that you can add profiles to these categories or it's somewhere you can go to find work. So, if a profile needs a biography written because you're not that's not what you like to do, u go ahead and add that category. Or if you are looking for uh profiles that need profiles created, then you can go to that category and see if any have been added there to start working from. So, that's a really great uh functionality of categories that you can utilize. If you have questions about whether a photograph can be uploaded to Wiki Tree, please take a look at the help section um that we have on here. It's linked. Walk through that and also take a look at the website that you're viewing that image on and their terms of service first before you try to upload. Um we make sure we're not um causing any problems that way. So try to work through that on your own. If you're still unsure and you'd really like that image, you can go ahead and make an entry on the space page here. And if you sign off with the four tilds, it um signs your wiki tree ID and date and timestamps it for you. So we know who to get back into contact with about that. So remember that little trick throughout the rest of the page, the little four tilts, because that's how you will indicate um that that's your entry on the page. We have volunteers that will go look up family search images for you. Uh some family search images are locked down and you have to be at the actual library or an affiliate library to see it. And we do have members that take part that are near those. So, uh, make sure to add those to this section of the page and sign and date it so that, uh, somebody can take care of that for you. And thank you to those volunteers. [laughter] [gasps] All right. And the next part is share your discoveries. I've already loaded it up with the locations within this first starting uh, seven degrees locations. Let's see how much we can expand that. I know our guests always love to see how far in the world we go for the challenge. So, that's always fun for you guys to add that. And here is your first >> There's no >> I'm sorry. >> I was just going to say there's no Canada on there yet. [laughter] >> Yeah, not yet. So, the next section of the page is your first opportunity for bounty points, the interesting find section. So, if you think something's interesting, please add it. I'm sure everybody else will, too. So, um, and our guests always love to loves to hear, uh, all those stories and newspaper clippings that you see and find that are they're interesting. So, please be sure to share those and be sure to sign undated it because then I can get you your points on onto the score sheet for you. And those are worth 10 points. and military profiles. Please add any any you find there. These ones you don't need to sign off on. It's just nice to have them listed here if you can get them on there. Our guests always like to know about that information as well. And free space pages. So like I mentioned, a free space page are wiki pages for supplementing family history. They're anything pages. A free space for genealogy. So if you start a free space page for instance for a will that you like that you are transcribing or maybe there was an event uh that took place and you have a newspaper article about it and has a many people about within it. Uh go ahead and create a free space page and then you can link to all those profiles of ancestors that were there. So be sure to let us know when you do that though we love to call those out during the reveal. And then there's a place for you to add cemeteries, name studies, or play studies that you come across during the challenge as well. All right. And the next opportunity for your B for y'all to make bounty points are making a distinct connections to the to the tree for each of these lines. So, um, what that means is that when you go to make a when you go to add a new profile to Wiki Tree and you find that they're already on Wiki Tree and they are already connected, that is somebody that's already on. So, you that's your connection to the tree. If nobody else has claimed that point on the GGG post post, then you can claim that point and those are worth 15 points each. So, go [snorts] to town on those, y'all. And then about midweek, Celia will go through, she looks through all the branches and finds somewhat of a challenge, but doable challenges for you all to get the brick wall bounty points, which are worth 25 points each. So, look for those about Sunday or Monday for them to show up. Um, and then of course, team captain Sandy will get those out to you uh via email as well, and they'll be in the Discord channel. All right. And then the event schedule and links is all right here for you. Just another place where you can get the information and the links. And the outreach section. So, Wiki Tree Challenge was started to help spread the word about Wiki Tree out there on the web. So please please if you have social media share our posts on our official channels. Um as you can see we have uh linked there the channel and then the date uh or the the post that went out. Um if you go out to these links you'll see that post and then you can retweet, reshare or however you like to do that. Lots of different channels are listed there and Jen's uh official channels are also listed there. So, you can be sure to tag both. Um, we've got some images here you can use saying you're a challenge participant or maybe you have an interesting find you want to share uh that you can use those images. If you would like to have an image created for maybe your interesting find or or something special, just reach out to me. I'm happy to help you with that. I know Sandy's really great with images as well and we'll get that taken care of for you. And last but not least is the resources section of the page. So this is where you can find resources for the challenge week. So the editing tips shows basic markup that can be used for Wiki Tree profiles. So check that out. That's really helpful. There's also links to the Wiki Tree browser extension and the Wiki Tree sourcer which is really phenomenal for moving profiles from both Ancestry and Family Search. So take a look at those if you haven't before. There's even a link here to background images category if you'd like to have a background image for your profiles you're creating. And then of course Wiki Tree Plus. We can't forget Wiki Tree Plus. That's one powerful tool that is great for working on the challenge. There's already a link here that you can use that queries the system for active challenge profiles that have no parents. So, it gives you a place to start and then inevitably when you're working on this challenge or any challenge, you kind of forget where you were. you get started down a line if you were like, "Wait, how many degrees away am I from the starting person?" So, there's a link here for the connection finder. So, what that allows you to do is put in the starting profile and the profile where you're at and see how many degrees away you are. If you come across any African-American profiles, please be sure to add the African-American sticker before be right below the biography heading. that will help out our US black heritage project. And then there is the wiki resource library which I always talk about and try to share with as many of you as I can. It's a really great resource. There are pages for not only the different locations, but there's uh pages for family genealogies and also there are there's a page of books that are owned by people on Wiki Tree. Maybe it's a book that's out of print. Um and if a Wiki Trier has it, they will do a lookup for you. It's a wonderful resource. So take a look at that if you haven't already. Okay. So, where do I find where to work? Besides what I've already shared about uh Wiki Tree Plus, you can Let's see. Go ahead and open up that page for y'all so you can see. Bear with me a moment. Okay. So on Jen's profile in the upper right hand corner, and this is for everybody's profile, they have a tree apps icon here that if you click that open and it may not be the first app that opens for you if you it's based on whichever one you were last on. Um, and a fan chart is the default one to show if you haven't gone there before. Uh but if you do the drop-down here and select CC7 views and hit go, it will give you this wonderful CC7 listing of all profiles within seven degrees of that starting profile. So it's a wonderful place to start to work. Um, if you go into one of these column header fields, you can type in say you want to work in West Virginia. So that will filter it down for you. And you can see that this first pro profiles within three degrees. And so you can see where you can maybe start working, but it looks like they don't have parents. So hey, somebody can start working there. [laughter] So they're they're great. Um, it's a great place to go to work. Uh, it has this column for parents, siblings, spouses, children. So, check that out. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> Okay. So, now >> uh Azure >> Yeah, >> I was just going to say when you're in that view, you can actually type a zero in that parent column and [snorts] that will also where above the brick wall, just put a zero right there. >> Yeah. And then that'll alter automatically give you just the the brick walls. >> Yeah, >> it took me a while to realize that. Oh, that's a text entry field, too. [laughter] So, if I just put the number, >> there is a little bit of a weirdness, which is that if the parents are private, >> they'll show up as zero. >> Yes, that's true. >> Right. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> Obviously, we do have Jen's parents. They're just not [laughter] open. But most of them it will actually be >> Yes. >> No. >> Legit. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's go ahead and open it up. Um, Jen, please share. I I I'll just go back up to the your section on notes here. Um, and then just share whatever you'd like to share about your family. We are so happy to be working on your family. Thank you again for for joining the challenge. >> Love to have you. >> All right. Yeah, I'm pulling up my own um I have my own copy, too, so you don't have to worry about scrolling the [laughter] the guest notes there. Um so, I started my business in 2017 when my daughter was born and that is also the last chance I had to research my own family. So I am very behind on um you know new new um record options like I have done very little with full text search with my own family just with client work. So I think there's a lot out there to be found that I have no idea exists since the bulk of my own research was prior to 2017. So um I have made my public tree on ancest or my tree on ancestry public and that one contains my dad's adopted line. I have not done much with his biological line. He was adopted in 1945 in California. And the Appalachian people you see that's his biological line. So that's in a separate tree called Rifflemoon and I have linked the people in there. So I don't know a ton about that line because I've not really looked into it but I know quite a good good deal about his adopted line which is in my main tree. Um the bulk of my research interest has been in the McFarland line which is my maternal line. My mom was born in McFarland and they hail from South Dakota to Iowa to Youngstown, Ohio to um Palaski Township in uh Pennsylvania. So right on the like New Bedford area, Pennsylvania. Um they were involved in the Whiskey Rebellion. They were in the Revolutionary War. The family rumor was they came over from Northern Ireland specifically to fight the British in the Revolutionary War, which I disproved because they were actually here in the 1760s. But I've done so much work on that. I've gone back to the family farm in uh County Terrone, Northern Ireland. And so that's kind of been my biggest interest. So I included a lot of information about them. Although they're highly researched, I'm always interested in learning more about them. I have some brick lines that go back to Scot or brick walls that go back to Scotland. I've got the Shanklin line that I would love to know exactly where they were from in Scotland. The tombstone of my fourth great-grandfather says Sankahar, and I don't know if that's accurate or what that actually entails. So, I would love to know about that. Norwegian lines, I have researched them pretty far back. I've used um the big debuker in Norway to get the people from the island of Nero back pretty far. So, I'm very familiar with that. I know the farm is still in our family. Um I haven't done too much with another Norwegian line, the Pollson line. So, my maternal great-g grandandmother was born in Oslo and came over when she was about four to South Dakota. So, I'd be interested in learning about Agnes Matilda Hans daughter Paulson Jensen's family some more. They did not own their own farm, so it's a little bit harder to trace them. Um, Sanders Perry, New York. That is a brick wall. I would love to know more about him because I have mostly just found him and um his daughters and his first wife in name only. I've not been able to really explore that. As I mentioned, I've got my dad's bio line which are Mooney's is his maternal line. I have contacted those halfsisters of his and we have a great relationship. Um, I just saw them last week. They flew out to Minnesota from California and we spent the week getting to know them some more. Um, the Mooneyies or the Mooneyies are great. The riffles, they want nothing to do with us. So, I really know nothing about that line. I do have a photo of my dad's bof father and they're twins. They're identical, but I don't know a lot about that family since they want nothing to do with us. um William Mooney on that maternal line of his that is a brick wall. I have actually explored that line. I ordered his union pension record and I've gone through all of it. I was able to find that William Mooney's mother married somebody named McFarland, but I've not found a link into my maternal Mcfarlland's there. but I can't find any indication of a Mooney man that was ever in the area to have been his father. So, I'd love to find that out. Um, I've got Missouri and Iowa and my dad's adopted line. That was always more interesting to me to research because I was really close with his adopted mother, my the person I knew is my grandma. So, that's always been more interesting to me than the bio lines. So, there's also a Native American rumor in there, which is common in so many families, but I gave it a little more weight since my grandma knew her grandma really well, and it seemed unusual that she would just perpetuate the family lore when it's somebody she really knew. So, I'd be interested in seeing if there's anything in there. So, those are my main brick walls that I have. Um, obviously I'm interested in anything, especially the things that make somebody more human and not just like a line on a census. I'm always looking for the stories. Um, yeah, good or bad, I'm always interested in the stories. I don't know what what questions do you have for me on anything. >> Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, let's open it up. Um, y'all are muted, so go ahead and unmute yourselves. And, uh, let's see. Looks like people are already working and getting connected. [laughter] >> I'm already on Louiswis's and I already found the father and the mother doing family search tree. [laughter] Thank you for that tree and family search. >> Yep. >> Great. >> Robert Davidson McFarland and Anne Morrison Dixon. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. and and I did see your notes also in in um in that and it's going to be fun because since I'm in Ohio and Youngtown, why not go for it? [laughter] >> Thanks a lot. >> All right. And it looks like Deb says she's working on the Paul Pollson line. And let's see. Oh, Jean is mentioning in the chat uh that he's done a bit of work already on the John Clark Cheney time in Kansas. >> Okay. >> Found him there. >> I don't know a ton about the Chenies. Um, I went to a family reunion with the Cheney back in the 80s and my knowledge of those lines like Kohl's and Cheney was back when I first started researching in like 2010 when I just accepted those ancestry tree hints and copied things and didn't really look into things. >> Yeah. >> So, so I don't know a ton about them. It was just the accumulating ancestors era that we all go through. >> Yeah. So, I've already done a little bit of work there and so I'm al I'll look at adding some of that in and I've done some newspaper work and I've got that all ready to go. So, I'll put it in. >> Cool. So, >> awesome. >> Great. Be sure to add that to the interesting finds. So, we have that to during the reveal. And it looks like Hillary has something she wanted to ask or share. Um, yeah, I've already added um the husband of um Elizabeth Ellis Smith because he was already on um Wiki Tree. I found him the other day on Wik. >> That's great. Awesome. >> And to top it all, he's the per the spouse has got um a surname that I know is a one name study and I know the person who is um has got that as a one name study registered with the guild of one name studies. So, and they didn't have it on their website. So, um, I've got I'm going to update them. Um, but I didn't just add the husband, I added a few other family because they were already on Wiki Tree. So, that's already increased that by a few people. So, >> that's amazing. We're already going to town on them. >> Yeah. And it's connected to to Cornwall now, where is which is where the husband's family I think were there a lot from that area in um England. So, >> great. And uh just a reminder again uh from Sandy um if you are adding uh people for West Virginia, please remember that West Virginia was not a state prior to June 20th, 1863. So the location in the location data field should stay Virginia if it was prior to that date, the correct location, not any uh caveats in there. Want to make sure that we don't have suggestion reports created from those. So, uh, just want to have that. And then also, if you want to have the Appalachia sticker added to profiles you're creating that are in that area, if you have the wiki treeb and just run auto categories, it will add the sticker for you. The correct um, actually I think it does it do the sticker and the >> Yeah, the WBE. It'll do the do that. the categories, but that is >> Yeah, >> one or the other is fine. >> Yeah. So, if you would like that, then just reach out. Sandy's going to be around and on Discord. Um, again, if you want to be on Discord, back on the space page is the seven minute or five or seven minute video on YouTube that kind of walks you through how to get set up on uh on our Discord, the Wiki Tree Discord server. It does really make such a difference um to your asking questions and everything on there and getting results right away. Um let's see. Oh, looks like there's a question or just a comment. Not particularly your question, but I'm curious if any of her relatives are related to the Smiths that live in Clark County, Iowa from Amy. [laughter] >> Not as far as I know. Um, fun fact, my dad's adopted parents were both born Smiths. So, um, >> you got lots of >> Yeah. [laughter] So, my, so my dad's dad was Oliver Smith, adopted, and his parents were Kimber Raymond Smith and, um, Rose Kohl's. So, he was born Smith, obviously, and then um, my grandma, Dorothy Bliss Smith or wait, no, I got it wrong. I got nervous. So opposite. So um Dorothy Bliss Smith, her parents were Kimber and Ray or um Rose [clears throat] Kohl's. And then Oliver Smith's parents were Charlie Smith and uh Hattie Evans. And they were from like Wisconsin. And then I believe the paternal Smiths came from Tennessee. I've not been able to trace Kimber's line back very far, but I don't think they came from any of the same areas at all. All right, looks like Jeffrey is saying he's going to be working on the Jensen Norway line. >> And oh yeah, Sandy says the WBE adds a category. and >> Azure. >> Yes, >> I um going back to Kimber Smith's line, I uh found a newspaper article on the um on the 1930 family reunion. >> Okay. So, just >> family and it lists 87 family members that attended. So, >> okay. So, you'll want to share that in the interesting finds and we'll we'll share that during the share things like that during the reveal. That's great. >> Excellent. >> Gives you somewhere somewhere to start working. And Charlie is sharing that we could take the Smiths back another generation. So, woohoo. We are really going the workers are going to town. [laughter] Jen, for the line that you were wondering about the story about um having the native roots, >> do you have a direct uh mitochondrial line that with uh mitochondrial testing like someone that you can >> Okay. No, I've since I'm not since I'm not biologically related to those people, >> I've contacted some of my dad's um you know cousins through you know adopted cousins and they have done autotosomal >> and there is no indication >> of Native American but >> I still just I feel like there's something in there to explain why my grandma thought that. You know, maybe there's just some Maybe there's like a stepparent that was actually Native American or something. There's got to be something in there. >> Right. >> Right. Okay. >> Ross White. He was really fun to research, too. You'll find interesting things about him. He was a sheriff and um he named himself his own deputy because nobody else was worth it. And there like all these fun stories about him chasing butter bandits across Iowa. And he eventually died in a well because he went down to rescue a boy who had fallen in. And yeah, he was a character. >> Wow. S Sandy asks if your biological line is connected directly to your profile. >> I don't know. I didn't set it up. >> Yeah. The you mean the who her dad's profile? Yeah, that that's all set up. >> Okay. >> Right. >> So, it's got got both the adopted and the >> Yeah, the bio. >> But you're but the dad is a private so we won't see that. >> So, you probably you'll only be able to see it in the CC7 view, >> right? Okay. When Jen looks at it, she'll have a toggle so she can see either her biological family or her >> uh adoptive family. >> Yeah. >> Does it help if you just have the names? >> If would it help if >> um noticed on the reveal? >> We we have all of the uh great grandparent lines on the GTG post and on the space page for them to start working from. So we can just start from there. >> Yeah. So we we're we're good to go that way. >> Got it. Okay. Riffle riffles and mooneyies, right? >> And then Patty's asking, has Jen any DNA details that she can add to her Wiki Tree profile, Jed match, etc.? >> Um, I think I'm on Jed match. I'll have to look. >> Okay. Yeah. Once you do, it'll take about 24 hours and then it'll populate out to the tree. There was a question about was that about what using the photos, taking photos from my ancestry tree and putting them on Wiki Tree. I would prefer not. Um I've had my tree private for a long time because people were poaching my photos and putting them on incorrect people. Um >> I would say how about this? How about anybody from greatgrandparent on back? It's fair game. >> You can put that on wiki tree. It's just people I have personal photos. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> People that are, you know, still living and >> Yeah. >> my parents because my parents are 81 still living and >> Yeah. And we >> say anything great grandparent back, you can you can poach that and put it on Wiki Tree with my permission. >> Great. >> Sounds good. >> Perfect. >> Thank you. All right. Well, does anybody else want to share where they're going to work or uh have any other questions before we sign off and let you all get started or continue working because you guys are working while we're on the call? [laughter] >> Are there any other questions? Jen, do you have anything else you want to share or ask? Not really. I'm just excited to see what has shown up in the records world and especially like newspaper world since I last looked at this stuff. >> Yeah, that's going to be fun. All right. Well, thank you everybody for joining in on this call. Uh we do have a weekend chat call on Zoom Saturday at noon. So, be sure to to join us for that. It's another chance for y'all to ask questions and share what you're working on and just to to chat while you're working. And then we will wrap up next Thursday at noon. So we have one week, actually just a little bit less than a week now, y'all. So we'll see you Saturday hopefully. Bye. >> Thanks. >> See you. >> [music]