2026 WikiTree Challenge 9 for @justincyork - Kick-off

Welcome everybody to challenge number nine for 2026 for Justin York. York. Thank you Justin for allowing us to work on your family tree and adding connections to that and so glad that you could join us today for the kickoff. >> I It's great to be here. >> I wanted to go ahead and walk through our resources and the tools that we will be using during the challenge week for all those new ones that will be joining us. So let's go ahead and get started. Hopefully y'all can see my screen there. So what I'm sharing here is a free space profile page. This is your place to collaborate, ask for help and share information during the week. Please feel free to add information to this space. It's where you'll do most of your work. Um besides the profiles that you'll be adding. The G2G post is pinned here at the top so that you can also collaborate and communicate there what you're working on and there's an answer for each of the ancestor lines so that members working on those specific ancestors can get alerted to new comments once they've added theirs. G2G is just short for genealogist to genealogist and that's our community forum and the link for it is actually found on the help menu up here. You can find that there, community forum. All right, so also linked here at the top is the help page for the challenge uh and also the intro to the WikiTree Challenge video. It's just a kind of a walk-through about the WikiTree Challenge if you haven't taken part before, it's a great great little video to watch. And then there's also there a video for Discord. So Discord is a real-time chat application that is a great tool for collaboration during the challenge week. So check that out. That help page is also where you would connect to our WikiTree Discord server. It is helpful to break out into what we call threads by an ancestor um as well. So this is a snapshot of what that looks like. So you can see here this is the top of the current challenge channel that we have for the week and you can see there that there's all the information and links for the week and um as well as the times. So if you haven't used that before, this is a great opportunity to check that out and and start learning how to use that cuz it during the week it's very active channel. Okay, so linked here also is the score sheet. So I don't think it's started yet. I've got a message in to Elash to check on that for us um but look for that and don't let that stop you. It'll catch up with us. So any profiles that you create now from now on will get get counted. So, on this page also are you can find links to um not only Justin's profile, but you can find links to down here the first opportunity for making bounty points are these eight great grandparent lines for Justin. And so, you can kind of use this as a starting point if you want to maybe pick out one of those lines to start working on. And remember that the first distinct connection the first new connection that you make for for one of these lines, and what that means is a connection to the tree, so you're connecting to somebody already connected on the tree um is your opportunity to earn 15 points. And then uh back here towards the top, sorry for jumping around a little bit here, but up here at the top also is a place for you to find where to work. So, we have challenge maintenance categories that you can find places to work, profiles that need biographies or profiles created Jedcom cleanup, military templates, records, those types of things. And so, also that those are categories that you can add then to profiles if you maybe don't want to do the biographies. There are people who like to write biographies, so that's a good good example there. And then if there are photographs that you like to add to a profile or a space page please just check over the help section uh about photographs and make sure that you're uh respecting copyright not only for um the place where you find it, but the terms of service at the that website, so that you're not violating those. If you have any questions about that, can make an entry on the page here and ask for help, and Aon or I will get back to you about that. Be sure to sign off your entries on this page um for where you're asking for help or an image lookup or your interesting finds with this four tildes, so that we know who to get in contact or who to award points to. That adds a timestamp and your WikiTree ID to that entry. We do have volunteers that will do lookups at FamilySearch Centers. So, please if you come across an image that you're not able to access on FamilySearch, add their entry here and there are those that live near a FamilySearch Center, including myself, that could be able to go get that image for you set up. Um be sure to leave the full URL and your WikiTree ID or with the four tildes there to sign off, so that we know who to who who needs that image. It was mentioned before we got started that there are already quite a few locations for this challenge, which is kind of fun. Lots of places to start, so it'll be interesting to see how much further we get across the week. And the next place for you to earn bounty points is the interesting finds. So, if it's interesting to you, you come across a story, newspaper article, or other um place where there's a story about somebody in the tree, please let us know, add those fork tilts, and we'll get you your points. That's 10 points for those. And then, let us know of any notable profiles you come across. Military profiles are also of interest. And if you create a free space profile, let us know here and add it to the list. If you don't know, uh, free space profiles are anything pages for genealogy. So, for instance, they're great use for, uh, transcribing a will. Uh, that way that maybe really long will isn't all on an ancestor profile. Um, instead, you can have a free space page, and then link to it for everybody who's listed on it, and then link back to it from them. Also, let us know of any cemeteries, space pages, name studies, or place studies that you come across. We'd like to know about that. And then, about midway through the week, Celia will add our brick walls. She goes through the tree and just kind of finds just hard enough challenges, but doable, for y'all to, uh, earn those 25 points. So, these are they are big ones. Um, and then, also here is the event schedule and links. So, this is the next chat will be this weekend, um, on the 12th at noon, and then, of course, the wrap-up on the 17th at noon. And we've got the reveal scheduled for the 23rd. That's a Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. And of course, the WikiTree Challenge was started to help, uh uh spread the word about WikiTree. So, if you have social media, please share our post, retweet, um retweet them, or uh reshare. We really appreciate that. And there are some images here. If there is an idea you have for an image that you'd like created for something you want to share out on your social media, just get in contact with me. I'm happy to help you do that. And then the last section of the page, almost the most important part, is our resources. So, you may have noticed I I should have mentioned at the beginning but WikiTree might look a little bit different to you. It's because I'm using the WikiTree browser extension. You can see it says that right up here. Um so, if you are interested in that, there's a link here for that. There's also a link in here in the general WikiTree sources for the WikiTree uh Sourcer, which is a awesome tool for bringing not only whole profiles, but single sources over from um other websites. So, check those out if you haven't used those before. And of course, we have a whole section here on WikiTree Plus. Uh and there's a query ready to go for WikiTree Plus for active challenge profiles with no parents. So, it's a good way uh good place to get started. Um of course, with WikiTree Plus, you can enter in the location maybe that you'd like to work in, or or different uh criteria that you're interested in. And as always, we get started down one of these lines, and we forget how far we're going down, and so we need to find out, well, how far away are we from Justin on our line that we're working. So, you can always go here and get the Connection Finder and find out how far away you are from York 1423, which is Justin's profile ID. And as always, if you have any African-American profiles that you run across, please be sure to add that sticker to the profile under the biography header so that that is counted for those. And this one bare link here, but it is very helpful resource is the WikiTree library. It's a gallery of free space pages. Basically, I it is a library of space pages for different countries and states and province or um maybe subjects. There's also a whole section of books that are owned by WikiTreers that they're happy to do lookups for you on. All right. So, how to get started? Another way to get started is um from Justin's profile. Let's see here. Let's go here and on right on the top of the page is a link to Justin's profile. And of course, as with any other profile on WikiTree, just use that tree apps icon in the upper right-hand corner. And one of the ones that we love to use for this is of course the CC7 views. It's a really great tool for finding profiles within 7° of the main profile there. And of course, you can see we have the privacy column. We have the degree away from the main profile. We have the how many parents, how many siblings, spouses, children. And then all these other great fields which we can then sort filter by. So, let's see. Do we have any Canada? Yes, we have Canada. Yay. We have a lot of countries in this one. So, a lots of places to start and of course this is a great tool. There's also the like I mentioned before WikiTree plus. So, with that let's go ahead and we are starting at 1,340 connections for Dustin. So, hopefully we can get him at 2K fairly soon in the week and we'll see how much further we can grow those connections. Dustin, would you like to share a little bit about your family and any notes you had shared on this this page? >> Um Yeah. So, um boy, I don't know where this I mean there's a lot there. I I got I got a big family. I think I saw just one quick question before I may maybe answer that is um I saw um did you add my wife's family in there? I think I saw some of her family. Okay. >> No, I hadn't done that yet. >> I saw um some of those people from Canada. I assumed would have been related to my wife. But, um that's cool. I'll have to go investigate that. I did not Yeah, there's George Lovett. That I would have assumed that would have been on my wife's side of the family. But, you know, uh families get really messy. Maybe maybe we're more closely connected than we thought. I don't know. >> Yeah, this is at 7°. >> Yeah. That's neat. I'll have to investigate that. Anyway, so um about my family uh on my my wife's Sorry, my mother's side of the family Clarks and Thurmans. Um >> Nice. >> They are like um They're pioneers. Um and there has been a lot of research and pilgrims too, by the way. There's been a lot of research done on this side of my the family. I actually know not as much about that side of the family because I haven't spent time researching over there. Uh I know there are plenty of other people doing that and I think that's great. Um I have spent more of my time um looking at my um paternal side of the family. Particularly my paternal grandfather because um when he passed away, we knew very little about him. Um they uh he is My grandfather was about 50% Ukrainian and 50% Polish. Um and I traced um in my younger years, I traced uh three lines um over uh to find out, you know, to find the family there in Poland and Ukraine. Um and so any of um I know a lot about that side of the family. Um and I feel very close to them. Um Yeah, I I don't know what kind of standard you guys follow here in WikiTree for place names, but I tried to uh use a name that represents how it would have been known at the time at that date. So, you see Austria there, that's actually present-day Ukraine. Um Western Ukraine. >> Right. >> Um and I think there might even be some similar things there with Poland. Um my some of my ancestors come from Southeast Poland and back in the day I I think it might have been Austria, too, right? So, >> Yeah, that's that's how we do do it the data fields for the locations is the the name and yeah, the name of the location at the time that that person was living. >> Okay. Which I think is a great way to go look at it when you see it in a tree, but then when you go show the see that giant location list >> Yeah. >> then it it's kind of less convenient there because they're kind of the same thing. >> I'm summarizing that list. >> Can't have it both ways. Um Yeah, anyways, um I do have my family is all over the place um on my paternal grandmother's line um we get some um Swiss and uh German in there. Uh Kiefer's and Dolders, I think. Um Anyways, yeah, that's just kind of a brief intro. Oh yeah, and then a lot all the um Polish people went and settled in um uh New York upstate New York um which uh I really enjoy researching. If If If there were uh a large website with lots of records uh that had a one-place study tool available, I would totally use it to research uh Amster uh Amsterdam, New York, but alas, nobody has built such a tool, so I don't get to do it. Anyways, um yeah, that's just a brief intro um on my family, I guess. >> Yeah, that's we're so happy to have you. Uh and like Anne had mentioned, thank you for all the tools that you have, you know, built on WikiTree. And Greg always was mentioning during uh the weeks leading up to this, you know, you're the OG developer on WikiTree building out those apps that first got started. But yeah, that's we're so happy to have you. So, where is everybody planning on working? I know there's been some pre-gaming going on. Uh I got some messages where different people are working on different places. Uh is anybody want to share where they're going to be working? >> I'm working on the You You got ditches and that side of the family cuz I know the area. It's actually where my ex-mother-in-law came from or near there. >> That's great, Anne. We're so glad you could join us for this challenge cuz I cuz of the locations, I was excited to see you're able to join us. All right, and it looks like Alice is mentioning she's working on the Thurman side of the family and Clark. Does anybody have questions for Justin while we have him with us? >> Uh >> I did have a question. While in Germany, have family of thumb. >> Where in Germany? Um Can you Yeah, that's a great thing. Bavaria, um >> So, it looks like >> I'm familiar with Heston area. >> Yeah. >> Not the other areas. Okay, just curious. >> That tool is really handy. >> It is awesome. Yeah. >> Are you uh familiar with Aargau and Matricula? >> Uh with what? >> I I'll I'll type it in the chat. Cuz I'm dyslexic, so I don't say I don't say the words right. Aargau >> They're repositories. >> Yeah, is is that a place where you um >> repositories >> find records for >> sources, yeah. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Um >> They're the German >> I have been there before. >> It probably wasn't recently though. Yeah, I actually don't do a whole lot of research on this line um just because well, I have >> Philadelphia had pretty good records. Um >> Yeah. >> Yeah, there you have to pay attention to I know the family search has the city of Philadelphia as well as the county of Philadelphia. So you have to make sure you're in the right place in the right area. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> Yeah, that gets me sometimes. >> They're at five so maybe we'll get some interesting uh although they're pretty far back. Well, we'll have to see. Everyone smile we luck out on Yeah. Especially if there's newspaper articles or something about a nice obituary with all the details. >> Yeah. >> I love those. Yeah, fultonhistory.com has been really useful to me because of of all them in Upstate New York. Yeah. >> Yeah, that's a really great site. >> The sermons list a lot of wills. >> Awesome. >> you go and look at those. >> That's awesome. And it looks like Claus is going to be working on the Swiss ancestry. >> Nice. >> All right, does anybody else have questions or want to share what they're going to be working on? >> I I did have a question about finding them. What did that mean? What um connection is um missing? >> Oh, where are you seeing that? >> The missing missing connection >> Oh, the missing >> Up here? The missing links? >> No, I think she's clicking on the connection link, the number of connections. And that takes you >> mine says the degree zero of me, degree one of my dad and my mom, and then it under after degree one it says missing connection table. >> Oh, you're looking at Just a second, let me go there. So, you're looking at the >> Under my connect Yes. >> Yes. Yeah, so um that's just another app. Um >> of WBE. >> Yeah, so I'm not I'm not on WBE on this browser, so let me go over here. >> It was Right now, it used to be really, really, really helpful, but since we got the CC7 views, it shows most of the same information. >> Yeah, it's just another way to view the information that we have on that CC7 view. That's I We never We don't really show this too much anymore just because the CC7 view is just so comprehensive. >> Yeah. >> So, it's just another tool. >> You can see that it looks you like in this case it's showing what parents are missing and things like that. Although it's probably also uh got the same problems as the CC7 views where some private profiles are hidden and don't show up properly. >> can change it to stay as normal? >> Normal table is a narrow table. What she was looking at was the wide table. >> I don't know. I got the something missing in my brain. I don't understand the connection to why it would say degree one missing connecting table when it's just my mom and dad. >> It's so you can look at it and see which people might not be included. So like when we were looking at that it was listing people This is a bad example because they're actually private, but let's pretend it was real. It was showing which people weren't on WikiTree because there was only one parent. You know, you can see where it's pink that means that the the mother is missing. Stuff like that. So it's a different looking at at missing at helping you find places to research. >> Yeah, it's just an the name of the app is just called the Missing Connections app. >> Okay, then I think we it should I in my personal opinion I think you need to change it to missing connecting table app or something. It just it's just confusing me the wording. Um in my opinion. >> Yeah. >> And anybody else having that trouble? I guess I'm so hung up on the word missing table missing connecting table and it doesn't mean that it's missing. >> Right. >> Okay. >> All right. Anybody else have a question or want to see something maybe or share where they're going to work? >> I had a question. >> Is there any DNA information? Does Justin have any DNA information? >> DNA information? >> Yeah, I believe I got that hooked up. I have a Y DNA test and a Yeah, autosomal DNA. >> You belong to haplogroup I. >> Was that Was that your only question, Paul? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. And I somebody else was trying to ask a question before. >> Alice. >> Alice, go ahead. >> Uh so I haven't done this that much. Uh we're concentrating on trying to enhance his uh CC7 from one to seven, correct? >> Yes. Yeah, that's why we were showing the tree app, the CC7 views, uh because it gives you an idea um for instance, this line right here doesn't have any siblings listed, so that might be a opportunity to to add uh some siblings there. >> Okay. >> So, it's just a way way to find where you could start working maybe. >> And let me ask a question so I understand. If I add the siblings and then the siblings have children, that that goes to like uh CC3. >> Uh-huh. >> And then add to them is four. Okay. I just wanted to be sure cuz that way I can concentrate better. >> Yeah, that's that's exactly it. And it just for the beginning of a challenge, I recommend starting out maybe like degree four or five just because there's so many people starting. Um sometimes it's good to stay away from the center of the the the center person just so everybody's not all trying to work on the same profiles at the same time. >> Is there a way for us to note who we are working on? >> Yeah. >> So, somebody else doesn't jump in on it? >> Sure. That you you can do that on those GTG uh post answers. There's one for each of the eight great grandparent lines. Just make a note, this is the one I'm starting on. Um you can also just message in Discord, let everybody know what line you're going to be working on. >> Okay. >> It's often it's not perfect, but it it's a a help. >> Yeah. And I think people have shared before, if you go into the profile that you're going to be working on and do a draft save, make a minor edit and just save your draft, that you know, basically locks that profile out for a half hour so that people know you're working there, too. >> Okay. >> That's another way to to do it. >> I tend to pay attention to the last edited notes on a profile and try not to edit things that have definitely not recently. I usually try and steer clear of like that day even if I can. >> Yeah. >> Um just to just in case somebody's coming back. But I mean, that said, trees circle around and sometimes start off going one direction and end up in an entirely different place, so just always assume that no one is no one is trying to step on your toes. >> Well, and another place to to look, of course, is those maintenance categories because people start adding to that pretty pretty quick with the needs profiles. Uh because inevitably you get started on a line and you're like, I can't go down that line. I got to go down this line. And so uh a lot of people are used to now adding that needs profiles created category, so that things will start showing up there. Um there's also a thread in the Discord channel for um profiles needed that you can check, too. Okay, go ahead, Anne. >> Yeah, in the uh tracker that uh be in the uh sp- uh sheet that we're doing, the uh >> The scoreboard? >> It It is a score sheet. It also has suggestions, which has been passed to to to to go to. And yeah. Those are great. What I'm doing is I'm doing his fourth generation. On his WikiTree, there is no sources. It's just that he was married and he died. He was So, I'm going to add his profile and also his her her her husband also and her family. >> Nice. And the biography and all that good stuff. That's great. >> And plus her husband has like 12 kids. I mean, her his He He He His family has 12 kids. So, that could be down a rabbit hole for me. >> Yeah, there you go. 12 profiles ready to go. That's great. >> Another quick question is uh as we're doing this, is there such a thing as saving the draft too often? >> No, uh-uh. Not the draft. >> Okay. >> And it'll save a draft anytime you mouse over that button, it actually does. >> Oh, so you don't actually have to click it. >> I mean, you clicking on it is safest, but usually just even mousing over it will save a draft. You can tell because the bio check information, if you have WBE, will refresh. >> Okay. >> So, how how far away is everybody? Usually, we have the score sheet up so we can check the distances um right away at the beginning of the challenge, but I found out I'm your ninth cousin once removed, Jessup. >> That's pretty close. >> Yeah. >> I'm 10th. >> Awesome. >> I think it's it's going to be the um Yeah, I'm ninth cousin. It's probably the Mayflower lines, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Those early New England New England ones. >> Those are always like ninth to 10th cousin connections. I always get suspicious then. I mean, it's a good It's a good suspicious suspicious of >> Yeah. >> Mayflowers. >> Well, Justin, we're going to have fun with you. >> Oh, that's great. I'm excited to see what you guys find. >> Yeah. We got Somebody said 937 on the connection to Justin. >> What's that? 937? Oh, you're looking at the connection like the connection between you and Justin. Those are the branches. So, you're going to have like one branch is going to be nine people long, one's going to be three people long, and one's going to be seven people long. So, it's it's like if you look, they probably change colors there, too. It's like a family group. >> Is this a new thing or a a WikiTree extension thing? >> Uh no, I don't know. I think it's standard. >> Okay. I just don't remember seeing it before or that or I didn't pay attention. >> Oh, actually, the branch numbers is part of the WBE. Sorry. >> Okay. >> That's um that bit is uh um Usually, it'll just say 16°. >> Yeah. >> And then, but the branches is is part of WBE. So, it'll tell you where your where the breaks are. >> Okay. >> It's the same thing that you're seeing visually, but it's just spelled out. >> Okay. >> Yeah, there it is. Two branches, 15 and two. >> Mhm. >> Cool. All right. Does anybody else have questions or want to see anything before I release you all back into the wild? >> If you have questions, just come into Discord and ask. We're all very nice. Everyone is new once. And honestly, half the time we forget stuff and have to ask ourselves anyways. So, there's never any judgement on questions. >> Oh, I did want to mention too, uh thank you. Fran has stepped up to be our team captain this week. So, we have a team captain and so she's also a good resource for questions cuz she's taken part in many of these. Oh, go ahead, Peter. >> Okay. Um So, I got a notification that somebody weekday um they did a for they they they corrected a format error I made. Um how do they find that? >> Oh, okay. >> curious. I mean, I'm I'm glad they did it. That's not a problem. And I know this is an open trace, so um but I'm curious as to how they found somebody who I think is only connected to the big three big three. Well, I'm not sure how they're connected to the big three other than I know they're through me. >> Yeah, so if you if you go to any profile, uh let's just go here. Go to any profile menu, there's a suggestions option here. >> Okay. >> You've used the suggestions before, right? >> Yeah, but I thought that was mostly for the people that was um mine my people. >> Yeah, so there's a whole project are called data doctors and they actually do data doctor work on any profile. >> Okay, so somebody's looking at the entire tree and says, "Oh, there's just a formatting error." Then they go in and >> Yeah. >> Nice nice and fast, easy. >> see how the different errors people can pull up. Like you see the errors for your profiles, either the ones you manage or the ones in your tree, but you can also look at them as just a a specific suggestion. Like I feel like correcting locations, and you can pull up locations that are questionable and and go to town on that. >> Okay. >> All right. All right. Well, thank you everybody again for joining us. Thank you, Justin, for coming on to the Zoom with us. We love to have our guests for our kickoff. And looking forward to seeing what everybody's able to accomplish for the week. >> All right, thank you, everybody. >> Yeah. >> Bye. >> Bye, Justin. >> Bye.