I was reading a book that I read every couple of years, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, one of the editors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and I happened upon a reminder. Everything worth doing takes time and to be successful we must take that time one step at a time and always be open to learning.

Family History is worth doing!

We usually have 2 classes per month. Each one addresses a different aspect of doing this work. Sometimes it involves how to do the research in a particular area or for family from a specific area such as our Dutch Roots class or the upcoming one on Ireland. Sometimes it is about family research in general such as our beginning classes or classes on organization or citing sources. Sometimes it is about what kind of information to look for such as our class on Naturalization Records or Looking Beyond our Ancestors. Sometimes it is about the kind of help we can get from various databases or using AI or newspapers or support from groups like WikiTree and the WikiTree community. You get the idea. The classes cover a lot of topics. Hopefully, something for everyone.

The point is part of being successful at anything is continuing to be a learner and applying the learning one step at a time. That is the idea from the Canfield book.  Even if you don’t know how you might use the information at the moment or if you have been doing family history for a long time there is usually learning that we can take away from every class if we are open to it. Maybe it is that we are doing things correctly or maybe it is a site or strategy that we forgot about or maybe it is how to help others. Maybe it generates ideas that we can use to do more learning and find more classes.

What are our takeaways from the presentation by the volunteer from WikiTree this week? Well, too many to list them all here.  A couple of things that set them apart is that it is totally free. They are not a database so if you find a hint to look at you will end up at MyHeritage or Family Search, etc. You have to sign an Honor Code to change information. Also, it has a 2-step verification system. This means that no one can change your tree unless they ask you first or you give them permission. Maybe the most important learning is that it will not confirm an addition until you site the sources.

They have weekly, monthly and yearly “contests.” There are Friday Night Bingo nights, badges to earn, a ton of ways to help and to learn about doing family history. Best bet, www.wikitree.com to explore and learn more.

It really is a site to explore and play with so go play. You have a week to get ready for “Exploring the Community: Researching Beyond Your Ancestor.” After that we have beginning, Ireland, Social History, Missouri, AI, Norway, Germany, Power of Clues,,,,and June 9^th, America 250 Patriot Celebration (see the HQRL website for more information.

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com