The annual Connect-a-Thon on WikiTree is here!

One of my favorite annual events on WikiTree, hope you'll drop in and join us!

We are now in January, and that means it’s time for the annual Connect-a-Thon on WikiTree. There are 2 types of ‘thons on the site, this one and a “source-a-thon”. In my time on WT, these events have grown enormously. Today they have multiple teams with active chats for each on discord and live broadcasts (recorded on YouTube) every 4 hours to report progress and give out prizes.

The ‘Thon starts 5 am Pacific time, Friday, January 17th (1 pm UTC) and ends 5 am Pacific time, Monday, January 20th (1 pm UTC). With over 50 teams competing, and 20-30 persons per team, this is a big event. Teams are organized by country, region, style, interest and some just on whimsy. To join a team, simply sign up for it. Each team has a page with information and a list of team members as well as information on how to join the team discord if you want.

The goal of a connect-a-thon is to connect new profiles to the tree (source-a-thons add sources to profiles already there). I participate with the team “Tree Nuts”, a team that isn’t as concerned with “winning” (yes there is a winner) as with doing our best with profiles we do add. That said, our team has been in the top ten each of the last several competitions, not that I’m competitive... ahem….

There are folks who participate all 72 hours, others like me that work as much as they are able to, sometimes just one of the days or even just a few hours. Participation and pace are really up to an individual. For me, it feels great to have been part of an effort to make sure WT is the best it can be. Plus, over time I have come to know several teammates and while I don’t do a lot of chatting in discord, I try to contribute here and there.

Finally, teams generally help each other out. We all have different subscriptions and sites we use as genealogists. If I need a citation or information from something behind a paywall, generally someone else will have that available. Working together, sometimes it seems like we have access to most sources.

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As people who know me will say, I am a big fan of WT. See my earlier post:

Why I use WikiTree

One of the things that I allude to in that post is that there are more features, apps, and ways to participate on WikiTree than any one person could ever use. One of my favorite features makes use of the natural categorization structure to set up and keep track of profiles and pages that I am working on.

For example, in preparation for a thon, I create of a list of profiles that can be starting points; people without parents, families with only my ancestor as a child, places where I can add new people. Below is part of my current “list” of the profiles in my Connect-a-Thon category.

Categories are at the heart of WikiTree and they serve as organization for the tree as a whole. It isn’t a great idea for users to create unlimited categories and WT doesn’t guarantee that they won’t disappear someday, therefore, use with caution and don’t use them for anything mission critical without a backup plan.

There are a few steps to create a new category, including making sure that it is properly nested. If you are interested in finding out more about this, drop a note in the comments and I’ll post a tutorial.

Until then, come join the fun during our Connect-A-Thon. Don’t be afraid to say hi!