Why WikiTree (And Why I Won't Shut Up About It)

People ask me, sometimes politely and sometimes not, why I do genealogy on a website where anybody can edit my work instead of building a private tree where nobody can touch it. Fair question. Here's the honest answer: I tried private trees first. They didn't work — not because the software was bad, but because the whole model is bad. You end up with cousins three states apart, each quietly convinced their tree is the correct one, neither of you finding out you disagree until a DNA match forces the conversation. 

WikiTree fixes that by refusing to let it happen in the first place. One profile per person. One Wilson Jones, not four private copies of him scattered across four accounts, four subscriptions, four logins that will all lapse eventually. If I add a source to my grandmother's profile, every single person researching her — and there are more of them than I used to think — sees it the moment I save. If I'm wrong about something, someone corrects me, on the spot, with a citation. That's not a bug. That's the entire point.

That's what "collaborative genealogy" actually means, underneath the tagline. It's not a mood. It's a structure: shared profiles instead of dueling trees, sourced statements instead of inherited guesses, and a record that outlives any one person's subscription.

What I actually do there

I didn't set out to end up this deep in it. But here's where I've landed:

I'm a WikiTree Team Member, wearing three hats — Social Media Manager, Challenge Coordinator, and Project Leader for Ambassadors and Events. I lead the Peasley One Name Study, which means every Peasley I can find, anywhere, is my problem now, in the best way. I lead the Western Red Cedars regional team for the quarterly community marathons. I participate in the Cemeterist Project, which has me photographing and transcribing grave markers at Fairmont Cemetery in Raton, New Mexico, section by section. And most Saturdays at 5pm ET, I'm hosting the Genealogy Collaboration Hour, which is exactly what it sounds like — people showing up to work on things together instead of alone.

None of that happens on a private tree. All of it depends on the profile being public, shared, and permanent.

Why I'm telling you this on a podcast

I've written about all of this on this blog for years, but a blog is something you read when you already know to look for it. So I started a podcast — A Country Girl Rambles — as a companion, going out weekly, covering what's happening around WikiTree and whatever's currently on my desk: a one-name study, a cemetery, a Holocaust remembrance project, a brick wall, whatever it is that week. Some episodes will point you back here, to this blog, where I go deeper into the sources and the details the audio doesn't have room for. Think of the podcast as the conversation and the blog as the paper trail.

If you've got ancestors you're researching alone right now — on a private tree, in an app nobody else can see — I'd genuinely rather you came and debated with me about a census page than never crossed paths with me at all. WikiTree is free. My profile is Robinson-27225 if you want to say hello. And the first episode of the podcast is up now, telling this same story with a little more rambling and a lot more tangents.