Werelate.org
Encyclopedia
WeRelate.org is the largest freely licensed genealogy wiki and has almost 5 million wiki pages. Supported by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy and the Allen County Public Library
in Fort Wayne, Indiana
, it provides genealogy tools and data as a free public service, on a non-commercial, nonsectarian site. Of its almost 5 million pages, WeRelate had over 2 million person pages, over 694,000 family pages and 19370 images in April 2011.
WeRelate allows users to upload GEDCOMs. With more than 26,000 registered users, collaborators often find common ancestors. The system produces a comparison screen for likely candidates, allowing users determine if subjects are the same person. Duplicate pages for common ancestors can be merged at upload.
Users are encouraged to document their research. WeRelate has over 926,000 Source pages which contain reference and access information along with relevant links. Source pages also provide space for review and research tips. Users may link Person and Family pages to any relevant source pages. Users may also create MySource pages for references relevant to only their research such as family bibles, birth, death and marriage certificates. Scans of documentation may be attached to any relevant page.
Place information is essential to genealogical research. WeRelate has over 900,000 referenced place pages. Where applicable, Place pages are linked to Family History Library Catalog, and Wikipedia. Where geographic coordinates are available, a google map is provided. Many pages also include timelines, population history, contained places, history, research tips and images.
In 2007, WeRelate and the University of South Florida
's Africana Heritage Project launched a research project on slave genealogy, supported by South Carolina's Magnolia Plantation Foundation, including the resulting data in the global genealogy collection.
format. The data includes records for current and historical inhabited places and names (given and surname), and is an open wiki with discussions associated with each entry.
Compared to other projects that let people publish and share similar data, WeRelate focuses on sourcing files with links to primary genealogy records, and rather than letting users maintain separate personal family trees, aims to align data from different sources into a unified global record.
Allen County Public Library
Allen County Public Library has been part of the social and cultural fabric of Fort Wayne, Indiana and surrounding communities in Allen County since 1895. Then known as the Fort Wayne Public Library, it served residents with 3,606 volumes out of a room in City Hall...
in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...
, it provides genealogy tools and data as a free public service, on a non-commercial, nonsectarian site. Of its almost 5 million pages, WeRelate had over 2 million person pages, over 694,000 family pages and 19370 images in April 2011.
WeRelate allows users to upload GEDCOMs. With more than 26,000 registered users, collaborators often find common ancestors. The system produces a comparison screen for likely candidates, allowing users determine if subjects are the same person. Duplicate pages for common ancestors can be merged at upload.
Users are encouraged to document their research. WeRelate has over 926,000 Source pages which contain reference and access information along with relevant links. Source pages also provide space for review and research tips. Users may link Person and Family pages to any relevant source pages. Users may also create MySource pages for references relevant to only their research such as family bibles, birth, death and marriage certificates. Scans of documentation may be attached to any relevant page.
Place information is essential to genealogical research. WeRelate has over 900,000 referenced place pages. Where applicable, Place pages are linked to Family History Library Catalog, and Wikipedia. Where geographic coordinates are available, a google map is provided. Many pages also include timelines, population history, contained places, history, research tips and images.
Background
The site and software were developed in 2005 by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy, led by president Dallan Quass. WeRelate is partnered with the Allen County Public Library, Genealogy Department which houses the nation’s largest public genealogy collection. WeRelate has been listed in the top 101 genealogy websites by Family Tree Magazine for the past four years running (2008-2011).In 2007, WeRelate and the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
's Africana Heritage Project launched a research project on slave genealogy, supported by South Carolina's Magnolia Plantation Foundation, including the resulting data in the global genealogy collection.
Structure and format
Standardized page formats are generated by fill in the blanks forms or by uploads of data in the GEDCOMGEDCOM
GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software...
format. The data includes records for current and historical inhabited places and names (given and surname), and is an open wiki with discussions associated with each entry.
Compared to other projects that let people publish and share similar data, WeRelate focuses on sourcing files with links to primary genealogy records, and rather than letting users maintain separate personal family trees, aims to align data from different sources into a unified global record.
Collaborative tools
WeRelate includes a family tree explorer, annotated images for sharing images of primary source documents or photos, and generates pedigree maps of up to five generations of data.External links
- Interview with Dallan Quass by Dick Eastman, of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. 2007.
- A video tour of the site
- A site review by Diana Lynn Tibert. South Shore Now, December 2009.