The Ungerecht Family Tree

Starting out, I had three goals for my genealogy data: 1) put it online so anyone can access it, 2) put it into a book form so that it can be read on paper or shared with people who don't appreciate computers, 3) be able to update it easily as new information comes in. A bonus would be if other people could update it on their own, if they had the interest and data to share.

The solution to me was to use a wiki. Any wiki, most famously wikipedia, is a site that allows anybody to log in and update pages. This allows you to enter data as it becomes available, easy to update at any time.

There are many online genealogy sites that allow you to do much the same, and they have nice graphical trees you can click on. The best known are Ancestry.com (which has some nice features like census page look-ups, but to make use of most features you need a rather pricey membership) and FamilySearch.com (run by the Latter-Day Saints, so it's free). FamilySearch uses a wiki format and encourages you to connect up to existing family trees already entered by other members. The problem is sometimes you find an individual already in 2 or more trees, with slightly differing details (number of siblings, birth date, etc). You can merge the individuals if you're sure it's really the same person, but you're kind of trampling on other people's data at that point, and asking them to make the merge will often get you nowhere. Finally, with any of these sites I would never be able to make a usable book of just our family and some relevant side data of my choosing.

So by having my own wiki site, first, it's specific to the Ungerecht family. Secondly, I can make sure no bad data is entered (although I anticipate I will be the primary author, at least for some time). And most wikis have a PDF export feature, so the whole site can be exported at any time with the latest data as an Ungerecht Family Tree booklet.

Anybody can edit these pages, it is similar to Wikipedia (it is a DokuWiki, if you're interested). This page describes the syntax, or contact me if you want me to add information for you.

Additional pages may be created as needed (you must register first). Clicking on the pencil on the right hand side will give you the option to edit or create pages. For new family pages, I am starting the link (and page name) with the year and underscore. This allows the PDF output to be sorted by year.

Since this is accessible to anybody on the internet, I am not showing names or other information for people born less than 90 years ago, unless I know they are deceased. I can add whatever is desired to a GEDCOM that can be distributed privately among family members. There might be an option of logging in to see additional information.