Categories:WikiTree Help |Connections Help |Challenges

How to Play

Each Tuesday we post a new Connection Checkers game starter inG2G.Follow the tagconnection_checkers to hear about the announcement.

Anyone can play! You can play competitively, dabble by checking a few connections, or just cheer for others aswe strengthen our shared tree in a fun and social way.

To participate:

 #1.Choose aconnection path to afeatured notable.

 #2.Answer the G2G post with alink to the path you will try to verify. (You only need to post one answer, even if you choose to verify multiple paths. You can edit it and comment below it to share your progress.)

 #3.Verify each step in the path by confirming that every person along the path has areliable source that connects them to the next person.This may be challenging! It may be impossible to verify some relationships and you'll need to choose adifferent path.

 #4.Update your G2G post by editing it or adding a comment when you want to tell others about your progress,choose a different path, or announce that you have verified a path.

At the end of the week, three players are declared the winners:

• The player who has theshortest verified path to one of the notables.
• The player who has thelongest verified path to one of the notables.
• The player whoverifies the most individual connection steps, either in their own paths or byhelping others.

These players win bragging rights, a Connection Checkers Winner badge, and they go in theConnection Checkers Hall of Fame. There are alsoProfile Stickers for players who want to use them.

How to verify connections

Here is more about paths and how to verify them.

Sample Connection Path

What is a connection path?

Over 85% of the people on WikiTree are connected to one another through family relationships. If you're connected, you have over 37 million family members (!) including the featured notables for this week. If you're not connected yet, addyour relatives and you'll probably connect soon.

You can see how you connect to anyone else on the tree with theConnection Finder. It will display the "connection path" — the trail of family relationships — between you and the other person. Each relationship, such as a mother to a child, or a husband to a wife, is called a degree or step on the path.

How to verify steps on a path

Sources are required on WikiTree. We ask all contributors to say where information they're putting on WikiTree comes from. This is essential for productive genealogy collaboration.

However, some sources are incomplete or impossible to verify. Information about families is often passed down through the generations informally and the original source for information is lost to time. Ideally, we want sources that arereliable andverifiable. SeeHelp:Reliable Sources for more explanation.

This isthe Connection Checkers challenge: can you verify each relationship along achosen connection path with a reliable source?

For example, if your path runs through a husband and wife, is there a marriage record? If your path runs through a mother and daughter, is there a birth certificate? Even a single census record showing relationships between family members in the same household can count for Connection Checkers.

To show that a relationship has been verified:

1. Make sure there is asource citation. If there is one already, you just need to check it.
2. Mark theRelationship Status indicator asConfident. On parent-child relationships, this is done on the child's profile. For siblings, it is done by confirming the relationship of each child to their shared parent(s). For spouses, it is set on theEdit Marriage page.Confident relationships will have this icon in the connection path:

Connections throughprivate andproject-protected profiles do not need to be verified for the purposes of the game.

Choosing a path

There are an almost infinite number of different relationship paths between you and any other person. In this game, you can choose to verify any path between you and one of the week's notables, or verify multiple paths.

By default, theConnection Finder will show you the shortest connection path. Players usually start by attempting to verify their shortest connection to one of the notables.

You can exclude any person along a path with the little "X" you will see in their box. That will reroute the path around that person. This might be necessary if you can't verify their relationship to the next person.

(Some players like to see if there is a biological relationship path. You can use theRelationship Finder to see if there is a path that does have any connections through marriage. If there is, there may be multiple paths through different common ancestors. Check for an "Explore More" selection box below your relationship path.)

Keeping score

To be eligible to win for the shortest or longest connection path,you don't need to keep score. Simply edit or comment on your answer in G2G to say the path has been verified. Be sure there is alink to the path.

It doesn't matter if you or someone else found or verified the source for a relationship as long as you have confirmed that it'sConfident. (See above for more aboutverification.)

Counting relationship steps you have verified

Players who want to compete on the number of steps they verify need to use theChallenge Tracker. You can find this on the personpull-down menu of any profile.

Add a point for yourself if you have either found a source for the relationship and/or marked the relationship asConfident after checking the source. Do not add a point if the relationship already has a reliable source and is already marked as Confident. It's great to doublecheck the source and confirm what it tells us, but unless you're the one who edited the profile, it's possible someone else already counted a point for verifying it.

If you're playing the game, you are encouraged tocount all the relationships you verify. They do not need to be part of a path that is posted in G2G. You are especially invited to count:

• Relationships you verify in other players' paths.Helping others is strongly encouraged!
• Relationships you verify while choosing and growing connections for next week's game. These will be valuable pre-verified connections in the paths of players next week, so please count them!

Communication

How to link to a path

A link to connection path looks like this:
https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=York-1245&person2Name=Neville-12&relation=0&ignoreIds=

To copy-and-paste a path:

1. Go toyour featured connections on the Connection Finder.
2. Click one of the links, e.g. "You are 4 degrees from Richard III".
3. Find the URL in the address bar of your web browser. This is typically located at the top of the browser window.
4. Select the whole path, beginning with "https://".
5. Right-click to copy it.
6. Right-click to paste the URL into your answer on G2G.

How to add an image of your path

Some advanced players like to include an image of their path in their answer.

This requires a few steps (someday we hope to make it easier):

1. Below a connection path, look for the button that says "Get Shareable Image".
2. Save the image on your computer.
3. Upload the image somewhere. This could be anew free-space profile you create for sharing images (make sure the profile ispublic).
4. Edit your G2G answer and look for the icon above the text section for inserting an image. It looks like a landscape photo of mountains. In the dialogue box that opens, specify the width as 700. This will prevent it from appearing too large.

Please note: Your path may includeprivate family members. This image is just a like screenshot. It shows what you see, which isprivacy-controlled. Other people can't view your private family members if they follow the link (unless they're also on the appropriateTrusted Lists), but a screenshot of your view would show them.

How to ask for help

Connection Checkers is a way to make genealogy research more fun and social. We may be competing to have the shortest and longest verified paths, but WikiTree is really about collaboration, not competition. We all share the samemission and our community has a long record of being amazingly generous and helpful.

If you can't find a source to confirm a connection or just don't know where to begin, reach out for help!

Look for theConnection Verification Help button on the profile of the person whose relationship you're attempting to confirm (note: the button does not appear on private profiles). Be sure to give as much detail as possible about where you have looked. You might also create aResearch Notes section on the profile.

How to help others

Thank you! Members like you are the soul of our community. Your generosity is one of the primary reasons we have been successful in growing a collaborative family tree.

Questions posted using the button described above appear in G2G with theconnection_checkers tag. You might want tofollow this tag.

These questions will also appear in theDiscord live chatchannel for Connection Checkers, so if you participate with the group there you will see them.

Whenever you are able to help someone by adding a source and confirming that a relationship is Confident, be sure to enter a point for yourself in the Challenge Tracker.

Thank you again!

Live chats

We have a specialDiscord channel where you can chat in real-time with other players and generous WikiTreers who want to help others confirm connections.

Join in that channelhere. SeeHelp:Discord if you haven't used it before.

Questions about the game

To ask any question about the game, just post inG2G and add the tagconnection checkers to your question.

Winners

Hall of Fame

See past winners in ourConnection Checkers Hall of Fame.

Badges

There are three Connection Checkers badges:

1. Checker is for those who lead the game and help others play it.
2. Player is for successfully completing a game by verifying at least one complete path to a notable. (Challenging, but not impossible for anyone connected to theBig Tree.)
3. Winner is for winning in one of the three competitive categories: shortest path, longest path, or most steps verified for yourself or others.

Stickers

If you need help with any of the following, just ask inG2G.

Participation sticker

ThisProfile Sticker is for anyone who plays. You can add it to your profile by copying the following code and pasting it into your profile just under the word Biography. There’s no need to add your name. It will appear automatically.

... ... ... is participating in the Connection Checkers game.

Here's the code for the sticker:{{Community Event |image=WikiTree_Event_Images-35.png |text=is participating |event=Connection Checkers game}}

Winner: Shortest path

... ... ... had the shortest path in the Asian and Pacific Islanders in the Connection Checkers game.

{{Community Event|image=WikiTree_Event_Images-36.png|text=had the shortest path in the Asian and Pacific Islanders|event=Connection Checkers game}}

Winner: Longest path

... ... ... had the longest verified path in the Asian and Pacific Islanders in the Connection Checkers game.

{{Community Event|image=WikiTree_Event_Images-37.png|text=had the longest verified path in the Asian and Pacific Islanders|event=Connection Checkers game}}

Winner: Most verified

... ... ... had the most verified individual connection steps in the Asian and Pacific Islanders in the Connection Checkers game.

{{Community Event|image=WikiTree_Event_Images-46.png|text=had the most verified individual connection steps in the Asian and Pacific Islanders|event=Connection Checkers game}}