Is Gwulo the right place for Geneology information?

Submitted by Admin on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 16:06

Annelise wrote this in a recent comment. I've moved it to its own thread to make it easier to answer:

Is Gwulo the right place for Geneology information?  Sites like Geni.com would let me enter the information above easily, organize it, and it would be easy to view.  I don't think that Gwulo is set up for this kind of thing.

I'd say use whichever site makes it easier to do what you want.

If you're building a family tree, you're going to want to see it laid out in a tree format, with all of the relationships between people clearly defined. Gwulo can't show you the tree format, and relationships would have to be managed in a very manual way by linking people together. One of the family history websites would be the obvious choice for building an online family tree.

If you want to share information about an individual who lived in Hong Kong, and put it in front of an audience interested in Hong kong history to get feedback, Gwulo is a good place to do that.

The example you refer to is a bit jumbled up and hard to read. Different formatting can help, eg

  • Bullet points to list related facts
  • Headings to break it into sections
  • Define each person (eg the grandfather and grandson in this example) as separate Person records, rather than mixing them up in one thread.

But if the other site formats it a lot more nicely, by all means post it there and link to it from here.

Regards, David

David,

First thanks for taking down the "Geni site" thread. Was going nowhere and had little to do with what I regard Gwulo as.

As I see it your site is not a family genealogy site with trees and all sorts of fancy bits and pieces.

It is a site full of information and specialists who really know what they are talking about. Although I came to it having researched my family history in HK it has always answered - or attempted to answer - questions thrown up by previous research.

Gwulo has a corpus of specialists who are good enough to share their knowledge - whether it is identifying a picture or pointing one in the direction of a possible answer to a question - but that is as it should bel in my view.

I for one would not bother with it if it suddenly sprouted family trees which are in all honesty usually only of interest to immediate relatives. If I was to use my Swedish info to the full you would need a very large roll of wallpaper to print out or contstruct the tree. Very boring.

So, let's have gwulo as it is. A home for any of us with questions about HK. If they involve people all well and good. But no family trees please.

Regards,

Sean

Hi David,

I am with you and Sean on this one,  I enjoy being able to ask questions about photos and the history of Hong Kong on Gwulo, and getting such helpful and friendly answers from people who can help but it is not the place for family trees.  These belong elsewhere.  I have found Gwulo a mine of information about HK, and hope to upload a few more photos soon,  the links to photos of the Battle Box that moddsey posted were of great interest so thanks again to everyone.

Regards, Pauline.