WeRelate:Press release, May 2006

What is WeRelate?

WeRelate is a free web search engine and wiki for genealogy. We are sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy, Inc., a non-profit Utah Corporation that relies on your tax-deductible donations for its support. Our goal is to make it easy for you to discover and share information about your ancestors. For more information, see About WeRelate.

How and when did you get the idea to start WeRelate.org?

Dallan has been fascinated by the power of the Web ever since 1995 when he was studying for his PhD at Stanford. A couple of other students (Jerry Yang and David Filo) had just launched a new website called Yahoo, and Dallan was amazed by the amount of information readily available through its interface. After an encouraging meeting with David Filo, he and some fellow students started their own Web search company called Junglee. (A short time later another student in his research group co-founded another popular web search company: Google.) Junglee was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998, and in 1999 Dallan co-founded another Web search company called WhizBang, which developed a website called FlipDog.com that was acquired by Monster.com in 2001. After WhizBang he served as the Chief Technical Officer for the Church and Family History Department of the LDS Church, during which time he became impressed with the power of wiki technology as exemplified by Wikipedia.

Solveig has been researching her family history for about 25 years. She was very surprised to find she tied into the DAR at least 9 times on her father's paternal line alone. Since beginning her journey, she has traced many of her lines back into the 1700's and two into the 1500's. So far, she hasn't found an immigrant before 1750 . . . she's an all American girl. She thinks Family History is an exciting hobby.

Combining specialized Web search and a wiki to help people do family history seemed like a natural "next step" to both Dallan and Solveig.

What is the Foundation for Online Genealogy?

Dallan and Solveig established the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy in early 2005. The Foundation for On-Line Genealogy is a non-profit (501c3) organization dedicated to making family history easier, faster, and more rewarding. The Foundation is not associated with any commercial enterprise and is supported solely by tax-deductable donations.

The primary effort of the Foundation has been to create the WeRelate.org website, a Web search engine and wiki for family history. WeRelate is free to the public. As a federally-recognized non-profit organization the Foundation cannot sell WeRelate to anyone. Data in the WeRelate wiki is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, meaning that the original author retains copyright to her own writing but the public is free to use it so long as they give proper attribution and make any extensions also available under the same license. If you would like to make a donation we would really appreciate it. Donations primarily go toward buying equipment and paying hosting fees so that we can expand the amount of information available on the website. Neither of us collects a salary.

Besides WeRelate, what projects is the Foundation working on?

In addition to the WeRelate.org website, the Foundation is working on a federal grant proposal together with a major university to research and apply handwriting recognition and record linkage techniques to the goal of linking families across census years.

How many people have registered to use We Relate?

On May 16, 2006 there were 174. We are still in Beta test and will be until the end of the year. People find out about the site primarily through word-of-mouth.

Have you begun to implement the GEDCOM upload proposal? What will this feature look like to users?

Some research and design has already been done. We hope to have an initial version of this feature available sometime in the Fall.

Basically, people will be able to upload their GEDCOM files, notes, pictures, etc. onto WeRelate. (WeRelate does not own the copyright on uploaded GEDCOM's.) Once a GEDCOM is uploaded, wiki pages can be automatically created for the non-living people, making it easy for anyone to publish their information and collaborate with others. The wiki pages will provide places for stories, biographies, and pictures. An automated agent will periodically analyze the wiki pages to see if two or more pages are for the same individual, and in that case notify the submitters of the opportunity to merge the wiki pages and work together. People will be able to synchronize their GEDCOM's with the wiki and decide which wiki page changes they want to copy into their GEDCOM's. Although anyone can edit a wiki page, only the GEDCOM owner will be able to view or change the uploaded GEDCOM so that the privacy of living individuals in a GEDCOM is protected.

We are excited about this approach to publishing and collaborating on family history with others while allowing people to have control of what gets copied into their GEDCOM's.

Why are you doing this?

Many people ask us this. We are semi-retired. We feel we have been blessed greatly throughout our lives and this is our way of giving back. We enjoy creating websites and continue to be fascinated by the potential of the Web for good. As members of the LDS Church, (Mormons), we believe that strengthening families today and learning about our families in the past make life more rewarding.