WeRelate:Suggestions/New user tip: ancestor tree

Watchers

This is something I did, which I think would be useful tip for new users to encourage engagement. Is this a good idea, are there downsides? Here it is:

Once you have located some of your ancestors (no matter how distant) on WeRelate you'll want to monitor changes to any of them.

  • You need to have a login in order to do this, "create account" on the top right.
  • Select the "My Relate" menu at the top of WeRelate, select "My Trees"
  • At the bottom of the page select "Create New Tree"
  • Name the tree "Ancestors" (or whatever else you like)
  • Now locate your nearest ancestors no matter how distant, for each of them:
  • Select "Trees" (left side of page)
  • Check the "Ancestors" tree, and uncheck any others.
  • In the bottom section, increase the number selector in "Include ancestors for X generations". I selected 10 as it is rare for anything meaningful or accurate beyond that.
  • You can also select "Also include ancestors' children" which would include any aunts and uncles.
  • The "Include descendants for X generations" seems unwise except in smaller trees, as that would utterly explode this list.

Important Note: All these Person and Family pages will be added to your watchlist, which means you will be notified of any changes. If the trees for your ancestors are complete back 10 generations, you will be adding 1024 pages (210). If you select "ancestors children", that would multiply that significantly (assuming each ancestor has an average of 5 siblings, this would be another 5120 (210*5). However, it is *highly* unlikely that any tree is that complete. For reference, my ancestors tree, with siblings, has 877 entries, and the change rate is low enough that I only get notifications every week or so.