52 Ancestors Week 20: Cousin Bait

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 20's theme is "Cousin Bait," which is a term used to describe the ways we try to attract the attention of others researching our families. It could be things like blogging, having a public online tree, or leaving comments on a FindAGrave memorial. Have you successfully set cousin bait or got hooked by someone else's? (You could also take a more literal route and talk about fishermen in your family tree.)

Every great decision causes ripples

    Hello. My name is Chris Ferraiolo and I have a confession to make. I am a victim of cousin bait. I can "hear" the audible gasps and fainting through the Internet. I know it's shocking and it may be a little much to take in right now. We've got to be brave. We've got to be strong. We've also got to milk this gag in the opening paragraph for all it's worth. ;) Have you or a loved one been a victim of cousin bait? If so, please contact the law offices of  Nelson, Murdock and Walters. Well, there's not much you can do about it. Unless you register at WikiTree.

So many DNA confirmations.

    That's actually the origin of how I became a user on the site. WikiTree.com is basically the king and queen of cousin bait. I know I've talked about it a lot since I've started the blog and there's a good reason why I sing its praises. It's a free singular world tree which uses Wikimedia's coding as a base. The goal of the site is to have a profile for every human who has ever lived. That's a tall order and it can be done considering over 26 million profiles have been created at the time of this blog post. Not bad for a site that started in 2008 when most of the Internet was making videos on YouTube. Including me.

    Right. So, how did I become a victim of cousin bait? What is it exactly? Cousin bait is simply something on the Internet that attracts someone who may have a connection to you. For example, a third cousin of mine created Find a Grave profiles for my grandparents, Marco and Olympia. Other forms of cousin bait include blogs which might turn up on Google searches, photos and public trees on Ancestry and just having a small corner of a world tree like Geni, Familysearch or WikiTree would be enough to attract cousins. It's happened to me. It could happen to YOU!

I probably should have cropped more of that first pic.

    The Find a Grave profiles were just the beginning of cousin bait finding me. In 2017, I was just starting to get back into genealogy after a considerable hiatus. I was still doing videos on YouTube and I had a webcomic I was producing as well. I still produce it! Check it out!

    While that was going on, I thought I'd give MyHeritage a try. Over on Myheritage, they have hints like they do on Ancestry. The only difference is that they also show where on the Internet a profile for a certain ancestor of yours might be. They could be on Geni. They could be on Familysearch. They could even be on Wikitree!

    That's how I managed to find my 2nd great-grandparents, Vincenzo Carrabs and Maria Giovanna Capobianco. My third cousin, the one who made the Find a Grave profiles for my grandparents, made profiles for the two back in 2014, a good three years before I found them. That wasn't all! another cousin created profiles for Wilfred Felker and his father, Jeremiah in 2013.

    Right away, my spider-sense was buzzing. I didn't mind the profiles being there. I had never heard of WikiTree at that point. I checked it out and I registered on the site in July of 2017. I was surprised to see ancestors on both sides of my tree on the site already and naturally I e-mailed both cousins and asked them what the deal was. I had heard of my third cousin via my grandma Ollie and other relatives So, she wasn't a complete shock to me. She had messaged me on Ancestry and we talked there. The other Wikitreer was new to me. I e-mailed him and he gave me a LOT of information about the Felkers.

Buffed and waxed!

    Once I was all registered, I built the tree up to those profiles and like the Borg from Star Trek, I assimilated the profiles and added their distinctiveness to my own. Resistance was very much futile. After I built it up, I buffed and waxed the profiles with needed categories, sources, photos and eventually DNA confirmation. No fuss. No muss. And importantly no drama. 

    Some people may not be that lucky. To that I say, just try to present the sources as best you can when you connect. You'll find most WikiTreers to be okay with connections as long as they are sourced up before you connect the dots. And if there is an issue, people are encouraged to take it to the genealogist to genealogist forum. Though, chances are many of your ancestors will be on the site already if they were born in the 1600s-1700s.

    Setting up shop on WikiTree eventually proved to be one of the greatest ideas I ever had because since the tree is free and everyone can see the profiles you made, distant cousins will find them  and in time contact you. It's that simple. It's happened to me a few times as I've had cousins on the Forgione and Legault sides contact me saying that they found the profiles I made of their ancestors. Everyone was more than cool about this and eventually they too turned up as DNA matches.

    It wasn't always fun, though. There has been at least one person who took issue with my profile for "their ancestor" on the site. I've done my best to explain the situation and showed them them sources I found which mesh with what I have found and declared. The ball then is very much in their court. That's little else I can do. 

    So, that's my WikiTree origin story. Cousin bait can be a very good thing and WikiTree itself is basically cousin bait personified. Blogs also work as cousin bait and if a cousin sees this, I'll just say hi and that I hope to see you on WikiTree some day! Come on in! We don't bite!

    Cousin bait is good in that it let's you see what others have found about "your" ancestors. You can join a world tree like WikiTree and build up on what they found and combine it with stuff you found. Include some pics and info, stories and boom the profile will shine with its new chrome rims. It's really that easy and isn't something to be concerned about. So, don't be afraid to be a victim of cousin bait AND be ready to fish for cousins yourself as you work on a world tree. 

See ya next time!