Help:Connection Finder

We recently introduced new Connection Finder features. Please see join our conversation on G2G.
-- Chris Whitten 17:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Over 80% of the people on WikiTree are connected to one another through family relationships. The Connection Finder shows you how.

Basic Usage

To find a connection between two people, enter their WikiTree IDs in the fields on Special:Connection. Unless either person is unconnected this will show you their connection path, i.e. the chain of family relationships that connect them.

When on a person's profile, you can also select "Connection to Me" on the pull-down menu at the top of the page that starts with their WikiTree ID.

Options

By default, the Connection Finder will show you the shortest connection — the connection path with the fewest "steps" or "degrees of separation" between the two people.

This may include relationships through marriage. If you prefer to see if the two people have a "blood relationship" select the "Connection through a common ancestor" option and then click the "Find Connection" button. This makes the Connection Finder function more like our Relationship Finder.

You can limit this even further by looking for a connection through a common direct-line paternal or maternal ancestor. This will show you a connection path, if there is one, that mirrors Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA inheritance.

To see if the two people share common descendants, select the common descendant option.

You can exclude anyone from a connection path by clicking the ✖ by their name in the current path. This will enable you to see if two people have a connection that does not include the excluded person or people. This can be an interesting way to browse alternative connection paths, i.e. paths that go through different family lines. To remove an exclusion, look for the "[clear]" link in the options section.

Featured Connections

Each week we feature a few people in our Connection Finder. These are just examples. You can see your connection to anyone, not just to these featured individuals. However, for these individuals, we have pre-calculated the number of steps between them and everyone else on WikiTree, as a point of interest. We show these connection distances at the bottoms of profiles, in our weekly email newsletter, and on the Connection Finder itself.

Changes to Connections

When you add or update relationships it may take up to 24 hours for your changes to be reflected in the Connection Finder.

In order to provide instant results we build a special database once a day. It's rebuilt late at night.

Unconnected People

Who in your Watchlist is not connected? Click here to find out. See Help:Unconnected for more information.

This page was last modified 17:07, 17 September 2020. This page has been accessed 46,586 times.