 Welcome to the wiki tree challenge. Hi, I'm Mindy Silva. Welcome to the wiki tree challenge highlights reel. Today I have Keith Menchie's here, a wiki treeer and also representing the genealogical society of South Africa. I also have Nigel Walker, who's here to watch and participate in our conversation. Welcome gentlemen. Thank you. I'm going to talk a little bit about wiki tree first for those viewers that don't know who we are. Our mission is to grow one accurate share tree that connects us all and is accessible to everyone free forever. It's all about collaboration. There's one profile per person. If you and I share an ancestor, we work on that profile together. It's not that you have your tree and I have my tree, it's all one tree and did I mention that it's free. Now we've passed the 34 million profile mark with almost 11 million of those having DNA connections attached to them. And what really makes wiki tree work is its community. A corner start of this community is our honor code. So anyone can view profiles on wiki tree but to edit anything more than close family, you have to sign up on our code which emphasizes sourcing, giving credit, courtesy, understanding, accuracy and respecting privacy. Privacy is another aspect of wiki tree that makes it special. So even though we're growing one world tree and we collaborate, only close family members can work on those modern family profiles. Now as you go back further in your branches, the privacy controls open up and collaboration is especially important there between distant cousins or other interested researchers who are serious about the genealogical research, careful about their sources, and willing to see their work validated or invalidated with DNA. So if you aren't a member yet, come and join us. It just takes a minute to register as a guest member and you can delete a guest account at any time. The tenth challenge of 2023 is now over. And of course, like I said, we partnered with the Genealogical Society of South Africa. They gave us seven names. We had seven days to find every one we could within seven degrees of them. So seven degrees means seven steps in any direction. On wiki tree, we call that count a person cc7. Now our starting people were Johannes August Heath, the primary author of the first few volumes of South African genealogies, and a founding member of the Genealogical Society of South Africa. His final cc7 was 9,310. Second, we had Rolof Thunis Johannes Lombard, who is the lead editor of the first few volumes of the South African genealogy. So his final cc7 was 11,285. Third was Edward John Morris Jones. Now he published role of the British settlers in South Africa in 1969 and numerous extracts from contemporary accounts as the Albany Chronicles. His final cc7 was 446. Colin Graham Batha, who was head of the Cape Archives for 32 years and published the French refugees on the Unok families in 1919. His final cc7 was 20,769. We had Margaret Constance, 20-man Jones Cairns, who published widely on the social history of the Cape community. Her final cc7 was 1,127. Flores Albertus Van Yarsville, an influential historian, educator, and genealogist, and published numerous books and school textbooks. His final cc7 was 9,440. We had Marjorie Diane D. Murray Nash, so MD Nash, who published The Authoritative, The Settler Handbook, a new list of the 1820 settlers in 1987. And her final cc7 was 7,278. So Keith, I would say we developed some really long lines during the week. Don't you agree? I think that's correct. I mean Edward Jones started out from zero, right? And Van Yarsville was not very... His was a new profile also, I believe, but although there were already many Van Yarsville in the wiki tree single tree. And the others, yes. I might mention that we looked at a couple of others. To Toy Malherpa, who published a book on the South African, the Africana origins, we found that he was already extremely well connected. His book was published much earlier in the early 1900s. And another South African genealogist, I looked at, was Anna Borsik, and who published on the slave community in the Cape during the early European settlement. And what we found was she was the only child and was not married. And her parents were both from Holland, from the Netherlands. And so we really didn't have much of a South African connection for her. So we eventually landed up with these seven. And even for the ones that you might have thought were well connected, we found that there was plenty of opportunity. Right. And some of these were the big numbers, like Kolumbatha. I mean, even if we started with a smaller number, we were able to connect to existing branches on wiki tree. And that's one of the great things about having just one big global tree, is that hopefully once you start adding your branches, you'll go to add your great grandparents or great-great-grandparents and find out that there's already hundreds of profiles created after that. And so you don't have to go in and add those older profiles. They're already there. And that's how some of those really big numbers occurred. Now, we do have a few of our top people here during the Challenge Week. We have Paul Snack, who was our most valuable participant or MVP. Heather Jenkinson, a longtime challenge researcher, was our top bounty hunter. And Donna Bowman, who was the team captain of the week. She did a great job. But it takes an entire team to collaborate and come up with outstanding results. And we had more than 69 people participate in an incredible Shoah collaboration. And, you know, we were talking about this before we started with Nigel. Looks like we lost Nigel. And, you know, just talking about the fact that everybody comes into this with different levels of experience or, you know, a different way of looking at things. Plus we all have different subscriptions that we might look at or different sites that we visit. And so it's really great to see people come together and tackle these, you know, difficult lines when you hit them. And, you know, bring in those different viewpoints. And sometimes just amazing things can happen. And I see it over and over again in this challenge when we get these, these WikiTrees together, they can really do amazing things. And Keith, you yourself have been on WikiTree for quite some time, right? I've only been on WikiTree for about three years. Oh, wow. But what I, what I decided to do, I published a book on the Manchees family some time ago. And after looking around as to how to best make that available, I decided on WikiTree. And so what I've been doing over the last three years or so was essentially not only putting the Manchees family into WikiTree, but also connecting up all the married people. And what Wendy said is very, very true. When I have someone who married into the Manchees family, it is almost always the case that it is only one of the most two additional people that I have to, to put in to then connect them into the entire South African tree that you will find in, in the standards like South African genealogies and Davidia and Parma. So think of WikiTree as it has all those, those trees in it that you used to from South African genealogies, but they're all connected together, which is just wonderful. And then we did, we took a look at all of our starting ancestors and we found many blood or marriage connections, you know, which is one of the great things about WikiTree is it's so easy to see how you're connected with people. And just like out in the real world, and I mean, we're all connected to each other one way or another, if you know, you really get into the genealogy of it. And so we kind of looked at some of these to see who was the closest to the other ones. And we had Roa Lombard, who's 13 generations from MD Nash. So he is her fifth cousin, once removed. He's also 14 generations from Colin Baltha, being his fourth cousin, four times removed, and 15 generations from Johannes Hees, being his sixth cousin, once removed. So, you know, it's really fun to find these. Next, we have Colin, who is 10 generations from Flora's Fanyardsville. And 13 generations from Johannes Hees, so he's his fifth cousin, once removed. He's also nine degrees from Margaret Cairns and 13 generations from Johannes Hees. And then MD Nash is 12 generations from Colin Baltha, so his fourth cousin, twice removed, 12 generations from Flora's Fanyardsville, being his fifth cousin, and 13 generations from Roa Lombard, being his fifth cousin, once removed. So, you know, with all these distant connections, you would start out working on one line. And, you know, as you went out in the branches, you would find out that you were actually working on more than one starting person's, you know, ancestors, because so many of these starting people were connected. And we do have a lot of fun using that connection finder during the week to see who we're closest to. So, this is the captain's connection to MD Nash. They are 15 cousins, once removed, so very distant, but actual cousins, so blood related, with a common ancestor of Isabel Craver-Rawson, born in 1435. And so, as you do, you know, use the connection finder, it takes you on the path, and you can see which lines to follow to get you to that common ancestor. And then, for one very notable connection we found was between Johannes Heese and Stefanus Jacobus de Toy. Stefanus studied theology at the Theological Seminary in Stellenbosch, and was ordained as a minister. In 1875, while in the Transfall, he was appointed official translator of the Bible by the GRA. In 1876, he launched the first Afrikaans language newspaper. Johannes and Stefanus are third cousins twice removed. We also took a look at the connections to Sir John Murray Murray, the South African judge that served as Southern Rhodesia's Chief Justice from 1955 to 1961. And so, here are the relations to those. We had MD Nash, who is five generations, being his first cousin, once removed. Colin Baltha is 11 generations, so his fourth cousin, once removed. Flores Fenyarsville is 11 generations also. Rolof Lombard is 14 generations from him, being his fifth cousin, twice removed. And Johannes Heese is also 14 generations and his sixth cousin. Now, we'll go ahead and we'll take a look at some other interesting finds and connections we found starting with Johannes Heese. And, you know, some of these connections were closer. Some of them were further out, but once again, you know, we were looking within seven degrees in any direction. But this one was kind of close. So the father of his wife, Magdalena Elizabeth, who was born in 1908, his name was Lorenz Erasmus Detoy, was a prisoner of war during the Boer War. Now, his wife, Cornelia Margarita LaRue, was imprisoned as a refugee and three of her children died in refugee camp, one of dysentery two of measles. And, you know, so sometimes you do find these tragic stories, unfortunately, you know, what the wars are doing and how they're affecting these families. Now, Lorenz was a member of the Winbur commando in 1901, and he was captured at Sand River. And not only was Lorenz Johannes's father-in-law, they were six cousins once removed. And, you know, if you don't mind being surprised, go out on Wickey Tree and get your spouse and your, you know, branches built out, and you'll likely find that your distant cousin's somewhere. You know, it may be really distant, but now we have Rolof Thunis, Johannes Lombard, he was born in Blomhoff, Transvaal, South Africa in 1931. And we found Alexander Lowry McDonald in his branches. His life was well documented in a memoir written by his grandson, Eric Alexander McDonald. It was interesting to see that his age changed with his diary entries. So, you know, where sometimes we look at census or other records in the United States, and, you know, you're not sure if the person was fudging their age or if the census record, census taker heard it wrong or whatever it was. Here, these were diary entries by himself. And so I think he just kind of lost track of what his actual age was. Maybe it just wasn't important to him. So in 1879, he said, my birthday, I believe I must be 59 now, though there's some doubt about the year of birth, whether 1821 or 1822. Alexander was born in Scotland, but was stationed in the West Indies after joining the army. In the early 1840s, he arrived in Cape Colony and worked as a teacher, a pain master, and then a quarter master. He married three times, finally returning to visit his home of Scotland in 1876, being stationed in England, but that didn't last long. And, you know, with all his experience in Cape Colony, they went ahead, even though he was older, and they returned him to that Cape Colony post. He said to have died in 1879 in Newcastle in South Africa, having left his widow in Port Elizabeth. You know, it was interesting to see the journeys back and forth with him and his family. And I know that at one point he couldn't afford passage for them all. And so he had an adult son help them with it. You know, Keith was it common for the military men not to remain in South Africa once they were posted there, or was that something that was a common occurrence, do you think? Most of them, most of them, they were posted to South Africa. And then, you know, before 1900, would have left, would have been posted as part of the British army and would have gone back to the United Kingdom. But after 1900, when you started to have the formation of the Union of South Africa, South Africa became a country part of the British Commonwealth and responsible for their own armies. So by the time you get to the First World and Second World Wars, South Africa had its own army that was independent of the British army. But certainly even before 1820, the British had a military presence, which includes some of my ancestors, from the late 1700s in the Cape Colony. And Alexander here was seven degrees from Rolaugh-Lombard. And that is two connections that changed via marriage, so related by marriage. Now, third, we had Edward John Morris Jones, who was born in 1889 in Hendon, England. His father, Charles Edward Jones, was a clerk. His additional first names of John Morris most likely came from his maternal grandfather, Frederick Walter John Morris. And, you know, the researchers found many interesting people in the branches of Edward Jones. So if you were related to his second wife, Eileen Muriel, Gavin Wilson, one of those was Herbert Trevor Fitch. He worked for Scotland Yard during World War I. And his task was catching German spies in Britain. So our researchers were a little bit enthralled by this because that's, you know, obviously not a common occupation. We also had Cecil Edwin Fitch, KBE, who was knighted in 1924 services in connection with wartime recruiting. And, you know, although we look at some of these ones that are more notable, that's definitely not our focus during the challenge because I would say we would spend, you know, we spend the majority of the time looking at just the common people that are in the different branches. And unfortunately, you know, not all of them are so well documented. And we did find that and with our challenge this week is we didn't have very many people that were skilled in finding any kind of a newspaper or something for South African families. And so unless, you know, we went back far enough where we found them in England or somewhere else, we didn't have those newspaper articles that we usually have during a challenge week to find out more about those individuals. So sometimes you do only, you know, really find more details if they were involved with something like this or were a little bit either more notable or had something tragic at first. Yeah, most of us, I think, was interesting. He turns out he was what in my day we called a traffic salesman manufacturer's representative. But later on in life, he landed up in the east of my plate and spent a lot of time documenting and researching the 1820 settler families. And after he wrote a book on the best he could do on the log of who the 1820 settlers were, he spent much of his later life compiling as a series of works called the Albany Chronicles, which were extracts from various accounts, including newspapers and censuses and military reports and so on, on the families of the 1820 settlers and their movement around the Cape at that time. So very interesting person. And something about these genealogists is we started with a blank slate here and most Jones left nothing about his own genealogy. And so this was very interesting for us to find out the connections into back to England and perhaps to Wales. Right. And we had talked about that, you know, at the start of the week about how many people came in from different areas in different locations. But Keith, I was really just still surprised just to find out how many locations we did wind up in and, you know, just all over the place. Now here, this was just a short touching story. And, you know, once again, we like finding anything that makes somebody stand out and helps us realize kind of who they were more as a person. Because we want to honor these ancestors on wiki tree. And so we want to find these details that set them apart or find out things that happened in their life. And this was Emma Sarah Fitch. And, you know, what we found that was notable about her is that she was in her mid 60s when she first married. So she was single all of her life. In her 60s, she met her true love, you know, her husband, James Bryant Douglas, who was also in his 60s and marrying for the first time. And so, you know, that was just definitely unusual and pretty cool to find these two that found love so late in life. Now, Emma is four degrees from Edward Jones with a relationship being through Edward's wife, Eileen. Of course, we had Colin Graham Botha, who was born in 1883 in Cape Colony, South Africa. In 1969, four years before his death, Colin recorded his life memories on tape and told how his ancestors had come to South Africa in 1766. The progenitor's name he said was Boudier, later Bougie, which became Boud and in the 19th century, Botha. So the tape is preserved in the Cape archives and contains many details about the colorful career of Colin Graham Botha. And, you know, Keith, this was fairly common, though, right, the changing of how the names were spelled or pronounced with people coming in from so many places. Yes, when the Dutch first arrived in South Africa, they insisted that people use surnames, which was not the usual practice in Europe at the time. And so, you find that firstly, many of the immigrants were German and the language was Dutch, so there were sort of phonetic spellings of many of the names. So the spellings changed a lot, and some of the names did evolve over time. And in fact, in South Africa today with names like Engelbrecht and even my own name, Mainches, you will find heated discussions as to what is the, quote, correct way to spell the family name. And what is the, you know, the genuine pedigree that people should have? Right, you know, and that's really important as a genealogist, if you're a beginning genealogist, to know the history of the names in these different countries, because, you know, in some countries such as Portugal, I mean, the name, the spelling has been set for hundreds of years. And it doesn't matter how anybody writes it, the government says this is how that name is spelled. It never changes. You know, you don't have those variances like you have in the United States or in South Africa, where the names kind of evolve and they change a little bit. And, you know, the way your great-great-grandfather spelled it, they want to do it. So, here we have Peter Alexander Young, MD, who is a well-traveled individual. He was born about 1846 in Australia, but by 1861, he was living with his widow mother and four siblings in First Scotland. He remained in Scotland for some time, earning his medical degree in marrying. The 1881 census shows him in Portobello, Scotland, with his wife Marion, son Patrick, brother John, and three servants. And then in 1901, he was living with Marion and their six children in Edinburgh. So, you know, and once again, they have three servants in the home. So, it was just really fun to track how some of these people migrated and, you know, looking at their occupations trying and figure out why they made the changes that they did. And Peter is only three generations from Colin being his nephew. Now, the fifth person we had was Margaret Constance, 20-man Jones, Karen's. And what a mouthful that name is. I can just imagine as a child, you know, learning to write that out. She was born in 1912 in Cape Town, South Africa, and died there. So, that was her lifelong place to be. She lived in the same house for 93 years. That's incredible. I mean, how many people can say that? I have a photograph of the house. I should actually post the photograph with a profile of 123. That would be cool. Yeah, that would be great. It was fun to see the researchers comment on this one. The comment was, downtown Abbey is real. So, for those of you that don't know what that is, that was a TV show. But the family of Alfred Charles, 20-man, and his brother Lawrence, Burl 20-man, had five to six domestic servants in their households in every census year, including a butler, a cook, a lady's maids, housemaids, kitchen maids, and in an old age, a nurse maid. So, apparently, the export trade with South Africa was very lucrative. That was what they both did for an occupation. And then Alfred and Margaret were first cousins, three times removed. Now, I'd like to bring up the issue of naming, Keith. So, I noticed, you know, a lot of these people have two names. Would those both be two proper first names and no middle names, or are middle names used in South African genealogy? In South Africa, in the Dutch tradition, people have a set of given names, which is their first name, and then their surname. It's a little different, though, with the Margaret, especially the 20-man Jones, where there was a British tradition, especially pervasive during the Victorian era, of families adopting the wife's surname as a double-barreled addition, what is called double-barreled addition to the last name. So, Margaret's father was Jones, and her mother was 20-man. And the family then started using, every one of the children was given 20-man as the last given name. And so, they were, for example, Margaret 20-man Jones. And some of them actually used that in subsequent generations as the family name. And a little bit of research, and I found out that in Britain, parents are able to name their children whatever they wish, including the surname. And so, I don't find that any of the children were baptized as 20-man Jones, but certainly some of them used that as a family name and still use it. And Margaret had cousins who migrated to New Zealand, and that name is existing in New Zealand today as well. So, especially with common names like Smith and Jones, it was fairly common for British people to use the mother's surname to help distinguish their family from everyone else named Jones or Smith. Right, and that makes sense, makes it a little bit harder when you're researching sometimes following the name changes, but definitely makes sense. And then here we have Margaret Josephine Shaw 20-man Jones, who was born in the city of Cork in Ireland. Now, at age 16, she traveled alone from London, England, on the ship Johannesburg to Cape Town, South Africa. Earlier in the century, at least four of her father's siblings had emigrated to Cape Colony, so that may be why she was traveling there to join her relatives. However, only her aunt Frances Catherine Shaw Burroughs was still alive in 1897, and she would die nine months after Margaret arrived. So, you know, even if she had gone there intending to live with these aunts and uncles, unfortunately, that family did not last long at that location. Now, Margaret's mother died in 1900, her father died in 1903, and four of her siblings emigrated to Montreal, Canada after their parents' death. And so, Margaret was pretty much the only one in South Africa. I mean, I think that's pretty courageous. She made that trip at such a young age, and, you know, but and then considered that her homeland. I mean, that's where she stayed. And she was the mother of our starting person, Margaret Constance, 20-man Jones, Cairns. Always interesting to see, though, how people wound up in South Africa from the different locations. And, you know, you don't always have an indication like that with family there on why they made that, that move. Now, sixth, we had Flora Salbertus, Ben Yarnsfeld, born in 1922 in Transvaugh. And in his branches, we have William Cornelis, Jans van Rensburg. Now, he was elected the second president of the South African Republic in 1862. The supporters of Martinez-Wessel Pretorius, the first president and eight degrees from Flora's, did not support the results of the election of what amounted and what amounted to the Transvaugh Civil War broke out. When the fighting came to a halt in 1864, another presidential election was held, and Pretorius was re-elected. So, I mean, that's who it seems the people wanted in there. He was sworn in on the 9th of May 1864. Yarn subsequently returned to his farm near Rustenburg, where he died and was buried shortly after. The South African capital Pretoria was named after Pretorius. So, it sounds like that was a pretty big time of civil unrest. Now, Willem and Flora's are fourth cousins, four times removed, with Maria Kicker's father as a common ancestor. Here we have Frederick François DeWitt. Frederick had nine siblings, three wives, and 11 known children. So, there are a lot of vital records that mention him, and the reason I've added him is so you can tell us a little bit more about these death notices. What do they contain and why are they so important to genealogy? Yes, the death notice, South African genealogy is a little different. I'm sure each country is a little different, but the most important record, perhaps, that you will find in South African genealogy is what is called the death notice. It's not the death certificate. The death notice is the first step in the probate, the civil administration of the estate. And as such, it will name, it will give the deceased name, very often the names of any spouses. It will give his or her parents' names and the names of the children. And so it's one of those rare documents in genealogy where you connect across three generations, and it's very, very useful in establishing family connections and family traits. Yeah, those just seem just invaluable in your research. Yeah. Now, Frederick is 11 generations from Flores, being his fourth cousin, once removed. And, you know, once again, on WikiTree, this is just a click of the button to see how people are connected. So I'm really interesting to look at those pathways and see how people connect to each other. And then lastly, we had Marjorie Diane M.D. Murray Nash, who was born in 1928 in Cape Colony. And in her branches, we had Andrew Murray, who is a very notable figure in South African cultural history. He was a Scott who became the minister of the Dutch Reform Church in the 1820s. He said to be the driving force that began the transformation of the DRC in the Cape from a dry formal state into a dynamically evangelical church that reached out to all who spoke Afrikaans' Cape Colors as well as whites. And he is the great, great grandfather of M.D. Nash. Yeah, she is his direct descendant. And that was a surprise to me to find that M.D. Nash, who was such a great researcher for the 1820 settlers, who are, of course, a pure British descent, to be descended from such an Andrew Murray, who was Scottish, but who became this great cultural figure in Afrikanian history in South Africa. Then we have Adolphus Julian Claremont, who was one of the well-traveled relatives. Now, his occupation was listed as a merchant. He was born in Barbados, married in South Africa, had children in South Africa and England, and later moved to Halifax in Nova Scotia, where he died. And so, you know, here we see, and we saw this several times throughout, you know, with people researching is that they wound up with some definite amount of time in South Africa, but, you know, maybe traveled all over due to their occupation. And Adolphus is seven degrees from Marjorie Diane Nash. And then whether we support wars or not, you know, our veterans gave their all to protect their countries. And so, we always try and acknowledge at least a few of them. And Keith, I do have to ask, though, is military voluntary in South Africa, or is it mandatory? I do not know the current state. When I was young, during the apartheid regime, there was conscription, and it was not voluntary, and it was two years. And much of that involved, given the civil wars, given the border wars that were going on at that time, much of it involved active duty. So when I was younger, the military service was a big deal. During the First World War, there were many volunteers for the British Army. And during the Second World War, the South Africans adopted a condition that their soldiers would serve only in Africa. So they saw service in places like Tanganyika, Southwest Africa, and Northern Africa, you know, Libya and the desert and so on. So, yes, there is a military tradition, and as I said, I believe that the army in South Africa today is a volunteer army, that there is not conscription, as they used to be. That makes sense. So we have Francis Herbert Lawrence Wickstein, who is a lieutenant in a Gringes flying column. Alexander Henry Eustis, Major General and Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Cecil Alexander Gordon Fitch, a second lieutenant, son of Sir Cecil and Lady Fitch. Now, he died of his wounds in France in 1918. We have Cecil James Byron Wood, who was an able seaman, and he died in sea in 1941. Gerald Lionel Southern Holland in South Africa. The second served during the Second Boer War was Truman Scouts. Lionel Herbert was Strange Holland, World War I with the Rhodesia Native Regiment. And then, Maurice Bonaventure Shaw, now he was in the Anglo-Boer War. He enlisted in 1899 and was discharged at his army quest in October 1902. And since he had not completed his full years of service, and it was supposed to be seven years in army service and five years in the army reserve, he had to pay 18 pounds to break his service. So, 18 pounds from 1902 would be the equivalent of 1990, 1995 pounds modern day. So, you know, that's a long time to serve, though, 12 years. And I guess he decided that was just not something he could fulfill. And then on WikiTree, we're all cousins by blood or marriage. So, there are currently 29,825,314 cousins on WikiTree alive or not. And, you know, more and more being connected every day. And, you know, here's where we talked earlier a little bit about just the different locations that everybody came from or traveled to. And so, by the end of the week, you know, we researched in Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Canada, England, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, Scotland, South Africa, the United States, and Wales. And I'm sure there are others, you know, but these are the locations we tracked throughout the week. And you said there were a lot that came from Germany, though, were there other countries that it was, you know, there were really big migrations from? Keith or? Well, obviously, the Dutch were the first settlers to come to South Africa. It was established as an outpost for the Dutch spice trade with the East, India, those kinds of places. So, but among the immigrants to South Africa before 1800, most of them, about 60% of them were actually German and not Dutch. And then they were Dutch, and then a lot of French, and then a number of countries from all over Europe, and including Jewish people from various countries. You can all write just refugees and so on. And then after 1810, 1820, many, many immigrants from the United Kingdom. And do you have questions about the presentation or Wiki Tree? If so, find us on Facebook, Twitter, or wikitree.com. Don't forget to like the video and subscribe to our channel. And while the image credits play, I'd like to take a minute to thank all of the incredible Wiki Treeers that helped us with this research in this challenge week. You know, once again, we have more than 69 people working on this challenge. And they found an amazing amount of discoveries. I mean, I, you know, had to pick a few out to show here. But there are just so many people that were added, thousands of people. And, you know, if you have the time, go out and look through these branches and see all of the interesting people that were done. They were a really super fun group to work with. And I'd like to especially thank Donna Bowman, who was the captain for the week. She did a really great job leading this successful week. And so Keith, tell us, did this week meet your expectations? I guess I was very, very presently surprised and exhilarated as to what happened. It exceeded my expectations, certainly. If I might just add a comment here, Mendy, that South African genealogy really concerns the genealogy of the people that have European ancestry, basically, because it's sort of an archipage. It's a hobby that community indulges in. But let's not forget about the fact that South Africa has a huge now indigenous population. And also the slave trade. So there are many, many South Africans who are descended from the slaves, who are predominantly from South Asia, India, Malaya, those kinds of places. And also even during the 1900s, many Indian laborers came to South Africa to work in the sugarcane fields as farm laborers. The genealogy is not well documented and not well researched. But the fact that it is so European-centric is, I guess, the way it has evolved to be. And we should be careful, though, to acknowledge the other population groups in South Africa. Right. And, you know, hopefully, I mean, hopefully that's part of what this challenge did and putting out those highlights real will do, is really, you know, expand the knowledge and bring more awareness about your genealogical society, but also about these South African profiles and these people that lived there and, you know, what their traditions were, what their lives were. And, you know, they'll learn more about doing the research so that they can go out and find their own, you know, South African ancestors. And I mean, there's people all over the globe that have ancestors that were in South Africa for some amount of time. And so, you know, we're really hoping that they'll be brave and follow this lead and, you know, go out and do that research. Now, Nigela had also brought up something, a question about the DNA. And we all say we did not do DNA comparisons with this. Sometimes when we do a challenge week, we have descendants that have provided their DNA results. And we have a couple of genetic genealogists and, you know, we'll take those and we'll look at them and do confirmations and follow statements. But, you know, the question is, do we follow, if that does happen, do we follow the DNA trail or the paper trail? And, you know, really, it's kind of a complex answer because there are times when the DNA matches and supports the paper trail. And so, of course, those are the easier ones, you know, when you can say, oh, this was the father of and the DNA also proves that. But we have found definitely more than once where the DNA steered us in another direction and said, you know, and when you're looking at a list of people that are definite DNA cousin matches and none of them are related to who you think your great-grandfather is, you know, that can lead to a shocking discovery in some branches. And, you know, we definitely have had that happen a few times. We don't publicize those and our highlights real for obvious reasons. You know, those were kind of talked to privately with the descendant. But, you know, the DNA doesn't lie. And so, if you have the chance to look extensively at these cousin matches, sometimes, you know, those skeletons do come out of the closet. I mean, eventually everybody's family skeletons come out of the closet. I know I've had lots fall out of my closet over the years and, you know, found out some interesting things. But definitely, you know, you, the main part of the DNA stuff on the wiki tree, because we don't have people's actual DNA results uploaded. We don't have a way to say, you know, does my DNA show that I'm a cousin of the key? We just list kits so that you can go out to those other sites like Ancestry or Jedmatch or, you know, MyHeritage and really do an analysis on how much of the chromosomes match and things like that. You know, but we do try and make sure that that paper trail is as solid as it can be. And then you look at the DNA compared to that and see what it tells you. So always interesting, though, when we do get to do those DNA matches. So do we have any other questions or comments about the challenge week? I think one of the biggest problems of what I've found is that many people don't know who their grandparents are or were. And this is quite a problem going back further than that. Right, you know, and sometimes that's where the DNA does help, because sometimes you don't have a paper trail at all. And, you know, it takes a little bit longer to do it that way. But, you know, that's where it's really important for more people to go out and get their DNA tested, you know, so that cousins or possible cousins can make those comparisons. Because the more people that are out there testing, the more likely we are to start breaking down these brick walls and extending these family lines. I think that depends on who... I think we will wrap this up. Okay. Go ahead. No, go ahead. It depends who holds the record of the DNA, because there are different companies doing it. And it's only when they've got a big database that you can pick up that match. Right. Yeah. And, you know, the larger the pull is, of course, the more possible cousins you're going to find. And, you know, and then the other part, of course, is education. So, there's a lot of people that get their DNA tested and they're like, well, what good is this going to do? Because I don't know what to do with my DNA, you know? So, it tells me I'm 20% German. I mean, that doesn't really help me, you know, but there's enough people out there that are learning how to do those confirmations and those comparisons. And, you know, if you just get your DNA to where those kits are posted on places like WikiTree, then other people can come in that do have the knowledge and the experience and they can hopefully use that information to break down those brick walls. But, you know, still, I mean, when you're doing your genealogy, it still comes down to you want to develop that paper trail as strongly as possible. And, you know, don't stop and go, oh, I have a death notice for this person. That's all I need. It tells me the parents. It tells me the spouse. It tells me the kids. You know, that's not enough. You still want to look for every record there is out there for a person. And I mean, that applies to any country, you know, so that you have a really good full overall picture. And, you know, I think during the challenge, it was really nice to see overall our researchers were compiling really comprehensive profiles. They were nice. They were nicely formatted. They were putting, you know, a lot of sources on them. And that's what we want to see on WikiTree. So there's a question. It's not whether it's correct or not. But, you know, but if someone is adopted, then there's a break in the biological record or whatever. You know, it's up to the family to accept that. And, you know, people are adopted and accepted into families. And so the genetic tree does not have to match the paper tree, as Mindy calls it. It's just the way it is. Right. Well, I think we will go ahead and wrap this up. I want to thank you, Keith, for helping so much during this week. You made yourself so available. You know, Mindy, I'd like to also thank you and to thank WikiTree. I learned a lot about doing searches and also how to format and apply sources and so on. So just watching other people create these profiles was a big help to me. And just one final point for WikiTree, for the genealogists out there, I would really suggest that you might consider using WikiTree to document your own genealogy research and put it out there. And what's wonderful about WikiTree is now you've built it into the greater South African tree, perhaps. But you're also leaving the attachment points for subsequent people to come in and say, oh, here's where I connect and I can work on my little branch of the tree. And so it's a very nice way to put your work out there and help other people in their collaboration on the larger trees. It's a very nice tool and I do recommend it. Great. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Keith. And I do agree. I mean, get your genealogy out there and get it on WikiTree. And I have so many people that come to me and say they're so pleasantly surprised at the amount of collaboration and how many people are helpful there on WikiTree. And, you know, so I love to see new people coming in. And we'll go ahead and wrap this up. It was a very successful week. And, you know, I really enjoyed it. And I hope that you guys join me for the next challenge.