 everybody. Did you have a nice break after the connect-a-thon? Get a little bit of sleep. I'm hoping, I'm hoping. And today, we just have one guest here. We have Daniel Loftus. We're going to be starting his week this week. And then after him, we have Karen Lo. She's going to be his captain for the week, so it should be a fun one. And for those of you that don't know what Wikitree is before we get into Daniel's stuff, it's a community of genealogists who are working together on a single family tree. In other words, we collaborate to grow an accurate global tree. And most remarkably, it's free. The Wikitree Challenge is a year-long event where we take a new guest each week and we work on their tree and we try and collaborate to make it accurate and as full as possible and make friends. So, since you've had your few days off after the connect-a-thon, we're going to go ahead and talk just a little bit about how this works. Now, oops, and I did not screen share, people. Boy, you give a woman one week off and all that. I know. Actually, I think I'm still trying to sleep and catch up after the connect-a-thon. But it was fun. It was so much fun. Okay, so now we're going. Here we have the challenge itself, of course. And then it is a collaborative site and collaboration is key during the Wikitree Challenge, especially. And that is what Wikitree is all about. So, one of the ways we collaborate is we use the spreadsheet like you see on the left. That's where we take and we put the profile that we're working on. Hopefully, we're putting the profile we're working on on that sheet because when you get anywhere from 25 to 45 people working on the same set of branches, it's really easy to trip over somebody or make somebody lose data. So, we don't want to do that. And then the second way, if you look on the right there, is our G2G, which of course is our genealogist to genealogist forum. And that's where we go ahead and we post Daniel's information out for his week, his great grandparents. People can go out there and say, hey, I broke a brick wall on this person or I'm done working on this line if somebody else wants to. But it's mostly for discoveries. And that'll be something Daniel will get a link to when we get all the way down with it. And then the third way is our most important one. And that of course is Discord. And we use that. That's our live chat that we used during the week. We have people from all over the world. So, there's almost always somebody chatting in there. We can go in. We can have somebody look at a document for us. We can get translations. There are people that just are really good at looking up newspaper articles and obituaries. They do just that. And, you know, we also just cheer each other on. So, keep that motivation going. And while it's not all about the points, we do have a point system and it can be a bit motivating. And it's also a great way to see, you know, how good we're doing and how far we've come. So, we do two types of points. We do the brick wall points, bounty points, which are worth 10 points each. Now, that's the first new ancestor on each line. And then we do individual points for the nuclear families. So, siblings or children. And let me tell you, those add up quick. We've seen that on a number of trees. So, those are the two ways that can earn points. At the end of the week, we look at the total scores. We pick our MVP, which is our most valuable player. Now, we're going to go ahead and get into the good stuff here. And let's talk to Daniel. Yes, we're excited to have Daniel here as, you know, when I listened to a lot of genealogy podcasts and such, that we say, how do we get the young people interested in genealogy? If only we could pass on our favorite hobby to the next generation. So, Daniel is just doing great work in teaching longtime genealogists how we can best interact with and get to know our younger friends and share our enthusiasm without, you know, making them feel like they don't know, you know, enough or you have to have 20 years in the game to be a worthwhile genealogist. So, I saw Mindy had a great slide of info about Daniel. So, let's see what else we can tell you about him. Do we want to go ahead and add that in? Let's do it this way. All right. So, Daniel's website is conveniently named Daniel's Genealogy. So, do check it out. He's got a blog active there as well. And twig chat is this week in genealogy. That's where he's discussing what's new in our favorite hobby. There's also a site called the Hidden Branch, which we'll want to check out this week. Now, I want to hear a little bit more about Kilidan and how to pronounce it properly and tell us about that place. And maybe when, and I'd love to just ask you, so how'd you get started? It hasn't been, how many years have you been at it now and what got you interested? Well, you weren't, well, firstly, you weren't far off with the pronunciation. It's not the worst effort, trust me. It's Kilidan, that's how you pronounce it. And so I started four years ago after the death of a grand-uncle. And it was a very long car journey home from the funeral. And I was just interrogating my mother about my family and just sort of finding more out. And it was kind of boosted because I only had one grandparent growing up because either they passed on or they passed when I was young. So the one that I did have would actually pass later that year. So I didn't really have much, many grandparents growing up. And I guess it was more a sense of wanting to know more about where I come from. Because, you know, I mean, like a cousin of mine or an uncle of mine had done a bit of research prior to me starting. So it was kind of that kind of, and he would always tell me stories about his grandparents in the sense that, you know, he would tell me little stories about when they were growing up, when he would tell me stories about when they were growing up and just, you know, just those like really interesting stories that are obviously going to be close to each family. So kind of I was hearing mine. And no, it was really interesting. And that's how I kind of jumped into it. And me liking history as a subject in general, when it boosted it a little more. But it wasn't the main contributor. So you had a long car ride back from the funeral. Does that mean you live far from Mayo or that the funeral was? Oh, no. The funeral wasn't in Mayo. It was in Dublin. And where I lived, I won't say where. It was kind of, it was far enough away to have a good compensation. Yeah. Well, we always like to ask folks if they have a favorite ancestor among the ones they found. Oh, favorite ancestor? Oh, well, I saw your question, so I will answer that. I mean, on my mother's side, my two-time grandfather, I've tweeted about him. He was a hurler and draper in Dungarvern and County Waterford. He owned a field and, you know, helped John Start get export in that area. And, you know, he's very well respected in where he was until I found that he had a criminal history, shall we say. Yeah. So I found that he had come back from a GA conference in Dublin. And literally, as he just came back, he had been arrested for supposedly, I can't remember the exact term, I haven't saved, but it was kind of, it was something along the lines of, you know, disrupting the peace or something or protesting or something. And so he was in prison in Waterford for maybe a month, I think. Maybe, actually, no, maybe two weeks. And then, second time, he, and keep in mind, the second time he was in jail, he was probably 75ish. Hard 10th of life to be locked up and away from your favorite things. Yeah. And now Waterford, for those of you who don't know, was kind of down the bottom of the country. And he was imprisoned in Ballykin, my prison, which is in County Down, which is up north. Right. So he was imprisoned at the other end of the country, or well at the top. For two years, from quote unquote, an ordeal from which he never recovered. And I'm still trying to work out to this day what that ordeal is. I can't find anything in newspapers. So I would like to know what happened there. I see Maddie asking, what was his name? Oh, what was his name? His name is Daniel Frager. If you looked up Daniel Frager on Garvin, you'd find him. It doesn't take long. Yeah. Good to know. And to answer Benjamin's question, have I traced any back to British nobility? No, I don't mean to give you any spoilers, but just so that you don't get your hopes up, they're all Irish. I can't find anything back to British nobility. So you're dealing with an awful lot of aglads. Now, you talked about people's work. And I know a hurler is someone who enjoys the sport of hurling and sport, not terribly far from La Crosse as we have started here in America. But we don't, I don't use the term draper very much here. So I wondered if that person was like someone who sells cloth or a dressmaker, haberdasher. I think it was cloth. Yeah. I can't remember exactly what it was. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe a draper could have like a fabric store, basically, what we would have today. Yeah, I think that was what he had. Well, we're pleased to invite you to participate, of course, here on Wikitree and wonder when you first discovered it. How did you find out about us? Okay, I'd say I'd say when I got started on Twitter, it was fairly soon after. I think when the kind of shock of a young genealogist seeing on social media had kind of calmed down kind of I was I was getting a bit of traction fast, which I wasn't expecting. And I think I came across Wikitree and then I wanted to, you know, see what it was. And I think I'd actually found, I can't remember if I found a cousin or an established a link, but I think from the little bit that I had done on Wikitree, I'm still learning the basics, I haven't fully gotten round to it. But I think there was a cousin or something that was related to me somehow, which I still can't figure out how. And they were, and I remember they were very close, but I found the cousin contact with them, I haven't heard anything back since. So I'm hoping I will. But no, I'd say that was how I found out. I think it was through Twitter or some social media I was on. They were on Instagram or Twitter, because I didn't have Facebook as well. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Chris were to come and chime in and see he had to do that. Yeah. And we talked a little before we started the show about brick walls that you're focusing on right now, or areas that you've made, what areas you've made conclusions that you think need a second look. Oh, goodness. The whole tree. Yeah. No, no, no, that's the extreme answer. No. There's, it's just trying to find a bit more about, because I got this from a family Bible, and I know some of you might think, Oh, is that really reliable? But for my, for that part, the family was quite reliable. So I like had names of three times great grandfather, three times great grandparents. So I ended up sort of looking for baptisms as a kid. And then I came across, you know, four or five kids in baptisms and seeing that, obviously my great, great grandmother was one of them, but there were two of them. Well, like, I must have missed something the first time, but then I saw that there were two. And it's like, okay, what happened here? Two of the same name? Yeah, two of the same name. So my great, I don't have any photos of the Bible and Fritz. Irritatingly enough, I haven't inherited that yet. But so my great, great grandmother was Anne Brennan. And yeah, you'll be dealing with a lot of plain names and very common names. So I'm apologizing in advance. But with Anne, she's probably born in 1865 and got married in 1861. So I thought, okay, 16 or something. That's not the worst. Yeah, yeah, it does happen sometimes. But then when I saw that that one had supposedly, by the looks of it died, because it was the only Anne Brennan I could find within that time period between 1865 and 1870 when the second one was born. And I had, and so she's supposed to died the following year of what I don't know, it's not available online yet at the time of recording. So I went looking at the 1871 and I punched into my tree and then I was looking at the facts and I thought, this can't be right. She kind of got married at 11 and then had a child the following year at 12 years old. I really hope that's wrong or someone's really, really forged the dates. I'm at that point. But that's one of them. And there's, I don't remember who it is now. There's this one branch of my tree where I have approximate birthdays, but no dead dates. There are a lot of question marks if you went looking at my tree and find an awful lot of question marks. So yeah, any, any, any brick walls that you can smash sure be awfully critical. I'm fine. Yeah. So, um, oh, are you checking out the comments? We'll be sure to get. Sorry, I was just looking at Chris's current farmer. Yeah. But would you say that I just realized when, when Joan or Maddie or someone typed it that that you were talking about agricultural laborers, which typically, you know, would you even say farmer because they're more likely to be toiling on someone else's farm? Well, I think they're really hard laborers. I'm literally trying to go off my memory now, but in some cases it's not fantastic. Um, but I think kind of most times it was just farmer. I don't actually know where I was getting my blood from. I think it was, oh yeah, researching from yeah, maybe the little family farms. I think I think I'm getting mixed up with other people's trees. We'll get you sorted. Yeah, we'll straighten it all out. Yeah. Now, you know, you say you're, you're fairly new to genealogy. Obviously, you're fairly new to, you know, life compared to some of, some of us on the call. And, and people have been saying that you're a rising star in the genealogy world. So what do you think were your, whoa, with this, you know, these accolades, what do you feel were your biggest hurdles when you first got started and, and how did you overcome them? Oh, well, I mean, with the rising star, I'm not sure where you're hearing that from. And he's modest. Right. I'd rather be modest and, you know, be kind of full of myself when I think. Yeah. No, I mean, I don't, I don't think myself as, you know, a rising star, but I mean, the presentation that I did the genealogy show just a month ago, hard to believe, life had gone down really well. And, like, for any of you that don't follow me on Twitter, down to genealogy, if you wanna follow me, no, had an awful lot of discussion afterwards. And I'd say it was the most my phone had ever gone off in 24 hours. I, I, it was going off non-stop. But it was good. It was, there was a really big discussion had. And, like, there was, you know, it, honestly, I wasn't expecting that. And a lot of people so like really enjoyed the presentation, which again, I really wasn't expecting either. But I mean, with the hurdles, I guess kind of, because my first present, my first interview actually was done over Instagram. And, you know, essentially, I was being told I didn't know what I was talking about. That was one of the comments that was. That's generous. Oh, yeah, I know. What made it a little more sneaky was Khan was an Irish. Oh, so here, let's sneak one in on our schoolboy here, who hasn't even had a proper education in his language. Yeah. But apparently, you noticed it. Yeah, no, I knew it was Irish. It was passing. And I didn't, I didn't have time to kind of read it until kind of the following day. And then I kind of realized, oh, this wasn't actually so complimentary. That wasn't very nice. No, it wasn't. And I mean, that kind of, that really felt like a kick in the teeth. Because, you know, at that time, I think it was 29, no, 20, maybe 20, 20-ish that I've been doing by doing that thing. And it really kind of felt like I didn't really know what I was talking about. And I mean, I'd say it was kind of the community. As silly as it sounds, I mean, the community was kind of what kept me going. I had a really big, had a really big number of connections on Twitter. Instagram, I had a few, not so much, because I'm not great on Instagram. Sorry. Twitter is kind of my forte. But either way, I still had a lot of people that, you know, really, really like my work and, you know, just really wanted to kind of keep up with what I was doing. So I mean, I guess I was kind of just trying to, you know, just keep at it. Because there are a lot of times when I kind of didn't really feel like this was going anywhere. And it was only kind of, you know, when I got an email back in March kind of saying, you can accept it to speak at the genealogy show when I was just freaking out. And then, you know, being asked to present for my heritage, I think I thought, okay, maybe there aren't, you know, maybe people aren't ready to, you know, kick me out the door just yet. Well, it's so common for us to be so hard on ourselves, you know, right? But I'm glad that the community lifted you up. You know, I just, I don't see how we can say there aren't enough young people in the hobby and then turn around and say, oh, you don't have enough experience in the hobby, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So community is one of our favorite parts about being on WikiTree, of course, because we can make these friendships across the world and benefit from each other's generosity and expertise. I'm always so surprised at how much time people are willing to give. And so I wonder what, what do you hope to see, by having us spend this week with your tree, what do you hope to have come out of participating in the challenge? At least one new detail. Just give me one. No. I mean, just kind of anything really, like, it's all well and good, you know, going up. But I mean, and one of the kind of comments as well was kind of, you know, whereas my Gili-Anja been difficult, I mean, where it's been difficult is having family, you know, distant cousins, even communicate with. I'd say the closest I've gotten is like a six or a seventh cousin. It's very distant. And, you know, it's just, it's so annoying when you kind of see other people kind of getting results with other cousins. And I know some people kind of say, oh, do DNA, see what you get with that? I can't do that just yet. I'm not going to go into why, but I just can't. I've chosen not to. So I am kind of without that tool. But I'm, there are so many sisters, Dan Fraher or Daniel Fraher, who I mentioned earlier, I can't find any siblings for. So there are people that have come to me saying, oh, I have a connection, but I'm still trying to, you know, trying to see if that connection is there. And I mean, just kind of flesh out and even come across a cousin would be quite nice. I'm not expecting that. I know I'm probably demanding tall orders. I don't intend to. Well, hopefully we find out, you know, plenty of interesting stuff. And it's not all about the brick walls. You know, sometimes it's those little stories that make the difference and bring the ancestors back to life. So they sure do. And I know, you know, I'm sure people have said before with DNA that that if there are areas, you know, questions that you don't want to ask, because you don't want to know the, you know, the answer or you need to protect people's privacy, you know, at your stage of life, you may be lucky enough to still have some of those great aunts and uncles around. And sometimes it, you know, how many of us wish we had elders to test, you know, so there's something to be said for just avoiding the areas you don't want to research now and and going and finding those second cousins and uncles and aunts in that area is that you're more open to learning about. Yeah. Well, what, what questions are coming up in the chat? Or Mindy, what have I forgotten to ask Daniel today? I don't think anything. I think we've been pretty much covering them as we go throughout it. So people mostly being supportive, which is what, you know, you'll find a lot in the wiki tree community. We just, we are friendly, we are supportive and we are positive, you know, and we all hit those bad spots or those difficult parts in our trees where you just can't get past them. So I mean, we know, you know, we can't find everything when we research either. But yeah, the group always impresses me with what they do find each week. Yeah. Yes. And you know, as we captains usually like to ask if you have pictures over on the blog or on ancestry, do you want them moved over to wiki tree? Would you like us to populate some of our profiles here with photos you have put on or which rather than that? I prefer not if that's okay. That's fine. Of course. I do have photos with the cases. I've learned the hard way that the sticking photos tended to either result in people say, oh, there was one I came across and some people may be able to relate. They added the photo to the wrong person. Right. They just kind of took info that wasn't even remotely correct and just kind of passed it off as a correct photo. This person actually had a photo of the actual person in their tree and then the one that I had that ended up any bit similar. How many grandparents do I have? I don't have any. I lost my last one four years ago. So I unfortunately don't have any. I had grand-dance and grand-uncles, but it's just a case of trying to get stories out of them. I don't see them very often. They're not active on social media, that sort of thing. Otherwise, I would honestly be calling them. But no, unfortunately, I don't have any grand-dance. Yes, same story over here. Yeah, we're lucky to have known some of them in our younger days. Do we have any other questions or comments from the audience? And honestly, if anyone wants to ask me anything that isn't asked here in DC, then afterwards I have a Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter. So if you want to ask me there and I can try and answer things for you, if they're not answered here, phone them up, I know. I'll try. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I'll try and answer anything as best I can. But yeah, good luck is all I'll say because it's drove me nuts for four years, so hopefully it doesn't drive you all nuts in a week. It could happen. We'll have fun with it. We'll have fun with it. And I think we have people that are already chomping at the bit and want to get going here. So Daniel, if you don't have anything else for us more, I would like to thank everybody that's going to be participating in this week and finding some incredible things for Daniel. I want to thank you for letting us play in your branches and for coming on here. Thank you everybody watching. Now remember everybody to like, like the video and subscribe if you want alerts. And we will see you next Wednesday with the Big Reveal. See you then.