A to Z Blogging Challenge 2025 - Whatever! H is for HELP!!

 Still catching up with the A to Z blogging challenge.  

HELP!

How many times have you hesitated to use that word?  I don't want to be a bother . . .   I don't want to seem dumb . . .   I know y'all will think this is silly . . .

Sometimes we just can't bring ourselves to holler for help.  Our "rugged individualism" gets insulted. 

Well, boo-hoo for our "rugged individualism."  Sometimes ya just gotta bite that old bullet and yell, "HELP!"  

Here is an example.

I am in that situation of needing help on WikiTree.  WikiTree is terrific in its insistence, and I mean insistence, on providing sources for every statement we present as fact.  They insist that you sign their "Honor Code," in which you swear on your mama's grave to provide sources.  That makes this a reliable collaborative tree, and one in which we aren't having to go back constantly correcting errors, usually with no sources, put in by someone else.

But WikiTree is complex.  Hoo-hah, is it complex.  It has its own markup language for entering your sources in an ancestor's biography, for instance.  And there is this neat little way of creating a table of census data.  I want to learn how to do that, but that desire has to get in line behind several others regarding entering information on the tree.

Fortunately, help is at hand.  They have a project in which I have enrolled, called the Profile Improvement Project.  Each ancestor we work with has a Profile.  That is where all the facts are entered, where photos are mounted, where we write the biographies of our ancestors.  Collaboration in family trees can take some getting used to.  We can feel proprietary about our family.  WikiTree recognizes that in its insistence on sources, and in providing a feature called Trusted Lists, where a profile manager can vet others who wish to contribute to profiles we manage.  So there are safeguards against Joe or Jane Blow hopping in and putting up erroneous, unsourced "facts" about our ancestors.

In the Profile Improvement Project, we learn the markup language and the way to create those cunning little census tables, write interesting biographies, and more.  I have some advantage in the biography-writing department, as I am a very good writer, with two published books to my credit.  So I concentrate more on learning the technical aspects of WikiTree.

In the Profile Improvement Project, referred to as a Voyage (and as a former Coast Guard member, I like the nautical theme), each of us has a Guide, a WikiTree volunteer who knows the technology of WikiTree and helps us improve how we maintain the profiles we manage.  We learn, with the Guide's help, how to present a most attractive ancestral profile that will be good "cousin bait."

In this case, I'm glad I hollered for help. 

So, next time you're stuck, forget "dignity."  Ask for help.  Getting help, and doing a better job at something because you asked for help, will restore your dignity.  And, when someone else hollers for help, if you have the knowledge to help them, please do so.