Our community has three levels of membership. You choose your level. Everything on WikiTree is 100% free for everyone forever — there are no "premium memberships" here.
- 1. Guests are just checking things out.
- 2. Family Members want to communicate with cousins or exchange genealogy information but aren't sure they want to help grow our tree.
- 3. Wiki Genealogists collaborate on our increasingly-accurate single family tree.
1.) Guests
For anyone with an interest in family history. Register now to explore WikiTree!
There's no commitment. You can easily delete a Guest account.
Guest benefits and limitations
Guests can:
- Participate in G2G, the famous Genealogist-to-Genealogist Forum.
- Comment on any profile.
- Receive private messages without revealing their email address.
- Automatically search for ancestors using a GEDCOM.
- Edit their own profile (but not create or edit profiles for other people).
Guests see the advertisements that enable WikiTree to be free for everyone. (Wiki Genealogists do not see most ads.)
How to upgrade
If you want to communicate with cousins or others about genealogy (whether or not you want to collaborate on our single family tree) you can upgrade to the Family Member level at any time by adding your genealogy communication preferences.
2.) Family Members
Family Member accounts are for anyone who wants to use WikiTree to privately or publicly communicate with close family members or distant cousins about genealogy.
You get a Family Member account if:
- you register as a Guest and upgrade,
or - a Wiki Genealogist adds you as a family member.
Family Member benefits and limitations
With a Family Member account you can enjoy the fruits of our tree without helping to grow it. Many people are interested in their family history but don't want to do genealogy research. Many genealogists are not sure they're interested or able to contribute much to our collaborative tree.
- Family Members are invited to create and improve profiles for living and recently-deceased family members. (All profiles, regardless of who creates them, are part of our collaborative single family tree and subject to our community's policies, including those summarized in the Honor Code.) We hope Family Members will:
- help us fill in the blanks of modern family history ...
- add personal memories ...
- upload family photos ...
- Genealogists with Family Member accounts are welcome to use their communication preferences as "cousin bait" and then exchange information with their cousins on another website or offline.
- Family Members who have taken a DNA test can select which one and we will automatically connect it to profiles where it may be used by genetic genealogists to confirm relationships on our tree.
Family Members can also:
- Edit any profile if they are on its Trusted List. (Wiki Genealogists can edit any Open profile.)
- Add comments to any profile.
- Participate in G2G, the genealogist-to-genealogist forum.
- Receive private messages without revealing their email address.
- Automatically search for ancestors using a GEDCOM. (Wiki Genealogists can also create and edit profiles using a GEDCOM.)
Family Members can participate in most of the other ways described below for Wiki Genealogists, but as they edit they see more frequent encouragements to sign the Honor Code. After 300 edits they cannot continue without signing. (We have a high limit because photo uploads are a common activity for our non-genealogist family members and we don't want to slow them down!)
Family Members cannot fully participate in most projects and cannot edit categories or project pages.
Family Members see the advertisements that enable WikiTree to be free for everyone. (Wiki Genealogists do not see most ads.)
How to upgrade
Sign our community's Honor Code if you agree with its nine points and want to help us grow an accurate single family tree that connects us all and is freely available to us all. Signing upgrades you to the Wiki Genealogist level.
3.) Wiki Genealogists
A Wiki Genealogist account is the third level:
- First, register as a Guest.
- Second, upgrade to the Family Member level if you want to communicate with cousins or others about genealogy.
- Third, sign our Honor Code if you want to help grow and improve the accuracy of our single family tree.
Family members of Wiki Genealogists can skip the first two steps.
Benefits of membership
Members who sign our community's Honor Code enjoy many benefits that cost money on other websites.
- Create and edit an unlimited number of profiles.
- Add an unlimited number of photos and source images.
- See virtually no advertisements — WikiTree is funded through ads shown to visitors and members who don't sign the Honor Code.
- Receive private messages without revealing your email address.
- Upload GEDCOMs for automatic "GEDCOMpare" searching and to create and edit profiles.
- Restrict access to profiles of modern people using Trusted Lists and seven levels of privacy.
- Invite an unlimited number of Family Members to privately share modern family history.
- Track up to 5,000 profiles on a Watchlist and manage privacy controls with bulk management tools.
- Monitor the contributions of others through activity feeds.
- Track all personal contributions and view detailed edit histories.
- Follow activity in up to 20 surnames or other tags.
- Attach DNA test information to ancestor profiles and enjoy other DNA features and benefits.
- View upcoming birthdays and wedding anniversaries for everyone in your family.
- Award and receive badges.
- Send family photos as ad-free e-cards.
- Limit surname index pages to display only family members.
- Coordinate family reunions, surname projects, and just about anything else on an unlimited number of public or private web pages.
- Display ancestors and descendants in over a dozen of different family views.
- Use the Family List to see up to 30 generations on one page.
- Find a common ancestor with anyone else within 30 generations and name your relationship.
- Participate in regional and topical group projects.
- Have a user profile in the G2G (genealogist-to-genealogist) community forum.
- Export GEDCOMs for safe-keeping or to upload a family tree elsewhere.
Please join us!
All membership is subject to the legal Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Acceptable Use Policy.