Should we use Wikidata as a source for suggestions?

Question

Can we please reconsider using Wikidata to generate suggestions for possible parents? When I look at the source, for the Wikidata, it is the Peerage, but no source is listed on that site. Many of these suggestions also have no dates of birth and death.

I had to join FindAGrave so that I could correct errors that I found and that appear on my Suggestions feed. I am still working on correcting the April 31, 1888 birthdate for Joseph W. McWherter that is listed on FindAGrave. Wikitree suggests that I add the April 31, 1888 birthdate, but I do not want to.

Comments

Given that April 31 doesn’t exist, I don’t blame you for resisting!

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For the benefit of all readers, including me, would you please provide a little explanation of just what WikiData is?

Answer 1

Thanks Anne - you join a long list of WikiTree-ers who see little benefit in comparing information on WikiTree and Wikidata, particularly after the inclusion of information from thePeerage.com.

You do know that you can mark suggestions as false suggestions?  There is some information about that on this page 

I'll also add the Data Doctors tag to your question to get the attention of other people from that project.

Comments

Although sometimes someone rejects the False Suggestion and makes the suggestion again.,

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I am absolutely ruthless about marking Wikidata suggestions as false, especially since the import into Wikidata of a mass of unsourced or ill-sourced, and sometimes blatantly ridiculous, info from the Peerage.com and elsewhere. I would lose no sleep at all if Wikidata suggestions were totally ditched.

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I have only marked a suggestion as false when I am sure it is false. That means I know there is a mistake or there is evidence to the contrary. Just because there is no source, does not mean the suggestion is wrong. For now, I am ignoring those suggestion, although they now number more than ten.

I have about ten other suggestions that I am ignoring because they pertain to the spelling of a first or middle name. Wikitree does not like the spelling of these names, but my limited sources say that I am right. I do not want to label them false because more research is needed.

This means that the suggestions that I am ignoring are starting to pile up.

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I think that's a good policy, Anne, to make sure you have the sources before you make any changes or confirm or mark as false any suggestion.

I get very disgruntled when I see changes made just for the sake of correcting a suggestion, when there are no sources to confirm any of the previous information or the changes are correct, and I have been known to reverse changes like that.

Answer 2

The suggestions are a comparison between wikitree and another site where information is found.  The suggestions are not expecting you to change wikitree necessarily if you have a source for your information.  In that instance, you can mark it as a False Suggestion, as recommended.

 You can submit a change to Find a Grave to get their information updated.  Frequently I also send the url for the source when I do that and normally the changes are corrected.  When I do that I mark the Suggestion as Corrected with the comment that change was submitted to find a grave. If find a grave declines the change for some reason, such as gravestone has incorrect date or some other reason, then I will mark it as False Suggestion. Their policy is that gravestone date is to be used but biography can have other information.

With wikidata, the information can also be updated, if you understand how to change it. There has been quite a bit of discussion about using both wikidata and find a grave suggestions on wikitree.  I consider it another place to get a 'hint' for information that needs a source.

Comments

The FindAGrave changes often take longer than you would think. I know this from experience.

Answer 3

It is also useful to document the date difference between sources on the profile, so it is documented in case someone will want to correct the correct WikiTree date in the future.

If there is a wrong date on WikiData or FindAGrave, it is certainly duplicated all over the internet (Familly search, Ancestry, MyHeritage trees) and people will come with incorrect date many times in the future. That will kind of protect a profile of changing the correct date.

Comments

But why for place of birth/death there is almost no head stone that give place names. I am left with these on my suggestion list (that I would love to have at null). Marking them false would be wrong as I don't know the answer.

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You get the location suggestion just in case, there is no location on WikiTree for the event and there is on the other site.

So entering a location is better than having it empty, even if it is just a country or state. If it is empty, australians have to check all US profiles without location instead of dismissing them instantly, since the profile is half of the world away.

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Thank you for the reminder about dating our sources.

Answer 4

Just today while creating a profile using data from daddy's Wikipedia-entry I thought (and still think) there was made a typo at daughter's date of death. I think the one who wrote the data of the daughter, accidently typed 1800something instead of 1700something. I marked daughter as dead, but didn't type in the Wikipedia-date, but made a research note with my reasoning why I think there is a typo in the Wikipedia-entry. I hope whoever wants to "correct" the date of death first reads the research note.

Comments

And a couple weeks ago when working on my suggestions, I noticed that the Wikidata entry matching a recently adopted profile was based on the Wikipedia page which in turn had no other source than a Geni profile (unsourced). After looking just at the birth record of the person and marginal annotations, I found that on Wikipedia et al., the forename was wrong, the date of death was inaccurate and the place of death wrong.

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In the English-language Wikipedia, an article sourced only to an unsourced Geni profile could be nominated for deletion for having no evidence of notability.

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Sorry, I didn't make that clear. It's the genealogical data that is sourced from Geni. The man developed the serological test for tuberculosis. There is a bibliography with four references, one of which is his report to the Académie des Sciences. He has WP pages in 8 languages. They are indeed very short.

Answer 5

I joined FindAGrave so I could make suggestions and follow up on them. My grandfather's sister's mother-in-law had an error on FindAGrave and it took me several months to fix it. The person who created the profile had misread the picture of the gravestone on the profile page and typed 1888 instead of 1868 as her year of birth. Considering she married before 1890, her husband was a Toronto ity Alderman and a Canadian Member of Parliament, and her son (my  grandfather's sister's husband) was born in 1891, you would think this would have been an easy fix. Every few weeks or so, I sent a reminder to the person in charge of the profile to change the year of birth. Finally, after a long while, the change was made and I could mark the change in my Suggestions Feed.

Comments

Part of the problem is that suggestions are not sent to find a grave owners in the form of a message, at least it wasn't previously. Many people had complained about that since they only saw the messages when they went onto the site.