June 2020 Example Profiles of the Week

Question

Hello WikiTreers!

This is the proposed list for Example Profiles for the month of June. These are the profiles we'll feature in the Connection Finder each week, and on the home page and newsletter.

We invite you to weigh in with ideas, to step in and make improvements leading up to their feature date, suggest related profile possibilities, and add to our list of options for future features. 

Some things we need to have for a profile to be featured:

• Notability.
• Connected to the Tree.
• A picture or likeness to use for a primary image.

If those things are in place, we can build a biography, though it's a bonus if that's already started or developed as well.

Places we look when planning the EPOW (Example Profile of the Week):

• Important dates in history (births, deaths, events).
• Holidays.
• Media events (history mini-series premieres, dramatizations of novels, biography debuts, movies, new books, etc.).
• Current events (deaths of important figures, memorial observances).

Here is the June Lineup:

June 10: Maurice Sendak (his birthday)

June 17: Raymond Lemiuex (birth on 16th)

June 24: Ambrose Bierce (his birthday)

July 1: Molly Pitcher, American Revolution hero

Comments

I wonder if it might help the team who select the Example Profiles to keep a running count of the number of people from different countries, and of different ethnicities, sexes &c in order to help them bring forward a more balanced selection of interesting profiles.  I appreciate it is unlikely to be possible to achieve an equitable balance in terms of the profiles selected, simply because what we have on WikiTree is not balanced, and because what the world views as notable is not evenly distributed between the sexes; and maybe the team is doing this already, but if not, then perhaps awareness of how the statistics are looking might be useful to them.  Just a thought.. I almost always find that both featured profiles are connected to me on my mother's side (American) rather than my dad's side (English) although I have an extensive family tree on both sides, and the situation must be much more extreme for people who are not from either an English or an American background.  I do really enjoy looking at the featured profiles each week.

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Thanks, Corinne. We're trying to work up some stats. Unfortunately, so many times when I find an interesting person who would be great on a given day because it's their birthday, or they did something great that day in history, the profile has no connection, or we can't get a picture for it, or something else. I know that doesn't matter to a lot of people, but we set certain parameters when we started featuring Example Profiles so that there was consistency. It also creates goals to work towards. We'd love to have more suggestions made, and that's one reason we put the criteria we use out there. I actively build lists of future options. If I had time, I would love to connect a lot of figures that would help those stats to be less American and less Caucasian. I used to work on making those connections a lot, but my role on the Team and in my commitments in real life mean that I need more help from our fabulous community to make those happen instead. Most connections, unfortunately, will be through American lines as that's our biggest user population and thus we have more tree built through those. We have great projects that are constantly improving the representation of the rest of the world on WikiTree, but good research takes time, and we'd rather have the good research than something fast and shoddy just to say we can. I am glad you enjoy the EPOWs. We do, too. :-)

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Thanks for answering Abby.  I do appreciate there are many practical constraints on what the team can do, and am not blaming anyone for the imbalances that exist.  As you say, the biggest reason for it is the user base WikiTree has, because connections can only be found between profiles someone has made already.  There are probably a variety of contributing reasons to why the user base is what it is, most of which are nothing to do with WikiTree itself.  I do think WikiTree's language policy however does contribute to it - the language portals are not meant to provide a complete interface in any language other than English - and we may need eventually to change to something more like how Wikipedia operates if we wish our global family tree and genealogical community to continue to expand and thrive.  But that's another whole can of worms, and no doubt has been discussed elsewhere.

Answer 1

Molly Pitcher (aka Mary Ludwig) was not buried with the name Molly McCauley as it states in her biography. She was buried with the name Mary Ludwig (Molly Pitcher). I found the reference to her burial on findmypast. 

It is in Carlisle's Old Graveyard, in Cumberland, Pennsylvania, US it is on the billiongraves website. There is a photo of it Mary Ludwig (Molly Pitcher).

That link is a lot smaller. When I took the link from findmypast the image was larger.

Comments

If you turn up the zoom on your browser it will enlarge it so that you can read it.

It may not be her tombstone but states it is in the cemetery.

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Thanks, Laura. Feel free to make updates/improvements to her profile. These are the plans, but the profiles in question are often nowhere near ready. They just have "good bones" and I so very appreciate others jumping in to make improvements. I only do so when I have to, which unfortunately, is all too often.

Answer 2

June 17 lines up very closely with a notable (and truly noble) Canadian, whose profile family tree & profile I've been working on recently: Raymond Lemieux, a famous chemist of French Canadian descent whose 100th birthday would have been on June 16, 2020. 

• Raymond was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest level of our country's highest honour. 
• He was a recipient of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, which is a big deal: "The Wolf Prizes in Physics and Chemistry are often considered the most prestigious awards in those fields after the Nobel Prize."
• Raymond was also inducted into the Royal Society of London as a Fellow of the Royal Society: "Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history".
• As a young scientist, Raymond was the first person to synthesize table sugar from scratch.
• He co-discovered the Anomeric effect (a cornerstone of organic and biochemistry).
•  Some of the methods that he developed are currently used in the production of modern antibiotics, without which many more people would currently be dying as a result of secondary infections resulting from complications of COVID-19; the carbohydrate chemistry is also used in treatments used to prevent transplant rejection. 

You can see his Wikipedia profile here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Lemieux

So per the checklist:

☑ Raymond is notable

☑ Raymond is thoroughly connected to the tree! 

☑ Raymond has a photo that is CC-BY-SA licensed (By his granddaughter, I believe, & shared under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 Creatuve Commons License. That  photo was uploaded to Wikipedia and is currently on his profile.)

I've been more focused on a small brick wall in his tree lately, so don't take the current brevity of his biography as an obstacle: One solid evening + 2 pots of tea and I'll have a killer biography on there.

So there's my pitch for an internationally renowned scientist.

... and besides, we have always had an English monarch in the Connection Finder, so let's set Longshanks aside for a while... he can be used on practically any occasion.

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And on a 2nd note, June 24 is Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, which in Quebec is essentially a national holiday. As such, I would strongly encourage the consideration of someone from Quebec if the connection finder is intended to promote WikiTree to others. There are many French Canadians who could be selected....

Comments

I think this would be a really good candidate for a profile of the week, as the profile seems very well connected! Moreover, it is really necessary to focus on non-English & non-American profiles too!

So, have a +1!

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I like Lemieux  too.

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The Longshanks bio still needs quite a lot of work. I am happy to substitute Lemiuex, but he does need his bio lengthened and the sources need to be reformatted so they don't index above the rest of the bio.

Answer 3

For Marice Sendak, according to Wikipedia, it doesn't appear that he ever legally married at any time, yet his partner that he lived with is listed as a legal husband. Should he be removed since no legal marriage occurred? As it's listed now, it is not very accurate. I would agree he should be linked in the biography somewhere, but I'm not sure where we draw the line on official spouses.

The closest help file I could find to this was this one. It seems to imply that unmarried's should not be listed as such, although it's in the context of children.

I was a bit worried that all his connections might run through this relationship, but I did a quick check and this does not appear to be the case. Most connections are running through his sister.

Any thoughts?

Comments

They lived together and it was a lifelong relationship. My personal opinion is that it should be acknowledged as such. After all, marriages that last a mere few weeks "count" and I really have trouble finding such as more valid than a solid relationship of several decades.

That said, it's WikiTree's policy that matters, not personal opinions (but if it says no, the profiles should definitely not be linked, then it might be time for a change).

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At the moment, WikiTree does indeed tend to very traditional views of unions. I think that the closest thing I can find is the help page on baptisms and burials, earlier referred to by Steve Harris listing the major reasons on why those fields are not included.

This page specifically lists that one of the reasons that these fields are not included is that "they are not universal". By the same reasoning, the marriage field can only be interpreted as a field that should be used for all types of semi-permanent unions, such as (of course) marriage, but also cohabitation, civil union, registered partnerships and common-law marriage. After all, traditional marriage is not an universal way of having a persistent relationship.

I think consistency is key to make WikiTree a success, which is why I would advocate to let this relationship between Marice and his life-long partner registered the way it is.

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I agree in principle with the concept of consistency, but what I'm really looking for rather than opinions is something that defines what the field for Spouse is used for. I get that there are many who would "prefer" that it be used for multiple purposes, but what I believe it was designed for is a legal relationship of some kind that can be verified via source documentation.

The alternative is that it becomes somewhat meaningless, as it could mean anything from a short-term relationship to a lifelong partner to a legal arrangement. Realistically we should have an accurate definition of what it is to be used for so that we're all using it consistently. Unfortunately, what I'm hearing so far is that such a definition does not seem to exist. Rather than continuing this in this narrow forum, I think it would be best to leave things as is and to take this question to a new G2G question that will hopefully lead to an accurate updating of the Help files.

I'll see if I can find a previous question that already exists along these lines so that we're not trying to break new ground that's already been discussed.

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Scott, the issue of alternatives for marriage has been raised many times, including by me. No movement has been achieved.  But it could be raised again. We should be sure to follow the process for proposing new policy as I think not doing that  may have hung up previous requests for change.

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I started a separate question a few days ago and while there was some additional interesting discussion, I don't think we had enough participation to come up with a reasonable proposal.

As it relates to Maurice, I think I'm fine with leaving his relationship alone. While he had no documentation, no sources, no official records - there appears to be enough verbal evidence from Maurice to believe what he stated was true. And whether you're on the side of "if it looks like a duck" or "it must be legal", I think it's covered. By his claims, they spent 50 years together, and while I'd imagine they "claimed" to be simple roommates to maintain their private lives, I'm sure their relationship was more than that. And by Common Law legal rules in most locations, there are certain legally binding clauses that come into effect after you've been together for typically 10 years or so.

But I'm not one to embrace controversy or carry a cause like this, so I'd prefer to just let it drop. I'd rather be disappointed that we don't have guidance in place than find a way to offend others by helping to push for guidance that may drive people away.

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I agree, Scott, that it makes sense to leave his partner in place as a spouse. I, too, was questioning it but as long as they were together, theirs was closer to a marriage than what many people have!

Answer 4

Hmmm... I see that Longshanks' biography is lacking his ravaging of the Scottish Kingdom. (Scots have a long memory! )

Good choices, Abby!

Answer 5

Looking ahead to September, I wonder if it might be interesting to have a face-off between Louis Joseph de Montcalm and James Wolfe.  Both commanders died after receiving mortal wounds during the Battle at the Plains of Abraham.  The latter profile needs a lot of work, but there's still almost two months to improve the profile.

Comments

Which Wednesday do you think it would be appropriate, Greg? I think the month is still pretty open.

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September 16 is closest to the relevant events, as the battle and Wolfe's death took place on 13 September 1759, and Montcalm's death occurred early the following day.