Outward Ho! Meet the Outer Rim Rangers!

Question

You should now be familiar with the 100 Circles parlance, and if you are not ... well, you should!
We have been dubbing "Lords of the Outer Rim" those profiles at the extreme tip of branches extending far off the bulk of the Big Tree.
The Outer Rim is a moving target, its branches extending outwards until some reconnection event folds them back towards the center.

Bold WikiTreers venturing in those far-away lands, bravely opening new paths, should be acknowledged, and I hereby propose to create a badge for them, which they could proudly herald on their profile. "Outer Rim Ranger" is the best tag I could think of.

I got this idea why following the amazing work of Kate, pushing the Outer Rim in the maze of Dixie branches, or  B. W. J. who camped all last autumn struggling with far-flung Czech branches, eventually reconnected by Kelsey, who also ventures into Russian or Arabic branches.

And certainly many more would deserve it.
I'm not empowered to create new badges, but if someone is, please step forward.

Comments

This so reminds me of Star Trek,

To seek out new life and new civilizations

bolding go where no man has gone before.

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That's the idea - although "Outer Rim" expression was rather borrowed from Star Wars.

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Er... *boldly, not bolding.*

Ros, a Star Trek fan

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lol it was a late night #trekkie

Answer 1

I keep trying to reel it in, but it keeps spinning out! 

Comments

Don't worry. The Big Tree is as round as Earth. Any path will lead you back home at some point.

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And guess what? This morning I discover this new profile, Aurelia Mabel Janette (Morgan) Bass (1876-1961), connecting Dixie family to the branch of Abraham Doras Shadd (1801-1882, President National Convention for the Improvement of Free People of Colour), of whom grandfather Hans Schad, born in Germany, is the new Lord of the Rim, distance 86 from Marie Stuart, 6 steps further than Khanum-8!

Note that the profile of Abraham Doras Schadd was created back in 2015 by Carole Taylor, and unconnected since.

And kudos to the creator of Aurelia Mabel Janette's profile, Ron Lamoreaux - maybe not even aware of what he's achieved.

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Holy cats! That's crazy!

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Ron Lamoreaux in a PM tells me that was not completely random, he had been monitoring the Outer Rim page ... which explains.

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I just worked on the Dixie tree for a bit. All I did was make it longer though. :-(

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Mary Stuart Queen of Scots is 81 Degrees from Mary Garner

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Peak-1084

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Ooo, I just made a connection to this family through Paul Patterson, who was already connected to Mary Stuart at 23 degrees:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Patterson-15664

Just waiting for everything to update to see if it shortens the length.

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I think that would now put John Dixie as 28 degrees from Mary Stuart. That would cut out 50 degrees. ;-)

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Excellent, Eric!

The Connection Finder has updated, and all the branch from Paul Patterson outwards is now 50 degrees closer, so definitely back from the Outer Rim, with all the Dixie folks Kate had patiently gathered.

That was an awesome bunch of collective intelligence, folks!

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And now I have to update that Outer Rim page once again ...

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I encourage everyone to check their own connection to Paul Patterson. A lot of those profiles there are super undersourced.

But YAY!

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Happy to help, but I also got lucky too. But does this mean I can add the Recognition Sticker on my page? 

Answer 2

Funny thing. I could be of more help if some part of the Outer Rim was in Sweden - but Sweden at large does seem to be at least medium well connected, when connected at all. Probably because of our many emigrants and the genealogical interest of North Americans with Swedish Roots.

It always irks me a little when I'm connected to another Swede through an American path - which happens often, like with Sixten Jernberg this week.

Comments

Same here, Eva. No French Lord of the Rim so far. But be patient.

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@Eva : no Outer Rim branches in Sweden, right. But the Russian branch of Fedir Indutnyi is connected by a narrow path going through Sweden. Ingvor Östergren being the last Swedish bridge, but she's already 48 steps from Mary Stuart. Reconnecting her closer to the center would pull all the Russian branch inwards.

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That is, of course intriguing. I'll see if I can fit her into my schedule.

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Maybe useful to try and contact Fedir?

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Well... I couldn't resist prodding for the weak points. Found the spot where two same-name couples living 650 km apart had been mixed up. So contact is made by means of some sourcing of the daughter who is in the right part of the country and a so-sorry comment with a map link. I should be able to sort out the family, but that cuts the connection.

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I've no problem with that. What has to be done has to be done. I would not mind, for example, if someone decided to cut off the (in)famous Khanum-8 branch.

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Well the two families, one in the north and one in the southwest are now disentangled with assistance from the manager.

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I see ... the Russian branch is disconnected from the tree right now. It should appear soon in the largest unconnected branches, as I write it contains 2609 profiles extending over 19 circles around the PM.

But are there Swedish profiles left on the Russian side?

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Yes. Ingvor's tree and I don't know what more. So the Russians may yet be reconnected through Sweden.

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quote> It should appear soon in the largest unconnected branches,

Just so you know, that list at ...

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Largest_Unconnected_Branches

is updated less than once a month for branches and their sizes.

So connectors have to depend on the weekly update from wikitree plus which for this week shows the Russian branch with 4 profiles and the PM with just one profile. If I click on his wikitree family tree, many names in his native language are not found by sdms, but one "unknown" shows me just 497 profiles in that branch.

quote> as I write it contains 2609 profiles extending over 19 circles around the PM.

Please let us know if you can share any other way of viewing these numbers.

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Seems that WikiTree+ numbers ignore the private profiles, and there is a lot of them in this Russina branch. And maybe if two parts of the branch are connected through private profiles only, it is considered by WikiTree+ as two different branches?

The number (2609) I get through the so-called "magic query" provided by Ales and used in the 100 Circles research. Being a bit heavy on the server its URL is not public but of course can be shared it with the Connectors project (through PM). To whom should I send it?

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As far as I remember, the connection between Russia and Sweden went through a sequence of several private profiles.

I have been working around the edges of the Swedish cluster the last few days, a little bit per day; so far I've been poking at false relationships, but I'll be looking for connections, too.

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quote> To whom should I send it?

Bernard, I do not think those in those "running" the Connectors Project will be working on this, so I will leave it to them to ask for it, if they are interested.

For myself, I will take it that it is no other available methods. No problem, I don't have knowledge of Russian records and just wanted to check if there were any immigrants in a 2000+ branch that I might try to research. That was how I connected Ales' own branch to the global tree.

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Important "detail" : the magic query yields the number of profiles in each circle, but not their IDs. But it is handy to quickly figure the size of a branch, and since it's based on the CF algorithm, it counts private profiles.

Answer 3

Great idea, Bernard!  How *do* badges get created anyway?

Comments

That's the question. No idea whatsoever.

Answer 4

This is cool, Bernard! It wouldn't qualify for a badge but you could use the recognition sticker like this:

{{Recognition Sticker |image=The_outer_rim_of_the_global_tree.jpg |text={{Name}} is an [[Space:The outer rim of the global tree|Outer Rim Ranger]]. }}

See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Recognition_Sticker

Comments

Thx Eowyn. Kate tried it on her profile and it looks just great!

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It does! I like it.

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Just a technical question (not very familiar with stickers templates). In the "text={{Name}}" part, I replace {{Name}} by my name w/o the {{ }}, right? If I keep the {{ }}, it displays a "Template:Bernard Vatant" red link.

Kate tells me she kept the {{ }} in her code, and it works OK. "Wacky", says she - whatever that means.

Answer 5

I'll add the sticker, thank you!

Answer 6

Well if we have a Boba-Fett style Bounty Hunter badge...

(I'm always down for more Star Wars-inspired things. I might be biased.) ;)

Answer 7

Hi Bernard,

In your table, you list Robert Curtis Young at 68 degrees. However, if you go to his wife's ancestors and go back to as far the generations will go, you get to Joseph Plaskett which is at 69 degrees. Wouldn't you replace Robert Curtis Young with Joseph Plaskett in the table?

Comments

Good find. And in this same branch, we have even Mabel Parker who is a step further at 70. The way to check furthest profiles is currently manually parsing a flat list of [distance, ID] pairs, like [70,33268455] ... not obvious not to miss someone :-)

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Hi Bernard,

Do you use the Connection Finder Table in the WikiTree BEE extension to look at the time period (color coded by half a century) and locations of these outer rim profiles?

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I don't use the WikiTree Bee extension at all. I had installed it once but found it more confusing than anything else. Generally speaking I'm confused by interfaces with too many features (that's why I have no smartphone, for example). Sorry about that ...

Answer 8

Here on WikiTree I'm 44 degrees from John Schad now and 73 degrees from Ana Zyloaga but if I check them on Geni I'm potentially 36 degrees from Schad-236 (https://www.geni.com/path/Axel-Svensson+is+related+to+John-Shadd?from=6000000010809842892&path_type=inlaw&to=6000000124230572879) and potentially 32 degrees from Zuloaga-14 (https://www.geni.com/path/Axel-Svensson+is+related+to+Ana-Zuloaga?from=6000000010809842892&path_type=inlaw&to=6000000093975374017).

Lots of reconnecting that can be done. Problem is to get all source, Geni usually have none and therefor probably also more errors.

Comments

Of course lots of reconnecting could, should, and wil happen in the due course of time. Such "non-sourced-resources" can give exploration paths, more or less useful.

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At the very least if they’re wrong the sourced versions will provide connection steps for someone else :)

Answer 9

I've been working on connecting Dock Robinson in the table. After everything updates, I should now have him down to 24 degrees, from 71. (if I've counted everything correctly).

Comments

I am 32 degrees from Dock Robinson with the oldest connection passing thru Mary (Agnew) Hamilton (1774 - 1845) in Abbeville, South Carolina.

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Confirmed. Dock Robinson is now 24 degrees from Mary Stuart.

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This also had the after effect of connecting Emily Davis and reducing her connection to Mary Stuart down to 25 degrees.

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And the hits keep coming! Through the Chavis family, this also connected Charles Morris on the list, and reduced his connection to Mary Stuart down to 38.

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This will now effectively remove all USA entries from the "Lords of the Rim" table.

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The connection between Charles Morris and Mary Stuart passes thru 6 families (consisting of 15 profiles) born in North Carolina between 1854 and 1922.

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Wow, what an amazing cleanup in the Outer Rim, Eric. I see you updated the table with new distances. Let's keep the former US branches in the page for a couple of days, for the record.

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Omg I’m thrilled — the Morris/Renicks were made for my connect a thon project and their path was awful! Thanks Eric!

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Thanks Eric for those connections. I had been working on it slowly ... because I get distracted by other things that come up.

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@N. and Liz: Happy I could help! It was fun to see if it could be done. It's a cool project. 

Answer 10

I've also been working now on trying to connect Karel Hübner closer to Mary Stuart. When everything updates, I think I got him a whopping 2 degrees closer, from 70 to 68 (if my calculations are correct).

The trick is that towards the center of the connection chain, the profiles dip into the U.S., and then back out again. I worked on adding profiles in this area to make another connection. But it's still difficult with the long chain in Czechia in the beginning. That's certainly not an area where I have any skills in.

Comments

I see him now at 67 degrees of separation.

• Karel Hübner and Mary Stuart

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Who will stop you, Eric I wonder?

Would you mind settling also the Khanum-8 case?

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Thanks, Tommy! I'm glad to see at least one more degree taken off of the chain.

I think the only way to make this shorter is to have more connections in Czechia in modern times, to shorten the 6 "up and down" chains in this particular connection. I don't know anything about researching in this region, so I'm not sure how much more I'll be able to help.

@Bernard: Likewise, I don't know anything about Pakistani / Middle-East genealogy, much less that region during the medieval time period. I think we require someone who can connect the modern Pakistani time period to someone in the West (Europe/North America) or the general Anglosphere in order to make a shorter connection back to Mary Stuart.

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I've updated the Outer Rim page, with reconnected branches in a separate table, and new branches at distances 65-66, in various countries (Czech again, Spain, Brazil). Certainly more to come.

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@Eric indeed. I just sent a respectful message along those lines to the PM of the Zaidi branch. Let's see if he's willing to hear.

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@Bernard:

Václav Kuneš is 14 Degrees from Denise (Polak) Clouet (1930-2006). She was born in France. I found a source for her to confirm. She might be a good jumping off point to build her tree and see if it can be connected back any closer. Her profile is not open, though. I added the source as a comment to her profile.

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I've seen that, and answered the comment with a direct link to the French service of the INSEE death index. You don't need to, and generally should not, use FS to access France records. I NEVER use FS to find sources in France.

But as said, the death index record does not prove filiation. And indeed, the profile is not open.

I have also the death index record for her brother Michel Polak https://deces.matchid.io/id/ap4qAvsrL3Bz

Answer 11

Hmmm I wonder if some of those Arab branches could be brought closer via a connection to one of the sultans of Darfur. عبد الرحمن الكيراوية (Abd ar-Rahman) is within 40 degrees of all but one of our present connection anchors thanks to strategic marriages made by some of his descendants.

Comments

That would be really cool to have someone look into the long Arabic branches.

But the one which really irks me is this looooong Pakistanese Khanum-8 branch, which, if you ask me, has many points of failure and should be either disconnected or consolidated, at least.