How do you decrease your CC7 distance?

Question

Does anyone have any tips for getting people's distance degrees closer? I have some that are at CC10/12 that I would love to bring down! So far working the common lines are not making a difference... I know it's not random but when it does happen I'm surprised.  Ideas?

I'm working with the connection finder more, exploring the common middle connection + seeing how many different ways it links us. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Connection

Answer 1

not sure if this will help.

check your Suggestion list, suggestion lists of relatives 7 degrees out, or the suggestion list of the profile halfway between the two profiles you are working on - for 591, 592, 593, 585, 106 suggestions.

I have done this for WT'ers profiles of the week and you to get the member of the week closer to you (largest 'branch').

Comments

Thank you, will give it a try for 7º or less of middle person. Maybe recognize a surname?

How do I search those # suggestions for another? In WikiTree+ ?

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on a profile, the second menu on top right of profile is the profile id #, the second last option on that drop-down list is the Suggestions of that profile.

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Oh for goodness sakes, I never realized you can see someone else's stuff using those links up there! lol Thanks!

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also look for 131-134 suggestions (undated profiles) maybe once dated you can find their family already in Wikitree or a duplicate

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Oh boy, so glad I understand this better. I can definitely see the potential checking out the middle person this way. Clearing out the suggestions before removing myself from created profiles usually yields connections, matches, or a merge.

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not sure how many people use or know about that feature.

Answer 2

Have you done any cemetery categorization?  Once a profile is linked to a cemetery, you can go to the cemetery category and see all the profiles with a FindAGrave link to that cemetery.  There is a cemetery report you can run from the cemetery info box.  Even the ones that do not have the name in that category.  Look for surnames you recognize and see if that gives you a link that shortens a CC7.

Comments

Ah yes, lots of cemetery categorization but not much with this new feature. Have you found many connections this way? Thanks Gurney!

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I have found connections not with people listed already in the category but with profiles that are linked to that cemetery with the same Find A Grave cemetery and are still missing the cemetery category.

Answer 3

One way would be to have many children and grandchildren and have them marry well connected profiles. Oh, divorces and multiple marriages are highly effective.

Comments

Hahaha, you must have been looking at my tree for the multiples! Well connected profiles - yeah, in our dreams. 

Answer 4

You can use the Missing Links WikiTree app to find possible gaps in the distant person's family; maybe there's an in-law whose parents and siblings haven't been added, for example.

Comments

Thanks Sharon, will check it out!

Lately I've been using this new CC7 Views app for leads to increase my CC7. Hadn't thought of doing this with the mid person in the connection lineup... being able to get just one specific degree list might help.

Answer 5

Patty, my first reaction to your post was "the more they have, the more they want".

Going beyond that  first reaction ... your CC7 is, as of today, over 12 times larger than mine, which is almost 100% French, over 90% in Bretagne. Closest US connection is at 10 degrees, a handful of cousins emigrated to Canada around 1900, just beyond the 7th circle.

No really active WikiTreer whatsoever in my CC7, some cousins I have invited to join but who did not go further than adding a handful of profiles before giving up (too complex, too American etc etc). Closest really active WikiTreer in France and cousin is Yann Le Ny, 6th cousin once removed, at distance 12.

Our circles experience are as far as can be from each other, so I don't know how I could help the rich ones to get richer ...

[edited] : I see that your CC7 has grown by about 5,000 during the last month, twice what I have been able to add to mine in 4 years. Are you able to assess how many among those 5,000 are profiles you have created vs the ones you have brought closer by reconnection of existing branches?

Comments

Thank you for your input Bernard!

No, other than connecting, merging, and making lots of new profiles I am clueless. Once in awhile I’ve seen a jump of 50+

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Indeed. But I repeat my question. Do you have even a ball park estimation of the proportion of new profiles vs profiles connected closer in the growth of your CC7. 50/50? 20/80?

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Dunno, my best guess would be 20/80. (80 new)

I’m going to work on my adopted family and will try to keep track of the increase.

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I have been working steadily on my CC7 since the concept was introduced last summer. I'm currently up from 2158 to 4689. Aiming for 5000, but will continue until I have filled out as far as I will go (no living people).

I think I have connected to existing profiles in my C7 twice or three times in the process.

I have three WT-members at distance 8, none of them very active. But, as I wrote in another thread, I have finally an all-Swedish path to a benchmark that has frustrated me ever since the Connection Finder started working for all profiles. It's sort of silly to connect to another Swede by crossing the Atlantic twice.

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@Patty "my best guess would be 20/80. (80 new)"

That means 4000 new profiles in one month? More that 100 new profiles daily? I'm really wondering how you can achieve that, if you want them to be properly sourced? When I have created 10 profiles during one day, I consider it a great day!

Maybe it's the way I work on French profiles. I almost never use FS or Ancestry or whatever secondary reference data base. I go to the public archives (easily available in my main area of work), for each profile needs to open a birth registry, a marriage registry (or more - my circles tend to have a lot oy young widows and widowers married twice or more), a death registry, formatting the links to the sources, writing the bio. Not to mention the search by itself in secondary sources or data bases.

I really don't see how I could create100 new profiles a day.

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Here in the USA my go tos are Family Search, Ancestry, and Find a Grave. 

Switching browsers recently, being able to use the new WikiTree Browser Extension and the Sourcer app has really helped speed me up. 

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Seems we compare a combine harvester and a sickle.