New "UNKNOWN" Project

Question

We all know that the proliferation of anonymous and unknown profiles on WikiTree is a problem. Various suggestions have been put forward to deal with this problem. New categories have been created, such as Recycle Unknowns and Unknown Names, to help categorize and make available these anonymous profiles for reuse. It seems to me that an organized effort to work on these profiles is necessary. For that reason, I am presenting a proposal for a project to deal with them. The free space project page can be found at http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Unknowns. It is still a work in progress and suggestions would be welcome. If you are interested in volunteering to work on this project, please contact me or post a comment on the project page.

Comments

I am in too !

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/50599/standards-for-unknown-surname-improvement

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Working on some that ended up with the LNAB of  "Twin" today.

http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Twin

(Obviously some really do have the surname of TWIN !).

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Maybe some do. But most of those look as if the "Twin" was added to state they were a twin. Means I will have to add "Twin" to my list of invalid surnames

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Shirley, I think I got most of the " twins " fixed so you do not have to add those to the Unknowns list, after all.

We also have to look at all the ones that say " Sons" and "Daughters" for LNAB

 

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Thanks for fixing the Twins, Maggie. How many Sons and Daughters are we looking at?

I decided to pull up all the orphaned Unknown/UNKNOWN profiles and go through them.  Started with 1600 and working forward. Have put a lot into Recycled Unknowns. Surprisingly also found many that should be merged into other profiles. Still working.

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On Daughters , we have this trickey profile : http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Daughters-4

On http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stepsons-1

and http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sons-2

we need come up with a solution for those profiles.

Only 1 SONS that I can see : http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sons-20

Quite a few DAUGHTER : http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/daughter

Hmphf !

 

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Think I need to contact the profile manager on the first three. Will look at the others.

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Sounds like a very worthwhile project - count me in!  Last week I started changing the names of some infants, from names such as "Unnamed Boy" and "Unnamed Girl" to "Unnamed Infant" in accordance with the Style Guide. 

Maybe we could add a section to the project for these children?

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I looked at an "Unknown Unknown" orphan yesterday, and ended up adding her first name and five additional children. STILL didn't find her maiden name, darn it! :-( P.S. Shirley, count me in.

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Every little bit helps, Nan.

Star, if the parents have surnames on the babies' profiles, are you putting the unknown infants names as " Unknown Smith" ( if the parents are Smiths?).

I have to revisit that style guide.

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In accordance with the Style Guida (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Fields#Proper_First_Name),  I'm listing First name = Unknown Infant, and Last name at Birth = Smith (most already include a Last Name at Birth).  If the word "stillborn" was part of the name, I add that fact in the bio.

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This is such a great idea! I'm interested in volunteering to help out on this one.

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Hi Gerrie,

Glad to have you join us. We're still developing the project, but it's a fascinating job,

Answer 1

Sign me up Shirley!  This sounds like a great idea, although it will hopefully only be a temporary project!!!

Comments

This must be one of those projects where we work to put ourselves out of business  Consider yourself signed up.

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I have a question about the Best Practices item #1:

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Completely blank, orphaned, no information except an alias in both the first and last name fields.

If linked to other profile(s) – Unlink then Add toCategory: Recycle Unknowns

I expect that many of these are the result of people having added a sibling when there were no parents already here - as I recall, a parent profile is automatically created with the name Unknown when that is done ... or am I remembering wrong?

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You're not remembering wrong. This is one way unknowns are created and one of the problems we need to work out. That's why it's still a work in progress. Any suggestions on how to handle these profiles? Maybe they need to be added to a separate category so we can at least track them?

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I think we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

I understand how the database makes the links for family connections and that it has no way to connect siblings, who only appear to be connected via their parents.

I think it might be a good idea to NOT permit entry of siblings - force new people to be added as either parent or child of an existing record OR create a new unconnected person.  Put the information in the bio about the sibling relationship and include a link from there to the sibling's profile.  I just did that for 4 sisters I discovered.

I think the WikiTree automated system should live by the same rules as the rest of us do and should not create profiles unless an LNAB and at least one date is known!!!

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I just found something very interesting - please see UNKNOWN-34195, where I left a comment.

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These are some of the problems we will find as we go along. Perhaps the manager will respond and make a correction.

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We may have to include on our UNKNOWN PROJECT page a formulated message that project members can place on the kinds of profiles like like one which are not open.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/UNKNOWN-34195

Something along the line of "Dear Sir or Madame, we would like to help you fix this profile....." la di da.

 

 

 

 

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Good idea, Maggie. BTW, I will need help on any templates. Any suggestions?

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Look for an image for the template.Anyone here at WikiTree can give us ideas for it.

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I like the big question mark - like the one you used for wallpaper on the free space page.

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Me, too, Gaile.

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I just made an animation from the nice logo you started with.  Please check it out on the Unknowns space page.  I could adjust anything about how it works - the sequence, the timing, etc.  This is more for a sample of the sorts of things it could do, rather than a recommendation for what and when it should do it!