The Notables Sports Project needs help connecting German/Swiss Sledders

Question

This month's sports challenge focuses on connecting legendary sledders from around the world (bobsledding, luge, skeleton sledding, and Iditarod).

The Notables project routinely receives requests to be more global in its perspective by including more profiles from around the world. When we do, however, most of those profiles sit out the month unattended. This month is no exception. For example, our current challenge includes 15 amazing athletes from Germany and Switzerland. Halfway through the month, however, and each of these notables still has a CC7 of zero. Contrast that to a dozen US and UK athletes who have now been connected to the Big Tree.

If you have experience with German or Swiss research, perhaps you can help us get these deserving individuals connected. Additionally, we have a handful of athletes from Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Norway who still need attention. We truly appreciate any help we can get.

Answer 1

Haven't had much time to work on the Norwegian Luger. I do have him on my watchlist and will add profiles as I find the time. When getting into the 1900s it is much harder to find records in Norway due to privacy issues. I would imagine that this may be a problem in other European countries as well so it may not be an issue of people not working on them but that records that would include identifiable names of parents may not be currently available.

Answer 2

I added a research note to Lorenz Nieberl's profile. He had close family connections to the Lanig family. His wife Evi Lanig (born 1933) was a prominent skier herself (with multiple national titles). Her brothers and nephew were all skiers, some winning Olympic medals. Her brother Hanspeter was married to a prominent Swiss Journalist and skier.

Unfortunately (in the context of our project, considering rules about living people; but fortunately in general, of course!), most of those people, including Nieberl's widow, are still living. Eeven adding them to WikiTree will be difficult, given they have to opt-in to have their profiles created; not to mention any attempts to connect them!

Don't you have any athletes born before 1900? Everything after that is behind data protection laws (affecting births of the past 120 years).

Comments

I wasn't aware of the 120-year data protection law in Germany. Does this impact other European countries as well?

In the U.S., out toughest privacy laws generally go back only about 70 years, depending on the document and the jurisdiction, so we're good prior to about 1950. There are some records that are released after just 18 years.

I will certainly keep this in mind when selecting future athletes. In the meantime, if we can't make connections, we can still work on developing solid biographies based on the information we do have. Thanks for helping out, and for the valuable information.

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I don't know what laws specifically apply to other European countries, but I know that Germany's data protection laws are stronger than those of most other countries.

In general (roughly), information about births after 1900, marriages after 1930 and deaths after 1960 is protected, unless the information was published in certain form (like in an obituary, or an autobiography); and even then, good luck finding it. It won't be available online, unless you're extremely lucky. Unlike the U.S., where things like census records are publically available, finding out anything about a recently (post-1960) deceased person in Germany is a real challenge.

When it comes to the parents and/or partners of famous people, this makes it almost impossible to do research without the active involvement of the family in question. Not to mention that some people very much don't appreciate to have their family history researched; compare the case of Sebastian Vettel, for example (comments on his profile, and the pages linked from there).

In short, I think it's a good idea to limit profiles from Germany to those old enough to be available: People born before 1900, or at least with a known marriage before 1930 (hoping that the marriage record gives enough data about their parents to bridge the gap). There are enough notables that meet this criterion.

Once users realize that it's actually worth looking at German profiles, and you attract the attention of people who know how to work with German records, there's actually a chance those profiles will no longer be ignored...

Answer 3

I have connected Max Houben to the Big Tree. I won’t be sure of his stats until tomorrow after the system updates. I hope to do another one this week.