Why are trees built with names added under the category of uncertain?

Question

Why aren’t trees built with certainty of the names, dates, locations, even sex of a parent are left blank in many trees I run into. I keep finding relatives that aren’t confirmed as my family because it says no biological relationship or uncertain spouse etc..  I am targeted immediately for a wrong tag but no one bats an eye for trees built with such uncertainties? Isn’t this why we add sources or in the case of immediate family at least someone will add “certain, first hand information “.   Please help me understand. This link is only one example where Joseph is my uncle but my relationship to his wife is questionable relationship  

[[Denis-1040|Joseph Denis (1803-1867)]]

Answer 1

In this particular case the profile is unsourced except for a reference to a Nos Origines tree.

tree https://www.nosorigines.qc.ca/GenealogieQuebec.aspx?genealogie=Denis_Joseph&pid=397531

Family Trees are not sources.

Yes there is a marriage date, but that in itself is not a source.

Without a source that confirms his relationship to his 'wife' Angélique Ouellet, the relationship is not sourced. And should not be marked as confident.

In order to be able to mark the relationship confident, a source must be found for the marriage and a source for the birth or baptism of his children that includes both parents names.

I have not checked the sources that on the profiles of his children, proof of their parents may already be sourced.

Why people don't research adequately is another question.

Comments

Thanks for your answer.  In this case, I definitely can’t dispute that so I didn’t give you the best example but this is EXTREMELY frequently found in my ancestors profiles. I did ask someone privately today to please consider these facts when adding relatives that make trailing my connections unnecessarily problematic. I have to search a few profiles just to find a confirmed relationship.  Personally those identifying checks establish that you added adequate sources to create a profile.

My ancestors are not easily found for tracking further grandparents and aunts/cousins etc when people do this.

I will look for reliable info for the wife of Joseph in this case.

Thanks for your input

---

It does happen with regrettable frequency.

if you find that many of your ancestors profiles are inadequately sourced and perhaps have not been improved for a number of years there are a couple of options, adopt profiles that are orphaned and add sources as needed.

If they have a PM, most should be open profiles because of when the people were born, you can go ahead and edit them, add sources etc as needed.

If that becomes difficult as often happens with profiles of people who were born and died in Québec/New France ask the Québec, or Acadian project for help, I have found the team members very willing to help either by suggesting places to look for sources or finding sources.

---

Hello and how very kind of you!! I have asked for help from the Acadian group and the woman was extremely helpful. I had a sudden drop in ancestors because of a change someone made and she was able to fix it very quickly.  

Unfortunately my comment was slightly sarcastic about acknowledging certainty when building a profile. Some have an immense amount of sources attached. Those profiles are extremely well collaborated but yet no one utilized the confirmation process. When I try to find a connection I’m almost guaranteed to stumble on profiles that have me with 20 browsers open trying to find who is aunt and who is grandmother .  Rarely do I find information easily. I’m having to search through individual names to find the relationships that Wikitree automation should pick up. Of course I should have done some myself or start sending profiles to the group when I’m having this problem. Maybe they would see what it creates and help me short cut problem solving identifying a relationship when I know I’m decended from a family. If I’m granddaughter I shouldn’t struggle to connect to cousins or 5th cousins no?

I really appreciate the kind conversation from members on this thread  

Merci beaucoup

---

Hi Doris, if there is anything I can further I can do to help please don't hesitate to ask, you can contact me by private message.

Answer 2

I agree the answer below that emphasises sources and the fragility of sourcing in most family tree sites, but a more frustrating niggle is the number of WT'rs who provide not even a smidgeon of even  their own detail - e.g. often no country ( OK the name sometimes gives a clue) yet say they want to trace their family ( at least for  the names that match a watchlist entry I am following) but provide no useful info; the prevalence of dead-end links to a different family tree site also means a lost opportunity for identifying possible connections.

Another niggle is the occasional biography that quotes an extensive Census record in detail but the family members (not lodgers etc) have yet to be added to WT,  so BMD sources can be sought.  I know there are keen WT'rs who do add and chase such info but they are probably swamped by the volume of half-finished profiles.

Some encouragement to avoid these gaps in their profile to new members and even some longer term WT'rs would not go amiss, perhaps before a promotion is granted.

Wikitree allows for genuine Privacy concerns to be addressed which is fine, but not providing even some signposts makes co-operation difficult or even impossible in some instances.

There are some exemplary WT profiles (not just those for the famous) that are a pleasure to encounter, interesting and informative - perhaps a few could be suggested reading for people just starting out on their WT journey.

Comments

Thank you so very much for your support statement and experience. I consider myself very incompetent here only because I just don’t have the skills for fancy works.  It feels like Wikitree some volunteers care WAY more about categorization indexes instead of seeing what’s missing in a profile and linking to other families  

I get schooled all the time for ticking off DNA tests that SHOULD be allowed because I usually have 3 testers AND now include MT dna and have like 100 000 DNA matches outside of Wikitree that is very difficult to utilize. Yet people who don’t fill out the profile from top to bottom are not newbies, they have hundreds or thousands of profiles.

I tried having a profile with the lowest privacy settings only because I wanted extra time to finish it before someone called me out and sure enough, I got told I couldn’t do that   

Where’s the data doctor for all the hidden profiles that you know darn well they are not all 100 years alive  The privacy rules do not make sense when it’s fine to hide an entire personal tree but have a public home page  I could connect for days if I could find my ancestors  

I really think not connecting biological status is purposely done so that it won’t enable viewing ancestors on hidden pages   I build profiles hoping someone connects but maybe some don’t want their pages touched by other  people’s personal data  and DNA confirmation  

Thank you to volunteers who do this to help and who look to improve functionality and encourage learning  I certainly don’t want to take away from the work and devotional work but I feel there should be eyes on things that improve functionality over missing subtitles  

Thanks for the platform to express my thoughts  Thanks for reading

#datadoctorthat

Answer 3

Because conflicting sources or unreliable records are common reasons for marking information as uncertain in family trees. U.S. Census Records, for instance, can be invaluable resources for genealogists, providing valuable insights into family structures and demographics. However, they do have limitations, such as varying levels of accuracy and consistency across different census years.

Marking information as uncertain in such cases serves as a reminder for researchers to exercise additional scrutiny and seek out corroborating evidence from other sources. By acknowledging the limitations of certain records and being transparent about uncertainties in family tree data, we can maintain integrity and accuracy in our genealogical research.

Comments

Thanks for your comment and I agree sometimes finding documents are difficult but there is collaboration here, different folks have access to subscription services and can interpret various languages and such. I mean when you’re adding someone who birthed the child why not check confident female? Your transcribing a name, check mark the name. Little things that make a difference in connections.  Trust me most of my ancestors are ALL blank for this information.  Either Wikitree should re evaluate if these are necessary questions and remove them or audit the profiles  

I had a quick glance at your profile and it’s a beautiful profile. I can tell you are very open, very engaged and respect the idea of a shared tree.  Small things like not indicating biological relationship confirmed disconnects our ancestors and unfortunately I do think many don’t realize it but many do because they are attached to the work they do and don’t want others to add to it or mess it up.  Family Search users have this same complain and I know how agonizing it is to have things turned upside down.

I just hope the people who volunteer can appreciate my complaint and re focus on the things that are supposed to be the foundation of a shared tree and one that users can find connections more easily and efficiently.

Have a great evening. I appreciate your kind response