England Project Monthly Challenges Page

Profile managers: England Project WikiTree [send private message], Carol Keeling [send private message], and Frances Weidman [send private message]

Welcome to the England Project Monthly Challenges Page!

May 2024 Challenge - CC7 combat - The Best of British Comedy

This month's challenge takes you back in time, to those early TV comedy programs which we all loved. Did you have a favourite? We've chosen 12 English comedians/comedy actors, they are all connected, but have a very low CC7. Our challenge is to add profiles for their family members and boost those CC7 scores.

It's easy to take part, just pick a comedian to work on, add your name to the end column, and start to expand their family. We're hoping to get several people working on each of the 12 comedians, and get those CC7 values to rise considerably.

We've added counties to each comedian, showing where the majority of their CC7 ancestors were born, but there are many other counties represented, with just a few profiles. So if you are undecided which one to work on, then browse through their ancestors (click on each CC7 link), this may help you pick your comedian.

If you find a connection to an existing profile, then the CC7 count could be boosted very quickly. Maybe you'd like to share your success stories on the project challenges thread on Discord.

Update Week 1, 8 May 24. Figures have been updated, which show increases in CC7 counts, Ronnie Barker is way out in the lead with an increased CC7 count of 342. The next three in order are Bob Monkhouse (148), Eric Morecambe (147), and Norman Wisdom (142).

Update Week 2, 15 May 24. CC7 figures have all been updated. Still out in the lead in Ronnie Barker, with an increase in his CC7 count of 380, after Ronnie come Eric Morecambe (309), Frankie Howerd (234) and Norman Wisdom (205)

April Challenge: Clearing category England – Needs Birth Records

This single category contains over 2,700 profiles, and they very rarely get looked at, as most county team members just concentrate on clearing profiles for their own county.

We’ve analysed this top level England category, and broken the profiles down by county, so we can start to clear them. A few links have been included at the end of the list for all of England.

Several things to bear in mind:

1. Some profiles may be included in more than one list if they were born and died in different counties.
2. Many of these profiles have been created by members living in other countries. Please be tolerant if you find any errors.
3. You may be lucky and find some profiles where the birth location has already been fully sourced, so in this case, just remove the category tag.
4. You may also come across profiles that have several 'needs' category tags, if at all possible we’d love our members to add adequate sources so that all of these categories can be removed. (This request excludes ‘Needs Profiles Created’)

To get started, add your name in the end column, next to the county you want to work on, and if you manage to source all the birth locations, then please mark them as Completed.

Update for Week 1. (Data as at 7 April 2024). All county figures show current profile count, total has dropped from 2,791, to 2,106. We've cleared 685 in the first week, well done everyone!!

Update for Week 2. (Data as at 14 April 2024). All county figures show current profile count, total has dropped to 1,790. We've cleared a further 316 in the second week, brilliant effort, we've probably cleared most of the easier ones now, but please keep trying. In the first two weeks we sourced 1,001 birth locations.

Update for Week 3. (Data as at 21 April 2024). All county figures show current profile count, total has dropped to 1,662. We've cleared a further 128 in the third week. Total cleared in the three weeks is 1,129.

Update for Week 4. (Data as at 28 April 2024). All county figures show current profile count, total has dropped to 1,505. We've cleared a further 157 this week. Total cleared in the four weeks is 1,286. That's over 46% cleared, what an amazing result!!

February Challenge: England Unmerged Matches

There are currently over 4k Unmerged Matches in England. These can be seen at the bottom of a profile, and many of us never notice them!

An Unmerged Match is meant to be a temporary state, until all efforts have been made to determine whether or not they are the same person. Unfortunately, this is not always done.

Our task this month is to try and clear some of them. We have chosen orphaned profiles, so that any merges can be completed right away.

Although many of these will be obvious duplicates, others will obviously be different people.

If you determine that they are the same person, then go ahead and merge them.

If they represent different people and are unlikely to be confused in the future, then you can reject the match (you will be prompted to give a reason).

To get started, add your name to anyone you would like to work on. When you are finished, you can mark it as "Done".

Tips:

• As with any possible duplicates, make sure to compare the profiles side by side.
• Sources! Try to add as many as you can find. Use the GRO. Follow families through the census records, etc.
• Keep in mind that finding one duplicate will sometimes lead to others in the same family.
• The majority of these profiles are Suffolk/Norfolk, but there are a few additional counties towards the bottom of the list.
• If you would like to work on England Unmerged Matches "at large", click HERE

As always, if you have any problems, feel free to post in the Google Group or Discord :)

Have Fun!

January 2024 Challenge - let's work on some English Notables!

Many of us are preparing for the Connect-a-Thon later this month, so we've set you a small challenge for January; working on connecting English notables. Those profiles chosen were all born in England in the 19th century, and are included in unconnected branches of at least 10 profiles.

Some are actually managed by the England Project, others have been set up by project members working on a particular topic or event; you may recognise some of them, as being noted for their personal achievements.

To get started, just enter your name in the right hand column against your selected notable, and mark it as completed when it’s done.

Update: we started this challenge with 25 notables to work on

3 Jan 2024, we've already connected 10 of these profiles, so just 15 left to work on.

6 Jan 2024, another 5 have been connected, we've just 10 remaining now, and most are being worked on.

9 Jan 2024, 4 more notables have been connected, we've only 6 left now.

11 Jan 2024, just three left to connect now!!

17 Jan 2024, Wow!! We've completed the January Challenge, all of our notables have been connected. Well done everyone.

December 2023 challenge: Festive Fun with a Christmas Cornucopia

We’ve selected a variety of profiles this month, with a Christmas theme in mind. Some just need sourcing, some need family members added, and some need connecting to our global tree as well.

We hope that they will get you in a festive mood in the run up to the big day when Santa delivers his parcels.

Each entry in the table shows their date and place of birth, and we’ve selected mainly 19th century profiles to make them a little easier to source and connect. We’ve also tried to include profiles from a variety of locations so everyone can find something of interest to work on.

To get started, just enter your name in the right hand column against your selected task, and mark it as completed when it’s done.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our England team members who have taken part in our 2023 challenges, and we hope you’ll be joining us in 2024 for some more fun.

UPDATE We started this challenge on 1 December 2023 with 39 profiles.

5 December 2023, we've completed 24 already, just 15 profiles left to work on, only 3 not yet started !!

13 December 2023, another 11 have been completed, just 4 left, all need connecting to the global tree

15 December 2023, only two left to connect. Let's get this finished before Christmas

November Challenge: Missing Locations

We have recently stumbled upon almost 35k England profiles with no birth or death locations (19th century alone!). Fortunately, they DO have marriage locations, which is the only way to identify them as England profiles.

Profiles such as these cause problems for all of us. We unknowingly create duplicates because they do not show up on matches, and the connectors cannot connect them because they do not show up in searches.

Our goal this month is to add as many locations as we can, with birth locations being a priority. If you can find a death location, that's good, but please do not trouble yourself trying to find one :)

Many of these have had census and/or baptism sources added, which should make a birth location easy to identify. To get started, simply add your name to anything you may like to work on. When you are finished, mark them as "Done". We left out the counties that contain less than 100 of these profiles, so If you do not see your county of choice, please see the table below this one ( "Total Missing Locations for all Counties").

Also, many of these will most likely be duplicated somewhere, so don't forget to do a quick search for matches.

Important reminder: During any of your WikiTree activities, whether it be sourcing or working on suggestions,etc., please be aware of missing locations (they are easy to overlook!). Taking a few extra seconds to add a birth place will benefit all of us later on :)

Many thanks, and have fun!

UPDATE:

Week 1: 878 missing locations were solved!

Week 2: 1015 more were solved, bringing our total so far to 1893!

Week 3: We did 815 more, bringing our current total to 2708!

Week 4: 457 more were done, bringing the total to 3165!

After the 6 Dec update, the total for the month is 3461!!!

Amazing!!!

GREAT job everyone, and THANK YOU!!

Total Missing Locations for all Counties

October 2023 challenge: Our very own mini England ‘Clean-a-Thon’

This month we’d like all of our project members to clear just a few of the many suggestions that need looking at, and correcting the profiles where necessary. Being faced with many thousands of outstanding suggestions is a daunting task, so we’ve built the table below to guide you, and have chosen small ‘bite-sized’ areas that we’re sure you’ll cope with.

Some of the suggestions are for England as a whole, (and these may cover any English counties), some are for individual counties, and no single ‘task’ contains more that about 30 suggestions to look at and correct. The majority have been taken from the 19th or 20th century, so may be easier to tackle.

Please remember that our amazing Data Doctors team are working on these suggestions every day, so you may come across items that have already been cleared. We can only work with the weekly reports that are produced, and we will try and keep the table as ‘up-to-date’ as possible.

Can we also just remind you all to regularly check your own suggestions report, and clear it if you can.

To get started, just enter your name in the right hand column against a task you are comfortable working on, and mark it as completed when it’s done.

As you edit each profile, please check that the suggestion you are correcting appears at the bottom of the profile. If it is missing, then the suggestion has either been cleared already, or has been marked as 'False', and the profile should not need amending. Sadly, we are unable to filter out these suggestions from the queries that are run on WikiTree+.

October Challenge Tracker

September 2023 Challenge: 'A Nation of Shopkeepers'

Many of the shops and businesses on the English High Street have their origins in small family businesses. Who started them? In this challenge we'll try to track down the founders of some familiar institutions - from banks and stationers, supermarket chains, shoe shops to the breweries behind the chains of familiar pubs.

Most of these founders don't have profiles yet, and hopefully can be connected the the main tree. If there are any missing from this list that you would expect to see, it might be that they already have a profile and connections to the tree. Or they might not be English! Have a look at the topic page English Companies and Their Founders to see who is already connected to the main tree.

Remember to add the category: [[Category:Founders of English Companies]] to the profile.

Update 6 September, we started this challenge with 48 shopkeepers. 22 have been cleared, 26 still to work on.

Update 15 September, a further 8 shopkeepers have been completed this week, just 18 remain to be worked on.

Update 18 September, a further 5 shopkeepers have now been completed, so there are just 13 remaining to be worked on.

Final Update 4 October, we were defeated by just 5 'shopkeepers'. Well done everyone.

August 2023 challenge: England Emigrants to Brazil

For this challenge, we will be working on English emigrants to Brazil, many of whom are notable.

Some need connecting and/or profiles created. Others need sources and bios. Some may just need family members added. There is something for everyone here!

Our goal is to bring them back to England, and give them a proper place on our global tree.

To get started, simply add your name to any profile you would like to work on. When you are finished, you can mark it as "Done", or "Done, but needs connecting", etc.

If you run into any problems or have questions, you can post in the Project Challenges channel on Discord, or on the Google Group challenge announcement (reply to all).

As always, have fun :)

July 2023 challenge: England Unknowns

Our official total for this challenge was 1,310, which does not include the last 2 days of the challenge. Nice work everyone and Thank You!!!.

June 2023 challenge: We’re all going on a Summer Holiday

For those of us of a certain age, this title may conjuror up memories of Cliff Richard taking his red, London, double decker bus to Athens in the film ‘Summer Holiday’.

Link to YouTube Video of the song (I hope this works for some of you)

But for now we’ve a more simpler trip arranged for you, visiting some of the seaside resorts in England.

We’ve chosen 10 popular seaside towns, which we’d like you to work on. A variety of tasks for each resort has been listed, including spelling checks, clearing suggestions, sourcing and connecting, so there really is something for everyone to get involved in.

To get started, add your name to a task (for your chosen resort), in the ‘Working On’ column, and when you’ve finished, then add ‘Completed’ next to your name.

And if we’ve missed your favourite seaside location (England locations only please), that you’d really like to work on, then let Carol know, and she will add it to the table.

Update - 13 June, completed tasks removed, some new unconnected added to tables

May Challenge: Emigrants

This is a batch of orphaned profiles that need some serious work. Unlike the past emigrant challenges, this is not about connecting, but rather correcting. Many of these people both lived and died in England.

These profiles will have wrong dates, wrong locations, no locations, and sometimes wrong surnames. The source that is given for them is mostly inaccurate, at least on the England side of things.

Our task is get these people sorted with correct information and sources. It is not necessary to work on any U.S. profiles, but that choice will be yours. Also, don't forget to look for duplicates (due to the lack of locations!).

To get started, simply add your name to the profile you would like to work on. If you would like to work on an entire family, you can choose all of them.

When you are finished, mark them as "Done".

Good Luck!!

April 2023 challenge: Members of Parliament

There are a large number of unlinked profiles for our Members of Parliament, they need family members added and then connecting to our global tree.

The table below has been created showing their counties of birth, but most of the MP’s represented constituencies in different areas. So your investigation may lead you through many counties. Each MP has a link to Wikipedia, and very little else, so please spend a little time improving their bio before adding their family.

To get started: Simply add your name to the ‘Adding family’ column, and add some profiles for their parents, spouses, siblings or children. If you can find a connection, then also add your name to the ‘Getting Connected’ column, and mark it as Done when connected.

The most important part is adding the family members. Many of these MP’s came from wealthy and influential families, so there is a chance that close relatives already have profiles created.

Updates:
6 April, we started with 33 Members of Parliament, 11 have now been completed
16 April, another 7 members of Parliament have been updated and connected. Just 15 left to complete now. 29 April, 7 more done with only 8 left.

Good job, everyone!

March 2023 – England Unknown Region

AMAZING number of profiles were improved!

Profiles improved - Daily Progress Report

February Challenge: Robin Hood and his Merry Orphans!

Link: Space:Robin_Hood_and_his_Merry_Orphans

December England Challenge – It’s a Secret Santa.

I’m sure that many of you have profiles on your watchlist that need bios written, some sources added, or maybe just connecting to our global tree. Or perhaps you’ve not cleared your suggestions list for some time. Well don’t despair, as we’re running a Secret Santa during December, so maybe some of your England team mates can help you out.

Initially, we’ve built a table of profiles that need connecting, or bios written, and they all belong to England team members. We’ve set a starting limit of 3 items per member, just so everyone has an equal opportunity of getting involved. And the profiles added have to have been born in England.

We’d really like you to update the table, with your own ‘wish list’? (If you’re shy, then Fran and I will be happy to do this for you, so just send us a message).

Then it’s all systems go to spread a little Christmas kindness, and help your team mates with whatever they’ve asked for. We all have our own areas of expertise that we really enjoy working on, and these are the gifts that you can give for Christmas; and maybe some of us have those little tasks that have been on our to-do list for far too long, just let Secret Santa clear them for you.

To get started, just add ‘being worked on’ in the end column (no need for names), and when it’s completed add ‘completed by Secret Santa’

Let’s have some fun in the England Team this December.

June 2022: Diamond Jubilee Challenge

LINK: Space:Jubilee_Challenge

March/April 2022 challenge: Where was I born?

There are still many thousands of profiles being added to WikiTree with no birth location, and this month we are looking at some of these profiles. So there's no connecting involved in this challenge.

Each of the individual surnames listed against a county has been taken from the 1881 census list of top surnames for that county. So there is a very good chance that they were born somewhere close to where they either married or died. We've kept it simple and only chosen 19th century profiles, so reliable free sources should be readily available.

To get started: Simply add your name to the last column, add a census source, (if there isn't one already) and if at all possible a birth or baptism source as well (one to corroborate the other), and most importantly, remember to update the birth location field, using the standard format of village/town, county, England. When you are finished, mark it as "done". Some of the profiles married after the 1911 census, in this case their entry on the 1939 register would give a date of birth.

If, after researching your chosen profile, you are unable to confirm their place of birth, then it's fine to make a calculated guess at a county of birth, based on their marriage, or the birth locations of their siblings or parents. In this instance please mark the birth location as 'uncertain', and add a small research note to explain why.

In column 2 we've included a full list and count of profiles from the 19th century who are missing birth locations. If you have time, why not work on a few more. They often don't take long to do.

Have fun everyone, and let's give these profiles a place of birth!

Update Week 1 We started with 115 profiles, there are now only 34 left. Some of these need sources added, some just need their birth location added. A big thank you to all taking part, especially those that are clearing the county profiles with no birth location. I've added updated totals where they have dropped this week.

Update Week 2. Just 16 left to do now.

Update Week 3. (data as at 20 March 2022) Just 4 left to do now.

Update Week 4. Just 1 left. So far, 3293 profiles have been given locations! GREAT WORK EVERYONE!!!

Update Week 6. All profiles are DONE! So far, 4277 profiles have been given locations! Huge THANKS to everyone working on these!

Update Final Week 8. In just two months, locations have been added to 4776 profiles! WELL DONE, TEAM!!

We welcome any and all ideas for future Challenges!

Is there any particular theme you have in mind? Let us know! Simply leave a comment on this page with what you have, or what you would like to see in future challenges. Every month we will hold a different challenge :)