Profile Improvement Project (PIP) Voyage

Profile managers: Debi Hoag [send private message], Kay Knight [send private message], and Robin Shaules [send private message]

Project:Profile Improvement
Space:Profile_Improvement_Project_Teams
Space:Profile_Improvement_Project_Voyager_Standards
Space:Profile_Improvement_Project_Biography_Standards

NOTE: Please do not do any work on any profiles that display the Hold Request Box. It appears something like this (though it may display any Project Name):

Profile Improvements Project

The goal of the Voyage is to demonstrate the skills needed to improve profiles to their most complete state using the community developed Guidelines. New members of the Profile Improvement Project, known as PIP Voyagers, choose two open privacy 19th- or 20th-century profiles from their own Watchlist to improve. The Voyager and Voyage Guide collaborate to improve the profiles. When ready, the profiles are reviewed by a Voyage Guide. The Guide will look for the following skills:

• ability to create detailed citations for each of the facts
• knowledge of best practices for writing biographies
• ability to link or add profiles for family members
• ability to resolve suggestions for profiles
• ability to include images
• use of detailed locations (city, county, state, country)
• ability to include appropriate categories for military service, cemeteries, and migration
• ability to appropriately use sticker and parameters
• knowledge of methods to search for possible duplicates
• ability to cleanup GEDCOM & merged profiles
• ability to find unsourced profiles they manage
• knowledge of collaborating with Projects if a Project is co-managing a profile
• knowledge of when to communicate before editing

Voyagers should be in good standing in the WikiTree community. If a Voyager is required to work with a Mentor, they will be placed on Shore Excursion during that time to avoid receiving conflicting information.

We have incorporated two rubrics into the Voyage as standards that can be used by both the Guide and the Voyager. Each of them has three levels.

The Voyager Team Standards can be used:

• by the Guide to evaluate the Voyagers

The Biography Team Standards can be used:

• by the Voyager to determine where they are with their profile
• by the Guide to determine how well done the Voyager's profile is when finished

The Bio Team rubric will also be used by members of the Profile Improvement Project Biography Team.

Suggestions for improvement can be made using examples, links to help pages, and via email or chats. Which method is used is left to the discretion of the Voyager and Guide. If a Voyager does not manage profiles to use when demonstrating merge and GEDCOM cleanup abilities, orphaned profiles can be used to demonstrate those skills.

... has completed the Profile Improvement Project's Voyage

When the Voyage profiles have reached maximum improvement and all skills have been shown, the Voyager will receive the successful completion sticker.

A successful Voyager is encouraged to review at least one profile from their existing watchlist each week. Sometimes that review will be as simple as reading the existing biography, and then fixing a typo or adding a newly found source. Other times, it may be a pretty extensive re-work. Which profile and what is done needs to fit with your lifestyle and research focus, so we leave it open-ended.

The goal is the steady improvement of all managed profiles. New records become available all the time, profiles get added which could be linked or might need to be merged, and we grow both as researchers and as knowledgeable users of WikiTree. It is a way to keep one's toes in our own genealogy and can help avoid burnout if we become heavily involved in projects.

How To Join

You can start the Voyage by adding an answer at the G2G post.

PIP Best Practices

Inline citations should always be for the source the researcher actually used to determine that the information applied to the person. Sometimes that means that the source will be behind a paywall because the record or image is not available for free. If a free index record for the same source is available, it can be placed in the See Also section for the use of other researchers.

Orphan Trail Considerations

The Voyage concentrates on biographies and generalized sources. If you need to learn more about specialized or hard-to-find sources for a country, check the Geographical Project list and click the link to answer their G2G welcome post. If they have a Trail, it's a great way to learn about the project's specialized resources

Project Trail graduates may wonder if they will learn anything. While the Trails and the Voyage are complementary with regard to formatting, etc, the Trails specialize is in how to find specific records for a particular country. The Voyage specializes is in making sure that any reader can determine how conclusions were reached by ensuring that the narrative is supported by verifiable sources.

Sample profiles

These profiles were created by PIP Voyage Guides and are offered as examples:

• James Arthur Dodge, Voyager Guide Robin (Dodge) Shaules
• William Brownell Meares, Voyager Guide Debi (McGee) Hoag
• Lucy (Reed) Sanford, Voyager Guide Kay Knight
• George Hepburn, Voyager Guide Denise Hunt
• Nancy Jane (Bowman) Stanfield, Voyager Guide Elaine Martzen
• Judson Kilpatrick Wiggins, Voyager Guide Michelle Ketcham
• Frans Johannis de Vos, Voyager Guide Riël Smit
• Joshua Spencer, Voyager Guide Linda Richardson

Emeritus Guides

• Alfred George Whitehead, Voyager Guide Emeritus Aidan Bizony
• Agnes (Park) Pretty, Voyager Guide Emeritus Amy (Crawford) Gilpin
• Friedrich Samuel Hoffmann, Voyager Guide Emeritus Kylie Haese
• Granville Haynes, Voyager Guide Emeritus Stephanie Mandarino
• Eve (Spangler) McNicol, Voyager Guide Emeritus David McNicol
• Barbara (Wilson) Anderson, Voyager Guide Thom Anderson
• Sarah Ann (Witham) Tarr, Voyager Guide Kathy Evans
• Abraham (Hertzel) Hartzell, Voyager Guide TC Duran
• Isabel (Gammie) Fordyce, Voyager Guide Pam Cormac
• James William Blackwell, Voyager Guide Melissa (Mutimer) Jamison
• Edward Garwood, Voyager Guide Emeritus Day Garwood

A list of Voyagers who have completed the journey and links to their improved profiles can be found on the PIP Voyagers' Improved Profiles 2020-2023 and PIP Voyagers Improved Profiles 2024 pages.