Steve Widdowson

Birth name updated today to Crossley

As requested I have again reviewed the quiz and also gone through the sources help and a number of other helps in the myriad of topics that are in the help tab and that branch off everywhere going round in circles at times. Its not an easy read or easy tracking. In fact its a rather daunting experience, akin to studying for a uni degree and time consuming for what is essentially a hobby, a least for me. I have no desire to do genealogy at only a uni level.

Interestingly there is one line that stood out, "Any source is better than no source." Seems not, in the administration of the tree.

This has left me a tad bewildered and confused and severly knocked if not killed interest on the project.

As I understand it, the aim is to build the tree. For that you need roots, branches and trees There are long term payed information sites out there that have a done a lot of the legwork and that can be accessed, free at times,though it seems in a lot of cases not with the strict genealogical CMoS descriptions. The "rules" of Wikitree therefore become Adam, who sees names called Apples in info feeds but cant use them. Because of the "rules" coupled with the stringent uni degree level terminology sat upon so intensely, there we sit with an opportunity to expand the tree in line with its doctrine and desire but cannot without retribution. Even though we have a "source" except its frowned upon.

So we are only ever going to have a Bonsai tree due to the gardeners trimming the leaves and negating any effort to at least grow the tree. Also the origin of the external records of those external records may not be known but they do provide branches and leaves. In effect LIFE. By adding in the branches from a "source" this gives the tree life from whence the actual records can be searched by anyone. I think its ridiculous for a number of people to access the same information and all have to gloss over it and reject it just because of the requirement of pristine record rules only are allowed at entry. The tree DOESNT then grow. It STAGNATES. This defeats the whole premise of the tree. It is in effect a pristine tree of limited growth, being totally outrun by new births, therefore wallowing in the past.

It seems to me that there is an opportunity to grow the tree, by adding a new section in the Source section area where we have a Light and Heavy Sources criteria, the light being the branch and leaves basic info found and its source and this allows entry, the heavy the pristine details.

Its a fact that not all entries are going to have pristine sources, especially early ones. In that case what is the priority?, Dont enter because of lack of pristine sources for whatever reason so known names are left out in the paddock, or bring them into the fold and enter them with the limited info we have for later upgrading if possible?. My preference is to grow the tree as the first priority, always with some source, not necessarily pristine from the outset. If pristine sources area priority, then we have the Bonsai. The effect of this is restricting the influx and growth of membership and the tree, and the admonishment of members entries by the pristines kills members desires. Its certainly damaged me, two admonishments in 2 days by message and a set of entries reduce to useless. I have took over a few profiles linked to my tree. I want to grow my tree and the overall tree, but I refuse to pay the corporates for info that should be in the public domain, as there are so many and even then they restrict the info for more money. This is a hobby not a job, it has outlays and no offsetting income. My time is precious but I am happy to donate to grow the tree when I can. But not if I'm going to get jumped on for pristine reasons alone at the detriment of the tree. I dont see basic sourced info as a detriment to the growth of the tree, merely a step forward.

Due to this I have very reluctantly taken the step of extracting myself as Project Manager for some entries I have made recently that ahve been doctored as useless as I have no hope of satisfying the pristine rules.

Therefore it seems that I am only damaging the tree rather than enhancing it, which I thought I was doing and contributing, now over 6000. I am also considering removing myself as project manager from a large number of profiles. Seems the only ones I can effectively project manager are me, my mum and dad and grandparents and some aunties and uncles, as they are all I knew. If the pristines want this scenario then the trees dormant overall and any enthusiasm is quickly killed. What a waste in the solely interest of ego and individualism. I think the management need to rethink this in the interests of the tree long term Best regards Steve

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. It was never my intention to discourage you or chase you away from our shared tree. And I think that I should stop using the link to our "Sources" page until the language there has been clarified. (There is an effort underway to update it at present time. You can find that discussion here: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/987969/proposal-update-the-help-sources-style-guide)

With regard to our tree, the statement that "Any source is better than no source." is correct and does apply in most cases. Neither Helen nor myself have questioned most of your contributions, which fall well within the boundaries of what is acceptable. It is only your handful of pre-1700 profiles which have drawn our attention.

We make an exception for our pre-1700 profiles and work on those profiles is held to a higher standard of proof than the rest of the tree. Over time, as our tree has evolved, it has become clear that these early profiles needed special attention. When we get back to these dates (over 300 years ago) there is a much higher probability that you share these ancestors with others on our tree. And the folks from these early periods are also frequently found in any number of junk and outright fraudulent genealogies. This is why we have a pre-1700 certification process and hold work on these earlier profiles to a higher standard.

We have found that reliance on an unsourced online tree can lead to all sorts of errors. Ancestry trees seem to be the worst offenders, but Family Search is not immune. Just within my own personal family, the Family Search tree has some glaring errors as recently as my great grandparents generation. (I would like to straighten out everything that is wrong with my tree at Family Search, but time is, as you mentioned, a precious commodity and my first responsibility is to the tree here on WikiTree.)

All our efforts on pre-1700 profiles are not designed to stifle our tree but to ensure that when it grows, it grows correctly, avoiding some of the errors that plague the other sites.

I hope that you will continue to contribute to our tree and thanks again for your quick response to my note.

Sincerely, Dave

Thanks for your reply

I' ve just wandered thru my tree and looked at what I've entered and it goes back further behind 1700 than I realised.

I dont really know what to do now. I cant fix up the pre 1700's as required that are already entered. They cant be deleted.

I could remove me as the profile manager for all the pre 1700 profiles.

Looks like I'm limited to post 1700 unless I come across correct references which is hardly likely.

I know what I'd like to do, and that is to add in all the names from that free account tree I came across with their web addys to get them onto the wikitree, but I guess you wont want me to do that for pre-1700's. At least it would give the project teams a head start.

Looked at that source review page, god its so technical and I'm a technical person who can design and document commercial buildings or construction and have problems, and the comments? - boy, very heavy stuff.

Regards

Steve

You don't have to orphan any of your tree. You can keep managing them and perhaps some better data will come along. I see that the profiles are mostly either from England or the US Southern Colonies. Both of these areas have projects and folks that have some expertise in those areas. The beauty of a collaborative tree is that other people can and will come along. But you don't have to step aside yourself. If folks have something to offer in the way of help on the profiles, they will! These folks that you added are not THAT far back, so there should be records available somewhere.You could perhaps take a look yourself. It seems that Family Search doesn't have any easily accessible records and you may not want to pay for a pay site. But Ancestry is available through most public libraries, at least around here. And there are other sources online. Archive.org has tons of old genealogy books. There may be some relating to this family. There are a lot of books that were written about the old Virginia families. It might be worth a look. It beats giving up!

I agree that the source review page on G2G does get a bit complicated. You can see how difficult it is with a volunteer based tree, trying to achieve consensus on things.

As for continuing to add unsourced names - please no. There are all kinds of trees out there - Family Search trees, Ancestry trees, My Heritage trees and many more. But without accompanying sources they cannot be trusted, especially that far back. In an earlier message I mentioned my family's tree on Family Search. They have my great great grandfather attached to the wrong family. And they have the tree extending back into the 1500's before that. And it is completely bogus - not my tree at all. None of those folks are my ancestors.Especially with common names, such as Cooper & Gilbert for instance, there are all sorts of cases where trees are put together by amateur genealogists with little regard for details. They just look for someone the right age in some record that could be a parent and "make it so". That is not genealogy to be trusted. Thus our need for sources on the older profiles.

I hope that you will stick with us. It is an engrossing hobby & I think that what we are doing is exciting - building a big common tree that is as accurate as can be.  We still have a long way to go and need all the help we can get. In the early days, there were no controls on what was entered, and there are still countless profiles awaiting our attention, needing to be cleaned up and sourced. I hope you will join us on that journey.

Dave

Thanks for your message. I started in Wikitree because my Dad did a lot of hard slog family research travelling around Nottingham looking at records etc, talking with our family members, and entered the results as a tree on paper which he gave me a copy of, but didnt keep any of his derived sources. He also had transcripts of letters from one ancesters recollections which are on here. So as not to lose it, and, coupled with the fact that one of my daughters in Australia and one of my nephews in England are also interested in ancestry of the family and can carry it on after I leave this world, and on the recommendation of Don McDonald, I entered all I knew off those papers. As with everything I had gaps so went looking. There werent many Widdowsons on the tree at that point as I'm number 153 and we're now well over 1300. It just grew. As I dont subscribe to any of the corporate ancestor businesses, its all been achieved through on-line free searches and now I've found I can visit my library and get onto the corporates if I need to, but that means time and I run my own business. I have carefully read the advices on Wikitree. The formatting one a few times. I've looked at other entry records. I'm good at maths and loved equations but the genealogy format I have devil of a time understanding, let alone writing and reading them, which I find frustrating. I like to keep it simple and easily understandable Interestingly I've had another Wikitreer recently take OUT the <ref>' symbols, which I find a bit weird. One of my logics in adding Widdowsons and other surnames of my immediate relatives was a hope that I could find out "through the back door" information that going chronologically backwards from me I'd hit a brickwall, John Bacon and John Upton especially. John Upton was a little easier as my mum died recently and I re-met one of my second cousins back in the UK at the funeral who had the Uptons family tree, his mother in laws nee name was Upton the sister of my granny, but now he's lost the GEDCOMS as his harddrive failed!!! John Bacon is still a brick wall. Thought I might have had it last night through the back door after I stumbled on the free account ancestry that prompted last nights entries. But it brick walled one generation too short going chronologically forward. I was very happy though to have connected an outlying 1500 set to my set, though its prompted a couple of mergers as I didnt pick up on the name spelling being slightly different, but they can easily be sorted and I have one permission back already. After entering a large amount of Widdowsons I decided to draw a chart of all my Widdowson entries in a sort of table, with years on the left and suburbs across the top, and hope to use this to link floaters. Had a couple of successes so far. But all the Widdowsons havent been found and entered yet. In regard to the chart, its huge, about 13 metres long at A0 size, and can only be in sheet sections as when you zoom in it blurs. I've sent an extract to a couple of the England project team. If you're interested I can send you an extract too by email. I'm also of the mind that, to build the tree, entries need to be in there, so for me the priority is to find entries with a source, add it in and then at least there's stuff to work with, otherwise we can find information and then it sits on a loose piece of paper on the desk which seems a waste of effort. I know it's a simplistic approach and not "true genealogical process and system wording and actual documents" and is fround upon by some die hards, but its a tree that has grown, and in last nights case, linked an outlying set from me back to the 1500's. Yehhhh!!! Thanks for your great work Steve