Mike Williamson

Anyways I noticed when i did the same on wade-715 after adding a PREFACE section before Biography, the section is preserved it as "Biography Research Needed". The preface is my attempt to explain the 5 Roberts taken from Marshall with a couple of footnotes. Comments and/or editing welcome!

Being a scientist, brevity with numerous inline footnotes is important. I had a paper rejected by peer reviewers in my early career for that and among other reasons. I'm discouraged by the number of profiles that have little resemblance to biographical sketches and simply a laundry list of references copied from others. I noticed how many love table of contents! While they are certainly needed for long writeups, seldom needed in the majority of short wikitree profiles. It boggles my mind why folks create a header and place one sentence it it other than to create white space which can be better accomplished paragraphically? I realize most of us are older folks are not writers and simply volunteering as hobbyists the best we can and many don't understand 'mark up languages'. There are numerous biographical books that can be used as an example and of Wikipedia where I thought the Wikitree concept arose.

As far as burying documents in the sources, that won't happen if one use footnotes as well as the reference is provided exactly where the txt is referencing it. All one needs to do is click on the number at it will send you to it.

I wonder how many believe wikitree is just another genealogical database? I know some do which is disturbing. Interesting, there is a place for biographies in familySearch but almost never is used up until recently and almost exclusively by bots and AI (artificial intelligence). That might be the ultimate goal for wiki explaining the standardizations.

I hope I am not criticizing because I am really not a writer myself (actually poor). Simply trying to get better. If anyone else reads this, I certainly hope they will consider viewing a few Wikipedia articles for Ideas or even the few very well done wikitree profiles (Not mine!). It does take a lot of time, thought and patience to write well something is apparently lacking in our fast pace society.

BTW when I started a website (karenandmike.biz/info) 24 yrs old, it became very long winded from many families and eventually full of errors to the point it was difficult to figure out how to improve and add more. That's when I finally opted for wikitree where everyone has their own biography with info specific to them linking where necessary other profiles. I had a number of folks that were sad to see it go, yet it never left just changed for the better, I Hope! I love writing history stories and integrating events around the lives of people. There are way too many genealogical databases!

1. Biography vs. Biographical sketch. The minimum that must go into a biography is documentation for what's in the data field -- births, marriage, death, children -- the things that make a profile "genealogically defined." Without documentation in the biography, everything in the data field is pure, unsubstantiated fiction. Hence the importance of citations. If a person is well known and has an entry in Wikipedia and elsewhere, i.e. George Washintgon, the biographycan be relatively brief -- no need to reinvent the wheel. On the other hand, if this is basically the only place that person can be known, a biography in WikiTree can be much longer. I have had no complaints about a long biography of one of my great-grandfather, which is detailed, goes far beyond genealogy, reflects an unusual amount of work to make it polished, and this is the only place in the world it appears. The box about long profiles you quoted above applies most often in cases where there is a lot of duplicative and unedited materials from gedcom uploads and merges. In other cases, such as Francis Meek, little is known abou him, and it's important to gather all of the few things known about him into one place, even the things that at present don't seem to add much to our understanding of him. I believe there is a good and strong reason that WikiTree uses the term Biography, not "Biographical Sketch." For George Washington, a sketch or summary is adequate. For Francis Meek, we would want absoutely everything we can get our hands on. In the case of George Washington, the source materials are plentiful and easy to find, so there's no need to capture them on WikiTree; for Francis Meek, finding each tidbit is a challenge and they can get lost if we don't capture them. So for Francis Meek I would want the fullest biography possible. And on the way to that objective, which can take years, I would want the source materials to be right there. Things on the internet are constantly disappearing, and references I made on various profiles to sites 5 years ago are now often dead links. Having the raw materials on the WikiTree profile is essential. I understand your objection to creating a data base -- most other genealogy sites are databases and WikiTree is an important improvement -- but we've got to have Francis Meek's transcribed references on the profile.

2. Where to put the data. Initially, I try to arrange all the data in chronological order, which is what gave you the appearance I was creating a data base. These are notes for further research and writing, which you have now done a lot of. That then begs the question of where to put the "database" materials. I prefer citations to be clean and brief, restricted to an indicatio of where the material came from. Again, this is to assist further research and thought -- I can glance at the citations and know which ones are strong and which are weak, which reliable and which not. There was one citation that you correctly identified as "unsourced" which nevertheless contributed some understanding in the early stages of research and review. At this point there is enough reliable information about Francis Meek that that reference no longer contributes anything, so I deleted it.

But the raw materials themselves? WikiTree's recommendation for something long, like a detailed will, is actually to create a free-space profile for it. This is handy if the will contributes information to 10 different people -- all their profiles can now referrence the will on the same free-space profile without having to repeat it. My preference for shorter ones is to have them in a Research Notes section, which I have created for Francis Meek for the remaining "data base' items not addressed in the bio.

I don't like re-doing the work of others -- there is far too much work to be done on WikiTree to waste time in that way, so I addressed the matter of original materials included in the citations you created by setting the materials off with a BLOCKQUOTE command fore and aft, so that the resource materail stands out. I would prefer the material to be in Research Notes, but I have other things I need to do with my time!

3. Collaborating. If I encounter a profile that still has Gedcom garbage on it and the profile manager hasn't done anything on WikiTree for 5 years, I don't worry about collaboration. If I encounter a profile where the profile manager has clearly spent some time, I may add something here or there, but if I'm going to work on the profile, I check in. If the person's style is different from mine, I try to stick with that person's style. This is simple courtesy and also good stewardship of their time and mine.

4. Artificial Intelligence. I posted a genealogy question to Chat-GPT and it came back with a coherent answer to which I would assign a grade of "B". But no sources. There are stories that when prompted, AI quoted impressive sources which it made up. In one case a lawyer used AI to create a legal brief which he submitted to a court in a proceeding. Turns out the impressiive citations were all fictitious, and the lawyer had major egg on his face.

5. Research. You have found information and sources for Francis Meek for which I am grateful. This is where the greatest value is added to the WikiTree profiles, regardless of how the informationis presented. It's important to stay clear about what is more important and what is less, and finding facts and documentation is top of the list. Thanks. I'm glad to have you as a 7th cousin. Would you consider joining the Southern Colonies Project? Your skills would make an important contribution. I"m Team Leader for Province of Maryland.