Do you think we are making good progress? Victorian profiles on Wikitree

Question

Hi Wikitreers

Firstly, happy National Reconciliation Week - I hope all Australians have a chance to learn something new about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history this week.

As you may remember, some time ago (2020), I used to track progress with respect to "Victoria, Needs" categories. These categories of course no longer exist, but generic "Needs" categories still do, and I have become better at using Wikitree+ since that time. With Wikitree+, I've continued adding bdm sources and biographies to profiles in "need", even without the location based "Needs" categories that I loved using.

We've of course celebrated 2021 as "The Year of Accuracy" since 2020, and also added millions of new profiles to our global tree. Huge progress is being made. 

What is your feeling on progress with respect to Victorian profiles on Wikitree? 

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How many profiles might be considered 'Australian'/'Victorian'? Data Doctor Unsourced Reports indicate 1,382,885 (4%) Wikitree profiles may be considered "Australian" of which 431,004 may be considered "Victorian".

• Victoria's population today is around 6.6 million.
• In 1851, there were about 77,000 settlers (hard to say how many Aboriginal people, but Melbourne's Old Treasury Building claims about 2,000, that that seems likely to me to be an underestimate). 

How are we going addressing 'Needs' categories on Victorian profiles?

• Maintenance categories on Wikitree serve as 'site-wide to-do lists'

• 'Needs Biography' is currently tagged to around 15,798 profiles. A search on Wikitree+ suggests that 7098 of these had a birth, death or marriage in Australia and 5372 had a birth, death or marriage in Victoria. 

• 'Needs Birth Record' is currently tagged to around 26,958 profiles. A search on Wikitree+ suggests that 19,944 of these had a birth, death or marriage in Australia (9665 are stated to have been born in Australia) and 19,028 had a birth, death or marriage in Victoria (7651 are stated to have been born in Victoria).

• 'Needs Marriage Record' is currently tagged to around 12,678 profiles. A search on Wikitree+ suggests that 8093 of these had a birth, death or marriage in Australia (2748 are stated to have married in Australia) and 7045 had a birth, death or marriage in Victoria (2002 are stated to have married in Victoria).

• 'Needs Death Notice' is currently tagged to around 38,412 profiles. A search on Wikitree+ suggests that 31,164 of these had a birth, death or marriage in Australia (8991 are stated to have died in Australia) and 29,536 had a birth, death or marriage in Victoria (6361 are stated to have died in Victoria).

• 'Unsourced' is currently tagged to around 834 Victorian profiles, according to the Data Doctors table (the table includes Victoria, Unsourced; and Unsourced with location tagged Victoria, Australia).How many of the 431,004 are actually unsourced (not just those tagged unsourced, but also those that just simply don't have a source), though? The Australian Bureau of Statistics' Sample Size Calculator claims a 95% confidence level accurate within 10 percentage points can be achieved with a sample size of 97 (from the 431,004 Victorian profiles). Does anyone have any advice on how to pull up random Victorian profiles, for assessment?

Comments

Here is a query listing the roughly 431,000 Victorian profiles on 432 pages - https://plus.wikitree.com/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=Country%3DAustralia+Location%3DVictoria&MaxProfiles=500000&Format=&PageSize=-1. If you took the last profile from every 4th page you would have a sample of 108 profiles that I think would be fairly random.

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Good plan, Paul! Will give it a go when time allows (hopefully next week) and will report back.

Answer 1

Clare,

We need to figure out what to use for a WikiTree+ text search (not a suggestion search). Then you can use the BioCheck app to get a list of profiles that might be unsourced. I recommend the summary report if you want to create a spreadsheet for tracking.

If you use Victoria as a search it might find people named Victoria and will miss profiles with no location. And you will need to break the search into smaller chunks. I found 120 possibly unsourced in the first 5000. Here's one https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/King-51095

You can also look for undated profiles, they usually aren't sourced.

Comments

Thanks Kay, this is useful intel!

Only 120 in the first 5000 unsourced is not too bad at all (less than 3%). I am looking forward to digging further into this.

Have for now marked the King profile 'Unsourced' and will get on to it soon!

Clare

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Once you find an unsourced profile you can try a check of 1 or 2 degrees of relatives. I would not go further because it can grow exponentially and you want to keep the number checked smaller. But, unsourced is a hereditary condition that seems to run in families

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Region=Victoria should work to get only what you want (unless there is a state/county/province elsewhere that is called Victoria). Then you can split by decade (1880s not 1870s) to get less than 50,000 to use biocheck app

Answer 2

What is your feeling on progress with respect to Victorian profiles on Wikitree?

I'm feeling a warm inner glow, thanks for asking. But seriously, as an anecdotal thing, I hadn't added Victorian profiles in a while, but have recently started adding my brother-in-law's family, and I'm running into existing profiles far more often, and those profiles are generally much better sourced than they ever used to be.

Incidentally, if you ever want to look at coverage rather than quality, I'd be happy to collaborate. I do this for Western Australian profiles and could set up a spreadsheet for Victoria.

For WA, for example, currently ca 90% of all colonist BDMs pre-1857 are in wikitree and about 35% for the 19th C overall.

Comments

Your answer gave me a feeling of a "warm inner glow", Mark! I will contact you by private message as I 100% would welcome collaborating in this way and have followed the WA progress trajectory often wondering if it could be replicated for Vic.

Thanks!

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Thank you for sharing your spreadsheet, Mark! 

With your help, I have determined that there are around 14% of 19th Century Victorian births, deaths and marriages on Wikitree. I have also generated this graph, which is certainly interesting, and started a Free Space page on this topic.

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Cool!

One small recommendation , though the Free Space Page makes it clear, the description of the blue line on the chart should be clear that it represents Births, Deaths & Marriages. Total Victorians is less clear.

It’s quite the ups and downs in total births deaths and marriages registered. I expected it to be way more consistently upwards. That economic crash in the 1890s seems to have had quite the effect.

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Thanks for the comments, Mark, I really appreciated and I have updated the chart.

You're right about the 1890s depression having a huge effect in Victoria on vital statistics! I like how you can even almost see this reflected in the Wikitree totals (albeit very subtley!).

Answer 3

I am sorry Clare. I do not understand your reference to "Wikitree+"

Comments

Queryable database https://plus.wikitree.com/default.htm

Answer 4

Firstly, if you look through the people following the tag "Victoria", you'll see that some people are following it as a surname, some people are following it for other regions of the world. There is a tag "Victoria_Australia". I think it would be great if we could make everyone following the Australian state of Victoria, aware of the difference, and try and get people to use the more specific "Victoria_Australia" tag.

Second. Do we what percentage of profiles have been created for what years in Victoria? I discovered that profiles have been made for all the records in 1803-1804. I'm pretty sure that the early years in the 1830's have been done as well. But do we have any way of knowing which years have been done, which years need working on, etc? We know that it would be possible to go through the Victorian BDM Registry, and look up certificates by number and year, and have them created. Particularly for the early years. I see that someone has been doing as such for Western Australia, just systmatically going through the years. Of course, as we know, Kaye Mansfield has done a lot of them. (Looks like someone else had the same thought first.)

Comments

Hi Ben

I didnt know about Victoria, Australia as a tag (it didn't pop-up, from memory).

Kaye has indeed created a large number of profiles (51,825, though not all of them Victorian). 

In terms of proportions, they are still small year-by-year (around 14% of 19th century Victorian births, deaths and marriages are on Wikitree). This finding is from an overall review I completed recently in collaboration with Mark Dorney. I pasted a chart from that review in a comment above, which I think you will find interesting. 

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Thank you. I see now. Well done. Thank you.

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With those 1830s records there are actually more that have been accidentally recorded as being born in Victoria than were actually born there. Possibly marriage and death too but from WA experience it was pretty much just births I had to fix.

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I am just going through the 1803 records, and have already found one not on Wikitree. I thought they were all up. But it is understandable, because there is no connection for him.

Thomas Smith, born about 1781. Convicted and transported 1802. Died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Would be very difficult to find where his family was, particularly with the name Smith.

Ann Stokes, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803, Wife of William Stokes. Born about 1774.
John Thomas, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Born about 1775.
Stephen Byrne, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Born about 1767.
Samuel Fellows, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Born about 1777.
Mark Denham, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Born about 1783.
Jeremiah David, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Born about 1756.
Christopher Smith, died enroute to Sorrento (at sea), 1803. Born about 1784.
John Caryer Skelhon, died at Sullivan Bay, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born about 1770.
Thomas Dawkins, died at Sullivan Bay, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born about 1770.
John Everett, died at Sullivan Bay, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born anout 1780.
Thomas Price, died at Sullivan Bay, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born about 1755.
John Price, died at Sullivan Bay, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born about 1761.
Thomas Hurley, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born about 1768.
James Elmore, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1803. Born about 1771.
Richard Garrett married Hannah Harvey, 1803.
William Thomas, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1780.
Richard Thompson, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1769.
Richard Lennard, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1785.
Thomas Page, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1773.
John Jones, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1773.
John Jury, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1785.
Thomas Hoy, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1803.
William Best, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1760.
Richard Goodwin, died at Sullivan Bay Camp, Port Phillip (Sorrento), 1804. Born about 1778.

Two deaths in Melbourne, 1836, less than a year old, one surnamed Franks. One death, surnamed Kirby, in 1837.

First marriage in Melbourne, 1837, Joseph Moore to Catherine Sarah Grimes.

Actually, only a handful of the records are on Wikitree. Looks like I have found work that needs doing.

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Rather than just adding to the list at the moment, is there a page where I could add a list of early Victorian records that need profiles, Clare? Thank you.

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It would be really handy if you could list the ship arrivals in Victoria, according to arrival date. The details are right there, but it doesn't appear to be a way to sort the categories. A quick glance through the list, I think I only saw one ships arrival listed for 1838, and 3 or 4 for 1839, and the only earlier arrival, being the Calcutta in 1803. So unfortunately, we seem be missing details of those who arrived 1836 and 1837. I don't even know if those records are available.

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Ben, you can always add anything like that to the Australia Project Victoria team page (you are a team member). There are quite a few people on the Victoria team, maybe after adding anyhing to the page, do a post in the AP google group alerting Vic team members to the things you've come up with that could need some profiles added?

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Thank you Margaret.

Answer 5

Clare

Are you also checking for Colony of Victoria on profiles pre 1901 as this is being correctly used on many profiles?

Comments

Amanda, there is a chance Aleš has set these Wikitree+ searches to include "Colony of Victoria". His Wikitree+ histograms do include "Colony of Victoria".

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There are more: in all, "Colony of Victoria", plain "Victoria", "Victoria, Australia" and "Colony of Australia, Victoria Victoria, Australia" are correct acceptable formats on pre-1901 profiles. See Australian BDM Location Fields Acceptable Formats.

Edited to correct careless error.