Have you added "Unsourced" categories to profiles on your watchlist?

Question

Source-a-Thon is happening October 1-3 & folks are going to be looking for profiles that they can help improve by adding sources. Already dozens of WikiTree members have gotten their race bibs (want one? register at http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/288345/will-you-join-us-for-the-source-a-thon & for more information, including a list of door prizes and race rules, see http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Source-a-Thon).

We all have profiles we'd love to get some help on, whether a profile on your watchlist or in a project you work with. Make sure those profiles are in an Unsourced category or the race will pass them by!

You have a month to prepare - you'll want to make sure that the profile not only is in a specific Unsourced category (see the subcategories here), but also that you've added whatever info you do have to the profile. For example, I'll be looking at the category Virginia Unsourced Profiles for profiles that I might be able to add sources to. If the unsourced profile shows the parish and county of birth, that parish's register might be one that archive.org has available. Then you'll not only get a source for that profile, but a link to the register where you can look for other family members. 

Use the Unsourced template with a location & the profile will be added to both the main category & the specific one - for example: {{Unsourced|Virginia}} adds both Category:Unsourced Profiles & Category:Virginia Unsourced Profiles

And if you’re looking for a sourcing challenge, check out the Unsourced Smith profiles with the following link:

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Category:Unsourced_Profiles&from=Smith-1

For other “by surname” sections, just change “Smith” in the URL.

Well, I'm off to make sure the profiles that have me stumped on my watchlist are as good as I can get them & in an Unsourced category.

See you at the races :D

Cheers, Liz

Answer 1

So should we all enter as many unsourced profiles as we can this next month so everyone will have plenty of red meat come Oct 1?  After all, why waste time looking for sources this month when other people are going to be anxious to do your work for you?

Comments

hmm. And ya know, Dave, I almost didn't post this because I was afraid folks would look at it like that. I hope more people are inclined to get a race bib and join the effort to reduce the number of unsourced profiles, or at least to improve their difficult profiles with whatever info they have & hope they get lucky, rather than flood the system with newly created unsourced profiles they put no effort into. We have enough of those already.

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Well I also thought about not making my post lest people think I were being serious rather than tongue in cheek, but I decided it would be a chance for you or someone else to use the phrase the apostle Paul was wont to use, "God Forbid!"

Answer 2

I have a particular interest in good Virginia sources like parish registers.  Is there some way I can monitor the changes done in this "race" as I'm not on the TL of all my ancestors.

 

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Comments

activity will probably be tagged source-a-thon, so you could monitor that tag.

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ps - if you're looking for links to parish registers, I just did a quick search of archive.org & got five hits (four were Virginia): https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22parish%20register%22%20virginia

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pps - not as clear on returns for  a parish +register search of jstor.org (just the Virginia History & Bio title), but top one was Farnham Parish (if it works right, this link should show you the search results & I think if you edit the search box to add a name you might get something useful.)

edit - corrected my spelling to Farnham Parish

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Thanks.  I do already have at least some of South Farnham Parish that I got from one of these sites.  I prefer when they are available in book form rather than broken up in journals.

I was just looking at WT's Virginia Unsourced list and the practice of listing dates by decades severely deters the observers ability to judge which profiles might be the most worthwhile to target.  If at all possible that list should show the actual dates.

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that's a tech thing (the display of info for profiles in categories) that's system-wide. I doubt it's something that would be feasible to change.

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and - guess what! It's now been changed :D

Where privacy allows, the actual date is given (if it's in the profile). Also changed was name display in the lists & including the dot showing privacy level. Too cool!

see the changes here, for example.