Huge trees full of fake people on WT - what to do?

Question

I've been doing Buckner genealogy for probably 30 years now, and the biggest problem I've always faced is that one Buckner line from Virginia was fully of wealthy, prominent people who paid lots of money for "genealogists" to research their glorious family history. Of course, they got shucked like oysters by a whole series of hucksters, Gustave Anjou being the most notable, and the result is that there are several books out there full of just fake nonsense "genealogy." This has always been, to choose a legal analogy, an "attractive nuisance," since anybody who has the last name Buckner tends to want to hook up with these artfully crafted fairy tales. Inevitably with the advent of internet genealogy, all of this stuff has been copied endlessly into Ancestry.com, FindAGrave, the IGI, WFT, and naturally here. I've been whacking away at the weeds on WikiTree for about a month, but there are a couple sections of trees on here where I don't have just a couple mistakes, but there are whole bogus lines, like many generations of people who are either totally nonexistant or so distorted that it's impossible to figure out what real person they were actually based on.

So here's the question - according to proper WikiTree practice, what am I supposed to do with, say, 3 or 4 generations of fake covering a couple dozen profiles? Not like, "the birthdate is wrong" but the name is wrong, the birthdate is fake, the middle name is fake, the children are fake or wrong, the parents are wrong, the death date is fake, the marriage date is fake, ... (Source BobsFamilyTree.GED from Ancestry.com, Meaningless Code #S35-SFS33D-SFDS32342342)

• A - Just separate the profiles and attempt to guess at good places to merge them?
• B - Just leave it and put in the comments that the source the profiles are based on is seriously erroneous and/or forged data?
• C - Separate the profiles and recycle them individually for real people of the same name, roughly contemporary, who don't have profiles

I tend to prefer C because people have snapped at me for bothering them with merge requests, and frankly I don't see the point in merging some junk profile into a good profile, but I haven't really gotten a sense for what the WT community considers the best practice for that kind of thing.

Regards,

Ben Buckner

Comments

Gustave got into my Bacon line as well. Had to lop-off 18 generations in one fell swoop - thankfully I have been able to correct the earlier mistakes as they are well documented past my gateway ancestors (whose Will said he had no children and Gustav connected him to a child anyway).

Answer 1

Excellent question, Ben, and I will be interested to read answers from others.  You may want to read the help page on Recycling WikiTree IDs.

Answer 2

There are two schools of thought on these issues:

• Detach, recycle, merge away.
• Because these lines are often widespread on the internet the result may be that they just get reattached a short while later, therefore, detach them, leave them but with explanation why they should not be reattached.

The second approach may work better if it is combined with project protection of the oldest documented profile in a line since that prevents reattachment of parents without first discussing it with the project. 

Answer 3

I say B, however, I would post the error notice on each of the suspect profiles.  I would also disconnect any real people from the suspect profiles.  Of course, sources for the real people is imperative.

Answer 4

How about classifying them all under the Fictitious Genealogy category??

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Fictitious_and_Legendary_Genealogy

Answer 5

You could create a category similar to this: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Goodman_Genealogy_Fabrications . Add the possible fabricated profiles to it. This is especially useful for profiles that may contain some information of people who may actually exist. But mainly it provides a warning for anyone who comes across them with an explanation. I would also add the {{Questionable}} template.

Answer 6

Send courteous messages to PMs about each individual change you'd like them to make, citing your sources.  Avoid words like junk, bogus or fake. Write something like "This is a great profile, but..."

Yes I know it's totally inadequate.  That's why the junk isn't getting fixed.

But don't believe a word you read about profiles being open, anybody can edit, just like Wikipedia, etc etc.  On WikiTree the PM is king.  If that's not you, you edit at your peril.  You will be in the wrong.  You will be insensitive, discourteous, uncollaborative.  Fixing the genealogy is no defence.