Adoption of orphaned profiles-Chapter 2

Question

So, at the beginning of the year there was a long discussions of the merits of adopting "orphan" profiles.   As stated in that discussion, Orphaned profiles are not such a big problem anymore, since they can now be merged without being adopted.  So, if you do not intend to "improve" a profile, why adopt it?   I am looking for some reasoning behind the idea that adopting profiles just so they won't be orphans is a good thing.   This approach might allow us to have fewer profiles on our watchlist and not feel guilty about all those "Orphans"!

Answer 1

I agree that it is important to consider our watchlist. I totally locked mine up once!  I recently adopted a family of orphaned profiles because they are central to a project. I resisted for the longest time but felt it pretty much my duty.  That could be one reason to adopt.

I am happy to improve profiles without adopting!  I am also very happy to pass along adopted profiles to others who are interested.

Comments

I adopt profiles because I think I can tie them to other lines. It takes alot of work getting them in order before I can add them. It probably appears that they are just sitting on my watch list. I no longer adopt whole lines of duplicates. Thinking I can merge them. To much time to work out what isn't fixable. I have gotten over guilt when I have to orphan. And I still can't access my drop down menus to get info to figure out how to do bios and add sources. So now I transferred my guilt to that.  Trudy.

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That's another good reason. I have also quit adopting whole lines to merge them but I will merge without adopting.  I adopt all my family line names that have fewer numbers such as last name Seay or Runion.  I'll never again adopt Johnsons!! I'm still figuring out the ones I adopted last year!!

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Yup, I decided to only adopt profiles of those who are related to me. Now I'm thinking of imposing limits on the depth of that relatiohship - 14th cousins 5 times removed? Really? Still thinking on that one!

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I also adopt family, then let them go once I get all the merges done. I recently adopted a bunch and was pleased to find they were in great shape. Also was able to find some of the conections I was looking for to another line I adopted. So sometimes it works well. I used to add a profile, or one person at a time, but now I think getting a long line of people in order works better for me. Less back tracking and correction.  Trudy.

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And yesterday I did a bit of research to add a source or two to a profile I merged. I wound up adding people to the family, which means I'm the profile manager now! Probably won't hang on to those; they are totally unrelated. Oh, Paula, don't I know from Johnsons. I also have Mitchells, Harrises, and the largest group of profiles (with a surprising amount actually related to me), the PIKES! I can't seem to find as many connections on my dad's side, but when I look at the profiles I see many relationships were left dangling in the GEDCOM upload, so I've been working to reconnect those profiles. I tried adopting Bennetts to see if they connected to MY Bennetts and wound up with 3 different, totally unconnected lines, so I'm more careful about adoptions now.

Answer 2

There really is no good reason to adopt if you don't intend on maintaining. Leaders adopt to add the PPP.

If you maintain a large watchlist be careful in adopting more profiles.  It can result in difficulties removing profiles from your watchlist.  As Paula mentioned it locked up her watchlist. If you lock up a huge watchlist Chris is the only one who can fix it. So, be careful how many you adopt or maintain.