Help:Suggestions
Categories: WikiTree Help | Profile Editing Help | WikiTree Tools and Apps | Data Doctors Project
WikiTree+ analyzes data from WikiTree profiles and other sources to identify likely errors and make suggestions for things that members may want to investigate.
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Using Suggestions
How to find WikiTree+ suggestions
- Suggestions for an individual profile, if any, are listed on the profile's edit page in the "Save Changes" section below the save buttons.
- To see suggestions for an individual profile and all related profiles, click "Suggestions" from the Profile pull-down menu.
- To see suggestions for all profiles that you manage, click "Suggestions" in the My WikiTree pull-down menu.
- To search for suggestions in a variety of ways, go to WikiTree+.
WikiTree data validation vs. WikiTree+ suggestions
The difference between WikiTree's internal data validation and external WikiTree+ suggestions can be confusing. The warnings and suggestions appear next to each other on profile edit pages and serve the same basic purpose.
WikiTree data validation is done live on our own servers. WikiTree+ suggestions are generated once a week on a system managed by Aleš Trtnik and then imported into our servers.
The main advantage of internal data validation is that the suggestions are current. They are updated whenever you save a draft or attempt to create or save a profile. Internal validation can also utilize information on Unlisted or Private profiles.
WikiTree+ suggestions are generated on an external server using an export of the public information on WikiTree. This is only done once a week so the suggestions may be up to a week old. However, they are much more advanced and complex. They do operations that are too resource-intensive to run live. The suggestions are also constantly being improved through community discussions. Aleš and Data Doctors have worked for years on improving them and are always trying to make them more useful.
How to interpret suggestions
There is more information about the three types of suggestions (errors, warnings, and hints) below.
When viewing suggestions on a profile's edit page, you will see a help icon 
next to each one. Clicking this will lead you to a free-space page about how the suggestion was generated. This page will also recommend a G2G tag for asking other members for more information about the suggestion. Suggestions can be very complex, so don't hesitate to ask.
How to dismiss suggestions
To dismiss a suggestion from a profile's edit page, simply:
- click the "FIXED" button if the suggestion was valid and you addressed it, or
- click the "FALSE" button if the suggestion was invalid.
In either case, it can be helpful to others to leave a comment with an explanation. These comments will be stored on WikiTree+.
The user interface for the same suggestion on WikiTree+ is more complex. There are more options and there may be more information. To access the WikiTree+ suggestions for a profile when you are viewing the suggestions on the WikiTree profile's edit page, click the "[view on WikiTree+]" link above them. See Help:WikiTree Plus for more information.
Suggestions may be one week old
Suggestions are only generated once a week, and therefore may be based on data that is up to seven days old.
If someone has updated a profile or its relationship in the past week, there may be suggestions that are no longer relevant. You can mark these as fixed or wait for them to disappear with the next update.
Suggestion Types
There are three types of suggestions:
- Errors in the data on WikiTree.
- Warnings about uncommon or non-standard data.
- Hints based on comparisons between WikiTree and other websites or services.
Errors
Errors appear on suggestion reports with a red background.
These are problems in the data on WikiTree profiles, e.g. when a child's birth date is after a mother's death date.
Corrections cannot be made automatically or mindlessly. A thoughtful genealogist needs to investigate the information and its sources in each case. For example, if a child's birth date is after a mother's death date, it could be the child's birth date that is incorrect, or the mother's death date, or the connection between the child and mother could be incorrect, i.e. the parent relationship needs to be disconnected.
Moreover, some errors cannot be resolved with existing sources. Unfortunately, some genealogical puzzles are unsolvable.
Only make corrections if you are confident. You can use Research Notes sections and Uncertain indicators when you are not.
Warnings
Warnings appear on suggestion reports with a yellow background.
These are not clear errors. They are warnings about potential errors, or suggestions for ways to improve a profile. They report missing information, uncommon scenarios, non-standard characters in data fields, etc.
For example, one warning is for same-sex marriage, i.e. when spouses have the same Sex at Birth. Same-sex marriage is not uncommon today, but it was uncommon for our ancestors. Therefore, one or the other spouse may have been accidentally set as the wrong sex. If this is not the case, set the status as a "false suggestion (hide forever)." You might also want to add a Research Notes section to explain the situation so that nobody in the future assumes it is a mistake.
Unique name warnings
This group of warnings is set apart from the others. It draws your attention to name spellings that appear nowhere else on WikiTree.
For example, if the first name on a profile is "Cliffrod" and no other profiles have this first name it would be highlighted. This invites you to confirm whether sources spell the name as Cliffrod or perhaps the name Clifford was entered with a typo.
Unique names are not uncommon, especially on older profiles and in certain cultures. Do not change the existing spelling on a profile if no original sources support changing it.
If sources do not support changing the spelling be sure to mark the suggestion status as "False suggestion (hide forever)". You might also want to explain the unique spelling in a Research Notes section if others might assume that there has been a misspelling.
Hints
Hints appear on suggestion reports with a blue background.
Hints are automatically-generated research suggestions. They are not problems with the data on WikiTree, or even warnings about potential problems. They are only hints for things that Wiki Genealogists may want to investigate.
Since data on WikiTree is frequently more accurate than data on other websites (thanks in part to WikiTree+ and Data Doctors) members need to think critically and use their genealogical research skills to evaluate the hints.
Wikidata and Find A Grave hints
Most hints are currently based on comparisons between WikiTree profiles and pages on Wikidata.org or FindAGrave.com that appear to represent the same people. See:
The Wikidata page has extensive information on Wikidata-based hints.
This page was last modified 15:43, 10 April 2024. This page has been accessed 6,877 times.