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Germany Profile Improvement Checklist

Before Starting

1. Post a comment to the profile so that profile managers, project members and visitors to the profile know that it’s being developed by the Germany Project.

2. If PPP is needed, check that the Project is one of the managers of the profile, if not, inform a project leader and they'll add it.

3. READ EVERYTHING BEFORE STARTING:

• Check for any Comments at the bottom of the profile.
• Check if there were any G2G discussions about the profile (top right corner of the profile). Are there any problems that need to be resolved?
• Read the biography as it is currently. Check for plagiarism and/or copy/pasting against (for example) Wikipedia. See: Help:Copying_from_Wikipedia. Note: copy/paste of large chunks of text is not acceptable even if the website is acknowledged as a source. Quotes of a sentence or two (maximum) must be within quotation marks and the source cited in an inline reference. For WikiTree's guidelines regarding this, please see Help:Copying_Text. If you feel that the biography has been copied and pasted from somewhere, paste a couple sentences into Google and see what comes up.

Profile Development

Duplicates/Suggestions/Headings and Categories

1. Duplicate profiles are searched for and merged (or pending). See Help:Merging and Help:Matching_and_Merging_FAQ.

2. Suggestions are resolved (click “Suggestions” in the drop-down menu under the WikiTree ID in the mini-menu at upper right of the profile page). See Suggestions

3. Headings are in accordance with WikiTree guidelines HERE, with a minimum of:

== Biography ==

== Sources ==

<references />

The proper order of elements is as follows:

[[Categories]]

{{Research Note Boxes}}

{{Project Boxes}} [NOTE: {{German Roots}} is our project box]

== Biography ==

{{Profile Stickers}}

== Research Notes == [if needed]

== Sources ==

<references />

See also:

See: Help:Biographies and Help:Editing_Tips.

4. Check that categories, including location categories, are supported in the text. If a category is not supported, look for evidence to support it. See Help:Categorization and Category:Germany. NOTE: Germany Project's category structure needs work. They will be overhauled in the future

Links to Online Trees and GEDCOMS

5. On pre-1700 profiles, remove links to any online trees on Ancestry.com, FamilySearch or elsewhere and note (or remove) questionable sources, such as peerage.com, that are not considered accepted/reliable sources for pre-1700 profiles. (Note: Links to primary sources (i.e.: birth, marriage, death records) found on FamilySearch and Ancestry are welcome, but they should be checked to ensure the data is relevant to the profile and that the link is in working order.) See Help:Pre-1700_Profiles.

6. Irrelevant GEDCOM-imported information should be deleted. From Help:Biographies: "Always feel free to eliminate data that does not add information about, or specific context to, the profiled individual..." For guidance on formatting GEDCOM-imported sources, see Help:GEDCOM-Created_Biographies.

Research, Sourcing and Profile Development

7. Is there enough research done for a full and complete biography? If not, take some time to do more research, and add more reliable sources and data to the biography. Even a quick Google search might yield some good results. See a list of Germany Project's resources HERE

8. Check the sources under "See also". Is the citation style correct? Are the links correct and working? Can that source be cited inline in the bio? Can more info be added to the bio from that source? NOTE: Germany Project-managed profiles follow WikiTree's Style Guidelines and do NOT generally add a separate Source List/Bibliography.

9. Check the inline citations against the source material so far as you can, ensuring the data in the bio matches precisely to the info contained in the source. (Some sources may not be accessible to you.)

• Make sure the source’s link in WikiTree is working and that the format of the citation is correct.
• Add quotation marks around anything that is a direct quote, or better yet, write it in your own words.
• While you do this, you may want to re-write/expand the biography with more information from each source.

10. Consider moving lengthy items such as typed-out wills to a free-space profile page (FSP). Then embed a link to the FSP into the bio, replacing the lengthy text. See Help:Free-Space_Profile.

11. Add a Research Notes section where appropriate, especially if there are contentious aspects to the biography or relationships. If there has been any major alteration to the “facts” as written before, note the reason for the changes and your sources. See Help:Research_Notes.

12. Spell out abbreviations within the biography (for example, outside of the datafields, months should be spelled out).

13. Add headings to a longer biography when appropriate.

German Orthography

The German alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus four special letters. Whenever possible, try to use following special letters in name and location fields. The ALT + number codes you can use for each are as follows:

ß or ALT 225

ä or ALT 132

Ä ot ALT 0196

ö or ALT 148

Ö or ALT 0214

ü or ALT 129

Ü or ALT 0220

Genealogical Information: Family, Dates and Places

14. Ensure genealogical information - Parents, Birth, Marriage(s), Child(ren), Death - if included, is easily located within the biography text and has an inline citation to source(s), preferably a primary source.

15. FAMILY MEMBERS: Add links to the WikiTree profiles of parents/spouses/children named in the biography, e.g., [[Example-3|G.G. Example]], with inline citations. If links already exist in the bio, check that those links are still intact (profile ID's change over the years due to merges, renaming, etc). NOTE: Basics on family members can be included, but extensive details are generally better on the family member’s profile.

• For parents/children whose relationship is clearly supported by a primary source (and noted as such in text), set the relationship as “Confident”.
• Profiles for children that have support can be linked in a list of children (with appropriate citations/notes) or can be discussed in a "Disputed Children" section under the 2nd-level heading "Research Notes". Profiles for children that have no support should be detached after discussing with the profile managers and posting to G2G (a relationship change is considered a major change, so should be discussed first: see Communication Before Editing for details). Where a child is detached, a research note should normally be added to explain briefly why, even if it is just to say there is no good source for the relationship.
• Consider creating a profile for a parent named in a primary source if one does not exist. It is not necessary for every child to have a profile (for example, profiles for children who died young or died without issue need not be created), but if all known children do have a profile attached, click “No more children” under the list of children in Edit view.

16. DATES/PLACES: Compare dates/places in the profile’s data fields to the SOURCED entries in the biography. Are they the same? If not, adjust them.

• If you can’t find dates, estimates are ok. See this link: Help:Estimated_Dates. An estimated date of birth is much better than leaving that field blank.
• Do not add specific places of birth/marriage and death to the datafields unless there is a source to support that info. If you don't have a sourced place, add only the estimated country, marked uncertain.
• German place name and naming datafield guidelines are under development at Feb 2021. If you have a question about which names/place to use, please reach out using our Means of communication in the Germany Project.

Acknowledgements and Images

17. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS for gedcom imports or minor changes aren’t necessary as they can be seen in the changes tab. Individual acknowledgements can be removed completely or you may add something like: “Click the Changes tab to see edits to this profile. Thank you to everyone who contributed."

18. IMAGES should be relevant to the profile and must not infringe copyright. Wikimedia Commons is one of many places where you can find images to use on the profile. Each image has information on if and how you can use the image and download options. Always choose the highest resolution available, Wikitree will re-size the image to a thumbnail, profile photo or background. There needs to be an indication in comments on the image of where it has come from and why it is permissible to use it.

• This free space page lists some Galleries and Collections which have given general permission for the use of images on WikiTree, and the form of accreditation they ask for.
• Heraldry: DO NOT ADD unless you have a very good source for the image you're adding. A profile comment should be posted BEFORE adding heraldry found in an internet search (these are often disproved or not applicable to the profile in question).

Finishing Up

19. Read through the profile again to check that it flows, makes sense, and genealogical "vitals" (parents, birth, marriage, children, death) are sourced and easily found. Check for typos and run a spellcheck.

20. Post a comment to the profile to say you've completed your work.

21. Pat yourself on the back … you just improved our shared tree and many will be grateful for your hard work!

Additional Help Pages

• Help:Sources_Style_Guide
• Inline citation help
• Help:Photos_FAQ