Comments on William Wallace

Question

This is less about this relationship specifically, rather a general question of when one should detach uncertain relationships, if ever, and when should one leave them attached, if ever.

On 29 Jun 2021 Thom Anderson wrote on Wallace-182:

It does seem a bit draconian to detach when a relationship is uncertain. In fact, I was under the impression that that was the purpose of that radio button that has options for 'certain,' 'uncertain,' etc.

Comments

Just to re-iterate, this is a general policy question with Wallace-182 just an example.  I do see that the comments here (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Uncertain) are relevant.

The idea that pre-1700 profiles should be treated differently is touched on but nothing that reduces the ambiguity.  Terms such as 'unlikely' are also up for grabs.

The gist of this is that 'uncertain' is for those relationships that are reasonably plausible but not proven.  The only difference that I would be able to discern for separate treatment of pre-1700 profiles would be how one defines 'plausible' for that class of profiles differently than others.   

Food for thought, our calendar is based on the birth of a man for whom there is no contemporary documentation.

Answer 1

This is a Project Protected profile.  The project members must have determined that the relationship is less than "uncertain" and warranted removal.  The supposed wife is still mentioned in the biography section, so she can still be found by people looking at his profile.

Answer 2

I think you know my view on this Thom, as your comment was a response to me. But after the passage of some time, I have the following opinions:

1. If we wish WikiTree to be as accurate as possible, we should ONLY allow proven relationships, with valid sources. This will of course sometimes be up to the evaluation of a source to determine if it is strong enough to be considered proof, possibly incorrect, etc. 
2. If we disallow all "unproven" relationships, we likely break up the 22 million connections that make up our overall tree quite a bit. How much is hard to say. 

Therefore, I think this question is important as it relates to policy of the site, 

• if we do not allow NEW relationships/profiles to be created without expectation of proof (through valid sources), then 
• should we not revise existing relationships as they are found, and remove them (or propose detachment, with a reasonable -and perhaps standard via policy decision- waiting period before making changes)?

As it relates to Sir William Wallace, I find that profile confusing as the statement "There is no evidence either that Wallace was ever married or had children let alone has descendants down to the present day." is immediately followed by a list of sources that mention possible wives and children. It is clear there is no marriage document surviving, but there is no discussion of the strengths/weaknesses/quality of the sources that do mention such individuals. 

As has been pointed out to me on various occasions, it is almost impossible if not completely impossible to present negative evidence of relationships, but a clear explanation of why something is "improbable" for reasons given would be helpful in evaluating the arguments.

Comments

Same discussion as I was trying to have

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1250688/is-it-disproven-or-probably-wrong

Answer 3

As with most things in life, and here on WikiTree in particular, we evaluate and decide what works best in a given situation. So any hard and fast rule is often not a good choice when you have humans involved, especially large groups of humans.

When I'm evaluating a relationship in genealogy, (not necessarily one under the umbrella of a project) I try to take into consideration how much research may have actually been done on a person, and how much more is possible before I remove any relationships. If it is a random coal miner in 1780, there are very likely only a couple of documents extant that would touch on his life. So his birth record and marriage record, if those even exist, may be all we could ever possibly know about him. Since there may never be proof that John Campbell baptised in 1760 in Cumnock is the same John Campbell who married in 1781 in Cumnock, but who had children with a correct "naming pattern," do we disconnect him? We look for other possible candidates, and say, finding none, we make a suppostion that he's perhaps/probably the same person and leave it hoping that further evidence might someday be uncovered. He's not important to thousands of people, probably only to the direct descendants who might someday prove more by DNA. 

In the case of a well-known hero/villain of his time, even though it was in 1300, there may have been a little more known, available and studied about the subject. IF there was a marriage and there were children, and IF there was evidence of them, we would probably know by some contemporary documents IF those docs were extant at anytime in the last few centuries. That there is no concrete evidence doesn't prove that Wallace had no family, but it does tell us that they were never mentioned in contemporary documents and are likely to never be proven now. Could he have had family? Certainly. Do we have a single concrete document that says he did? No.

If that situation changes (DNA or some other magical thing we don't yet know about), we could always add newly-documented relationships. In the interim, on Wallace in particular, I think the Scotland Project's decision to leave any descendents mentioned only in the biography, along with their limited source info, is the safest route. It can always be revisited. 

Is it important to try to add "supposed" family to an important historical figure like Wallace? I think it's more important to maintain a higher level of integrity for a profile that many people will be looking at for many different reasons. If all trustworthy sources found to date tell us we really don't know if he had progeny, why would we want to wander into the fictional side? It makes WikiTree, the managing project, and any project managers look incautious.

Comments

So your suggestion would be to disconnect unproven relationships if notable, but leave it if not notable?

*edit: Or perhaps more relevant to use the star rating of a profile to make that decision? That indicates the relative frequency that the profiles have been visited within the site.

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I think if the profile is notable (however we might define it), we need a higher standard of proof. If there is controversy surrounding a profile, I think we need to err on the side of caution. Instead of a lot of energy being spent on rehashing his possible descendants, it would be more useful to find some of the sources still missing. That's my tuppence for what it's worth.

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I mean in general, Thom's question isn't really about William, that's just the example.

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In general - same first two sentences. These profiles are highly visible, we need them to be as free from controversy as possible. Cite sources, stick with the facts that we can find.

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What exactly then is the process for proposing a policy? Is it as simple as posting to G2G with a clear definition, and options to be voted upon? Or does it need to be approved by the Team before it gets to that point?

We have this ongoing discussion, Robin has had that discussion in a separate thread, I've had it related to William Wallace and John Crawford among others, I would prefer a clear decision to guide us (and I assume others would as well).

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This may be what you're after:

Help: Developing New Rules

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Perfect, thank you Bobbie!

Answer 4

I agree. My grandmother's maiden name was Wallace. Our family came to the US in the 18th century by way of Ulster, Ireland. On the Wallace side, we have only been able to find an ancestor named Robert who was born in Scotland and died in Connecticut in 1741. His son John was born in 1715. There is a big gap of records in Ireland due to a fire, I understand. We had been able to connect to the Wallace clan by Sir William Wallace's mother another way, but that link has now been broken. So this undid all of the hard work those of us whose ancestors left Scotland by Ireland during that time. We have been building on genealogy that both my grandmother and aunt had been working on pre-the Internet. My aunt even went to Scotland and possibly got some additional info when there. So it destroyed genealogy research based on records also kept by the family over the years. Please don't make it more difficult than it already is. We can't help that there were records destroyed by a fire. If you want a complete genealogy list, let us use uncertain connections to connect the dots. The note my sister put on Robert's bio was that he was one of the Scottish-Irish that came to the US between 1718 and 1740 (see Bain's Scottish Clans). The spelling of the name also alternated between Wallis and Wallace. However, that was based on how people would phonetically spell it. It used to happen a lot with many surnames over the years. Here's more info on the Scottish-Irish immigration via Ulster, Ireland. 

https://www.ancestry.com/historicalinsights/scots-irish-immigration-1700s

Answer 5

nothing to do with your Wallace, of which I know zip, but for a general comment on detaching or not, we run into the situation regularly in Québécois project where a migrating ancestor gets parents attached with no evidence.  It gets taken to G2G and discussed, with opportunity for people to weigh in with their sources/evidence etc.  Often in coordination with France project.  When a concensus is reached to detach, we go ahead and detach with a note left on all relevant profiles to this effect, with links to all the profiles concerned so if ever further evidence comes up, they are easily found to reattach.

It's handled as a case by case item, not a general blanket policy, outside of discussion in G2G.

Comments

I can see where pre-1500 and probably pre-1700, should be more restrictive but not so much more recent profiles.  One certainly does not want a situation where one mother has two hundred children.  

OTOH, even for pre-1500, there are cases where children attached as 'uncertain' should be promoted if and when the plausibility is sufficient (IMHO).

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plausibility is a slippery slope, unfortunately.  Particularly with names that are common, like Wallace or Smith etc.  There needs to be some sort of evidence to presume kinship.

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What kind of proof do you look for to connect a family tree? I have since found out we can look at church records online in Ireland. However, they didn't keep as good of records as Scotland. I looked there as well. Our family wasn't in Ireland long. I have a couple of leads but the Irish records don't always list the mother, and I'm only finding baptism records not birth records. The Baptism records do not mention birth date from the records I found either. We do have connections to the nobility both Scottish and English in other ways. Would those connections at least provide sufficient evidence? My sister is the main account holder on our family genealogy page. However, I help her to find leads sometimes. I will pass along what we need to do to her. My sister hasn't been able to be as active the last couple of years. However, I know she is interested in getting this resolved. We are not claiming to be descendants of Sir William Wallace. We are just trying to figure out our connection to the Wallace Clan. We are, at most, cousins.

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depending on the period, baptisms are the only record you will find, there was often no such thing as a separate ''birth record''.  

Marriage acts and marriage contracts are one of the main things to climb a tree with, because you might find a baptism for someone whose name you are looking for, but is it the same person?  It's a link-by-link-by-link,,,, process.  Marriages for my part of the world mostly name parents of the bride and groom, although not always.  Marriage contracts when they exist also do this, sometimes more clearly.