Did you see that you can now browse all unconnected people? Perfect for RAOGK.

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

Last year we created Special:Unconnected to enable you to see the people on your Watchlist who aren't connected to the "big tree" by blood or marriage.

"Unconnected" means a person isn't connected within 100 degrees of any of the anchor people on http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Connection

It's not exactly the same as saying the person doesn't have a fleshed-out genealogy, but it's a close approximation to it. There are very few unconnected people with solid family trees.

Generous Connectors Project members asked for something more: the ability to browse everyone on WikiTree who isn't connected, rather than just the unconnected people on their Watchlist.

Making connections for strangers is a true "RAOGK" (Random Act Of Genealogical Kindness -- to use the term coined for a classic website of that name).

Connectors are awesome people who want to help connect other people with their genealogy skills. They embody the WikiTree mission to connect the world on one free tree.

So, Connectors, here is your grand rabbit hole: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Unconnected

You can browse all connected people with a given surname, e.g. Smith.

Or you can browse by birth date, to work on the earliest first, or to work on the people from a certain time period, e.g. the 1500s or the 1700s.

You can limit to Open profiles and/or orphaned profiles.

Onward and upward, for the single family tree,

Chri

Comments

Very good!

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This is fantastic - within a few seconds of my 1st exploration of this tool, spotted a problem in a tree branch, that may or may not be the reason, someone is creating duplicates of that branch.  Have requested a fix, and then merges of the duplicates can happen - maybe even a source or two will appear as a result.

Will be using this daily :D

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Chris,

Would it be better then as I create their cemetery profile to leave myself as their PM then?

Taylor

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Wonderful! Now, to make it even *more* wonderful - any chance of some locations on that list? Please?

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Are BCE profiles that redirect to Wikipedia meant to show up on this list?

For example, http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Larissa-1 is on there.

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Oh, this is terrific! Some time ago, while working on unsourced Slades, I hit upon a few unconnected Slade profiles uploaded in a GEDCOM by somebody who is no longer on the system. I never have figured out a way to search for profiles by who created them, but by setting the filter to unconnected, unowned Slades, I was able to identify and link together a bunch more of them!

Greg

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In reference to the comment about very few fleshed out trees are unconnected: My tree was massive before it connected to the main tree, I was getting to the point I thought it would never happen. It seems none of my ancestors on the maternal side - where I started - moved about much. I found nobody who went to America or even out of the county.
   I'm currently working on my paternal tree but got a bit stuck so I decided to work on the surname, whether or not the people I added were connected to my tree. I started with the english cricketer, John Thomas Brown Dumelow Platts from Chellaston, Derbyshire and added as many relations to him as I could find, sourcing as I went. This new tool now tells me he is still unconnected and has 45 connections, I now have two missions, to get him connected to the main tree and connected to my tree, if we are indeed connected.
Yesterday my task was finding LNABs for the married women with unknown LNAB who were in the unconnected list. I thought that would be a good way of increasing the chances of somebody connecting with them.

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This is wonderful. I have been using it the past few days to fix connection problems. I have found that GEDCOM uploads can leave a lot of profiles unconnected, even if they were very well connected to begin with. Skipping existing people in resolving a GEDCOM will miss the occasions where the skipped person had a lot of new information. I wish I had never used GEDCOMs now, but the long cleanup of them continues, and this helps a lot.

Answer 1

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Chris!  This is great!  I love the count at the top of the page, too - provides incentive to bring that number down from over 2.7 million.

Answer 2

Many thanks - should keep me happily amused and out of trouble for a day or two

Comments

9 upvotes?  Whatever for?

Well I tried shifting a few, but I hit the 24 hour limit for posting messages, and then got a whole bunch of merges rejected.  Looks like this may be another job best left for the Leaders.

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interested in your rejected merges - how did you cope?

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I just go and bang my head against a wall for a bit.

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Ah, but you don't give up? It's just a game, figure out the run of play then devise some tactic to win the day.

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The way I figure it, time is finite.  If I'm not chasing one, I can be doing some more.  I hope to win as many as possible, but I don't care which ones they are.

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Definitely an element of masochism in in this game.

Answer 3

"Grand rabbit hole" ... you know us far too well!

Answer 4

What a pleasant surprise when I opened "my" unconnected list this morning. I just connected 't Hart-profiles according to your RAOGK philosophy. From now on, we can do the maths ourselves to find out the connected-ratio.

Comments

I love it and it s the reason we start tomorrow at noon GMT time a challenge at the Dutch_Roots_Project a connector challenge! Please feel free to join! A Badge to win!!!!!!!!!! :D Here is the prior announcement:

 

[http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/227046/vooraankonding-prior-information-notice]