Is "because grandpa says so" considered a valid or useful source for pre-1500 profiles? [closed]

Question

In particular, is there any value in keeping "because my grandpa said so" in these profiles? I refer specifically to the [member name] files, of which there are hundreds of profiles on WikiTree. If you're not familiar with them, they say some variation of: 

"Verified from the Genealogy worksheets compiled by Ralph Pryor during his 40 years of research, traveling extensively in the military and in retirement. Entered by [member name], Grandson."

You can see a live example here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brett-135

Clearly grandpa was not a witness to this person's life, as they lived in the 1300s. Grandpa also does not seem to have made any notes as to his sources. And yet when I dedicated a full day yesterday to removing these, as well as links to unsourced online family trees, and marking these profiles as Unsourced, I not only had my Pre-1500s certification revoked, I also had my account frozen. I was given a stern lecture - by a WikiTree Leader - as to how the [member name] citations provided valuable information and I was never to remove them from a profile unless and until I could fully source the profile before finally having my access restored. And I was told WikiTree volunteers would now be having to spend their valuable time undoing my work to restore these "valuable" [member name] citations to the effected profiles.

Here is another profile that I cleaned up, which has had its [member name] quote restored with the note "Restoring citation referring to research notes which may be helpful in further sourcing this profile": https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Barrett-3321

So here's my question. Why? 

Like many of us, I entered WikiTree with an unsourced family tree. It was built by my father, and I actually participated in the building of it as a teenager, spending hours and hours in libraries scanning microfilm for information. And yet I still understand that "because my papa says so" is not a valid source for any profile past the first few generations, let alone a pre-1500 profile. To create a sourced profile for any person on my personal family tree, I need to retrace my steps, find the original sources, and enter them into WikiTree. Even well-known and published genealogists are expected to provide sources. We believe them - I have no intention of traveling to Germany to check every churchbook for the records cited in "The Great Migration" - but the genealogist is still expected to provide them.

So why is a blurb about [member name] grandpa's unsourced genealogy worksheets considered a valid/useful source that should not be deleted?

Comments

Hi, Jo --

As I explained in my email to you this morning, and as Robin explains below, these bits of text are clues.

It's perfectly reasonable to add the {{Unsourced}} template to these profiles, but it's better to leave information there if you don't have anything better with which to replace it.

Nobody's going to argue with you about this being a valid "source," but it does help people find more information about a line.

I also explained this morning that your account was blocked because of the speed with which you were removing information. Sometimes, in order to prevent the need for additional repair (by you or others), we have to do that, and until someone was able to speak with you and find out what was going on, we needed to keep your account blocked.

Finally, I don't believe anyone suggested that you needed to fully source the profiles before removing information. We only asked that you replace the sketchy information with information that would be more useful before wiping the profile(s) clean. Again, an alternative would be to just add the {{Unsourced}} template.

From what I saw, all of the profiles you were editing were creating by a single GEDCOM upload back in 2011. We don't allow uploads like that anymore, but these legacy profiles are still hanging around waiting for someone to come along and give them some TLC.

What we're doing here at WikiTree is a process. It will never be perfect, but it continues to get better.

I hope this helps to explain -- for you and for others -- what the full situation was.

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p.s. I edited your message to remove an active member's name. Please see this G2G post: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/528266/have-problem-with-member-should-mention-them-specifically

Thanks! :-)

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Thank you. I originally posted this on the Pre-1500 Google Groups, specifically because I didn't want to call the guy out in public. Then I read the rules for the Google group and thought it belonged here, and so I moved it over. But someone had answered there already so the thread survived and now it's running in both places. Argh. :D

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As others have expressed, please don't delete "Verified from the Genealogy worksheets compiled by Ralph Pryor during his 40 years of research, traveling extensively in the military and in retirement. Entered by [member name], Grandson." from the profiles. This is important information to family members and not at all the same as "because grandpa says so" 

Family members will know the value in the research that Ralph Pryor did, and want to know that he had worked on the research for those profiles, even if it does not fit WikiTrees standard for a primary source.  

My tree branch had our own much loved Genealogist, that devoted much of her life to genealogy research, and I don't know what happened to the wall of file cabinets, that contained her sources, but I make sure to include her in the list of sources for each profile i add to WikiTree, that she has had a hand in, It warms my heart to see her name there and hope that future generations will appreciate and love her as much as I do.  

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I concur that it's important to include a source like this; however, I might remove "verified from..."  That assumes that someone else (the grandson?) has verified the research of Ralph Pryor. 

A more accurate, although still incomplete, citation might be:

Ralph Pryor, Genealogy Worksheets, prepared during 40 years of research [ideally a date range]; in possession of [member name], grandson.

 

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Is the source I added to John Barrett enough to remove the restored citation which I moved to Acknowledgments.

 

It is interesting that there was a comment on his profile dated 11 Dec 2017 that had the link for the source which has more information about the family in the surrounding pages.

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I'm not sure people really grasp the number of descendants someone from the 1300s has. One of the Mayflower passengers alone has an estimated 2,000,000 descendants living in the US. If everyone included a statement about their "much loved family genealogist" who "rediscovered" each ancestor in each ancestor's profile, these profiles would be nothing but a list of thousands of "much loved family genealogists".

It's a fine thing if you choose to do this for the first few generations of your immediate ancestors (assuming the other descendants agree), but the entire point of Wikitree is that we understand the further back in time we go, the more these people are shared ancestors of many thousands or millions of us. These profiles are meant to be a summarization of - possibly even a tribute to - that person's life, not a personal vanity project or a place to advertise ourselves or remember our "much loved" family genealogist.

Of course if your family member is a published genealogist who did original research, there may be a place for a citation of their work in the Sources section.

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From the discussions we've been having in the Pre-1500s Google group and from the current WikiTree style guide, my understanding is that these citations only need to be kept until a legitimate source (such as the one you just added) is found.

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The problem arises when there simply is no legitimate source, because Grandpa bought into somebody's speculative fantasy.

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Jo, I don’t read this as a tribute to a favorite relative— it’s a statement saying where the member obtained the information from. Ie a SOURCE   Not a great source but it is a source.

It alerts the reader to how reliable the data may be.

If I was working on a profile— of whatever era— that contained that source, I would know that I would need to find a better source. Without that source listed, I have NO way to judge the quality of the data. I also have information that would help me follow up with the member to see what else I could learn about his grandfather’s research. I could also google the grandfather’s name and see what else I could find about him. Maybe he published other work. Maybe he’s been proven to be a fraud. But at least I have some information (vs none).

Answer 1

It is only valid to those of us who have become familiar with some of these old lineages that were added prior to all the checks and balances.   When we see this information, we know which direction to head to try and find sources.   This problem is not unique to Pre-1500, it is all over Wikitree and the sourcerers group and many of the challenges presented take on these issues.

Comments

So you think it's worth keeping? I can (possibly) understand why a link to an Unsourced family tree could be useful, but I can't see the value-add of this blurb. It's effectively the equivalent of the name of the Gedcom file that a profile was imported under, and we're supposed to remove those from the profile and archive them under the Changes tab.

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See above

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Jo --

Given that there's nothing else to go on for those profiles, what's the harm in leaving the text until something better can be added??

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Yes, apparently there is a value add to this information that I was completely unaware of. Having thoroughly (I thought) read the style guides, I've put hours and hours into WikiTree thinking I was improving it, only to find out I've basically been creating work for other people.

It's honestly demoralizing.

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Everybody makes mistakes, and your intentions were good.  It's nothing that can't be fixed.  Please don't beat yourself up over it.