I am wondering why you are changing locations from USA to United States? I'm assuming it's part of a project, but my understanding was that USA, United States of America, and United States are all acceptable locations.
I have been looking for my ancestor Edwin Carrol Haines. On several census's he has listed his birthplace as either Virginia or West Virginia. He was born 14 Nov,1830. He was living in Mexico by 1859 when he got married. I have no other information on him before his marriage. This is the first Haines I have found from West Virginia. I would appreciate any help you can give me at finding his parents or siblings or point me to ways to locate him. He has always listed his occupation as gambler. He was educated as he wrote a letter to the US state Dept in the 1850's. He moved every 2-5 years so it is hard to track him. I guess gamblers have to do that. Thanks for any help you can give me. Lorena
Found him in seconds, on Family Search. Sorry -- no parents listed. Born 1830 in WV, married c1856 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to a Maria B. de Jesus Rubio. Nine known/listed children. Died 1894 in Tucson AZ. Buried in Holy Hope Cem.
The Australia Project would like these categories only to be added to a profile where the member has searched for the source and is unable to find it, so needs assistance from someone with more expertise or access to subscriptions records. It also helps other researchers if it is noted on the profile (under a =Research Notes= heading), where you have already looked.
In this case where Henry was born about 1945 so a birth record will not be released until about 2045, assistance from someone with expertise or subscriptions is not relevant because it will not achieve anything for the next 23 years. There is a research note on the profile explaining that. Putting the profile in the category risks wasting other members' time, because they will be tempted to look at it with no prospect yet of a record being available. I will revert the change. I'd appreciate it if you please don't make it again.
I understand and appreciate the distinction, but.... More than half of (the first page of) profiles in the *global* [Needs Birth Record] are Australia-related in some way. I see myself as cleaning up the *global* category by sorting-down those profiles that have *some* link to a specific country or state.
Australia doesn't have its own sub-category within [Needs Birth Record], but [Australia, Needs Birth Source Researched] seems to serve the same purpose. If you can point me to a more appropriate set of Australia needs-categories (birth, marriage, death, unsourced, etc), then I'll happily adjust.
Thank you for the response, Stu. Personally I agree that it might be better if Australian maintenance categories had a similar structure to other geographical areas. However, the Australia Project decided in September 2020 to take a different approach: see the G2G announcement at this link. The reason seems to have been the following:
Being a small in numbers Project, the AP wants to avoid the situation where we have maintenance categories with hundreds even thousands of profiles, (Victoria needs Birth has nearly 4,000 profiles, many of which are already in the Unsourced category), and members feeling they need to work on them, when there are other areas to focus their time and attention.
There was further discussion on the subject, but the decision was maintained.
The result is that Australian profiles needing birth records often have to be left in the high-level Needs Birth Record category (and correspondingly for death and marriage records.) Filling the Australia or Victoria Needs Birth Source Researched categories with large numbers of profiles where research would not be productive would return to the situation that the project wishes to avoid. For profiles I manage, if a birth record is not present, it's not because research is needed; it's because I've done the research and found no record, possibly because none exists. Adding the profile to the project's category would request that project members repeat that research, fruitlessly.
There seem to be two ways forward. You could continue your work on tightening categories elsewhere, and ignore Australia (I was grateful when you adjusted one for me in Armagh, where there aren't these restrictions). Or you could raise the issue with the project directly, or by a G2G question. However, perhaps the response might be that the presence of large numbers of Australian profiles in the high-level categories is not itself a problem. It's been pointed out that they can readily be identified with WikiTree Plus if someone is looking for them.
I'm working to clean out the category Profile Improvement as it is only supposed to contain sub-categories. I noticed that you have added it to profiles after you have worked on them. I want to make sure to move it to the correct category, so wonder if you are indicating that you have done improvements or that more improvement is needed? An example from earlier this year is Hazel Mary (Crymes) Savoy (abt.1902-1983).
I can clean up citations and wiki-link to immediate family, no problem, but making a well-crafted bio is not in my wheelhouse. If there's enough *narrative* text to be worth curating, I flag it for someone better than I to do so. Is there a better category that I should use instead? The "Needs Biography" tree doesn't seem to apply -- if anything, there's *too much* bio.
Crymes-19 is a perfect example -- I don't have access to the quoted original sources, and no direct knowledge of her or her family. I'm not comfortable chopping or merging those three extended passages, but they clearly need consolidation.
The letter transcriptions on Crymes-19 don't need to be changed. The profile is managed by someone who has chosen to include them and that's fine. If the profile had been orphaned, the letters could be shortened but, personally, I would have left them as is or moved them to a free space profile.
If you're not sure, especially if it's an orphaned profile with material that appears to be copy/pasted, you can use Category: Long Profiles in Need of Cleanup. That's a category that the Profile Improvement Project's Biography Team works from. They may decide not to make much of a change as I would have with Crymes-19 but at least you will know that someone else did take a look and make a decision.
Wish you a Happy New Year. May 2018 bring you all you need to be happy.
Congratulation for adding your contributions in December. Whatever the quantity of your contributions, they all count. As I always say "Quality is better than quantity" to make a great family tree.
We are really happy that you took the Pre-1700 certification Quiz. Thank
you for doing your part to make WikiTree an accurate and openly
collaborative place for genealogists to share their research.
Do you have some 1700's people in your tree already ? Now that you have the
badge, you can take part in one of our
historical projects.
Thank you for volunteering to help grow our World Wide Family Tree.
You are now a member of the WikiTree Community. Please note we are trying to build one Collaborative Tree which means one profile per person. It is important to ensure no duplicates are entered as you add any Profiles to WikiTree.
Everything on WikiTree is a collaborative work in progress so dont forget to read and sign our Honor Code. This is what keeps WikiTree a friendly and helpful community. We have many friendly members, feel free to ask if you have any questions.
Starting from a great-uncle's 19-page research packet, my family tree has grown to more than a thousand people. You folks have helped flesh out some of my missing branches -- I'd like to return the favor.
To help you find your way, the help pages and search features can be accessed through the links on the upper right hand corner of almost any page. Feel free to post a question in the G2G Forum or on a relevant profile page.
If you would like to contribute to Wikitree, please click the Volunteer link to receive your Volunteer badge, and post a comment here on your profile to tell us that you are interested in family history and wish to join us.
We will be very glad to welcome you to the WikiTree Community.
I am wondering why you are changing locations from USA to United States? I'm assuming it's part of a project, but my understanding was that USA, United States of America, and United States are all acceptable locations.
edited by Stu Light
Cheers, Audrey van den Berg.
In this case where Henry was born about 1945 so a birth record will not be released until about 2045, assistance from someone with expertise or subscriptions is not relevant because it will not achieve anything for the next 23 years. There is a research note on the profile explaining that. Putting the profile in the category risks wasting other members' time, because they will be tempted to look at it with no prospect yet of a record being available. I will revert the change. I'd appreciate it if you please don't make it again.
Australia doesn't have its own sub-category within [Needs Birth Record], but [Australia, Needs Birth Source Researched] seems to serve the same purpose. If you can point me to a more appropriate set of Australia needs-categories (birth, marriage, death, unsourced, etc), then I'll happily adjust.
There was further discussion on the subject, but the decision was maintained.
The result is that Australian profiles needing birth records often have to be left in the high-level Needs Birth Record category (and correspondingly for death and marriage records.) Filling the Australia or Victoria Needs Birth Source Researched categories with large numbers of profiles where research would not be productive would return to the situation that the project wishes to avoid. For profiles I manage, if a birth record is not present, it's not because research is needed; it's because I've done the research and found no record, possibly because none exists. Adding the profile to the project's category would request that project members repeat that research, fruitlessly.
There seem to be two ways forward. You could continue your work on tightening categories elsewhere, and ignore Australia (I was grateful when you adjusted one for me in Armagh, where there aren't these restrictions). Or you could raise the issue with the project directly, or by a G2G question. However, perhaps the response might be that the presence of large numbers of Australian profiles in the high-level categories is not itself a problem. It's been pointed out that they can readily be identified with WikiTree Plus if someone is looking for them.
I'm working to clean out the category Profile Improvement as it is only supposed to contain sub-categories. I noticed that you have added it to profiles after you have worked on them. I want to make sure to move it to the correct category, so wonder if you are indicating that you have done improvements or that more improvement is needed? An example from earlier this year is Hazel Mary (Crymes) Savoy (abt.1902-1983).
I look forward to hearing from you,
Debi ~ Profile Improvement Project Category Team
Crymes-19 is a perfect example -- I don't have access to the quoted original sources, and no direct knowledge of her or her family. I'm not comfortable chopping or merging those three extended passages, but they clearly need consolidation.
edited by Stu Light
If you're not sure, especially if it's an orphaned profile with material that appears to be copy/pasted, you can use Category: Long Profiles in Need of Cleanup. That's a category that the Profile Improvement Project's Biography Team works from. They may decide not to make much of a change as I would have with Crymes-19 but at least you will know that someone else did take a look and make a decision.
Did you talk with the United States Project before creating all these maintenance categories?
Wish you a Happy New Year. May 2018 bring you all you need to be happy.
Congratulation for adding your contributions in December. Whatever the quantity of your contributions, they all count. As I always say "Quality is better than quantity" to make a great family tree.
Thank you for being a Wikitreer,
Guy Constantineau - Wikitree leader
We are really happy that you took the Pre-1700 certification Quiz. Thank you for doing your part to make WikiTree an accurate and openly collaborative place for genealogists to share their research.
Do you have some 1700's people in your tree already ? Now that you have the badge, you can take part in one of our historical projects.
If you have any questions, you can contact one of our Mentors or Volunteer Coordinator, Erin .
You are now a member of the WikiTree Community. Please note we are trying to build one Collaborative Tree which means one profile per person. It is important to ensure no duplicates are entered as you add any Profiles to WikiTree. Everything on WikiTree is a collaborative work in progress so dont forget to read and sign our Honor Code. This is what keeps WikiTree a friendly and helpful community. We have many friendly members, feel free to ask if you have any questions.
To help you find your way, the help pages and search features can be accessed through the links on the upper right hand corner of almost any page. Feel free to post a question in the G2G Forum or on a relevant profile page. If you would like to contribute to Wikitree, please click the Volunteer link to receive your Volunteer badge, and post a comment here on your profile to tell us that you are interested in family history and wish to join us. We will be very glad to welcome you to the WikiTree Community.