Just For Fun .. Not a Question

Question

I think I might be just a bit over-focused on NOT thinking about Covid-19 and its 24/7 coverage (I'm scared spitless, frankly) ... because I'm at 1,300+ and counting contributions and there's like six days to go ... eek

Also I am either hare-brained or heir-brained because I have been chasing rabbits ... 

Something fairly simple like "Oh, I don't have Wanda's parents !! turned into a major hunt-for ... I found daddy but he was married twice; I found mama but SHE was also married twice ... I have three census for the family as a whole, burial sites, some of the death records needed on Wanda and her parents ... and a question about whether Wanda was the sole child was answered by the census, she had sibs Waldo, Robert, Willis and sis Rosa 

So I'm left with, for instance, do I really want to create a profile for the 2nd spouses of James (Wanda's pa) and Ethel (Wanda's ma) ... or stall ... since I am STILL rotating through my watch list -- and acting either hare-brained (chasing rabbits into dark places) 
or 
heir-brained (sorting out parents & other in-laws of spouses) or locating children and/or spouse & children for those I don't have one, some, any ... 

And the next thing I know I have maybe another half-dozen profiles who are not blood kin ... so I have to source them adequately (so they are genealogically defined) before I can orphan them ... 

I went from 1,924 at the start of march and am up to 1,951 in spite of orphaning left and right ... I don't know how people actually keep TRACK of 2000 or 5000 or more as PM ... 

Yes, and with six days left there's no telling how far and wide I will wander, eh? 

Comments

I dove headfirst into my rabbit hole! 

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Yeah, I can relate to that ... Whole new version of Big Brother 1984 and Bladerunner and Soylent Green "out there" [one book and two films that gave me the Cr...eee...pies]

Rabbit hole is relatively safe in comparison .. ah, BTW, that means you are hare-brained? Or do you prefer heir-brained? 

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I am currently trying to prove a relationship between Donald and Daffy Duck. After that, Mickey Mouse. Is he related to Speedy Gonzales?

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@ Susan .. both, I think. 

But in my rabbit hunting I have expanded more than one family line only very collaterally related to me (a tortuous pathway of marriage linkages). 

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Oh, Ready Eddie King, there is NOT a PM at WT who does NOT think you WILL PROVE ... it. Whatever it is. Y'all got the magic touch on the finger-board ...

I'll include Frank Gill in that too and Betty Fox and a dozen others, all with talented touch on the finger-board

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Ah, Melanie, so you are both hare-brained and heir-brained. I have to admit I am also. 

IS there anything "hair-brained" ? OMG, I just googled it.  hair·brained. adjective. The definition of hairbrained, another spelling for harebrained, is silly, ill-considered or unlikely to be effective. A crazy scheme that you come up with that doesn't make much sense is an example of a hairbrained scheme.

Actually when I say harebrained I was punning on rabbits = hares ... you know, Thumpers, bunnies, wascally wabbits 

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At one point on my mom's father's line, I was convinced I had an endless chain: bride was single, but groom was widowed. I find his previous marriage, he was single, but bride was a widow. I find her previous marriage, she was single, but groom was widowed. And so on. (I think there was one more iteration.) In the time and place I was looking, they didn't write the parents on the marriage record for widows/widowers, so you have to find the first marriage to properly identify people. And only baptisms are indexed. That was a ...fun?... rabbit hole.

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the common ancestor shared by Donald and Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse and Speedy Gonzales

Philip "Phil" DeLara (1914 - 1973)

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Yeaaaaaaaahhhhh, J. Palotay, chasing down those brides and grooms and the prior but but deceased spouse -- that was by some definitions (S&M, maybe?) "fun". OR you have to be an aficionado of puzzles.  

 [ Aficionado - a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime.]

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I was wondering about that, Eddie, I don't recall who was the "voice" but I recall a bio pic about him and I don't recall reading about Phil DeLara unless he was the "voice" ...

imagine what some of those voices did to the throat, tonsils and sinus etc ...

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J. Palotay -- I was thinking of my umpty grandfather Burrell B Howell (1839-1929), married 4x ... let's see, his 1st and 2nd and 4th wives were widows (he was widowed when he married the 2nd widow and 4th widow) and the 3rd was a spinster of 40 or so ... had children by the first three wives ... that's on my mother's side

Umpty grandfather on my father's side Thomas Medlock (1808-1880), let's see, m1 (they had 4 ch), widowed - 2nd wife no children and divorced, 3rd wife was a widow (they had passel of kids), 4th wife was spinster (they had 3 kids) .. so he was single, widowed, divorced and widowed when at the altar

But still what you found is remarkable (in my experience)

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Phil was the artist who drew them.

Answer 1

Wascally wabbit holes are so much fun, when not causing me to pull my hair out!

Answer 2

I'm totally with you for reducing my watchlist.    I've orphaned some after adding  a plethora of sources...... asking myself why I extended my family tree so farrrrrrrrrrrrr.

When there's a merge accomplished on incredibly distantly related connections,   I remove myself as a manager after I've provided the sources available to my skill level.  (I've actually been asked why I did this.)    

Bottom line,  I believe direct line descendants should be the managers instead of me. I'm glad I could help them on their journey.

Susan, I would love to be under  3000 on my watchlist.

Comments

Eh. 3000, Peggy?  ... well ... all blood kin? Wow? Or should I say WOW???

On mine are spouses. Someone (blood kin) and their spouse. Now I will profile the parents etc of the spouse, but then orphan them (spouse's parents but not the spouse) 

Answer 3

Going down rabbit holes is fun! :)

Comments

Greta, wouldn't it depend on what you found down there??

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That's true, Susan but usually it's fun!

Answer 4

Susan,

I've spent much of this month trying to reduce my watchlist. Despite all the opportunities taken to hand over the profiles I've created to more direct descendants and selective orphaning, I was still approaching 10,000. It's just simple math (7 years of averaging over 1000 a month contributions) and my harebrainedness of chasing so many wascally wabbits (they always seem to breed faster than I can  keep up with them! )

That number in my watchlist was never really a problem, and the non-wikitree folks finding the profiles through google searches etc.... seemed to appreciate having someone's name on the profile who they could contact directly with their questions (and I enjoyed the many wonderful conversations that ensued).

I'm now under 5000 for the first time in years! 

The goals for April are:

--to survive the Virus 

--to not go Bat-$#!+ crazy being cooped up in the house for so long

--to get under 1000 on my watchlist.

 to all of you and wishing everyone stays healthy!

BTW: I've been in regular contact with my Italian friends on their genealogy forums...and yeah, being scared spitless is probably a very sane response for those of us in our age group!  

Comments

Well, howdy Nick, glad y'all came by ... and I can fully relate to April's goals ...excepting the "below 1000"

it's all those spouses (who are not blood kin to me, but married to a blood kin) ... and if I REALLY wanted to head toward 1000 or less I'd have to detach all those spouses ... that could get pretty tedious ... I shudder at even the thought ...

Gotta give GRETA kudos for her adventurous spirit ... SHE doesn't (apparently) hesitate to dive down a rabbit hole .. well, neither does MELANIE ... we are surrounded by women channeling WONDER WOMAN .... 

Oh, this is GOOD .... youtube WONDER WOMAN VS. SUPERWOMAN (ep. 3) | Inanna Sarkis & Lilly "IISuperwomanII" Singh - YouTube

(it's in the right "tone" to fit recent worldly insanity" )

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Nick,

You've certainly been industrious creating profiles.    Great Job.   

It wasn't until I started participating in the Connect-A-Thons,  that I realized my habits needed to change or my WatchList would soon be out of control.     I too enjoy,  handing over profiles to the direct line descendants..... especially if they're new WikiKin and can learn about sourcing profiles.

To your health!

Answer 5

I would love to get my watchlist down to 4000 but I seem to keep adding more profiles than I set free even just trying to limit to actual blood relatives and a few Notable profiles.

Comments

Well, Dale, the option is to eliminate the Notables ... or to eliminate the relatives ... and you won't do either, probably ... hmm .. and you ACTUALLY keep an active eye on each one of those 4000??

Wow.

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Actually Susan most of the Notable profiles I manage are related to me or I created as part of the project. Also all of the profiles on my watchlist have been edited/checked since May of 2016, most of the earlier edit dates are for profiles I recently adopted, but I am working on cutting the date down between that date and today's date. I also check my "family activity feed" to see what others are doing with profiles on my watchlist. This is normal for me and in no way changed due to the virus.

Answer 6

Hare brained or heir brained. That's great!

I have been hare brained, down a rabbit warren. The day before yesterday I decided to tackle one of those profiles without dates from the 133 suggestions, not related to me. Not just him, but his parents, siblings, and their descendants. Oh joy, these were from a 2012 GEDCOM most without dates or locations, several with wildly incorrect dates and locations, and many duplicated as Unknown Unknown from another GEDCOM (from the same PM). I expect to finish today.

Comments

Incredible tale of heroism, Kay, just .... incredible. But ... be sure that which is finished is the project and not thyself ...

Answer 7

Yeah, I managed to order and receive a book (Married Well and Often: Marriages of the Northern Neck of Virginia 1649-1800) just before Amazon started delaying non-essential orders, and spent last night finding marriages for all my great great grandfather's ancestors, starting with his great grandparents.  Next up, adding all this info to WikiTree if it's not already there.  Looks like I'll get to add a few new profiles.  Already found one set of profiles that need merging, too.  Much more fun than course prep or watching the COVID-19 ticker going up.

Comments

Sounds to me like the book was Essential but ... obviously ... well can't quarrel, toilet paper, basic foods, basic sanitation items, yeah, I can see why those are essential 

And then I read news headlines about toilet lickers and covid-19 parties and I'm thinking where can I get a boat load of Darwin Awards? These kinds of people are not only feckless they are seriously deficient in gumption.

Answer 8

I am already for more than three months in a rabbit hole, created more than 2400 profiles and still don't know when I will come out of that. Once I have appeared outside of that hole again, I will orphan all of the profiles I created (and a few more I have on my watchlist and connected in the meanwhile. But only when I finished that rabbit hole. And yes, I stay in that rabbit hole. Because of Corona we are said to stay at home whenever possible anyway.

Comments

A project guaranteed to take up my time, keep my mind occupied .. 

 Email from the Big Man, Chris W himself, to indicate that the style I DO use needs to be altered --  to either use === Census === and === Marriage === and === Military === (rather than have them with 2 == signs) or remove the headers entirely (although I am of the opinion it will make the material "confused" and thus "unreadable") ... no headers will make them look naked ... adding = marks fore and aft will take FOREVER (I will be even more wizened) ... 

I shrug -- I will bruise my sensibilities, and in disgust I will weep over the loss, as I delete the headers -- we will see a parade of shorn lambs let loose -- 

Good heavens!! Do you KNOW what this is going to do to my Contributions score?? Let's see there's 1,951 profiles, ... or in short once I have done those that's another 1,951 Contribution points ... string it out over the next four months -- an easy 487 or 488 points each month, only another 512 or 513 points otherwise in creation or sourcing to get another Club 1000 ... 

 WOW !!!!

 Wonder how much extra disc space the loss of those headers will achieve? Huh. a byte per = mark and a byte per alpha character ... one header, such as == Marriage == is 12 bytes ... that would be multiplied by 1,951 profiles ... hmm ... 

My goodness.

Off to the sheep shearing we go ... 

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Actually Susan even removing the headers will not save any space because the old copy is saved along with the new version so that we can undo any "bad" changes. The best way to save space in the database is to learn the "proper" way things are done and do it that way the first time.

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Thank you for sharing that with us, Dale.

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Susan : it's also a style thing, whereby the only == Headers == are supposed to be Biography, Research Notes (if you have any), Sources, and Acknowledgements (if there are any — although there is disagreement regards the level of this header, it is still officially (20200326) a two == header).