PGM project volunteers: what are you working on?

Question

Summer is behind us. Autumn is officially here. We've "gone back to school."  

In that spirit, I'd love to hear from Members of the Puritan Great Migration project: what are you working on? Show us your stuff! Share your accomplishments. Seek help for your challenges.

For myself, I respond to PGM-related questions-- either here on G2G or sent through other means. I respond to PGM-related merge requests. Both of these involve profile cleanup and review of evidence and sources.

My "proactive" work includes the ongoing review, page by page, of Anderson's Great Migration series, updating wikitree profiles with what's found there. I'm just getting into the M's of Great Migration Begins.

I often bounce around to other profiles as needed, "out of order," which might explain why I'm only just getting to the M's of the very first volume! :-)

What are you working on?

Thanks everyone.

Comments

What does PGM stand for?

edit: nevermind... I see it now... Puritan Great Migration

Answer 1

Hi Jillaine,

PGM is a great project, I have many ancestors that need inclusion.

I suspect you have seen this resource?

https://www.greatmigration.org/

 

Michael

Comments

Thanks, Michael. Yes, we use Anderson's research as our guidepost.

Answer 2

Well, sadly, not as much as I'd like!  I've worked on the Jewett family tree and marked those PGM folks as such.  I need to go back and check that I didn't miss anyone, or maybe a spouse.  On that tree I've progressed, date-wise, beyond folks that were part of the Great Migration.  I'm on their kids and grand-kids ...

Other than that I've been working on Canadian stuff ... my family moved to New Brunswick after the Acadians were kicked out and land was cheap!

Comments

Bob, thanks for all you're doing. Working our way down the generations from the PGM ancestors is admirable work-- especially when merged duplicates result in the need to merge children. Thanks again!

Answer 3

I've been working on the family of John Mayne, sourcing and trying to flesh out the profiles a little as I go,  Still working on the profiles of the "Founders of Hartford" but am way behind where I wanted to be. Thank you for all your hard work on this important project

Comments

Dan, thanks for fleshing out Mayne. Got a link? We'd love to see it.  Thanks too for anything you're doing in support of the Hartford Founders profiles.  I don't think that was ever a formal project and I guess technically could be a sub project of PGM if you or others wanted to take that on.

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John Mayne profile is http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mayne-255 I don't know if Founders of Hartford needs to be an official subproject.  It's just that all of the founders are also PGM eligable and it's a topic that interests me. Until I corrected a error in my family tree I thought I was descended from a lot of them so the connection is gone but the interest remains.

Answer 4

You start with 2 parents. By the time you get far enough to hit PGM, you potentially have 4000 ish ancestors. I keep bumping into them, my own and other peoples. I can't resist a messy profile, so I put on my Project Improvement hat and fix it. Today A Fabry and I have been untangling knots caused by Savage's Gen Dict and Caulkins hist of New London, giving two different and incorrect wives to Ann Griggs. All three "husbands/men" are PGM as is Ann.

Comments

Anne B, thanks for all the profile improvement you're doing including detangling PGM messes.  do let us know if you need help with anything.

Answer 5

Hi Jillaine,

Allen--especially William Allen of Salem and Manchester, Mass.; inclluding the work to disentangle his wives and children who have often become confused in the reporting about other early families of the same name. (Thus, also working on other Allen families ...)

Leach--especially Lawrence Leach of Salem; including the work to sort of his children and the mostly PGM families that intermarried into that family

Willard, his wives (like right now)

Bachiler--on going, but lookng up.

Sanborn/Samborne--one going, but looking up.

Woodbury--have just dabbled, will be an ongoing effort

Some others to add to the list; may update shortly.

Comments

Gene,

I'm sure I'm not alone in being thrilled to have your attention spent on PGM profiles. Your work here is stellar. Thank you.

Folks, see Gene's posts to g2g's Genealogy Help as a great model to follow when collaborating with others to sort out a thorny "disputed origins" problem.

Answer 6

Not directly PGM, but hopefully in support of it:

I adopted a lot of old profiles willy-nilly from 1600s New England before figuring out how to tell who was really an ancestor. I am now working through my watchlist, looking for profiles without dates.

I add the dates where I can, and estimate where I can't find them. After as much cleanup as possible, I look to see if there are any potential matches, and propose merges. Often, then I can go back and add dates that have become clear.

If the profile is for someone from New England in the 1600s, I usually add as much in the way of history as possible, and try to make a list of the person's children, to either link now or facilitate links later, if the children don't have profiles yet. Then I do as much connecting as I can to spouses, parents, children.

If the profile meets criteria, I'll add the PGM template if its not already there. After cleanup, if the profile isn't for a likely direct ancestor or their sibling/spouse, I remove myself from the trusted list, adding the unsourced template if needed.

Of course, in the process, I'll find people who aren't connected where they should be, merges that should happen, etc. The latest one I've been working on is Jonathan Boardman, who was probably born in 1660/61. He wasn't linked to his PGM father because of a difference in spelling of their surnames, and his father wasn't listed as PGM. Jonathan's not on my trusted list; I found him while trying to estimate a date for someone else.

Comments

Carole,

Thanks so much for adopting and improving all those profiles. I, for one, really appreciate it when people find dates-- even estimated ones-- for empty birth fields. (I realize there is not 100% consensus on this issue...) 

I also want to respond to this: 

"He wasn't linked to his PGM father because of a difference in spelling of their surnames, and his father wasn't listed as PGM."

There are probably hundreds of profiles not yet "listed as PGM" that should be. Please realize there were something like 20,000 to 40,000 people who emigrated to New England between 1620 and 1640/50. We have our work cut out for us. 

Thanks, Carole, for what you're doing to support our progress.

 

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Thanks, Jillaine.

When I wrote that his father wasn't listed as PGM, it was because I was surprised. I love adding the category, but it seems like lately there aren't many profiles left where it's missing.

No criticism intended - only praise!

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No criticism felt! ;-)

Just wanted to clarify for you and others not to be surprised if you run across someone who emigrated to New England between 1620 and 1640 who is not marked with the PGM tag.

Many thanks!

Answer 7

I'm working through my entire tree(s) on Ancestry and connecting up what I know (or think I know) to profiles here.  So far I've identified 30+ (claimed) ancestors who were also Great Migrators, and I'm trying to do at least light cleanup on their profiles as I find them, or enter profiles if they are missing.

I was having trouble keeping track of them all so created a listing on my profile.

I still owe the profile of Benjamin Hammond some work based on our G2G discussion of his origins. He's messy!

Comments

Chery, you're right: Benjamin Hammond is messy-- one example (of many that we find in the PGM project) of a person long associated with a given set of parents when the documentation doesn't support it at all. This is the kind of issue we regularly address on the PGM project and I sure appreciate everyone who helps untangle these messes!

Cheryl, love your list of PGMers on your profile page. We share Blodgett, Swift and Rice. (Is anyone with any roots to New England NOT descended from Edmund Rice?)

Thanks for all you're doing!

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"I was having trouble keeping track of them all so created a listing on my profile."

Great idea!

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Jillaine, I had to smile at that comment about Edmund Rice. Knowing that he shows up in at least three places in my own ancestral charts, I have wondered how many people are descended from him.

Answer 8

I went through and put the PGM Logo onto all profiles with the PGM tag - that's done. I can (easily!) check every week or so to make sure new PGM profiles also have the Logo.

Straightened out the Thomas Clarke-Rose Kerrich family

Next up is untangling the John Peckham lineage. Did some early work on this, but still more needs to be done.

Comments

Bryan, thanks so much. Do you need any help with any of this?

You also remind me of something that I wanted to bring people's attention to.

The {{PGM}} template now has a way of pointing to the specific volume and page in Anderson's Great Migration series for those profiles that are documented there.

There are still a lot of PGM profiles that need to be converted to this format; see the following for details:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Puritan_Great_Migration

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Thanks for that link, Jillaine.  I will start using it.

Answer 9

I am trying to unscramble the wives of Samuel Walker Sr.  and subsequently place his children with the correct parents.   This appears to lead to some of his children being attached to his son Sam Jr as well.  And will lead to some detaching and merging.   Much more than I expected when I started to clean-up Sam Sr.

I posted a G2G question regarding Samuel's wives in hopes of getting these profiles in shape.

Chris

Comments

Chris H.,

Thanks so much for doing this. I want to underscore the use of g2g for working out problematic relationships-- including origins, spouses and children. It's a powerful way not only to encourage collaboration among the profile managers of a given page (and others watching g2g), but also a good way to document the problem and (hopefully) the solution, and keep it attached to the profile so that others who come along and are tempted to attach incorrect relations or change last names at birth have a document to refer to that explains the situation.

Thanks Chris (who is also a co-leader on PGM, by the way...)

Answer 10

Hi, everybody

I've been working on the surnames Rock, Stone, and Couch, but haven't had any luck adding new entries to the project.  The people I have are already there.  I haven't given up.

Comments

Don,

Thanks for responding. You've discovered something that sits behind the reason for the PGM project-- existing profiles of Great Migration ancestors. This happened because in the early days, Wikitree did not place any restrictions on GEDCOM uploads, resulting in many duplicates that we have been slowly but surely merging. It's also true that profiles of distant (pre 1700) ancestors are likely to already have profiles on wikitree.

However, there is still much work to be done on those existing profiles, and we hope you'll help. That's a major reason for the PGM project-- cleaning up and improving the existing profiles. Many were added initially without any sources. Or they are baesd on 19th research that has subsequently been improved upon (and in many cases debunked). In addition, we're trying to bring this profiles in line with the Wikitree Style Guidelines that were developed last year.

Look here:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Styles_and_Standards

and especially here:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Biographies

for guidance on how to improve wikitree profiles.

As you'll see, there's much to do even on existing profiles, and the PGM project needs your support.

Thanks!

Answer 11

Still working on connecting the list of Gateway Ancestors to their profiles, and cleaning up those profiles. They are usually early immigrants and unless they went to Virginia they are usually PGM. I need to go back over the ones I've done and add the volume and page of Anderson's work to the template, and the same with the rest that I find as the Gateway list gets completed.

Comments

April,

I really like the intersection of the Gateway Ancestors work with the PGM work. Do I understand accurately that a Gateway Ancestor is an emigrant to America with a confirmed lineage back to royalty and/or the Magna Carta Barons? What I love about this is that many old PGM profiles claimed to be descended of royalty and those claims have been debunked. Still many profiles haven't been updated to reflect the debunking yet. The Gateway Ancestors work helps with that.  Thanks for doing that work (along with John Schmeekle who is another excellent "detacher" of debunked connections to royalty.

Answer 12

I have been working on filling in biographical information on several of the Bates members who migrated in 1635 including Clement and Ann of Hingham, Joseph and Esther of Hingham and James and Alice of Dorcester.

Comments

Thanks, Joseph.  This is the kind of work I was referencing above-- we really appreciate the work you and others do to flesh out existing profiles.  Thanks so much.

Answer 13

Gene and I will be carefully working on the Shipslists.

Paula

Comments

Paula and Gene,

I can't thank you both enough for this really critical work.  

While not formally part of the PGM project, which focuses on profiles of people, the ships lists pages are really important right now. A former wikitreer had copy/pasted hundreds of pages from another website without any attribution, much to the chagrin of the person who originally created those pages. Since it's clearly not obvious to some people that this is a no-no, please understand that it's against the honor code AND out of alignment with the style guide to copy entire swaths of text from another publication, including other web sites, to wikitree. Link instead.

We only discovered this ships lists problem recently. In the process of addressing it, we also discovered that there was a lot of inaccurate and/or confusing info related to colonial passenger lists that also have to be dealt with.  Gene and Paula are taking the lead on this.  Keep an eye out for a call for help when they're ready.

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Thank you Jillaine,

Like you, we are most eager to correct this situation. I appreciate your remarks. We will keep everyone updated.

Paula

Answer 14

It's hard to pinpoint one specific project.  I've found several ancestors that need to be merged.  I've finally managed to merge some of them after waiting the required length of time and have been trying to clean up the bios.  Most recently I've been working on the Daniel/Daniels line and their spouses.

Comments

Barb,

Thanks for all you're doing and for your patience in going through the waiting period for merge requests.

Let us know if you need any support.

-- Jillaine

Answer 15

I have been going through my off-line ancestry to see if there are people on WikiTree that need to have the PGM template added to them.  The ones that I am the profile manager on is no problem, but what is the protocol for adding the project tag to profiles that I don't manage? I've found in the past that if I add a comment about including profiles in the project, I get a thanks, but no action. I don't think it would be any extra work on the PM's part once their profile(s) are part of the project, but just thought I'd check. 

What would you recommend?

Thanks.

Comments

S,

Thanks for what you're already doing.

Profiles of people who are older than 200 years are open for collaborative editing by anyone who has signed the Honor Code. That's what a wiki is about. If you come across a profile that is eligible for the PGM template, simply edit the profile and add it.

I frequently do far more than that on these PGM profiles, and rarely if ever get complaints. Often, I am thanked for cleaning up the profile and adding source citations.

The place where you want to check in with a profile manager first is if you're going to make major changes-- changing the parents or the last name at birth, for example. Start with a comment on the profile; if not response, move it to g2g where you'll get additional visibility.

But if you're doing just basic editing, go for it.

Answer 16

I'm not sure if I'm officially a PGM volunteer or not, but my work certainly heads into that territory enough for me to be at least an honorary project member.  I'm working on two things: I am detailing the genealogy of the man after whom my daughters' school is named and his wife.  He has ancestry that goes back to Quaker leader Thomas French, and she has Delano and Warren connections (a surprise to me, since she was born in Chile and has a Swedish name).

I've also been working on an alphabetical listing of the many single-family oriented genealogy/family history books that I've used in my research.  Along the way I was pointed towards two other such lists that are already in place.  I'm going to wade carefully into a comprehensive list at some point, but haven't yet.

Comments

Hi Kyle,

You're official-- that is, you have the PGM project badge.

I love how people enter into this project from so many different directions-- working on the person for whom your daughter's school is named. That's great! This entire thread is demonstrating the many different ways that people can participate in a Wikitree project.

Would love to see links to the lists you're speaking of. Perhaps you could just add to those? (assuming they're on wikitree?)

As to the Delano connection-- back to Philip the immigrant? (Be forewarned: he was NOT a Huguenot...) ;-)

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My kids' school is named after Thomas Stokes Page.  Through his mother, he's a descendant of Quaker immigrant Thomas French (I'm still working on the profiles to connect them).

Thomas Page's wife was Anna Maria Liljevalch.  When I started this project, I only knew that she was born in Chile and her name.  Pretty quickly, I found that her mother was Mary Ann Delano.  I only needed to add her and her father to connect to the existing Delano lines that go back to Philip the immigrant.  Of course that means that she's a cousin of FDR through the Delanos and a cousin of me and my kids through Mercy (Warren) Delano.

There's a ton more in the Thomas Page and Cotati, California histories as well, which I'm still working on. 

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Oh, you asked for links to the lists: 

Genealogy Books (this is the family-specific one)

Genealogy Books - Geographically Specific

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Nice... of course, what *I'd* want to know is to what extent any of these are any good; for example, a quick perusal of your list reveals some late 19th-century genealogies that have subsequently been found to have errors in them-- from a few to majorly bad.

So I'd be wanting a comments column (or included in the title column).

In any case, I nice list. Thanks for sharing.

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These are new lists and both are works in progress.  My first pass was just to get them into one place where I could find the books again in case I wanted to refer to them.  

I don't know enough about the critiques of these books to enter comments like those you refer to, but I'd welcome that kind of input.  I'd have to reformat things a bit, but I'm already thinking about how to do that.  

To be honest, I'm just learning how to use the FreeSpace Profiles, so that was the first step.

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Update: Delano may have been a Huguenot after all. Conclusion changing on a daily basis. 

Answer 17

I have added the PGM tag to 4 profiles

Richard Battiscombe http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Battiscombe-32
his wife Mary
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Strong-3029
their daughters Mary and Martha
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Battiscombe-38
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Battiscombe-39

They sailed from Dorset, England to Massachusetts in 1635, where they had several more children.  Wife Mary died in 1646, in Hingham. Richard and the children returned to Dorset about 1650.

Please let me know whether I have done it correctly.

Comments

Thanks for adding those new PGM profiles -- and citing sources.

Answer 18

My grandfather (Howe-3192) developed a 10-generation ancestral wheel following all known lines from his immediate family to their arrival in North America and sometimes beyond. He traced an amazing number of lines to the PGM period, and he was meticulous and accurate and maintained a very high proof standard. Unfortunately, I do not have the supporting source data, which I expect is stored at NEHGS, where he donated his work. I do have the wheel. He was a major contributor to the Howe Genealogies published by NEHGS, too. I'm repeating his research and validating or correcting it as I go along. I find a few mistakes, but they are rare. Most of the lines stayed in Massachusetts where the record keeping and preservation is very good. But when lines strayed into Rhode Island or Connecticut, there are much more apt to be gaps and controversy.

I uploaded his wheel as a GEDCOM early in my WikiTree membership, and I am still cleaning up the mess it made, adding siblings not captured by the wheel, and adding sources. That will keep me busy for a long time. I help out with intersecting lines on Wikitree whenever I can, too.

Walt Howe

Answer 19

Not sure if I'm in the project or not. I asked to join, quite some time ago, and nothing ever happened. I have three notable lines (Mulford, Gardiner, Resseguie) that came to America in the PGM, but for now I'm concentrating on my Mulford lineage until it's largely complete, then I'll branch out more.

Answer 20

Regarding PGM, I was previously working on Henry Chapin-126, his wife Bethia Cooley and their descendants.

Most recently I have switched to adding more of my family. I am working on profiles more recent in history; particularly the McDonald's, Taylor's, Banta's, who came to Texas in the 1850's and settled in the Hill Country around Fredericksburg.