Cleaning Up Ancestry.com?

Question

 

More of a statement than a question. I had hoped to clean up my own electronic genealogy file by using WikiTree. I purposely did NOT import a GEDCOM from Ancestry.com, because of all the rampant random connections that are generated there, particularly with historically significant ancestors.

Now I've encountered the same thing on WikiTree because huge chunks are imported from Ancestry.com. Not only that, but I do not have the power to merge or fix errors unless I write individual notes to people who may not be active anymore.

I'm probably rehashing an old controversy, but I had to vent.

Answer 1

Hi sandy,  I have purposely held off on any mergers in my tree because of what you ran into.  I have checked with other trees and so far have not found information to my liking.  I have suggested a few corrections and assisted others with clean up.  Perhaps if we all become as helpful to others as we reasonably can be, we can get wikitree cleaned up for future researchers.  If I'm not mistaken, some of the inactive trees are up for adoption.  It will be a massive task, but if we who are serious about our genealogy take on and correct those sites, we can be part of the cure.  In time, our Wiki Tree may be the "Ideal Genealogy Site" we had hoped for when we joined.  Genealogy is fun and exciting.  I get a thrill out of discovery.  Whether that discovery leads to a confirmed ancestor or disproved.  When I disprove an ancestor I have investigated I am as happy as proving one.  It means I don't have to travel that road again.  My thought is some fit some don't so what who's next.  Lets all be part of the cure.  Al

Comments

 

Thanks for the chill pill, Al!

I really like the idea of collaboration here on WikiTree. It has so much potential for good. I agree that the fun is in the investigation. I'm going to try and take on your attitude and keep at it ... for fun. Sandi

 

Answer 2

Any site where people can upload or manually enter their trees is going to have that problem, because there will always be people who are not good at evaluating sources in genealogy. Sad but true! But I'm still hopeful; because WikiTree lets us edit more than just our own trees (albeit with some hurtles when it comes to unresponsive profile managers), people who are better at that kind of thing can help those who aren't.

There are steps that can be taken when profile managers are not responsive to merge requests, etc: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unresponsive_Profile_Managers

Comments

Thanks, Lianne. You're right about the problems being universal at the intersection of genealogy and technology. I feel like WikiTree is responsive, plus I HAVE heard from other profile managers, so I don't know why I'm being such a whiner. Probably because I really want this to work! Sandi