Is There Any Reson Why I Should Not Adopt An Orphaned Profile That Has Nothing To Do With My Lineage?

Question

Most of the questions I've read on this subject seem to be about the merging of orphaned profiles in to their own family members, not the adopting of a profile just because you can add info and clean it up and possibly maintain it going forward.

I've adopted the profile of John Crabb as I have a special interest in the county of Cornwall in England, and will most likely end up adopting his entire family as they're all orphans.

Is there any reaon why I shouldn't do this?

Answer 1

No, in fact, the ideal is for orphans to be adopted by someone with an interest in them -- that doesn't mean it has to be a relative.  Thanks!

Comments

Thank you Nan!

Answer 2

The only consideration would be the 5,000 name limit and the associated work maintaining the profiles. I have to orphan distant branches of my family to deal with interesting other names.

Comments

Oh poor boring families with no one to love them!! :)  I did wonder how they became orphaned in the first place.  II don't know if I'll reach the 5,000 limit on my own family so I may as well help out where I can.  I can always set them loose again if I need the profile space.

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Why is there a limit of 5,000?  Worry about trolls?

Answer 3

No, if there's a profile you're interested in, there's no problem in adopting it.  I would only caution against going overboard adopting lots of profiles.  I have heard from a number of other profile managers that they did that when they were new to WikiTree and didn't realize that they were creating work for themselves later when their interest in those profiles waned.  I guess that's what Helmut was getting at as well.

Comments

I'll bear that in mind Kyle, and only take on a few people to work thoroughly on and then, maybe, let them go again.

Answer 4

i think that it is a great idea and i am planning to do the same thing!

Answer 5

I have done that myself and I love working on families different than my own!

Answer 6

They are all your family members.  Just pretty distant ones, probably.  The fun is finding out how to connect them until you reach the closest possible connection.