Is there a FindAGrave / Cemetery Category Report?

Question

Is there a report that lists profiles with a FindAGrave Reference but no Cemetery Category or visa versa? I am having to divest myself of profiles but want to make sure I have my Cemetery and FindAGrave before I let them go.

Answer 1

Not an awesome solution, but: 

1. Open WikiTree+
2. Left hand menu, go to Search
3. Under Text Search, look for FindAGrave results (you'll have to sort by the manager to find yours, I can't figure out how to combine those two things)
4. At the top, set the Checkmark to Show Result In New Tab
5. Do a new search for "FindAGrave Category:Cemetery" (to find profiles with both)
6. compare the two (could copy/paste to Excel if easier, there's not an easy export option in WikiTree+)

Caveats: if "cemetery" is spelled wrong, or "FindAGrave" is "Find A Grave" or some other variants, this doesn't work. 

Alternative....work through every profile you manage one at a time  (ouch)

Answer 2

I don't know of such a report, Rebecca. I'll tag Aleš and see if he can advise you.

Comments

Could be a good candidate for another suggestion, given the Cemeteries project goal of including on every profile, sorta low-hanging fruit for them

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So, if there were such a report, Jonathan, would you volunteer to correct all of the DBE category suggestions and red categories that would inevitably pop up?

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I'm not sure it's a good idea. Not all profile managers want to add categories to profiles in their watchlist, I'm not sure adding suggestions because profiles are "missing" categories would be popular. Plus, as Nat has hinted, there is the problem of creating categories properly.

As it is, most of the requests for new categories the project gets are from cemeteries. And many of the new errors that pop up in the Category Report every day are for incorrectly entered new cemetery categories. I'll be honest with you, it is already tedious for the two (count them) volunteers who deal with that. If there was such a report, the numbers would explode. We simply don't have the work force to handle this.

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Natalie/Isabelle...are you the "two"? If so, thank you!

Sure, I'll be happy to help work those suggestions. Thing is, they're just suggestions. I create these kind of exception reports for my work job too, nobody really expects these to never pop up or ever be worked down to zero, and especially not quickly. They're guides to help us improve data quality, in manageable increments.

I've been sitting on the 841 queue for about a month now, just whittling it down as I can, finally got all the open profiles patched up this weekend, and new batch popped up again this morning that I'm working on now. When I get stuck on my own genealogy research, I flip over to WikiTree+ to feel useful again on other people's profiles.

Locating all burial plots within cemeteries is a huge, lofty goal. But if it's worth doing, let's identify how we can do it.

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If there is a suggestion created, perhaps it can be an opt-in system like the "Profile Completeness" checks.

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If there is a suggestion created, it should be both opt-in and restricted to cemeteries where a WikiTree category already exists. I don't think basing the suggestion on Find A Grave is a good idea.

Jonathan, Nat deals with virtually all new category requests, wanted categories and more. I check the new cemetery category errors each time there is a new report (several times a week), now and then I have the pleasure of finding that another volunteer got there before me, but that's the exception. Those errors pile up extremely quickly.

The Categorization error report is currently at nearly 115.000 suggestions, there are a few more volunteers working on it, but anyway each time we make a dent, a new category of errors is added and the total goes up again.

Rather than adding a new suggestion (or more) I'd rather see the automatizations that were supposedly possible with the CIBs become a reality. But I'm getting off topic, so I'll stop there.

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I'm not sure what the acronym CIB stands for or what the discussion there was, so can't comment. But, in my humble opinion only, "because we don't have time to work them all" isn't a reason not to find them. In fact, counting the scope of the profiles impacted could be a reason to spend more resources in finding an automated solution.

Plus, you never know when someone new will join who feels passionate about adding that information and will pick up the torch.

For example, if Ales can somehow figure out how to accurately match up the cemetery on the FindAGrave link to an existing category, then I suppose he could probably just have EditBot fix it on the WikiTree profile. But, if it's only 1,000 or even 10,000 that might not be worth his time. If it's 10,000,000, then it might be time well spent. That's above my pay grade.

And as Stephen suggested, I would have no argument with opt-in, adding it to profile completeness would do that nicely. Already on my to-do list for profiles I manage anyway, just haven't got to it yet.

Good discussion, all! Learn something new everyday.

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CIB is Category Information Box and is a standardized way of defining Category content.

A side note about new errors being added. Every time we get a huge influx of new errors more volunteers leave due to it appearing that they do not make a difference. Our volunteers are wonderful but all are overworked. We (Natalie for the most part) has to do research on these categories.

There are many errors in the FaG information such as incorrect locations and cemetery names as well as duplicates that occur due to names and locations being entered differently.  An opt-in might work.

Answer 3

A bit late on the scene with this one! Pretty please, DO NOT rely on FindAGrave. I am staggering my way through categorising Welsh Cemeteries. Each time I come across a duplicate I contact FindAGrave to ask them to merge them. When they do this they will apparently randomly choose one or other #. Any profile that has the deleted one will have lost the reference.

Through using the CIBs for the cemetery the Wales Categorisation group will, as far as possible, ensure that the Profile is categorised correctly. Any change for the number within the CIB will automatically be reflected in any profile with that Cemetery Category.

I have so far done nearly 10% of the Wales cemeteries.

I have an interesting life?

Comments

Hi Steve,

For a separate project earlier this year I crawled through the Findagrave, CWGC, BillionGraves sites and Ordnance Survey data to create a master list of 2849 Welsh cemeteries, all geocoded (here’s a map). There are still a few unprocessed Findagrave entries but it would probably make sense for me to share this data with you to make your life easier on this! Drop me a message if you’re interested.

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INTERESTED!!!!

What a bonus!!

Yes, please