Rather than just reject merge suggestions, can someone from the project work this?

Question

If you look at the wife, Ann Neuman and several of the children, there are commonalities within the 4 profiles that need merging/correction.

I have asked profile managers to work with the project and have received push back, in fact several of the merges were rejected.

Can someone from the Palatine Migration Project take a look and work this out?   Thanks.

Answer 1

I think the reasons for postponing the merges are that there are significant differences among all 4 profiles, and possibly two or more people have been conflated within some of the profiles.  The parents differ in some, the death dates in others, and the death location in still others.  In this case, I agree they are not ready to merge.  The way to move them towards merges is to make profiles you think are the same consistent with one another, backed by sources.  In fact, some of the sources mentioned in the comments section have not been added to the profiles.  I'll have a closer look tomorrow and see what I can do to sort this out.

Comments

Absolutely agree with creating unmerged matches, but, the profile managers continue to reject the merges rather than let them sit as unmerged matches.

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I'll fill in some sources and clean up the formatting and then propose new merges.

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Also, the parents have duplicate profiles.  It may take more than a month to get all of this sorted, but I'm on the case.

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Thank you, Michael!

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I untangled the profiles and cleaned them up. Hopefully the merges will now go through.

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Thank you for taking the lead on this for the project. Your work on this is excellent, as always.

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So, Michael, it would be proper to correct conflicting data in multiple duplicate profiles if supported by sources. I am having a similar problem with the children of Zinn-95. I am always hesitant to make direct changes to existing profiles that I am certain are duplicates, because then additional duplicates are intentionally created. See  Zinn-121, Zinn-324 and Zinn-381. All are variations on the theme of Nicholas Zinn...with an incorrect birthdate taken from the Zinn genealogy by Maurice Zinn. I have added comments and sources, so I guess I will add the supported data and see.

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Kie, in situations like the one you describe, I typically add a numbered list of probable children (and who they married) into the biography section of the parents' profiles.  That does not actually affect the shape of the Wikitree, but it often leads to conflict resolution.  You might discover that some of the children are actually the same person with slightly different names and should be merged.  Or, that one or more of the children linked to the family are mis-attributed, based on geographic considerations.  For example, I've seen mis-attributed children said to have been born a location different from their older and younger siblings.  This is not an impossible scenario, but it is highly unlikely.  Sometimes, children are said to be not-the-same based on them having married different spouses--when actually, they married twice and each profile has one of the spouses attached.  Overall, listing  children in this way tends to lead to resolution.

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Another common mix-up scenario among children is when siblings marry siblings.  For example, if Johann Peter Smith married Anna Maria Doe, and his brother Johann Jacob Smith married Anna Magdalena Doe--you might find profiles of John Smith who married Anna Doe, or Anna Maria Magdalena Doe. These types of problems can usually be traced to cut-and-paste genealogies posted at Ancestry.

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This is exactly the case with the many Nicholas Zinns... I finally added the 2nd spouse to each profile so now it is very evident that the two not only had the same parents, but had the same wives. So much confusion comes from misunderstanding the German practice of that baptismal name Johann with the middle name typically used by families and friends (Nicholas). I have been unable to re-engage that resistant profile manager, but will try again after making these changes!