Wests on WikiTree - Annual Report

Question

I've decided to start this report early, to give other people a chance to contribute to Wests before the month is over. This report is part of a series from my project of tracking surnames from my immediate ancestors and those of my wife, in this report, I'm looking at people with the surname West.

So far I have tallied 105 Wests listed on Wikipedia. (There are many more, but I have only gotten through those with first names beginning with "A" through "E" so far.) Of those, eight had something other than West as their Last Name At Birth, 47 are living, and eight are fictional, leaving a net of 47 Wests. Of those, 12 (25.5%) have profiles on WikiTree.

There are 722 Wests listed on ThePeerage.com. Of the ones I have tallied so far (namely, the six Lords West at the top of the list, and those with first names beginning with "A" through "E"), I have found seven duplicate entries, 39 living Wests, and 72 people who have something other than West as their Last Name At Birth, leaving a maximum net of 604 Wests. Of those, 35 (5.8%) have profiles on WikiTree.

All 35 of those profiles are connected to the main tree, which is great, but only eight of them (22.9%) have even one primary source, and only nine of them (25.7%) have a link to their entry on ThePeerage.com.

Many of these people were born before 1700, which means that only people with the pre-1700 badge can work on them, and some were born before 1500, which means that only people with the pre-1500 badge can work on them. So there aren't many people who can work on these issues. Still, being that far back in time means that the potential number of descendants is enormous.

Comments

At the beginning of March, there were 19,088 profiles with West as the Last Name At Birth on WikiTree. Of those, 18,250 (95.6%) did not have the {{Unsourced}} template applied to them. Since the {{Unsourced}} template is applied manually, that doesn't actually mean that all those profiles are sourced. Unfortunately, we don't (yet) have an automated way of detecting sources (or the lack thereof). (My guess is that the vast majority of profiles which don't have the {{Unsourced}} template applied actually should have it, but we have to work with what we've got.)

2,587 profiles were not connected to the main tree, which means that 16,501 profiles (86.5%) were connected to the main tree.

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Here are some Wests listed in ThePeerage.com who don't have WikiTree profiles yet:

• Adelaide Maria West
• Adeline Elisabeth West
• Alexander West
• Alexander West
• Alfred Edward West
• Alfred Thomas West
• Algernon West
• Alice West
• Alice West
• Alice Isobel West
• Alice Moore West
• Amelia West

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I have gone in and added some more West ancestors to my tree.  I have many more to add.  However, my DNA results show that I am not descended from the de la Warrs, as previously thought.  My West line comes from Virginia to western North Carolina.

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Since the beginning of March, 323 new profiles with West as the Last Name At Birth have been added to WikiTree, leaving the total at 19,411 profiles. Of those, 838 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving 18,573 (95.7%) profiles (presumably) sourced. There was an increase of 323 (presumably) sourced profiles and no unsourced profiles during the month. Currently, 2,655 profiles are not connected to the main tree, leaving 16,756 profiles (86.3%) connected. That's an increase of 255 connected and 68 unconnected profiles.

So far, I have only tallied a few more Wests listed on ThePeerage.com or Wikipedia than those with first names beginning with "A" to "E".) ThePeerage.com lists 722 Wests. Out of those, so far I have tallied eight duplicate entries, 39 living people, and 73 people whose Last Name At Birth was something other than West, leaving a maximum of 602 Wests. Out of those, 40 have profiles on WikiTree. On Wikipedia, I have tallied 105 Wests so far. Out of those, 42 are living, eight had a different Last Name At Birth, and eight are fictional characters, leaving 47 net Wests. Out of those, 16 (34%) have profiles on WikiTree.  

Out of the 40 profiles that I have tallied so for from people listed on ThePeerage.com, 23 (57.5%) have at least one primary source. Out of the 16 profiles that I have tallied so for from people listed on Wikipedia, 10 (62.5%) have at least one primary source.

Out of the 40 profiles that I have tallied so for from people listed on ThePeerage.com, all 40 are connected to the main tree. Out of the 16 profiles that I have tallied so for from people listed on Wikipedia, 14 (87.5%) are connected to the main tree. (This number actually dropped slightly over the course of the month, due to adding a West from Wikipedia who is not yet connected.)

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Here are some Wests listed on Wikipedia who don't have WikiTree profiles yet:

• Absolom M. West - Confederate militia general
• Al West - American boxer
• Allen West - American Olympic tennis player
• Andrew Fleming West - American classicist
• Ben West - American politician
• Benjamin West - American astronomer
• Charles West - founder of Great Ormond Street Hospital
• Charles West - American actor
• Charles A. West - American football coach
• Charles Dickinson West - Irish mechanical engineer and naval architect
• Charles Franklin West - American politician
• Charles Fremont West - first African American to play quarterback in a Rose Bowl game

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For those who are interested, our "brick wall" West ancestor is Francis West, who was born in Salisbury, England about 1606.

Francis is the oldest ancestor that I have been able to trace with valid sources, and most of my connections to other profiles on WikiTree run either through him, or through other ancestors between me and him.

People have been trying to find his parents for ages, and for a while he was incorrectly linked to Francis West, colonial governor of Virginia. (Governor West did have a son named Francis, but that Francis was born in Virginia some time after 1624.)

Answer 1

As of Saturday, there were 26,109 WikiTree profiles for people with West as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 269 profiles since the beginning of May.

ThePeerage.com lists 739 Wests. Of the ones I have tallied, 91 have a different Last Name At Birth, 53 are living, and there are nine duplicate entries, leaving a possible net of 586 deceased Wests. Of the 391 deceased West whose profiles I have tallied, 79 (40.6%) have WikiTree profiles. So far, I have tallied Wikipedia entries for 212 Wests. Of those, 65 are living, 12 have different Last Names At Birth, and 13 are fictional characters, leaving 122 deceased notable Wests. Of those, 40 (32.8%) have WikiTree profiles.

The percentage of West profiles from ThePeerage.com that are connected to the main tree has increased slightly from 98.6% to 98.7% during May. The percentage of connected West profiles from Wikipedia increased slightly from 79.5% to 80%. The percentage of connected West profiles from our family tree remained steady at 100%. The percent of all McNair profiles on WikiTree that are connected increased slightly from 88.6% to 88.7%.

The number of McNair profiles which are connected to the main tree rose by 37 during May, while the number of profiles not connected to the main tree but linked to at least one other profile and the number of profiles not linked to any other profile remained the same.

The percentage of profiles from ThePeerage.com that link back to that person's entry on ThePeerage.com has increased from 67.6% to 81%. The percentage of profiles from WikiTree that link back to that person's Wikipedia entry increased from 74.4% to 80%. (Yes, I got impatient again and worked on that last month, even though I haven't finished tallying Wests yet.)

Currently, six of the West profiles from ThePeerage.com (7.6%), eight of the West profiles from Wikipedia (20%), and five of the West profiles from our family tree (1.8%) have images on them.

Comments

Of the 26,109 West profiles on WikiTree, 846 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving an improbably high 25,263 profiles (96.8%) at least supposedly sourced. Of the 79 Wests listed in ThePeerage.com, 43 (40.6%) have at least one primary source. Of the 40 Wests listed in Wikipedia, 32 (57.5%) have at least one primary source. (Yes, I was also working on sources.)

The sourcing level for Wests from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists currently stand at 1.3, 1.3, and 2.4, respectively.

The number of "tallied" profiles (profiles from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists) with no primary sources (level 0.5) decreased by one during May. The number of profiles with no primary sources (level 1) decreased by six. The number of profiles with two primary sources (level 2) increased by one. The number of profiles with three or more primary sources (level 3) increased by seven.

The percentage of "tallied" profiles and WikiTree as a whole which are partially sourced barely shows as a thin light orange line. (As the appropriate "Needs More Records" category gets applied to more West profiles, this line should get more visible, and as the {{Unsourced}} template gets applies to more West profiles where it's needed, the darker orange line should get thicker as well.)

Answer 2

Dear Greg, I have D N A matches, with Anc.com members  who have Pioneer West of Carolina.

Here are my ancestors; (1)Thomas West 1773 Hooe E.- Sussex1858 Burwood N.s.w. Aust

(2) John West 1724 Hooe-.1825 Hooe E. Sussex

(3)John West 1698 Hastings-1780 Hooe

(4)John West 1675 Oxfordshire-1717 Brede E. Sussex

(5)Thomas West 1643 Eton Buckinghamshire- ?

(6)William West 1616 Long Buckinghamshire-1696 Long Crendon Buckinghamshire

married 1639 Lady Elizabeth Morris

(7) Sir William Hugh West 1583 Long Crendon-1665 Long Crendon    Nos. 4 to 7 not verified

Kind regards, Norm. Bailey

Comments

Your William West (1583-1665) may match the William West listed on Geni. Geni says that he's my 11th cousin 6 times removed, but the tree there diverges considerably from yours (or WikiTree, for that matter).

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Thanks for comment Greg,  when it is that far back, I can only rely on other people research. All open to correction. On my Anc.com tree, I have several D N A matches, with members who have West families in Nth. Carolina c.1650-1750.

Here are some entries from my tree.

William Elija, 1st Barron De La Warre 1527 Long Crendon Buckinghamshire --1599

Nicolas De la Warre West 1501--1599

Richard West 1482- 1560 All from Buckinghamshire

These entries must be treated with suspicion.

My 4th gr. Grandfather, John West1740--1825, was a landowner of Hooe East Sussex England. He left in his will 1822, several hundred pounds to his children.  

My 3rd. Gr. Grand Father Thomas West 1773-1858, was sent to Sydney as a convict in 1801. (see Web. Thomas West of Barcom Glen)

Kind regards, Norm. Bailey.

Answer 3

Hi Greg, I have 346 people born with the surname West, on my tree (including myself). Only one has no sources at all, most were farm labourers, later some were farmers. Very many were in the armed forces. In the late 1900s, we find Lawyers, teachers, computer specialists, etc. I am only aware of one with a published book. They are mainly in England, (Kent), some Australia, South Africa and France.

Comments

Martyn, if you want, I can send you my spreadsheet so you can add in the open profiles from your watchlist.

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Hi Greg, that's fine, I can do that

Answer 4

Yes I am related to Benjamin West the painter.  My mother was Olive Irene West-Stephens. I will add copy of my downline.

WILLIAM THOMAS "Willielmus" WEST * 1618-1696
8th great-grandfather

THOMAS WEST MAJOR ** 1659-1696
Son of WILLIAM THOMAS "Willielmus" WEST *

JOHN THOMAS WEST MAJ ** 1690-1776
Son of THOMAS WEST MAJOR **

JOSEPH WEST SR/ I ** 1718-1802
Son of JOHN THOMAS WEST MAJ **

JOSEPH WEST JR/II ** 1757-1845
Son of JOSEPH WEST SR/ I **

ISAAC WEST ** 1797-1854
Son of JOSEPH WEST JR/II **

JOHN BALLINGER WEST ** 1819-1869
Son of ISAAC WEST **

JOSEPH MCCOY WEST ** 1857-1943
Son of JOHN BALLINGER WEST **

JOHN BALLINGER WEST ** 1883-1929
Son of JOSEPH MCCOY WEST **

OLIVE IRENE WEST ** 1919-2009
Daughter of JOHN BALLINGER WEST **

ALICE MAE STEPHENS ** G778-G24
You are the daughter of OLIVE IRENE WEST **

Comments

I always think it's cool when we find people who are actually related to notables.

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Greg yes it truly is.

Answer 5

This is how I relate to Benjamin West-Painter

Answer 6

As of May 1, there were 22,549 WikiTree profiles for people with West as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 939 profiles since the beginning of January.

There are 724 Wests listed on ThePeerage.com. Out of the ones I have tallied so far (those with first names starting with "A" to "E", plus a handful of others), there are eight duplicate entries, 73 living people, and 39 people with a Last Name At Birth other than West, leaving a net of 604 possible Wests. Of those, 40 (24%) have WikiTree profiles.

Of the 105 Wests I have tallied so far on WikiTree (again, those with first names starting with "A" to "E", plus a handful of others), there are eight people with a Last Name At Birth other than West, eight fictional characters, and 42 living people, leaving a net of 47 Wests. Of those, 16 (34%) have WikiTree profiles.

Comments

The percentage of all West profiles that are connected to the main tree currently stands at 87.7%. The percentage of connected West profiles from ThePeerage.com and our watchlists stand at 100%. The percentage of connnected profiles from Wikipedia stands at 87.5%.

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Of the 22,549 West profiles on WikiTree, 833 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving 21,716 profiles (96.3%) supposedly sourced. Of the 40 profiles of Wests listed in ThePeerage.com that I have tallied so far, 23 (57.5%) have at least one primary source. Of the 16 profiles of Wests listed in Wikipedia that I have tallied so far, ten (62.5%) have at least one primary source.

The average sourcing level for Wests from ThePeerage.com currently stands at 0.9. The average sourcing level for Wests from Wikipedia stands at 1.4. The average sourcing level for West profiles from my watchlist stands at 2.4.

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I've added a new measure this year. (Actually, as you can see from this chart, I actually started tallying last year, but only started putting up charts this year.) I've been measuring the number of profiles of people listed on ThePeerage.com and Wikipedia which contain links to those people's entries on those sites, but I hadn't been tracking how those numbers changed over time up to now.

Answer 7

As of yesterday, there were 22,856 WikiTree profiles for people with West as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 323 profiles since the beginning of May.

There are 725 Wests listed on ThePeerage.com. Out of the 389 that I have tallied so far (those with first names starting with "A" to "G", plus a few others), there are nine duplicate entries, 53 living people, and 91 people with a Last Name At Birth other than West, leaving a temporary net (pending tallying the rest of them) of 236 Wests, 75 (31.8%) of whom have WikiTree profiles.

So far, I have tallied 211 Wikipedia entries for Wests (those with first names starting with "A" to "J", plus a few others). Of those, there are 12 people with a Last Name At Birth other than West, 13 fictional characters, and 65 living people, leaving a net of 121 Wests. Of those, 39 (32.2%) have WikiTree profiles.

Comments

The percentage of all West profiles that are connected to the main tree rose from 85.4% to 85.7% during May. That comes from 255 more connected profiles over the course of the month. The percentage of connected McDonald profiles from our watchlists remained at 100%, the percentage of connected profiles from ThePeerage.com dropped from 100% to 98.7% due to finally finding a profile for a West from ThePeerage.com that isn't connected to the main tree, while the percentage of connnected profiles from Wikipedia dropped from 87.5% to 79.5% due to finding more notable West profiles that haven't been connected yet.

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Of the 22,856 West profiles on WikiTree, 848 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving 22,008 profiles (96.3%) supposedly sourced. Of the 75 profiles for Wests listed in ThePeerage.com, 32 (42.7%) have at least one primary source. Of the 39 profiles for Wests listed in Wikipedia, 21 (53.8%) have at least one primary source.

The average sourcing level for Wests from ThePeerage.com increased from 0.9 to 1.1 over the course of May. The average sourcing level for Wests from Wikipedia dropped from 1.4 to 1.2 due to finding more profiles with incomplete sourcing. Average sourcing levels for West profiles from our watchlists stayed steady at 2.4.

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I have added a new measure for sourcing levels, showing the percentage of "tallied" profiles (profiles from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia and from our watchlists) at each sourcing level. Hopefully, over time, you should see the percentage of profiles at level 0 (unsourced) and level 0.5 (no primary sources) go down, and the number of profiles at level 3 (three or more primary sources)* go up.

* Yes, I know that three primary sources doesn't actually qualify as fully sourced, because ideally every fact stated in a biography should be backed up by at least one primary source, but I based my sourcing levels on the work of Paul Gierszewski, who first came up with a system for measuring how well profiles are sourced.

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And one final new measure. I've been measuring the number of profiles of people listed on ThePeerage.com and Wikipedia which contain links to those people's entries on those sites, but I hadn't been tracking how those numbers changed over time up to now.

Answer 8

Hi Greg,

I will be following this post.  I do not have any Wests in my family tree, but this is very interesting to me. I love numbers and statistics.  Your profile page is great, too.

Comments

Thank you!

Answer 9

As of last Saturday, there were 25,840 WikiTree profiles for people with West as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 1,115 profiles since the beginning of January.

ThePeerage.com lists 737 Wests. Of the ones I have tallied, 91 have a different Last Name At Birth, 53 are living, and there are nine duplicate entries, leaving a possible net of 574 deceased Wests. Of the 235 deceased West whose profiles I have tallied, 74 (31.5%) have WikiTree profiles. So far, I have tallied Wikipedia entries for 211 Wests. Of those, 65 are living, 12 have different Last Names At Birth, and 13 are fictional characters, leaving 121 deceased notable Wests. Of those, 39 (32.2%) have WikiTree profiles.

The percentage of West profiles from ThePeerage.com and from our family that are connected to the main tree has decreased slightly from 98.7% to 98.6% since last June. The percentage of connected West profiles from Wikipedia and our family tree remained steady at 79.5% and 100%, respectively. The percent of all McNair profiles on WikiTree that are connected rose from 87.6% to 88.6%. The changes are so small that they're not visible on the chart, so I'm skipping it this time around.

The percentage of profiles from ThePeerage.com that link back to that person's entry on ThePeerage.com has dropped slightly from 68% to 67.6%. The percentage of profiles from WikiTree that link back to that person's Wikipedia entry remains at 74.4%. So, again, no chart, because the changes are too small to see.

Currently, four of the West profiles from ThePeerage.com (5.4%), six of the West profiles from Wikipedia (15.4%), and five of the West profiles from our family tree (1.8%) have images on them.

Comments

Of the 25,840 West profiles on WikiTree, 829 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving an improbably high 25,011 profiles (96.8%) at least supposedly sourced. Of the 74 Wests listed in ThePeerage.com, 33 (44.6%) have at least one primary source. Of the 39 Wests listed in Wikipedia, 21 (53.9%) have at least one primary source.

The sourcing level for Wests from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists currently stand at 1.2, 1.2, and 2.4, respectively.

The number of "tallied" profiles (profiles from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists) with no primary sources (level 0.5) has gone down by two since last June. The number of profiles with two primary sources (level 2) has gone down by three. The number of profiles with three or more primary sources (level 3) has gone up by four.

The percentage of "tallied" profiles and WikiTree as a whole which are partially sourced barely shows as a thin light orange line. (As the appropriate "Needs More Records" category gets applied to more West profiles, this line should get more visible, and as the {{Unsourced}} template gets applies to more West profiles where it's needed, the darker orange line should get thicker as well.)