Profile Accuracy Theme of the Week: Sports

Question

This week's theme: Sports.

To participate, simply:

1. Choose a profile that fits this week's theme.
2. Review and improve the accuracy of the profile.
3. Reply with an answer below to let us know which profile you chose.

Also see: Photo Sharing Theme of the Week: Costumes

Answer 1

How many sports are played with a ball?  Baseball, basketball, football, golf, tennis and many more. For this week's challenge I chose Sarah (Bartman) Ball, wife of William Ball.  http://wikitree.com/wiki/Bartman-171.  I'm not the manager of William Ball's profile or related to him but I added his wife Sarah last year and she needs more sources and a bio.  I also found William's obituary and will add that to his profile.

Answer 2

Besides my father, who was once North Rhine-Westphalian police champion in forest running, but whose profile I have already improved, I thought I would take his paternal grandmother Sophia (Clasen) Lewerenz (1877-1943) and improve her profile.

She had eight children that she raised and that should be more than a simple sporting event for a woman whose husband was a farmer and shoemaker. She certainly ran around all day and had an enormous physical condition.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clasen-225

Answer 3

Like Pat, I thought of someone named Ball. I went to school with Warren Ball; his mom used to ride to work at General Electric with my father; his grandmother used to babysit my best friend.  Recently I learned that the grandmother was on the Titanic. It took me a while to find her on Wikitree (Hall-43344). Someone has researched her origins in England, but nothing about her life afterwards, so I'll work on that.
 

 

Answer 4

I found James Blaine Middleton unsourced during the Source -A-Thon. He was a professional baseball player. He played with the New York Giants and Detroit Tigers. I adopted him,  and I will work this week to add his family and more sources to his profile.  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Middleton-988 

Answer 5

Alvin Harold Wiblemo

1921 Parker High School football team.  Gus (Alvin Harold) Wiblemo is bottom right.

Answer 6

I have only one ancestor, or relative, that I know of who played any sports.  That was my grandfather who was on the school basketball team when he was about 14.  I have a photo of the team around 1914.  I will improve his profile by adding that photo and reworking his biography.

I am curious as to how they might have played basketball.  Football can be played in a field; the same with baseball.  But you need some kind of court for basketball.  I think schools were not built with gymnasiums until maybe the 1920s, certainly not in rural America.  I will see what I can find about the school he might have attended.

Comments

That's an interesting question. I looked up "High School Basketball 1900's and found many teams in the 20's and a few earlier. Here is a very interesting article about Native American basketball teams.

Answer 7

This week I chose to improve the profile of Freiherr Gottfried von Cramm. He was a multiple Grand Slam Champion in tennis and is considered the best German tennis player before Boris Becker.

His profile had no picture. Wikipedia has one, attribution to the German archive done and added. He was connected to the Big Tree only via his second wife. He had no parents, Wikipedia has them listed, there are some "von Cramm"s already in WikiTree, mostly not in the time I'd need it, but... here he is. Connected via his father. His mother needs a profile, but the Wikipedia-entry leads me further and further until I get to Gottfried's 3xggf. And he has a WikiTree profile. Exploiting the sources I found, also profiles on sites of regional archives, I find a connection to a greatgrandaunt who has a WikiTree profile. So Gottfried is now connected by his own ancestry three times to the Big Tree. Beside that, I improved locations, I sourced some profiles and counted them for the Sourcerer's Challenge, and eventually I created 104 profiles until I really exploited all the sources.

tldr: Gottfried von Cramm got a picture, was connected 3 times via his own ancestry, locations were improved, profiles were sourced and all in all 104 profiles created.

Comments

Wow, you've been busy. Thank you.

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Amazing, Jelena.  Thank you.

Answer 8

Forget the professional teams. Drop in a line and reel in the big one! https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2021/10/52-ancestors-week-42-sports.html

Answer 9

I have no knowledge of any of my family members being professional sports figures. However, I did have an uncle in-law, who played for the Yankees.  

His name was John Loyko.  He is someone who had great promise, served his country in the Korean war, and played ball on the farm team of the Yankees.  His later life was tragic, and was held up as someone not to emulate.  

He died before I married into the family.  I never knew him, but thought he should be in the one world tree, so I created a profile for him.  To my surprise, he is now Loyko-1.  Interestingly, he is now the only person on Wiki that my ex-husband is related to. (He is no longer related to me.)   I will leave it to others to connect more of the family.  

The phrase I think of with uncle John is "I coulda been a contender".  There was a time, when he was the shining light of the family, when he played for the Yankees.

Comments

Very interesting story, Carolyn.  Sorry this is really late but I was just reviewing previous topics.

Answer 10

I have chosen to work on the profile of Charles Clarke, born about 1849, at the age of 22 he was working as a stable lad for a horse trainer together with 12 other lads. I have given him parents and siblings and added to his biography.

Answer 11

I really wanted to find (and alas, could not) a picture of my grandfather as a young boy shooting marbles with his friends.  Probably not a sport one might think of, but the picture so captures the early 1900's.  I remember him teaching me the names of the different kinds of marbles (and spent an inordinate amount of time reading about the Ohio Marble museum).  I recently unearthed a large mason jar of marbles that I had saved.

For this week's theme, I chose Edgar Albert "Sport" Henry.  Of course, I chose him for his nickname which is indeed engraved on his gravestone.  I never did find out why he was called "Sport" but he now has sources and a biography.