McDonalds on WikiTree - Annual Report

Question

Continuing my project of tracking surnames from my immediate ancestors and those of my wife, in this report, I'm looking at McDonalds.

As of the beginning of November, there were 22,365 profiles with McDonald as the Last Name At Birth on WikiTree. Of those, 77 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving an improbably high 22,288 (99.7%) profiles (presumably) sourced. Also, 3,510 McDonalds were not connected to the main tree, leaving 18,855 McDonalds (84.3%) connected.

Remarkably, despite the huge number of McDonalds in the world, there isn't a McDonald One Name Study project on WikiTree yet.

Comments

Hmmm... tallying up McDonalds on Wikipedia took a lot less time than I expected. There are only 31 deceased McDonalds listed on Wikipedia. (That may be due to the fact that there isn't a separate "McDonald (surname)" entry on Wikipedia, as there are for so many other surnames. Instead, they're listed on the "MacDonald" entry, so there's a pretty good chance that there are lots of McDonald entries on Wikipedia which aren't included on that list.)

Anyway, out of those 31 Notable McDonalds, only three (9.7%) have profiles on WikiTree. (That's the lowest percentage of any surname I've tallied so far, although McClure isn't very far ahead at 11.8%.)

ThePeerage.com lists 163 McDonalds (although I could only find 162 records). Of those, there were one duplicate entry, 30 people whose Last Name At Birth wasn't McDonald, and 85 McDonald who didn't have a death date listed and didn't have a birthdate more than 120 years ago. That leaves 47 deceased McDonalds, of whom nine (19.2%) have profiles. Of those nine profiles, only three (33.3%) have at least one primary source, but all of them are connected to the main tree.

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Here are some of the McDonalds listed on ThePeerage.com who don't have profiles on WikiTree yet:

• Alexander McDonald
• Ann McDonald
• Anna May McDonald
• Archibald McDonald
• Edna Turner McDonald
• Enid McDonald
• Fanny Mabel Elizabeth McDonald
• Frances Maude McDonald
• Francis McDonald
• Frank McDonald
• George McDonald
• George Henry McDonald

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Thanks for your work!

I have a McDonald Brickwall in my family, that I wished one of you could help me with. I am kinda weak on Wiki, but strong on Ancestry.

I have documentation on my William Hubbard McDonald, born 1865 in ? Tennessee, died March 1941 in Paris, Henry, Tennessee. His parents are my brickwall; On his death certificate in 1941 it lists his parents as William H. McDonald (born abt 1835 in SC or TN) and his mother Cornelia Presson/Preston born abt 1838 in ?TN. I have found nothing on them in 7yrs...maybe a civil war tragedy??

I would appreciate any help if your interested!

Thank you!

Donna

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Here are some of the McDonalds listed on Wikipedia who don't have profiles on WikiTree yet:

• Albert McDonald (1930–2014), American politician
• Ambrose Stephen McDonald (1845–1913), American businessman and politician
• Barry McDonald (rugby union) (1940–2020), Australian rugby union player
• Daniel McDonald (1960-2007), American actor
• Harl McDonald (1899–1955), American composer, pianist, conductor and teacher
• Jack McDonald (ice hockey, born 1887) (died 1958), Canadian ice hockey player
• Janet McDonald (mathematician) (1905–2006), American mathematician, Vassar College professor emerita
• John McDonald (of Dromod) (1846 – 1932), Irish cultural nationalist poet 
• John Alexander McDonald (1889-1962), Canadian politician
• John P. McDonald (1922–1993), American librarian
• K.J. McDonald (1930-2012), American politician
• Larry McDonald (1935-1983), American politician

Answer 1

As of Saturday, there were 26,837 WikiTree profiles for people with McDonald as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 241 profiles since the beginning of April.

ThePeerage.com lists 169 McDonalds. Of those, there are 31 profiles with a different Last Name At Birth, 90 living people, and one duplicate entry, leaving a net of 47 deceased McDonalds. Of those, 13 (27.7%) have WikiTree profiles. Wikipedia has entries for 101 McDonalds. Of those, five have a different Last Name At Birth, 38 are living, and 12 are fictional characters, leaving 46 deceased notable McDonalds. Of those, ten (21.7%) have WikiTree profiles.

The percentage of all McDonald profiles that are connected to the main tree has remained at 86.4% over the last month. The percentage of connected McDonald profiles from ThePeerage.com, from Wikipedia, and from our family trees that are connected to the main tree stand at 100%, 60%, and 100%, respectively.

The number of McDonald profiles which are connected to the main tree rose by 210 since the beginning of April, while the number of profiles not connected to the main tree but linked to at least one other profile increased by 30 and the number of profiles not linked to any other profile increased by one.

The percentage of profiles from ThePeerage.com that link back to that person's entry on ThePeerage dropped from 100% to 92.3% over the course of the month. The percentage of profiles from Wikipedia that link back to that person's Wikipedia entry remained steady at 100%.

Currently, none of the McDonald profiles from ThePeerage.com and three of the profiles (30%) from Wikipedia have images on them.

Comments

Of the 26,837 McDonald profiles on WikiTree, only 101 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving an improbably high 26,736 profiles (99.6%) at least supposedly sourced. Of the 13 McDonalds listed in ThePeerage, 11 (84.6%) have at least one primary source. Of the ten McDonalds listed in Wikipedia, eight of them (80%) have at least one primary source.

The sourcing level for McDonalds from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists stand at 1.7, 1.3, and 2.5, respectively.

The number of "tallied" profiles (profiles from Wikipedia and our watchlists) with one primary source (level 1) and with two primary sources (level 2) have each increased by one.

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 McDonald profiles, this line should get more visible, and as the {{Unsourced}} template gets applies to more McDonald profiles where it's needed, the darker orange line should get thicker as well.) And, yes, it would be better to add sources to profiles, but for profiles where you can't find sources, at least you can help make it easier for Sourcerers to find profiles to work on.

Answer 2

err i actually groaned when I found I had McDonald as a surname to find, and why did every branch have to have a son named Alexander, nicknamed named Sandy.  ps my grandfather was  a son of a McDondald mother, married a woman, of which three of her   siblings married  Campbells,

Comments

Ah, the horror!  Did Glencoe slip the minds of those McDonalds?  lol

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I too groan (McDonald, Campbell anywhere near Argyll especially!) ,

We actually have McDonald Campbell marriages too with some children having the middle name of one and the surname of the other

As for the spelling Mac or Mc or O' (in irish) I'm afraid I'll admit to standardizing them all to McX (capital X is important)  simply for ease of finding them in my files and that's the way the most recent ancestors spelled them.. I am scottish btw and know that there used to some pride or reason, but mainly the Mc or Mac (son of) came from pronounciation as to how it might have been spelled in a particular place .. McDonald for example, even without the Mc or Mac could have been many names.. McDougal (Dougal being a popular derivative of Donald) , Donaldson (anglicised version taken by some families)

Like I said, big groan LOL!

Answer 3

My tree contains both McDonalds and Macdonalds.

My Great Grandfather decided to stop spelling his name McDonald and started spelling it Macdonald. I would not be surprised if I did get further back it might have been MacDonald or some other variant in the far past.

Has anyone else had ancestors that decided to change the spelling of their names.

Comments

I believe Mac is the older version.  Mac means son, and functions the way O' does in Ireland.  Interestingly you will find a lot of Macs in Ireland but not so many "O's" in Scotland.

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It seems my brick-wall McDonald may be a McDonell - Samuel.  He was born 1 Mar 1830 in Ireland and emigrated to Canada in 1837 (as per the 1901 census) to the Dundas Stormont area in Ontario.  No idea who his parents were or his siblings...  But his tombstone is McDonald.  1861, 1871 census have McDonell but starting in 1881 it is McDonald.  And McDonald is the name that carried through to my Father.  Sigh...

Answer 4

My MacDonald is one of my brick walls.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/MacDonald-10029

We only know her name from the entries in the Statutory Register of Deaths for her children.

Comments

My McDonald, Mary (McDonald) Carmichael, is the same way: she's my second great grandmother, and I believe that she was born in Benderloch, Argyllshire about 1815, but the first census that I have found her in was 1851, after she was married, so I have no clue as to the names and birthdates of her parents or siblings. I'd say that she's one of my most frustrating brick walls, but they're all frustrating!

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Welcome to my world!  I know the Isle of Coll is in Argyll, so I'll list the FIVE Mary MacDonalds I have.  Who knows?

1) Mary (nee MacKinnon) married Neil MacDonald.

2)  Her daughter Mary MacDonald born on Coll 2 June 1814 who Emigrated with the family to Cape Breton in 1820.  No info on spouse or children.

3)  Mary MacDonald baptized 14 March 1800.  Daughter of Hector and Marion  MacDonald.  No info on spouse or children.

4)  Mary MacDonald born c.1852, died 30 August 1907.  Married George Mackay in Cape Breton.

5)  My Aunt Mary who was born,in Cape Breton and married Duncan Kennedy.

Answer 5

Over the course of November, there was an increase of 187 profiles with McDonald as the Last Name At Birth on WikiTree, for a net of 22,552 McDonalds. I didn't get to sourcing, so there are still 77 profiles marked as unsourced, leaving 22,475 (99.7%) profiles (presumably) sourced. But somebody (or, probably, several somebodies) was connecting McDonalds, because the number of connected McDonalds went up by 235, leaving 19,090 McDonalds (84.7%) connected.

Also during November, I managed to add profiles for two McDonalds listed on ThePeerage.com, bringing the total profiles up to 11 (23.4%), and two notable McDonalds listed on Wikipedia, bringing the total profiles up to five (16.1%).

Comments

All (one) of the McDonalds in my direct ancestry are sourced. Also, probably mostly since the {{Unsourced}} template hasn't been applied to most of the templates where it would be applicable, the "Sourced" number for WikiTree as a whole are so close to 100% that the different isn't really visible in the chart. Still, the number of sourced McDonalds from ThePeerage.com and Wikipedia rose from 33.3% to 54.5% and 80%, respectively, over the course of the month.

The average sourcing levels improved in every group except McDonalds from Wikipedia, which remained the same.

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All (one) of the McDonalds in my direct ancestry are connected to the main tree, since they're connected to me. Also, all the McDonalds from ThePeerage.com are connected. (I have noticed that connecting people listed on ThePeerage.com isn't hard. Just follow out the family links until you find somebody who's already on WikiTree, and build in the intervening profiles.) The overall connection rate also went up slightly, which I always like to see. The connection rate for McDonalds from Wikipedia went down, because of the profiles I added which are not connected (yet).

Unconnected McDonalds:

• Eugene F. McDonald - co-founder of Zenith
• James Grover McDonald - U.S. ambassador to Israel

Answer 6

As of yesterday, there were 23,869 WikiTree profiles for people with McDonald as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 274 profiles since the beginning of April.

There are 164 McDonalds listed on ThePeerage.com. Out of those, the are one duplicate entries, 85 living McDonalds, and 30 people with a Last Name At Birth other than McDonald, leaving a net of 48 McDonalds, 13 (27.1%) of whom have WikiTree profiles.

Wikipedia has entries for 80 McDonalds. Of those, there are three people with a Last Name At Birth other than McDonald, 12 fictional characters, and 39 living people, leaving a net of 26 McDonalds. Of those, eight (30.1%) have WikiTree profiles.

Comments

The percentage of all McDonald profiles that are connected to the main tree rose from 85.4% to 85.7% during April. That comes from 295 more connected profiles over the course of the month. The percentage of connected McDonald profiles from ThePeerage.com and our watchlists remained at 100%, while the percentage of connnected profiles from Wikipedia dropped from 60% to 50% due to the addition of new profiles that haven't been connected yet.

I'm adding a new measure this year, showing the percentage of McDonald profiles which are connected to the main tree, not connected to the main tree but linked to at least one other profile, and not linked to any other profile. (This measure is made possible by Aleš's cool reports.) Hopefully, over time, you should see the percentage of unlinked and unconnected profiles going down, and the percentage of connected profiles going up.

 

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Of the 23,869 McDonald profiles on WikiTree, 80 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving 23,789 profiles (99.66%) supposedly sourced. Of the 13 profiles of McDonalds listed in ThePeerage.com, 11 (84.6%) have at least one primary source. Of the eight profiles of McDonalds listed in Wikipedia, six (75%) have at least one primary source.

The average sourcing level for McDonalds from ThePeerage.com increased from 1.5 to 1.8 over the course of April. The average sourcing level for McDonalds from Wikipedia dropped from 1.3 to 1.1 due to me adding new profiles with incomplete sourcing. Average sourcing levels for McDonald profiles from watchlist increased from 2.0 to 2.5 because I put in some work on  dropped because I finally found some primary sources for Alexander McDonald, who isn't actually related to me (well, okay, he does show up as being 15 degrees from me through the light of my life and the delight of my eyes), but is very important in Canadian Baptist history.

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I have added another 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.

And still another new measure. This one shows the percentage of "tallied" profiles (profiles from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists) and WikiTree as a whole which are unsourced, partially sourced (at least a secondary source), and "fully" sourced* (at least three primary sources). This chart shows the difficulty in measuring sourcing levels for WikiTree as a whole, or even a single Last Name At Birth on WikiTree: for the tallied profiles, I depend on the counts in my spreadsheet, where I assign sourcing levels as I check the profiles. For WikiTree as a whole, I depend on WikiTree to get a count of profiles with the {{Unsourced}} template, and WikiTree+ (thank you, Aleš!) to get a count of profiles with either [[Category:More_Records_Needed]] or [[Category:Profiles_with_Incomplete_Sourcing]]. (I imagine that the Categorization Project will merge those two category hierarchies eventually.) But because both templates and categories are applied manually, there are a ton of profiles to which they should be applied, but haven't been yet. So that's why the tallied profiles show as less than 25% "fully sourced", while all profiles show as more than 95% "fully sourced". (This is one big reason why I keep saying that such-and-such a percentage of profiles on WikiTree is "supposedly" sourced.) Note that the average percentage of profiles with no primary sources across the 31 surnames that I'm tracking is about 5%, so the percentage for McDonalds is improbably low. (In fact, despite me adding the {{Unsourced}} template to dozens of McDonald profiles last month, the count only went up by three profiles. That might mean that somebody was following after me and sourcing profiles that I couldn't -- which would be great -- or it might mean that people are removing the {{Unsourced}} template from profiles that they manage because they're afraid it makes them look bad -- which would definitely not be great.)

 * 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 7

I would like to be kept updated somehow on research on this as this is my father's line.

Comments

Well, since you have answered here, I think you should get a notification any time I update this thread (which I plan to do next year, as long as I don't get hit by a falling satellite). As of Sunday, nobody has started a McDonald One Name Study on WikiTree yet, but if somebody does, that should be an even better source of information, because there should be several people working on the study and sharing information.

Answer 8

As of Monday, there were 25,596 WikiTree profiles for people with McDonald as their Last Name At Birth. That's an increase of 800 profiles since the beginning of January.

ThePeerage.com lists 169 McDonalds. Of those, 31 have a different Last Name At Birth, 90 living people, and one duplicate entry, leaving a net of 47 deceased McDonalds. Of those, 12 (27.7%) have WikiTree profiles. Wikipedia has entries for 79 McDonalds. Of those, four have a different Last Name At Birth, 38 are living, and 12 are fictional characters, leaving 25 deceased notable McDonalds. Of those, eight (32%) have WikiTree profiles.

The percentage of all McDonald profiles that are connected to the main tree has risen slightly from 85.7% to 86.4% since last May. (Considering how many McDoland profiles there are, connecting enough of them to move that measure even a little must have taken a lot of work.) The percentage of connected McDonald profiles from ThePeerage.com, from Wikipedia, and from our family trees that are connected to the main tree remain steady at 100%, 50%, and 100%, respectively.

The number of McDonald profiles which are connected to the main tree rose by 789 since last May, while the number of profiles not connected to the main tree but linked to at least one other profile decreased by 22 and the number of profiles not linked to any other profile increased by 33.

Every McDonald profile from ThePeerage.com and from Wikipedia links back to that person's entry on that other site (100%), and has since May 2022. (So no chart.)

Currently, none of the McDonald profiles from ThePeerage.com and three of the profiles (37.5%) from Wikipedia have images on them.

Comments

Of the 26,596 McDonald profiles on WikiTree, only 88 are currently marked as unsourced, leaving an improbably high 26,508 profiles (99.7%) at least supposedly sourced. Of the 13 McDonalds listed in ThePeerage, 11 (84.6%) have at least one primary source. Of the eight McDonalds listed in Wikipedia, six of them (75%) have at least one primary source.

The sourcing level for Croziers from ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, and our watchlists stand at 1.7, 1.1, and 2.5, respectively.

The number of "tallied" profiles (profiles from Wikipedia and our watchlists) at each sourcing level has changed, with two fewer profiles with primary sources (level 0) and one more with one primary source (level 1).

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 McDonald profiles, this line should get more visible, and as the {{Unsourced}} template gets applies to more McDonald profiles where it's needed, the darker orange line should get thicker as well.) And, yes, it would be better to add sources to profiles, but for profiles where you can't find sources, at least you can help make it easier for Sourcerers to find profiles to work on.