I'm confused by the "orphaned profile" terminlogy

Question

I've recently noticed people attaching connections to various families that I have online.  When I go to check the info, the recently attached person says that it is an "orphaned profile".  Today, I checked the history of the profile, and it shows it being created as new person by a wikitree member, then attached as an orphan profile.    

I have a lot of family trees online, as I am actively involved in MIA research, and will make a family tree online in order to keep the genealogy information in an easy to find place.  Everyone of those profiles are created using my name.  I don't think that I even know how one would create a profile as an orphan, but this has happened a few times as of late.

 I source everything that I put up, so it's not like someone is working on  unsourced profiles and decides to connect another family member.

I'd appreciate an explanation.

Comments

Since it is an 'Orphan' with no profile manager, you can adopt it.

Answer 1

When a person creates a profile they become the profile manager. The creator of Joseph Dodson's profile removed themselves as manager so the profile became orphaned.

From https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Orphaned_Profiles#How_Are_Profiles_Orphaned.3F  - "Many are created by generous genealogists who add basic information about a person when they find it, but have no particular connection to the family, surname, or location and hope that someone with more of a personal interest will adopt the profile."

Comments

"Orphaned" in this sense means "has no profile manager", not that the person was an orphan

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What would be the purpose in making the file an orphan? I was under the impression that orphaned profiles were ones where the original manager no longer participated in wikitree for any number of reasons.

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Jonathan, yes, Barbara was asking about a profile that has no profile manager

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Barbara, I think a lot of people do it to reduce their watchlists.

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Barbara, I take myself as example. I often source profiles outside of my family that don't have a source in their profiles. I have for example a profile of a Henry Miller who is married to an Elizabeth Smith and they have a daughter Jane. The database where I look for sources, has a baptism entry for a son William Miller, whose parents are Henry Miller and Elizabeth Smith. The time frame fits and the location fits as well to the information on the WikiTree profile. So I can source Henry and Elizabeth using William. But I have to create a profile for William. I do so, but that is all I want to do with that family, I only want to get rid of the parents in the Unsourced list. So I orphan William although I just created his profiles two minutes ago.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this.  I, myself, have added many people when doing a "source" challenge.  But I never thought to orphan the profile after linking a new person to a profile.  This explains why I see so many that are  orphaned as I work with them. I had presumed that orphaned profiles resulted from the original creator either passing away, or deleting his/her account!

 I learn something new everyday.  :-)  This also explains why I have such a large number of profiles linked to my name.  However, I would want to keep all of the MIA family profiles in the event someone might reach out to me.  Thank you, again!

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Hi Barbara. Thanks for your work on MIA family profiles! Just to add to what others have said, some members need to orphan profiles in order to keep their watchlist below the workable maximum size of about 5000. See this link.

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I was not aware of the watchlist accepted maximum.  I just checked mine, and it is under the 5000.  But, I will probably go through and orphan files that are not related to my personal interest.  Since it seems that wikitree is always looking for people to adopt orphaned files, it seemed counterproductive for someone to orphan a profile that was just initiated.  But I now understand the purpose being doing so.  Thanks, again.

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I have orphaned many profiles in the years I have been on Wikitree and I still contribute daily. Some of the profiles were created for areas of interest, such as mining disasters, theatrical people, or were side shoots on the tree.