I adopted this Profile today without looking at the Biography. What would you do to this Profile?

+10 votes
460 views

I came across this profile unintentionally and realized that he is my 4th great-grandfather, and his Profile was up for adoption.

I adopted his Profile before I looked at his Bio., and realized that probably whoever created his Profile in 2010 did a copy & paste it with a go-nowhere source to find a grave.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Myers-339

I am going to wait at least two weeks before I tear this Profile apart because I want people to realize the basics that go into a Biography.

Birth, Origin, Parents, Marriages, Children, their Life, Death, and Sources to back up every fact written in the Bio.

Research notes, citations, and categories are usually next.

When it comes to this Profile, that old saying "Sometimes less is better" is so true.

If you were the Profile Manager of this profile what would you do?

in Genealogy Help by Keith Mann Spencer G2G6 Mach 3 (35.3k points)
I'd start by looking at the change history :-)
Break up those long paragraphs!
It looks like you added the large sections in 2020, so you can break them up or if they are taken from someplace else, put a 'blockquote' around the sections and format within each one.

4 Answers

+7 votes
I would first find out who Susan Bloom the author was, and if there are related materials available. (I just did this via google -- this question in G2G was the first thing that came up, and also in the FamilySearch catalog -- 0 results, so she must be an amateur genealogist)

After that, I would break up the bio into manageable pieces and see which parts are true. The original sources are hinted at in the text, hopefully, the notes would be accurate.

I would also make sure there isn't a duplicate on Wikitree, especially because of the surname having different variants.
by Dina Grozev G2G6 Pilot (218k points)
Myers-339 is a low profile number.  How would you like that bio to win the merge?  If you do merge it, be careful.
+8 votes

A bunch of it is repetitive.  I would create another non-Biography section, and credit it to Susan Bloom.  Then start a fresh sourced Biography.  Go back and remove repetitive text from Susan Bloom and data you sourced.

The cite for the Find-A-Grave for this profile is:

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102360658/josiah-myers: accessed 18 February 2023), memorial page for Josiah Myers (19 Apr 1757–26 Jan 1797), Find a Grave Memorial ID 102360658, citing Steuben Corners Cemetery, Steuben, Oneida County, New York, USA; Maintained by Debbie (contributor 46911311).

by Jim Myers G2G5 (5.4k points)
+5 votes

For starters there is a FindAGrave profile at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102360658/josiah-myers and a Family Search profile at https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KJD1-BNJ which could be checked for accuracy and clues. It appears that some of the current information on the profile was copied from the FamilySearch profile. 

Another thing is to identify the duplicated information as there is at least some duplication. Then it would be easier to try and find sources to back up the statements. 

by Darren Kellett G2G6 Pilot (563k points)
+6 votes
I would sit down, have a cry then pull myself together and start to sort out the important information. Seems to be a lot of text that makes the task look daunting but much is duplicated.

As you have adopted it and the original profile manager hasn't done anything since 2010 when the profile was created, structure it how you want with credit to Susan Bloom for her input.

It deserves a redo so well done for taking it on.

Cheers, Rich
by Rich Moss G2G6 Mach 9 (96.7k points)

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