How can one set up a West family project?

Question

I am a descendant of Joseph West and Jane Owen.  I have connected myself thru the generations going back to Isaac West (abt 1740 - abt 1814, Chester, PA) and Rosanna Lewis (05 Jul 1752 - 1818 Rowan, North Carolina), but then I ran into problems.  Rosanna is shown as having 3 husbands all named "Isaac West" -- West-21606, West-535 and West-22755.  Obviously there are duplicates here, but in them it appears that mergers have been done in the past resulting in very long Biographies and Source lists.  Rosanna is listed with only 2 of their 10 children -- John Thomas & Rachel.  Isaac (West-21606) has Isaac Jr & Jacob.  Isaac (West-535) has only Rachel.  Isaac (West-22755) has only John Thomas.

 I don't feel qualified or capable of trying to get this all straight myself.  What is the best way to go about fixing this?  I'm afraid that it could also lead to duplicates or conflations of more family members about the same time and further in the past. 

Before anyone mentions it, I see that Celia Marsh has noticed the situation also & has suggested merges of the 3 profiles for Isaac on Feb 21.  I would like to see the cleaning up of this family go a little further.

Comments

After posting & going thru the related questions below, I see this has been an ongoing problem with our family members.   Is there an answer to all this?  I suppose it happens to lots of families.

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It looks like merges have been proposed for the multiple Isaac Wests. If neither of the two profile managers respond by March 21st (30 days after the proposal was made) anyone who has signed the honor code can complete the merges.

Answer 1

There is a West Name Study you could look into joining. There may be people interested in the West surname that would be willing to help and provide assistance: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:West_Name_Study

But yes...this has happened to many of us. I joined interested in creating and helping fill out the Smitherman line to see it was a big mess.  I slowly just tried too learn wikitree and fixed things as I felt comfortable. And there is still LOTS to do and it will never be complete.

Don't feel rushed (as hard as that is because I understand the feeling of wanting to fix everything super quickly). Work on things when you have time and as you feel comfortable. Communicate with the profile managers about issues you are seeing.

Comments

I went to the "West Name Study," found someone that I believe is attached to the wrong family, posted my lengthy comments about why I believe it is wrong, & then spent sev hrs looking thru other names.  Unlike Smitherman, West is a common name so I spent a lot of time visiting profiles that were not part of my line ... so far as I could tell.  I'd spend much less time on my mother's line (surname Rill), but most of that is what I entered.  I do want to spend more time at some point adding more biographical info & sources to those profiles.

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I forgot to mention ... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.  I thought there should be something helpful somewhere.  I just haven't had good luck finding the answers to my questions on my own.  Seems my searches just don't provide the info I'm looking for.