Check out the Connectors Project!

Question

Some of you may see a change in your badges if you are a member of the Global Family Reunion project: it now says Connectors.

The GFR Project Leaders have been thinking, with the Reunion past and the next one not for awhile, we wanted to keep the project rolling with our bigger focus: connecting all the profiles on WikiTree to each other, no matter whether they're part of the Reunion or not.

Thus, we have morphed into the Connectors project, which aims to connect all those loose branches to our main Global Family Tree using the Unconnected lists and functions Chris has been great about creating.

The Global Family Reunion project is now a sub-project of the Connectors with the more specific goal of making connections for AJ's reunions and those people who make requests. Since it's a sub-project, the badge has changed to its top-level Connectors project. 

Here's the new project page and the spiffy badge:

Comments

Nice!

I absolutely love the idea of connecting all of the profiles to each other. The name "Connectors" is just perfect. Now if someone with s presence in one or two of the minimally represented communities would come forward to help lead the charge into these uncharted waters.

I'm thinking about the various Asian families for instance  ("You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" dee-dah dee, do-dah dee dah, "and the world will be as one." )

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Thanks, Abby. Connectors are awesome contributors. They're some of the most generous WikiTreers.

I created a new question for discussing ideas on improving Special:Unconnected: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/180610/connectors-ideas-for-improving-the-unconnected-tool

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Dorothy,

There's a fledgling "Notables Diversity" project working on adding (and trying to connect) profiles of notable people who don't fit the stereotype of "Famous White Guy With A Well-Documented Line To The Mayflower or European Royalty." 

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Hi Maggie,

If you had the GFR badge, it automatically changed you to the Connectors badge, which I checked to make sure you had :-)

Abby

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Maggie, since the comment threading on G2G is just one line, I'm not sure if you're responding to me. But if you (or anyone else) is interested in joining in Notables Diversity, you'll want to contact Lianne Lavoie. (Or, if I misread this and you want to join Connectors, I'll shuffle off with a big awkward grin.)

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Little did I know about Notables Diversity when I started in trying to connect (notable) Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson to the tree. I've been wandering about, adding any connection I can. It's mostly emancipated slaves and their descendents, mostly in Mississippi, Arkansas and the Memphis, TN area. No Census info before 1870, and then it bumps into privacy issues and still-living people pretty quickly, too. And the records seem scarce, too. (Scholars have looked widely for a Robert Johnson birth certificate, but have yet to turn one up.)

I've created a fair-sized tree fragment by now. I suspect it's more than 100 people by now.

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Elizabeth, that's fantastic, thank you!

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Ha! I've got diversity for you! I noticed a guy in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame whose aunt was the Queen of Madagascar.

In a more mundane exercise, I tried adding on to ragtime pianist Scott Joplin. I didn't get far, but I did find that his father, an emancipated slave, was registered to vote in Texas in 1867. A cool discovery.

An interesting thing about the Mississippi Delta is that it wasn't settled until the railroads came through, which was after the Civil War. There was little or no slavery in that area, yet its race relations were as brutal as anywhere else in the South. (Emmett Till was killed there, for one infamous example.)

Answer 1

What makes a profile Unconnected? John McPhee, McPhee-274, is Unconnected, which I understand, as he is shown with no parents and no wife.  His son Archibald, McPhee-273, is not shown as Unconnected, and he has not only John as father, but also a wife.  But Archibald's son Donald, McPhee-279, is shown as Unconnected. He is shown with two parents, but no wife or children.  Archibald's other son, William, McPhee-272, is not shown as Unconnected, but he has a wife and children, and his Privacy setting was set to Private (now changed to Private w/ Public Family Tree).  Why is Donald Unconnected while William is not shown as Unconnected?

Also, does the Privacy setting make any difference in whether a profile is Connected or Unconnected?

Comments

Connections are to the main tree, so the amount of family doesn't necessarily play in. Some people have only a spouse attached to them, and it is the spouse that links them to the tree. I don't show William as connected. All connections have to wait for the updates overnight, too. They won't show up as connected right away.

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Archibald should be listed as Unconnected.  He hasn't got a Bacon box and he hasn't been touched recently.

Basically they go in sets.  Connect one person to the big tree and you connect everybody else who's connected to that person.

Answer 2

I do worry that this encourages dubious and unsourced connections.

I find the Bacon boxes a big distraction and time-waster, because every profile I visit, I look at the connection to Bacon to see where it breaks.  It usually does.

I have a bunch of profiles that I could connect, but I haven't because I'm unhappy about one particular link.  It's just a judgment call about whether two people are the same person.  It's unlikely any direct information will turn up.  But I expect the link will appear anyway, it's in an Ancestry tree, and glass-half-full usually wins.

I've got a line for Elon in the Connection Combat, but I haven't used it because it comes from an Ancestry family tree and I've got nothing to add as regards sources.

I've got another problem with that line.  The continuation goes through a WikiTreer, who might not want the attention, and his private immediate family, who can't be checked anyway.  Actually, having created some profiles, I ended up wishing I hadn't, but of course there's no way of deleting them.

Comments

Hm. There's the possibility of dubious connections on WikiTree at any time-new researchers have to learn what experienced members know on a regular basis. I know I personally worked from both directions on connections to AJ and made a lot of connections stronger-if something was dubious I removed it and found a different route. We encourage well-sourced additions, like all WikiTree projects. I am sorry to hear your connections have been distracting.

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I seem not to be connected to the connected project as I messaged them but never got an answer.................... :) Sorry guys me sure you re all busy.