Does Wikitree expect me to examine every potential match?

Question

I have an Ancestor John Thomas 1815 Llanfechelli, Anglesey, Wales who show up with 19 matches that have a mixture of Red, Green and White buttons. None of the matches show a date or place. Does Wikitree expect me to go through each of the 19 matches and either reject or send a request to match? What about my other 11 men with the same name who will probably have the same 19 matches.

Just so I understand this, I went through the 15 White/Green matches and rejected them all. I 13 of the 15 cases the other entry had a Spouse whose name did not match. In the other 2 cases there was a Father that did not match. That leaves 4 red matches. Does Wikitree expect me to send a Match request for each?

From the sample I have, it appears that I might have 10,000 potential matches for the 2,000 records I have updated. That only leaves me with 18,500 more people to upload and match.

Really I am not complaining, I just want to undersand the expectations so that I can be a productive member here. It will take me weeks to skim through the list of matches, never mind the time required to actually manage each match.

I will appreciate any insights and suggestions from the more veteran members. Thanks

Answer 1

Start with selecting that there must be a date within about 12 years, I would go through those pretty well... also, be careful not to reject someone if the spouse doesnt match if you dont know FOR SURE that they only had ONE spouse...

 

I appreciate this question SO MUCH... I go through all the matches all the time, as much as I can stand-- about 2-3 pages 1x over... if you are really digging I would go through the dateless mess, obviously... but as far as, expected, I wouldnt think so unless you have 100 profiles total, ha.

 

Also, it might help if you have John Thomas multiple times, as in not duplicates but son, father, etc pull ALL your John Thomas' up at one time and go through the dateless John Thomas' once and see if ANYTHING looks familiar for any of your John Thomas'... I know how much dateless plain, simple names can take up your time... this saves me time... I also see the profiles that arent mine so much I start to believe that they are! HA.

 

Appreciate you being a caring member!

Comments

Excellent question! Excellent answer!

Considering the goal of the WikiTree Project, comparing and then accepting or rejecting the suggested matches is SO Important!!!
This ends up being a bit of a burden, (more especially in the very common surnames and variants), but is essential.

If everyone would spend just a little time going through the match-ups at the end of each session on the tree when they've engaged in uploading, updating or editing their portions of the tree, then the burden could be reduced for some individual contributors and all would benefit.

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I try not to reject someone unless I absolutely know its not true... like wrong parents WAY WRONG dates, etc... hope others do the same because we rarely know if our information is COMPLETE or if that was also a spouse, but once rejected it is not likely to be merged even if it is the same person.-- I also would not necessarily reject on wrong parents if the spouse is the same... LOOK INTO IT FURTHER, etc...