Question

If a profile has a lot children is it ok to just list most of them in the free space?

Answer 1

it's not really a good idea to only list them in the bio. The point of wikitree is that each profile is linkable to make one big family tree. How would someone link their ancestor to one of yours in marriage (for example) if they were listed only in the bio? They would not know the person was there and make a new profile. If they did not yet know the name of the parents, that would mean they would be unlinked. In that situation, you would also have to ask to be added to the trusted list to be able to add any info on profiles that are not open, which could slow you down and cause frustration. I groan sometimes at having to source info for a dozen offspring but it's really not too bad most of the time and once you have one piece of supporting evidence for a person's existence, it spurs you on.

Comments

Your answer is much appreciated.  I thought maybe your answer would be the way to go..  I like your answer and will take your advise.  I am not the only manager for Zackquill and wasn't sure what to do.  I usually send a private message to the other  managesrs for advise but had an email suggesting using G 3 G so i thought I'd try it.  Received some good answwers.

Answer 2

My Gr Gm had 13 children all listed, Her mother had 10 children all listed. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Duesler-19

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Goode-1128 My 4th Gr Gf, 14 Children all listed. This is the profile where 5 living people have connected 4 are active on wikitree & 1 at findagrave, 2 or 3 more are working towards this profile also presently at wikitree.

 Just like exponential growth in MLM / Amway. If you build width first depth will naturally follow.

Comments

Thank you. I feel so sorry for the women who had all those children.  Creating profiles for all those children will be a chore.  I am not the only manager for Zackquill so thought G2G would be a good place to go.

Answer 3

On the other hand it may be a good idea to list the children in the bio before you have had time to enter them all as individuals.

Also, the  list of children in Zackquill's profile gives a neat overview of his two families.

Answer 4

I think it's ok to just list them in the bio space. And I definitely list them in my bios. I try to put at least one date or piece of information on my list. If I had lots of time on my hands I could create profiles, but there are only so many hours in a day. Just this morning someone attached a child to one of my ancestors. I was able to take a quick look at the profile and check the dates with the list on the father's profile, to verify the child belonged to the parents.

Comments

Concur with Anne, and this is my practice as well.

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Hmm, interesting. Ann, Jillaine...

Do you think that listing the kids/siblings in the bio/notes section, instead of entering it (and making it searchable) via the site's structured data is speeding up the overall wikitree process, as a whole? Of finding and joining up all the disconnected mini trees, and finding and merging all the duplicates, and fixing all the data quality problems?

Intuitively, I would guess not making profiles (rather lists of notes) or making partial family profiles but omitting breadth would be slowing down the process (i.e. the good work) down... and potentially very significantly given the scale of the site. Curious how I might be misunderstanding what's working for you.

Best wishes

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Isaac, certainly adding all the children to the database and adding a list in the biography would be ideal. Of course, then I might feel compelled to add their spouses and their children also. But my considerable time spent on Wikitree is better utilized in other endeavors than creating profiles.

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It's not that listing children in the bio is better than adding profiles for all of them. Ideally each offspring-- at least those that survived to adulthood and had children of their own-- get a profile.  But I have ancestors who had as many as 15-18 births.  If I don't have time to create profiles for them all, I at least want to honor my ancestress's labor (literally and figuratively) by listing the names of her children in her bio. This also serves as a form of to-do list whether for me or other descendants when time allows.