Orphaned living people

Question

I keep finding orphaned profiles that appear to be living people. They have no birth/death dates but based on other information they could still be living. How did they come to be orphaned? What should be done with them? If I add a birth date with no death date, the profile's privacy will be locked and no one will be able to adopt or edit it.

Comments

I just found two orphaned profiles of kids that appear to be alive. There is a facebook link and I've sent a message to the person I think is the mother to ask if she would like me to make them private. She doesn't know me...but I don't even think she created the profiles....

Answer 1

 Abby Glann said in another case of orphaned profiles that appear to be living people:

"When you find these, you can let the team know when you find these, and we can add them to our watchlist. Living people should never be anything but private..

See http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/309864/how-can-you-orphan-a-living-person

As noted, when you try to put any information on living people without adopting they automatically become locked when you save info...and no one can get to them but the WikiTree Tech team. I did that myself without adopting and had to ask WikiTree admin's to open them for me so I could adopt and finish what I needed to do...(l was lucky I had a death date and could release them without them being locked because I too did not want to keep them.) 

I hope I have this right, if not Abby or someone from the Team can advise. 

Comments

Thank you Dorothy. I remember seeing this post before, but I had forgotten about it. I will let the team know about these profiles.

Answer 2

Well, first adopt it, make an educated guess as to a death date. add the birth date, make a note in the biography of what you're doing, change it to an open profile if it's changed privacy level, and then re-orphan it.  That should work, I think.

Comments

If the individual is still living, I don't want to set the privacy level at Open. But I don't want to adopt all of them and keep them on my watchlist either.

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BTW, if you really think an orphaned profile should be privacy protected, there may be a project which can do that (or there should be if there isn't.)  You may want to re-tag this question with Leader to  see if that's the case.

Answer 3

I was hoping for something  better-- like a template. I, too, when working on db_errors frequently come across empty, orphaned profiles,with no dates and no connections of people that, when I RootsSearch them, look very much like living people. I don't want to adopt them, but I know as soon as I put in a post 1916, 20th century birth year, it will lock the profile up. Here's one where you can see what I did.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Appleberry-3

I'd love a template that would flag these. {{living}} ??

Comments

We're in the middle of working through the private orphans to make sure that either Admin WikiTree is the profile manager or they are opened if they can be. Putting a date on it so it locks might be the best way to go because we'll come across it while working through the private orphans.

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Okay. Will do. Thanks.

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Actually on this particular one, I think I can recycle him to a deceased Keith Appleby...

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ACTUALLY, do we want to do that? I could see recycling someone into a deceased person by the same name but only if they had family. The likely-deceased Keith Appleby that I found appears to have married but not had children. Thoughts?

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For Mr. Appleberry, I like the idea of keeping the name Appleberry, linking to the FamilySearch search results (it's public information associated with the name; nobody can be accused of violating his privacy) and putting the profile under the management of Admin WikiTree.

And I'd leave the profile as public with public biography and family tree, in hopes that Mr. Appelberry or a family member might find it and adopt it.

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Clarification:

If I find information about living people through public records, and I add them, AND end up making the profile private, still-orphaned, and admin comes along and sees it, are you likely to delete it?

I.e., should I not being wasting my time doing the research and citing for these living people?

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(BTW, many of these are from the infamous DeCoursey.ged.)

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If there's identifying info on the profile (other than just the name) we wouldn't delete it.  Especially if there's a source to go with it.

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Ok. Thanks. I'm having fun with error  902.