Is Wikidata now an appropriate source?

Question

I have looked through all the db_errors pages and G2G and just cannot find the answer to this question.   But, there are MANY Data Doctors who are now using links, such as https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4669355 as a source, changing dates, places, etc.   When I go there, it just takes me to Wikipedia or the like that may or may not have "primary" sources.

I know there has been a lot of discussion on the use of Wikidata, maybe I missed the conversation, but, I am sure there are others like myself, that look at Wikidata as a "lead" to find sources, not an actual source itself.

I think this is a mistake if we have decided to use Wikidata as a source.

 

Comments

As always when doing genealogy you have to analyze the sources per profile and event. My advice use Genealogy Proof Standard (GPS) method to do your research so other people understand why you add a fact and what sources this fact is based on.

Wikidata will never be a primary source see Space:Wikidata

If you use the template Wikidata

{{Wikidata|
Q4669355|
enwiki|
Y}}

you get the information that this WikiTree profile is referenced from Wikidata and nothing about sources etc... more that Wikidata expect WikiTree to have sources ;-)   

Generated text from the template

• This WikiTree profile is referenced from WikiData: Q4669355 Wikidata Information Reasonator enwikiAncestors (about wikidata)

That is an indication that the profile in WikiTree is about the same person in Wikidata that maybe have links to the same person in FindAGrave etc.... ==> its the same person we describe but its not sources...

 

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As with any (and every) "source" on the internet, you have to research and see if it is valid and refers to the correct ancestor.

I've followed some of these trails and found useful information on family, but would only list them as a "source" if I determined that it was somewhat plausable, and there was nothing else. I try to mark these sources as uncertain, or in need of more research when I do.

rsl

Answer 1

It isn't a primary source, (what we strive towards): an original document that was created at the time of the person.
It isn't even a secondary source: an account or interpretation of events created by someone without firsthand knowledge.

It should not be considered a source. I might cite the Wikipedia Article, if it had sources, but even better I should check the source that Wikipedia used.

Comments

Good summary. The intention with this project and something called WikiCite is explained in this video by Dario Taraborello at 15:00 minutes head of research at Wikimedia

 

As Error 556 Wikidata - Empty death date  was reported on this profile 

From Wikidata we get

• Genealogics.org ID=I00428251 
• Abram Garfield Find A Grave Memorial# 11049991
• Library of Congress Name Authority File 
  • use sources

    • found: NUCMC data from Lake County Historical Society for James A. Garfield family collection, [18--]-[19--] (Abram Garfield; son of James A. Garfield; architect)

    • found: Burke's pres. families of the U.S., 1975 (Abram Garfield; b. 1872; architect; Cleveland, Ohio)

    • found: Info. from 678 field, 2014-02-10 (Died 1958)

I think with the above mentioned links we can be convinced that WikiTree missed that information and without Aleš creating this association 2016-08-13T00:15:04‎ I guess it would have taken time to find this error...

See also WikiCite Citations for the sum of all human knowledge

The WikiTreeID was proposed by me 27 April 2016 and we now have 30236 connections and I think the work Aleš does will increase the quality of WikiTree PLUS I hope WikiTree will have so good quality that people investigating a profile will start checking WikiTree ....

Answer 2

In my opinion WikiData is not a source. The WikiData link was added to the DB Errors report to help some find possible errors but I have found that it can be in error instead of WikiTree. This is a big problem when as you pointed out others are using it for a purpose that it was not intended to be used for because they do not understand what it is and how to use it.

Answer 3

I would state it that Wikidata will be as WikiTree not a source but they will describe a person and hopefully in the future get better quality.

Wikidata has properties and to every property you can add references. The project is just 4 years old and have today abt 29 million records.

If we look at object Q4669355 is not a good member in Wikidata. It has a lot of facts and as reference it just reference other Wikipedia articles which is not the intention.

Wikidata was developed because Wikipedia gets a problem supporting more than 280 languages ==> the ambition is that all language versions of  Q4669355 should get the facts from Wikidata. 

The next step now is to get Wikidata sourced better. You can see in the english Wikipedia article that they has a lot of sources and those sources if good should be moved down to Wikidata but that will take time and many people on Wikipedia don't understand the value of Wikidata...

Hope that is an answer. WikiData is like WikiTree just describing a person and both has the ambition to add sources and by linking them together we can see if we have a mismatch.... 

From a technical point it's better to link to Wikidata as that URL is more stable compared to the Wikipedia article it reference can change.

You can use a template ==>
 {{Wikidata|Q4669355|enwiki|Y}}

==> the following text indication that this profile is mentioned in Wikidata
 

• This WikiTree profile is referenced from WikiData: Q4669355 Wikidata Information Reasonator enwikiAncestors (about wikidata)

Wikidata also has a reference to

• Genealogics.org ID=I00428251 
• Abram Garfield Find A Grave Memorial# 11049991
• Library of Congress Name Authority File 
  • use sources

    • found: NUCMC data from Lake County Historical Society for James A. Garfield family collection, [18--]-[19--] (Abram Garfield; son of James A. Garfield; architect)

    • found: Burke's pres. families of the U.S., 1975 (Abram Garfield; b. 1872; architect; Cleveland, Ohio)

    • found: Info. from 678 field, 2014-02-10 (Died 1958)

Answer 4

Thanks Robin for asking about this issue.  I did ask a question about a couple of specific errors related to Wikidata, and was assured that there were warnings about people investigating before make changes just based on Wikidata, but I suspect some people are ignoring such warnings.

I think the issue is also broader than the fact that Wikidata (Wikipedia) might not have adequate sources, important as that issue is.

I've seen changes to place names, based on the English version of Wikipedia, when they should have been in the language of the person profiled.  I've also seen some changes to place names where the person didn't seem to understand the WikiTree standard, and the city, state, country were all entered without separators.

The db errors project is great when it is correcting errors, not so great when it effectively creates more errors.

Comments

This is the second time I posted this, DB-Error is flaging that my data does not match WikiData.  Well yes so what Wikidata is wrong, I made one attempt to fix wikidata, did not work.  OK, I'm not interested in fixing wikidata.  So if its NOT a source WIKITREE should not be testing against it.

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@Linda

A) what is "your" data/wikiTree profile that is connected to WikiData and wrong. I can fix this if you have sources telling that you have the right data

B) You test data with data to see if its a mismatch/error 

1. A source is something that claims facts
2. Wikidata has facts and when WIkidata is done right you have sources connected to every fact that confirms it right
3. WikiTree has facts and sometimes sources but WikiTree has no mechanism for connecting a fact to a source
4. Some facts in WikiTree can be checked using a machine with Wikidata to confirm its a mismatch
   1.  WikiTree profile Garfield-27 had no death date
   2. The Database Error found this before any users did and reported this as a mismatch
   3. Sources found at WikiData also made me convince that Garfield-27 ==> the Database Error program found an error in WIkiTree

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Magnus,

Run an error report on a medieval person such as Edward III (since we have another thread going on him).  You will see literally hundreds WikiTree-WikiData errors.  You would think that for someone like a well-known English king we would have the basic data correct, but we don't even agree on his birth and death dates.  

The majority of the errors I have checked are errors in WikiData, which I don't have the time or inclination to fix.  

1. They come about from errors in secondary source.
2. Disagreements in sources.
3. Often from minor differences in estimates.  If I say someone was born about 1345, and someone else estimates about 1340 using the same sources - neither of us are wrong.

These WikiData errors are very problematic as I believe there is a tendency by people working to fix errors found on Error Reports to change the WikiTree data to match the WikiData, believing  the WikiData must be more accurate or just to make the error go away.

 

I personally believe these WikiData errors should be removed from the Error Reports as they are not a true source, fixing the many sources of WikiData is not the mission of WikiTree, and most importantly it is actually causing errors to be introduced into WikiTree.

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@Joe Cochoit give examples of bad Wikidata examples and also good Wikitree profiles compared with Wikidata

If you give examples of problems and you have sources  we can correct it

I have connected maybe 5000 Wikitree profiles with WIkidata and in 90% of connected profiles I miss good sources in WikITree and in 99% of the cases I feel WikiTree is less good sourced than Wikipedia..... 

I hope that WikiTree should move in direction good sources and that people over at Wikipedia/Wikidata start using WikiTree as a source...

Example of a profile were I feel WikiTree has better genealogy value than Wikipedia and FindAGrave

• en:wikipedia Oscar_von_Sydow
• sv:wikipedia Oscar_von_Sydow
• Wikidata Q53628
• WikiTree Von_Sydow-8
• FindAGrave 170623864 

 

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Magnus it's not the amount of sources in Wikipedia that is the problem, it's that Wikipedia, rarely sources birth and death dates, nor other areas of genealogical interest such as marriage and children, and if there is a source for those details it is almost invariable a secondary source.  Most of the sources on a Wikipedia article related to the biography, not the genealogy.

I don't understand why good genealogy tells us that you try as hard as you can to see the original records, either in paper or digital images, rather than relying on secondary sources. However when it comes to Notables or European Aristocrats we decide that secondary sources such as a Wikipedia article are OK.

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>> it's that Wikipedia, rarely sources birth and death dates,

And that is a weakness of Wikipedia. The dirty US election campaign with a lot of more or less fake news has increased the awareness of sourcing and the people over at WikiTree land has also identified to fact should be sourced with good external sources. See the video above by Dario Taraborello at 15:00 minutes head of research at Wikimedia....

I am pushing right now in the Swedish Wikipedia

• using good referencing on all important data in Wikidata
• some cool people has done templates in the Swedish Wikipedia so they take the facts and references from Wikidata ==> we will get infopages with good sources in Wikipedia based on the data in Wikidata
• the basic approach in Wikipedia is to just use references to published research done. I have questioned that and suggested that we also should have church books references and people agree that this should be ok but now I have to create the template for it....
• one of the best sources for Swedish genealogy is SBL a dictionary of dead people. I have created a property in WikiData as I did with WikiTree and the next step is to add links between all properties like birth/dead/marriage/occupations etc. to SBL     its 9000 people so it will take some time and right now 1200 are linked...

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Most of Edward III's errors aren't real, they're just calendar issues.  The dates are consistently 8 days off, because WikiData uses Proleptic Gregorian, a calendar known only to 24-year-old Applied Physics Masters.

Actually the offsets are

1000s - 6 days

1100s, 1200s - 7 days

1300s - 8 days

1400s - 9 days

1500s, 1600s - 10 days

1700s - 11 days

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@RJ Horace below the dates and calendar formats I find. 

In Wikidata they miss good sources but Wikipedia has sources at least

WikiTree ID Plantagenet-70

1. Born 13 Nov 1312
2. Married 24 Jan 1328
3. Died 21 Jun 1377

Wikidata Q129247

1. Property:P569 Born 13 november 1312
   1. statement with mainsnake date marked as Julian that is more precise than 1 year
   2. No Source added in Wikidata - have imported from but that is nt ok
2. Married missing date in wikidata
   1. 24 January 1328 in wikipedia article
      1. Looks like source Mortimer (2006), pp. 67, 81.
3. Property:P570 Died 21 juni 1377 

If we look in the json format of the Edward III object Q129247  we can easier see the Calendar model used

 ==>

1. Property:P569
   1. Time 1312-11-13T00:00:00Z
   2. Calendarmodel Q1985786 Proleptic Julian calendar
2. Property:P570
   1. Time +1377-06-21T00:00:00Z
   2. Calendarmodel Q1985786 Proleptic Julian calendar

How to set another calendar inside WikiData

Big pic

Template created in WikiTree but not used so that we could set the correct calendar 

see Template:Calendar

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Project Database error  reports error 555 Wikidata - Different birth date 

1. WikiTree 1312-11-13 certain Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England
2. Wikidata 1312-11-21 Windsor Castle United Kingdom

If we look at WIkidata history the birth has changed rather often

• 2016-11-26T22:30:46‎ Theklan (talk | contribs)‎ . . (58,453 bytes) (-863)‎ . . (‎Removed claim: date of birth (P569): 21 November 1312) (undo | thank) (restore)
• 2016-09-22T14:20:32‎ Addbot (talk | contribs)‎ . . (58,500 bytes) (+365)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: date of birth (P569): 13 November 1312, Bot: Phabricator: Marking bad dates with a qualifier (approved task) Julian date more precise than 1 year) (undo) (restore)
•  2016-09-22T12:09:10‎ Addbot (talk | contribs)‎ . . (57,770 bytes) (+365)‎ . . (‎Changed claim: date of birth (P569): 21 November 1312, Bot: Phabricator: Marking bad dates with a qualifier (approved task) Julian date more precise than 1 year) (undo) (restore)
• (cur | prev)  2015-11-12T08:59:41‎ KasparBot (talk | contribs)‎ . . (50,830 bytes) (0)‎ . . (‎Set a claim value: date of birth (P569): 13 November 1312, reimport of Persondata, fixing calendar model) (undo) (restore)

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Thanks.  I was looking at the error report

http://wikitree.sdms.si/function/WTWeb/errors.htm?UserID=289166

which treats 21 Nov / 29 Jun as correct, and throws up an error, not just for Edward but for everybody within 10 steps

Of course if the data were extracted from WikiData in Proleptic Julian it would be wrong for all dates after 1800. 

 

 

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@RJ Horace

I am lost as this is rather complicated. The problem as I see it

1. WikiTree never set a calendar it just use dates. 
   1. Some people has I guess an unwritten practise that dates before xxx is using another calendar
   2. A Template:Calendar I did to address the problem that no one reading a profile understand what calendar is used 
      1. This template has been marked retired by ?!?!?  
2. The Database Error project compare WikiTree non Calendar dates with Calendar dates in Wikidata ==> we get a lot of errors ...
3. WikiData for older profiles miss often sources for dates 

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To: Magnus Salgo

My profile is accurate Dominy-37 Wiikdata need to be fixed.

Here is another of my profiles that is correct and Wikidata that is wrong , Please do not test Wikitree against Wikidata.

Teller-207

and another

Oppenheimer-112

and

Gardner-6314

and

Clutterbuck-68

and

Murray-7518

Thanks

 

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@Doug I checked Oppenheimer-112 and the error is that the WikiTree profile is not connected to the WikiTree World Wide family tree... it has nothing to do with Wikidata/Wikipedia

568 Wikidata - Unconnected branches to global tree 

What is missing is research at Wikitree how to connect this profile. I guess this error was requested by the Project:Arborists

Teller-207 error report =  568 Wikidata - Unconnected branches to global tree 

Gardner-6314 error report = 568 Wikidata - Unconnected branches to global tree 

Clutterbuck-68 error report = 568 Wikidata - Unconnected branches to global tree  

Murray-7518 error report = 568 Wikidata - Unconnected branches to global tree  

Thanks

Ps. Video Wikipedia: #FactsMatter Wikipedias statement about the importance of that things are verifiable

Answer 5

There should be a hierarchy, where secondary sources cite primary sources and so on.

Each work needs to position itself in terms of what sources it will cite and who it might expect to be cited by - otherwise everything becomes circular.

But WikiTree is riding two horses.

If it wants to be a data resource, it would position itself upstream of Wikipedia, citing only professional compilations at worst.

But as a collection of personal family trees, it will sit further downstream, in the uncitable user-contrib world.

Leading question for WikiTree - should Wikipedia cite WikiTree as a source?

Comments

When I created the Template:Wikidata I added the below text ==> position WikiTree as a same as relation with Wikidata i.e. we describe the same person but neither site has better genealogy qualities 

• This WikiTree profile is referenced from WikiData: Q4669355 Wikidata Information Reasonator enwikiAncestors (about wikidata)

 

I think WikiTree could have profiles we care about with quality ratings i.e. profiles that have a good genealogy value and can be trusted by other peoples...

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Interesting page showing the number of statements with a reference to external source is increasing wikidata-todo/stats.php

A statement is Property:P569 Born for example  Q129247

More Wikidata statistics

• 35583 authors
• 14414 new objects per day
• 16.2 M edits in october

Answer 6

So, I'm just as bad about this as most others here ... but, if you get right down to it, any internet document is NOT a source ... you need to be at the state/county/city office and see that document for yourself ...  complete with a certified stamp, and somebody's signature verifying the document ... and on and on ... well, that's probably not going to happen ...

Now, I do have my certified birth certificate in my wallet ... and yes, there's a gold certification stamp on the back ... it's been in my wallet for like fifty years ... I guess I really was born!

Comments

I tend to disagree with Bob on this one.  OK, so I always feel nervous at other people's transcriptions (plenty of room for errors to creep in!), but what about images of the actual original document? Say, a jpg of a parish marriage register written in Secretary Hand with the original ink splotches and crossings-out, held on Find My Past or the county genealogical society's website?

I would certainly consider that a source.

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I agree with Ros that good genealogy 2016 should also have the picture of the sources

Lesson learned is that it often is difficult to read old church books so transcription of the text should be part of the documentation of the source see Swedish church books from 1700

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I agree with Ros and Magnus. Always try to get images of documents to backup sources. Too many websites go away, so for all practical purposes links are only as valid as the site it came from. Also, try to get complete citation details when possible. Fold3 is an excellent example of being able to download images and complete citation details.

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Loretta, I hate to rain on this, but is it legal to re-use an image from Fold3?

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@Kitty ask fold3

I have asked the Swedish Genealogy sites Arkiv DIgital and SVAR and they say its ok.... I guess the market is changing and that more and more pictures will be available and vendors understand that we use them more if we can use copies in our family trees...

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@Kitty

For the price I pay to used Fold3, I would hope that is ok, especially since they give you an easy download link and ask if you want to download the citation also.

I find most of their documents are scanned very well. While saving the files, I insert Last name_First name in front of the file name, makes it much easier to group images in folders on my hard drive and in the cloud.

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@Loretta its a big difference to download and to have it public on WikiTree for everyone to see/use/download

Check with Fold3 I guess companies in the States are more aggressive if you do wrong....

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I'm pretty sure that their Terms & Conditions say that you can download for your own personal use, but that is it.  You cannot display whatever it is you download on another site, like WT.

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Thanks for pointing out the fine print.  :(  

Seems like Ancestry is trying to corner the market on records.

Answer 7

It seems to me that Wikidata is vulnerable to essentially same problems as the Ancestry.com family trees and other "sources" that we complain about -- and can be equally insidious. At https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/309604/errors-in-wikitree-wikidata-connections I described a situation where somebody somewhere mistakenly conflated two men with the same name, and the error got embedded and propagated through the online sources that Wikidata's data is scraped from.

In that instance, it seems the notable socialite Caroline Wilson (Schermerhorn) Astor,  the daughter of a man named Abraham Schermerhorn, was mistakenly connected (probably this happened first in Wikipedia) as the daughter of an Abraham Schermerhorn who is "notable"  because he was a U.S. Congressman. In fact, Caroline's father was a wealthy businessman who was born 8 years before the Congressman and lived in a different city, but the discrepancies don't seem to have discouraged people from conflating them, linking the Congressman's wikidata ID to Caroline's father's profile here, giving the Congressman's middle name to Caroline's father on Findagrave, etc. And when Magnus added the innocuous-looking {{Wikidata|Q4669068}} and a findagrave url to the profile for Caroline's father (which I created and manage), I didn't go to the trouble of digging to figure out what {{Wikidata|Q4669068}} signified -- because it looked so innocuous and it took digging to figure out that bad content had been introduced.

Wikidata can be insidious!

Comments

Well said Ellen. I agree on this.

Answer 8

I look at WikiData as being the same as Ancestry - some good, some not so good. WikiData should only be cited if there are valid sources, and then only if the source is not available to the writer. If WD points to a source at archive.org, go to archive and pull up the source. That would make the "paper trail" tighter. Same goes for FAG.

Comments

The semantic web change how we look on linking and relations.

My point of view

Genealogy

1. You look for sources
2. You classify sources as primary/secondary
3. You define the quality of the source
4. You define what this source claim
5. You connect the claims with the facts of the person you research with an analyse

Excellent tool for this process is the Evidentia Softare

 

Semantic WEB

1. You classify things like Abram Garfield is the same as 
   1. Wikidata Q4669355
   2. Wikicommon Category:Abram_Garfield
   3. Wikipedia Abram_Garfield
   4. FindAGrave 11049991
   5. ISNI 0000000354578281
   6. Genealogics I00428251
   7. WikiTree Garfield-27
   8. Fast Linked Data 1819917

Database Error project and WikiData

The new thing we will see "explode" on the internet is that more and more things will be done by machines. In the Garfield-27 case we now have in WikiTree some properties machine readable and WikiData is done to be a machine readable "WIkipedia" so Aleš has in his magic tool created a check do we have the same info in WikiTree as in Wikidata if not let us know there is a difference ==> it has nothing to do with if its a source or not

Why is the semantic web good for Genealogy

1. Connect a WikiTree profile with other sources ==> easier to research and find more information
2. Consistency checks that the data in WikiTree is ok.
   1.  For Garfield-27 WikiTree was one of the few places Abram Garfield missed a death date

Wikidata compared to Ancestry

For me they have nothing in common. Ancestry is 

1. a commercial site
2. has a lot of sources but many are behind paywalls and pictures can't be copied
3. the genealogy is done by every member
4. every member makes copies of other members family trees ==> 
   1. every person has more profiles
   2. every error in one profile are duplicated to many profiles
5. Ancestry has no quality check of profiles ==> its up to the individual managing the family tree
   1. Lesson learned is that most family trees at Ancestry has no genealogy quality at all 

Picture of James A. Garfield childrens found in the related Wikicommon Category to Abram Garfield as he was the youngest son I guess he is to the right in the picture

• Garfield-39
• Garfield-200
•