January 2017 Connectors Challenge!

+13 votes
576 views

Hello Connectors!

It's time to begin another month and another year of connecting the unconnected across WikiTree. We'll get the project page updated soon with last month's tallies, but for now, it's time to start connecting!

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Thanks to all of you who participated in last month's challenge December Connectors Challenge,  If you haven't checked out the Connectors Chat page, you should! There is a lot of chatter there about what everyone is working on.

Now on to the Connectors Challenge Rules:

  1. Pick any WikiTree profile which is not connected to the main tree. (In other words, that profile does not have a box at the bottom of the page, showing the degrees of separation from Kevin BaconAJ JacobsLeonard Cohen, and Queen Elizabeth II of the Commonwealth Realms.) You can look for unconnected profiles using the Unconnected People tool, the Unconnected Profiles category, the Unlinked_Profiles category, or you may run across an unconnected profile in the regular course of your research.

  2. Either add a new profile for a first degree relative (parent, spouse, sibling, or child) of the person on that profile, or else connect an existing profile on WikiTree to the profile you're working on.

  3. Add a source to the profiles involved in the connection showing the relationship between the two profiles. This could be a census record listing a family, a marriage record, a death record listing the spouse and/or parents, a birth record listing the parents, or any source which demonstrates that the two profiles should be connected to one another. Your source needs to be cited as closely to the style recommended on our Sources help page as possible to count towards your tally.

  4. If you are adding a new profile, add a second, independent source for that profile. (For example, if you add a spouse because of a marriage record, then look for a birth or death record for the spouse you're adding.) (Note: The reason for this rule isn't to discourage you from adding people. But as you have probably already learned, even official documents frequently misspell names, so adding an independent confirmation of the name helps to save other researchers time in trying to find records that don't exist, because the person's real name was not the same as showed up in the linking document.)

  5. Answer this post, creating a numbered list, and including the two profiles and the kind of source you used to make the connection. (For example: "1. Smith-123 to Jones-456 - marriage".) You only need to reply once. As you make more connections, just edit your post to add your new connections.

  6. If you connect a profile which completes a connection trail either for an isolated profile or an unconnected tree, please add "Connected!" at the end of the line which made the connection. We count those connecteds towards your tally.

  7. The tally is of branches/unconnected profiles connected to the WikiTree tree, not sources or profiles added. That said, if you can add a number of sources to a profile, all the better, and sometimes a connection will take a number of profiles to get added. Every one is different, and each one makes our tree better. So, in short, we'll count each "connected!" we see.

  8. If either or both profiles you connect did not have good sources before and were already on WikiTree, then you can also count those sources towards the Sourcerers Challenge.

  9. All participants who do not already have a Connectors Project badge, will get one. Winners each month-the person with the most connections made to the tree-will get the Connection Challenge Winner badge, and the Top Connector each month with get a spiffy template to wear on their profile page. Stats will be kept on the Connectors Challenge page, just like we do for the Sourcerers Challenge.  
    See last month's challenge as an example. Ask questions in the comments section here. Thank you! 
WikiTree profile: Space:Connectors_Challenge
in Requests for Project Volunteers by Abby Glann G2G6 Pilot (722k points)
It looks like we're on track to set a new record for the number of Connectors who make connections in one month. October and November both had 11, which is the high water mark up to now, and this month, there are already 12 answers. W00t!

12 Answers

+8 votes

I made a couple of connections last night, not long after midnight Greenwich Mean Time, so I'll start this off with them.

  1.  Connected Helen Irene Pegg-15 to her parents Pegg-12 and Gile-31 (census).  CONNECTED!
  2. Connected Marvin Johnson-1630 (this was an Unconnected Empty Profile with Open privacy; it's Private now because I determined that he's a living person) to his wife Pegg-15 who was connected above (source is her obituary). CONNECTED! 
  3. Connected Lucretia Chandler-2167 to her father John Chandler-2155 (her birth record and a published 19th century genealogy cited in his profile). Two profiles (Lucretia and her daughter) CONNECTED!
  4. Connected Dorothy Chandler-4009 to her parents John Chandler-1640 and Bethiah Rickard (birth record for Dorothy). CONNECTED!
  5. Connected Dorothy's brother Reuben Chandler-4010 to those same parents (his birth record). CONNECTED!
  6. Connected Dorothy's sister Elisabeth Chandler-4011 to those same parents (birth record). CONNECTED!
  7. Connected Elisabeth's twin sister Mary Chandler-4012 to their parents (birth record). Ten profiles CONNECTED!
  8. Connected Ezekiel Chandler-4037 to his parents Joshua Chandler-1538 and Mary Waste (birth record).  CONNECTED! (Also proposed a merge with duplicate profile.)
  9. Connected Joseph Chandler-4036 to his parents Joshua Chandler-1538 and Mary Waste (birth record). CONNECTED!
  10. Connected Sarah Chandler-4038 to her parents Joshua Chandler-1538 and Mary Waste (birth record). CONNECTED!
  11. Jacob Bowman Bell-1280 was one of a small collection of unconnected profiles. His connection path: Bell-1280 --> his mother Louisa Bowman-6352 (findagrave, published genealogy, published local history) --> existing connected profile for her brother James Lowry Bowman-4519 (published genealogy written by Louisa's grandson). CONNECTED! (Also connected all those other unconnected profiles I created while researching this family.) 
by Ellen Smith G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
edited by Ellen Smith
+9 votes

1.  added David Holt as child for John Holt. (find a grave) CONNECTED!

2.  connected  John Davies through his wife  Eunice (Hotchkiss) Davies by adding her to parents (CT deaths/burials, probate records of father, marriage, and church records) CONNECTED!

by Lucy Selvaggio-Diaz G2G6 Pilot (821k points)

Nice work, Lucy! But it looks like the unconnected person you connected in your first item was David Holt's son John, not the new profile you created for David. :-)

+7 votes
I'm not in this for the numbers but for the fun. As i posted elsewhere i got curious about the ancestry of Sci-fi author Philip K Dick who shares a surname with my husband's maternal line. I got several generations  back but disconnected from The Tree.

With the partnership of Craig Albrechtson, we connected PKD through his maternal Kindred branch to the main tree. And it looks like we crossed the pond back in 1774.
by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (896k points)
That's cool, Jillaine!

Making connections for the numbers also can be fun. Last month I stumbled upon a large unconnected gedcom for a PGM descendant family named Chandler, and was delighted to connect isolated branches and resolve duplicates, with the result that the number of unconnected Chandlers was reduced by about 150.
Well, I'll play this month, working my way through my own disconnected profiles.
I'm finding that many of them fall into the category of disputed relations or even questionable existence. So some profiles will never be connected.

I'd like to be able to tag some profiles as "inherently unconnectable." A few candidates from my watchlist:

John Tilley-954 - He's been rather thoroughly researched, and some details of his life are documented, but all we known about his family is that there was a widow, name unknown (also, he must have had parents). Thomas Symons-563 is a similar case, except even less is known about him. Both of these profiles were created because of issues of mistaken identity (John Tilley is confused with a real person and the name of Thomas Symons has been attached to an imaginary biography).

Grey Lock - Native American (a.k.a. Indian) who waged war against New England settlers. He probably had family, but documentation is unlikely.

HI Ellen,

Regarding John Tilley, English records go back to 1535 so there could be a paper trail for him, though the parish registers can range from being wonderfully detailed to awful. A quick search on www.freereg.org.uk 1580-1620 Dorset brought up a Thomas Tilly baptised in 1598 at Sturmister Marshall, Dorset and a Richard Tylleye in 1594 in that parish, so the surname was in that location at the right time. There is also John Tylley baptised in 1598 on family search - "England, Dorset, Parish Registers, 1538-1936," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJDH-5NPD : 6 August 2014), John Tyllye, 14 Feb 1598; Christening, citing Sturminster-Marshall, Sturminster-Marshall, Dorset, England, Record Office, Dorchester; FHL microfilm 2,427,572.

However there is also a marriage for a John Tyllye in 1641, but that seems a bit old for that 1598 one, that John has loads of children in Dorset.  I will add my research notes to the record, but looks like there are further research avenues here. Hope this helps :)

Thanks, Paula, but I'm not going in that direction.

I created that John Tilley profile to help prevent his death record from being mistakenly associated with another man named John Tilley (there was a John Tilley on the Mayflower, and this man has sometimes been thought to be a member of his family), and I don't want to propagate a new set of mistakes by connecting him to a record that may not be his. Far too much bad genealogy gets created by people who find a record with a name that matches a person they are looking for, and attach that record to their genealogy without supporting evidence to indicate that it's the right person. I know that I've made that mistake without recognizing my folly, and I'm not going to repeat the error when I recognize in advance that I don't have a good basis. (Aside: I think something like that may have happened with one of the unconnected profiles I connected this month. I identified the family that the gedcom creator was working on, found the birth record for the name and birthdate on the profile, and connected the profile to the parents. But another member had adopted the profile and connected it to a few descendants, possibly based only on the rather common name Mary Chandler and the year of birth.)

Although England started keeping baptism records in the 16th century, recordkeeping was inconsistent and many records have been lost. Expert researchers have investigated the John Tilley I created the profile for, and failed to find evidence of his origins. I'm not going to grab an English birth record and attach it to him without some reason (other than name and guesstimate of date of birth) to think it's the same person.

+8 votes
I'm going to keep connecting people with US counties named after them. You can count on another 50 or so this month. But I'm not going to bother posting it all here. Just quietly connecting unconnected profiles in the background.
by
+6 votes

Hi, everyone! First timer here. ;·)

  1. Connected Amos Hiatt to his parents Joseph Hiatt and Hannah Cox (published Hiatt-Hiett genealogy). Connected!
  2. Connected Governor Anthony Colby to his father Joseph Colby to his father Anthony Colby to his father Elijah Colby (Vital and Town Records). Connected!
  3. Connected Ebenezer Dailey Jr through his wife Marie (Spoor) Dailey Added her parents Isaac Spoor and Magdalena (Van Valkenburg) Spoor. Added their parents Hendrick Spoor and Rebecca (Van Valkenburg) Spoor and Thomas Van Valkenburg and Maria (Ouderkerk) Van Valkenburg Also added Maria's father Elderd Ouderkerk. Connected all these to existing connected profiles Jacobus Van Valkenburg, Jan Janse Ouderkerk, Johannes Spoor and Mary (Singer) Spoor (vital and town records, published genealogy) Connected!
  4. Connected Rita (Creighton) Uhlenberg by adding her father Raymond Creighton and adding his father Hammond Creighton and adding his father Joseph Creighton to his father, existing connected profile William Alexander Creighton (census, marriage, vital records). Connected!
by Amy Wiemer G2G6 Mach 3 (33.6k points)
edited by Amy Wiemer
+4 votes

Okay. I'll give this a go for the first time!

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by Steven Nimocks G2G4 (4.8k points)
+6 votes

I'm in for the challenge this month.  I apparently have participated before because I have the badge.  So far this month only one 

  1. Jemima Bentley CONNECTED to the larger tree by connecting her husband William, to his father Jonathan. CONNECTED.  The sources were already in the profiles but just the name of the book.  I cited to each person's # in the book as well as provided the online address for the specific pages. I also merged another extra Jonathan.  
by John Bentley G2G6 Mach 2 (24.4k points)
edited by John Bentley
+5 votes

I participated last month,  but didn't post. Sort of missed that bit, but I am up to the challenge this month!

1. Hughey-1053 to Cole-11710. US Census 1850 and 1860, Tennessee marriages, findagrave; proposed merge with Cole-4589 which will connect profile to tree. Waiting on profile manager. Merged and Connected! 

This also connects McGowan-1639, McGowan-1638, Julien-231, Moore-30148, Busby-1113, Julien-232, Julien-231, Julien-230,  Julien-229, Julien-228, Julien-227, Julien-135, Unknown-349046, Frazier-2220, Frazier-2219, Merrell-371, Frazier-297, Frazier-1540, AND Frazier-271 to the tree. I either added the profiles or added sources to existing profiles in December trying to find a link to the tree. I finally found the link to the tree. YAY!

 

by Edie Kohutek G2G6 Mach 9 (97.2k points)
edited by Edie Kohutek
+5 votes

Hello! I'm not in for the numbers, so I hope I'm allowed to post the following, most of them the result of team work. They are notables and the way they were connected is interesting in itself.

  1. Coco Chanel was unconnected. Added her father, Albert Chanel (birth record of Gabrielle Chanel; marriage record of her parents, Albert Chanel and Jeanne Devolle). Added his parents, Adrien Chanel and Virginie Fournier (named on Albert's marriage record). Added their daughter, Adrienne Chanel (birth record of Adrienne). Added her husband, Maurice de Gay de Nexon (note on Adrienne's birth record; birth record of Maurice). Added his parents, Auguste de Gay de Nexon and Gertrude Hainguerlot (birth record of son, Maurice; marriage record of Auguste and Gertrude. Added Gertrude's parents, Edouard Hainguerlot and Alice Blount (information from Gertrude's marriage record). Linked Alice to her parents Edward Blount and Gertrude Jerningham (Alice already mentioned in Edward Blount's biography) - and Coco Chanel is CONNECTED !
  2. Lafayette was unconnected. Added his daughter, Anastasie (from Wikipedia entry). Added her daughter, Jenny de Faÿ de la Tour-Maubourg. She was married to Ettore Perrone di San Martino (marriage index from the Archives de Paris). Added their daughter, Luisa Perrone di San Martino (documented on Ettore's Wikipedia page). Luisa was married to Felice Rignon (Wikipedia entry in Italian). They had a daughter, Maria Rigon, who married Augusto Gazelli. Their daughter Luisa Gazelli (genealogical information from Luisa Gazelli's Wikipedia entry, in Dutch) married Fulco Ruffo di Calabria. (again, Wikipedia). They had seven children including Paola Ruffo di Calabria who married Albert de Belgique. Linked Albert to his parents Léopold de Belgique and Astrid av Sverige who were already on Wikitree (and fairly well connected). And with these royal relations, Gilbert de La Fayette is CONNECTED ! (I'm sorry this link is clearly missing first-hand sources, but most of these people are notable, so I hope it will be enough for the time being. Italian sources would be great though. Can anyone help?)
  3. Victor Hugo was eventually connected with a lot of help from Carol Keeling. Starting from his son, Charles Hugo, who had a son, Georges Hugo (birth record of Georges). Georges had a son Jean Hugo (a painter, Wikipedia entry, and birth record) who married Lauretta Hope-Nicholson (marriage mentioned on Jean Hugo's birth record, other various sources on Lauretta Hope-Nicholson and the Hugo family on the internet). Here Carol comes in: Lauretta was the daughter of Jacqueline Hope (from thepeerage.com and various census entries). Her mother was Laura Troubridge (also on thePeerage.com, and England & Wales census entries). Daughter of Louisa Gurney (census entries) herself daughter of Daniel Gurney and Harriet Jemima Hay (existing connected profile).Thank you, Carol!
  4. Starting with Edmé Jacques Genet and Marie Anne Louise Cardon, who were the parents of Edmond Genêt (himself married to Cornelia Clinton, daughter of first governor of New York, obviously well connected). Added their daughter, Adélaïde Henriette (baptism record of Adélaïde). She was married to Pierre César Auguié (marriage record). Linked them to their existing daughter, Aglaé Auguié (her parentage is explained in her Wikipedia entry; also added her index of baptism and death from the reconstition of Paris Etat-Civil): Aglaé and her notable husband Michel Ney are now CONNECTED ! (fun fact for pioneer Wikitreers: the profiles for Edmond Genêt and his parents were actually from the infamous124-DeCoursey.ged). Added bonus: Another of Edmond Genêt's sisters was Madame Campan, who now has a profile, and connected.
by Isabelle Martin G2G6 Pilot (561k points)
edited by Isabelle Martin

(Continued)

5. Starting at Pierre Murat-Jordy and Jeanne Loubières (parents of Joachim Murat), added their son André Murat (not many first-hand records for their area, but found his death record). Added his son, Pierre Murat (found no better primary source than a death record, unfortunately not mentioning his parents). Added his son, Joachim Joseph André Murat (filiative marriage record for him). Added his son, Gaëtan François Lucien Murat (filiative marriage record) and son's wife Caroline Bianchi (marriage record). Caroline was the daughter of Marius Bianchi and Emilie Jeanin. Emilie herself the daughter of Louis Charles Jeanin (parentage on Emilie's marriage record; death record of Louis Charles mentioning his own parents), who was the son of Jean-Baptiste Jeanin and Pauline David (transcription of baptism record) who was the daughter of painter Jacques-Louis David, who is now CONNECTED !

6. This one is not about a notable: Starting with connected profile of Marie Chermannie, added her parents Philippe Chermanne and Anne Fontaine (baptism record); sister, Marie Isabelle Chermanne (baptism record, marriage record). Added Marie Isabelle's husband, Jean Jacques Falise (baptism and marriage records), then his father Jean Joseph Falise (baptism records). Added his father, Martin Roch Falise (baptism record). Linked father to his daughter, Jeanne Catherine Mahau (baptism record), who is CONNECTED (with a fairly large French branch).

+4 votes

Back to connecting after a short break, 730 profiles connected through the large tree targeting on connector chat - https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Space:Connectors_Chat&public=1

1) Chistiana Proudlock Proudlock-60 existing and now fully sourced, added and fully sourced her parents John Proudlock and Christiana Robson Proulock-65 and Robson-1230, added grandfather Joseph Proudlock Proudlock-66, CONNECTED!! to existing profile Proudlock-14, which has been fully sourced as well.

 

 

by Paula Dea G2G6 Mach 8 (88.7k points)
+3 votes

1. Beriah Sherman-2372 merged with Sherman-4122 CONNECTED

 

by Bob Keniston G2G6 Pilot (260k points)
+4 votes
  1. Woodley-50 to Staines-126 - marriage, grave - Connected!
  2. Staines-126 to Staines-109 - birth, census - Connected!
  3. Staines-109 to Staines-108 - birth, census - Connected!
  4. Staines-108 to Gentle-207 - marriage, census - Connected!
  5. Gentle-207 to Gentle-204 - birth, census - Connected!
  6. Gentle-204 to Gentle-203 - birth, census - Connected!
  7. Gentle-203 to Neilson-743 - marriage, grave - Connected!
  8. Neilson-743 to Neilson-718 - birth, census - Connected! (And so, after 9 months of work (on and off), William Neilson, founder of Neilson Dairies and Notable, is finally connected to the main tree. W00t!)
  9. Brumfield-663 to Moore-11162 - marriage, census - (Link proposed to profile manager of Moore-11162, which is Open.)
by Greg Slade G2G6 Pilot (669k points)
edited by Greg Slade

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