Should Magna Carta Project be watching Questionable Gateway profiles?

Question

On a profile categorized as "Questionable Gateway Ancestor," someone sent a private message to the PGM project account (which is one of the profile managers) that I think should have gone to the Magna Carta project, but the MC project is not on the TL or a PM of this profile.

Seems like the project should at least be on the watchlist for these?

If not, what is the best way for redirecting questions that come to PGM (or Mayflower, for that matter) that really are for Magna Carta?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The category "Questionable Gateway Ancestor" is placed on profiles (a number of them may be PGM) that relationship finder indicates a potential direct trail to a Magna Carta Surety Baron. They are catagorized as "Questionable" because they are not found on the list of "known" Gateway Ancestors that are published in Douglas Richardson;s, Magna Carta Ancestors.  Those "known" Gateway Ancestors have established, recognized trails to one or more Surety Barons.  They are within the Magna Carta Project's scope and those trails are developed by the project who manages the profiles in that trail.  Questionable Gateway Ancestors whose relationship and trail have not been established or proved remain in the category "Questionable Gateway Ancestors" waiting investigation,  Because they are not in a proven trail they are not managed by the Magna Carta Project.  That is why you may see other projects managing that profile while Magna Carta does not.  We have a small group of members who do investigate these profiles as they have time.  Once it has been established that a trail seems likely they are then developed and would be placed under Magna Carta management.  This process is ongoing but can take some time as the research into these profiles generally takes a researcher that is skilled at using original records because no secondary records may be available that meet the standards of the Project.  

It is my understanding that because the "Questionable Gateway Ancestor" is not in an approved trail between a known Gateway Ancestor and Surety Baron the Questionable Gateway Ancestor does not meet project guidelines for Project Management.

Comments

In the spirit of cooperative effort, the Magna Carta Project always stands ready to address and answer/resolve questions that relate to the scope of the project whether the project currently manages that particular profile or not.

In order for the profile to be included on the MC watchlist, the MC project would have to be on the trusted list or be actively managing the profile.  As I understand it since a "Questionable Gateway Ancestpr" is not in an approved MC trail the project would not be managing that profile and therefore that profile would not appear in the project watchlist.

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okay then.

So who *should* be watching these, and responding to MC-related questions on questionable gateway'ed profiles?

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"If the question(s) is/are MC related then a post to G2G that has been tagged, or re-tagged Magna_Carta should get a prompt response from a Magna Carta Project member who can then address the question. Most Magna Carta Project members follow Magna_Carta G2G posts and are active in the G2G forum.  If such a question is posed outside of the G2G forum to a Project other than MC, and that question would clearly be best addressed by the MC project, the person asking the question could be advised to post their question to G2G, and to tag the question Magna_Carta.  

Generally, this issue will only affect a relatively small number of profiles that may have proposed but questionable Magna Carta connections and therefore are not currently managed by the Project.  Because of the time frames and immigration status of these early ancestors many of these profiles will fall under guidelines of other projects, particularly PGM or Southern Colonies which will carry them on their watchlist and may occassionally recieve such inquiries.  

If the line of the Questionable Gateway is disproved by research (usually resulting in disconnection of a parent(s) having alleged or actual MC connections) then the profile should have the Questionable Gateway Ancestor category removed.

Answer 2

Since John Woodcock has already had his questionable ancestry removed, perhaps the questionable Magna Carta category should have also been removed, replaced by a comment in the Disputed Origins section of the profile. Then the PM was sent to the correct recipient, PGM.

For Projects of overlapping scope, in general it makes sense to me to first address the project of most specific potential scope and let that project redirect to other projects of wider scope as needed. The only way such an orderly process can be effective is if all profile managers are conscientious about maintaining proper project categorization.

With regard to the question at hand, I think a Questionable XXX categorization has wider scope than the XXX categorization, so most effective communication would be first to XXX, then XXX can redirect to QXXX subproject. (Here, subproject is of wider scope than project itself.)

If QXXX is the profile categorization, the member making a comment to the applicable project might not be informed enough to send directly to XXX. But since QXXX is a subproject, presumably managed by an XXX leader, it is equally effective to address QXXX first.

Comments

I'm not sure I follow you Weldon.

The question posted to the profile was concerning gateway status; therefore, it's not a PGM question, in my mind, but an MC question; however the MC project is not managing or even watching questionable gateway-categorized profiles.

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Hmmmm. Jillaine, apologies for being obscure. I know next to nothing about Gateway Ancestors, but thought I saw a general problem being posed, and tried to address that problem, which I see having wide import in the WT community.

But nobody ever said I was the sharpest tack in the box, and now old age piles onto that, so maybe I should restrict my range to addressing simpler questions. (Finally, a line of mine gets applause!)

I was trying to think through the general problem of managing Projects with overlapping scope. (QXXX category represented Questionable Gateway Ancestor and my XXX category represented Gateway Ancestor or MCS.) It seemed to me the project with most narrow (specific) scope should be the focus of all applicable profile work, and this group should monitor and coordinate efforts with the next wider group, here QXXX. Based on this 'principle', perhaps MCS should monitor/coordinate with its Questionable subproject.

But I also pointed out, by way of a sidebar, that in the profile case given, the questionable parents had been removed, but not the Questionable ... category. Perhaps recognizing that QXXX should have been removed, the PM was correctly sent to the PGM Project. That is how PGM entered my response.

I will focus in the future on yes/no questions, and work my way up from there. Small ball is best for me. :-D

Answer 3

As someone trying to help out with both projects...

I see PGM as being primarily interested in the NE immigrants and their English origins.  If the question involves the immigrant or his /her origins or parents (as in this case), I think it appropriate for PGM to handle it.

If the questionable generation is anywhere farther up the line, let the MCS project handle the question.

I would think that if a line is disconnected as was done here, it no longer needs the "Questionable Gateway Ancestor" category.  The line isn't questionable, it is broken.  If the criteria for "Questionable" is somewhere on the internet you can find a disproved royal/noble line, then 80% of PGM immgrants would fit the category.

Since we have a PGM immigrant with a known false English ancestry, we need PGM to go ahead Project Profile so they don't get reattached.

Comments

I've set PPP on this profile.

I concur that PGM is appropriate for handling questions regarding the origins of PGM-era immigrants. However, the question was about [MC] Gateway status-- that is beyond the scope of the PGM project.

Answer 4

Recently I went through the entire list of questionable gateway ancestors, and discovered that close to half of them had had their dubious Magna Carta connections deleted.  I went ahead and removed them from the category.  The total population of Questionable Gateway ancestors was over 400, and now it's under 300 -- progress of a sort.  I think that much of this was because diligent PGM project members have been disconnecting imaginary parents of PGM immigrants, leaving a "stranded" "unquestionable" category tag.

 If somebody has a question about the lineage of a specific "questionable" gateway ancestor, please don't hesitate to contact me and I will bump that person to the top of my list of things to get to.

On a related issue, I was working on the profile of Gateway Ancestor James Cudworth for the Magna Carta Project's February challenge.  I also worked on the profiles of his parents, and I discovered that Cudworth is probably NOT a gateway ancestor.  The dubious link is his mother's mother.  I will be posting more on that soon.  My source for this disturbing find is Specific Ancestral Lines of the Boaz, Paul, Welty & Fishel Families, p. 480, by Adrienne Boaz, with a difficult-to-rebut supposition supporting the old view that the father of James Cudworth's mother was the brother of the currently-accepted father.   (I have a prospective descent from the sister of these two brothers, so I adopted some abandoned profiles in this family some time ago, but until now haven't worked on this family.)

I have marked Mary (Machell) Cudworth's parents as "uncertain."  I will be working on this as time permits, and will start a G2G thread (if nobody else does) about detaching her parents and removing James Cudworth as a gateway ancestor.

Comments

Thanks, John. So do I understand you to be saying that when PGM detaches parents from someone who is also marked as Questionable Gateway Ancestor that we should also remove that QGA category?

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Yes, the Questionable category is for immigrants with alleged but unverified Magna Carta lineages. Thanks to PGM for making MCP's work easier, by eliminating bogus parents of PGM immigrants.

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Sounds like things needed to be cleaned up - BUT -well how then is there prevention from those wrong connections being reattached?  I mean there is bunk info out there that lead to the errors that were unattached so is there a warning that it should not be repeated on the profiles affected?

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Project protection (PPP) will prevent parents from being reattached.  Warnings at the top of the profile will slow down other edits.

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If I'm reading your problem correctly it sounds like you lack a functional monitoring tool built in your software application. Do you have any programmers working for you? When a profile is built and linked to an ancestor in, say, the 1500's but that link hasn't received project management approval then that profile identifier can be written to a simple flat file format for at will access and print out by authorized users. It's a pretty easy program to write. Or am I completely misreading what your software can do for you?