Should Period Profile Projects incorporate Parents and Grandparents when known?

+9 votes
215 views
I have noticed that some of the projects that focus on a time period, Puritan Great Migration, Mayflower, Magna Carta to name a few, tend to focus only on profiles within their designated scope.

From the perspective of maintaining integrity for these profiles, should they consider formally including parents and grand parents, if known, as part of the project?  The idea being to add an extra layer of protection to these highly developed profiles.

I understand that the Project Protected Profiles help from loosing the parents but I have seen many cases where speculative and completely wrong parents are added to such profiles.  If these Projects could include them in their scope, it would help to maintain the integrity.   

I am speaking of cases where the parents and grandparents technically fall outside the scope of the projects definition.
in The Tree House by Michael Stills G2G6 Pilot (519k points)
edited by Michael Stills

3 Answers

+9 votes
Hmmm -- I suggest we consider creating a PGM British Ancestors project, for immediate relatives of PGM emigrants.

I'll agree that project protection would be a good thing -- some very weird stuff happens to PGM British ancestors.

The skills and knowledge needed to work on British genealogy of this era are different than what's needed to work on American genealogy, though there's often overlap.  It's a topic that's rife with frauds and errors, for this very reason; many of the old American family genealogies are solid where they're based on old records, and then make HORRIBLE guesses and speculative connections when they deal with British origins.

So -- do people think a PGM British Ancestors Project make sense?  Seems to me it would help focus attention on good research and knowledge around this particular rather difficult group.
by Patricia Hawkins G2G6 Mach 3 (34.6k points)
edited by Patricia Hawkins
Thanks for this insight Patricia.  I think your comments about making horrible guesses is correct and is probably the basis of my concern.
+3 votes

In my opinion, such projects should also assume responsibility for the immediate ancestor before the date range or migration (ie any profile directly linked to a project profile).

In the given examples,

  • Mayflower 1620-1700; passengers on Mayflower I + 2 generations; England to New England
  • PGM 1620-1640;  any immigrant; England to New England
  • Magna Carta 1215-?; descendant of Magna Carta Surety Baron, further with descendant within category  of American Gateway Ancestors; England to New England and Southern American Colonies

As I see it, Mayflower is entirely overlapped by PGM, so Mayflower project takes responsibility for accuracy of its people and collaborates with PGM. This includes the immediate English ancestor of the Mayflower passenger.

If we know of any Gateway Ancestor who was also a passenger on Mayflower I, then Mayflower project would also assume responsibility for these profiles, but note the immediate English Ancestor of the migrant is already assigned to Magna Carta project.

For overlaps with Magna Carta profiles and PGM profiles, Magna Carta already has responsibility for all English ancestors of our Gateway Ancestors.

PGM should assume responsibility for the immediate English ancestor of any immigrant not covered by the above assignments (most of which will be Unknown).

by Weldon Smith G2G6 Mach 2 (24.2k points)
edited by Weldon Smith
wish we could with the NNS project too, but with the patrynomics(spelling is wrong, but I am not a good speller) it is real hard to find the actual parents for so many of my NNS people- what do y'all think?
+5 votes

Michael,

PGM does a variation of this. We have a PGM "Adjunct" project box. It's typically for one generation up or down from the immigrant, but only when there is controversy-- subject to bad dupes, disputed origins, bad claims to royalty.

But we really do not have the bandwidth to protect beyond these exceptions.  We've got tens of thousands of profiles to manage just within Anderson's Great Migration series (including the Directory). And we're barely making a dent there. 

So, speaking from PGM's viewpoint, we just can't take on additional generations at this time.

I think Magna Carta is in a similar boat. I'd like to see them at least watching the disproven MC gateway  ancestors' lines back, but they only watch / manage those folks covered in Richardson's (?) book(s).  I.e., once a gateway ancestor is disproven, no one is watching over them. (PGM will for one generation from the immigrant.)

 

by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (890k points)

Hmmm....

Maybe we need a "Look before you Link" public service campaign.  Put the onus on the person making the connections?

Check the profiles a couple of generations in either direction before you link.  There might be some great sources waiting to confirm or reject your connection.

 

We need a campaign to encourage folks to read the immediate profile before they link.  The bulk of the corrections we make on PGM are folks who completely ignore the disputed origins information (which is why we like to place this section at the top of the profile) and attach disproven relations anyway. 

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