unknown profiles without information

Question

Why are there over 10 generations of UNKNOWN UKNOWN married to UNKNOWN UNKNOWN going back from UNKNOWN-81099  [????]

Comments

That profile has a profile manager who is an active member. Has anyone asked him for information about this person and their family line?

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What I want to know is, “How in the dickens did you find that!?!?”

I’ve never, in all my years, see a tree like that.

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These profiles were discussed in g2g last week. They're from a bad gedcom import done in 2011

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The member who created those profiles edited less than a week ago. He should be able to shed some light on the origin of those profiles, so they can be edited or merged away, as appropriate.

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The previous discussion was https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/635781/is-this-a-joke

@Pip: Actually I have seen one other similarly failed old GEDCOM, also because it was discussed in G2G not long ago (not finding it now)

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Gosh!

This branch has been discussed even before I came to WikiTree!
https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/208511/does-rumsfeld-do-genealogy

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LoL!! The linked profile now has a name!!

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Thanks for making that happen, Eva.  

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It's been an interesting journey, Ellen :-)

Answer 1

Sorry, didn't notice thhis thread yesterday.

I'm working on these, very slowly, since all the UNKNOWNs have duplicates with real names, from a seond, successful import.

I'm merging them away in small clusters, in order not to lose track of where I am in the trees, always having to wait for 30 days (that's about as much of this I can take, anyway ;-)

I'm currently about here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Eriksson-2435

The last batch was further complicated/stalled by another of the managers of the known profile setting it as an unmerged match because there was too little information on the UNKNOWN profile.

Comments

Good luck on recovering this family. I had to do a similar one a year or so ago, but there the PM had deliberately removed the information. Made it a little easier to untangle since crumbs were left :)

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Thanks, Shirley!

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Eva, that is extremely generous of you, to devote your time to cleaning up another member's mess.  Kudos to you!

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Thanks, Herbert!

Data Doctors do it all the time.

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I'm through with the ancestors of the UNKNOWN UNKNOWN linked in the original question. I could do those by excercising my leader powers and adopting profiles before merge. Now I have suggested merges for  UNKNOWN UNKNOWN himself and his wife, which will have to wait for 30 days (cannot be adopted because born less than 200 years ago).

Still finding UNKNOWN crumbs in the corners and other, ordinary duplicates, so I'm not done yet.

Answer 2

I have sent him a message offering help from the Unknowns Project. Will see what he says.

Comments

Shirley, is that a One-Name Study? 

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Shirley, thanks for the help in trying to find a solution for this mess.

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@Herbert... very funny. AND there probably should be an Unknowns one-name study. ;-)

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Really don't need a one-name study. That's what the Unknowns Project is for. Can use all the help anyone wants to donate in clearing up the over 200,000 profiles with surname "Unknown" or similar.

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;-) = humor...

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Thanks, Jillaine.  Sometimes a smiley face is simply not enough.

Lesson learned:  The G2G brooks no levity! 

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Thanks for contacting the PM, Shirley.

And do take a look at my new non-comment answer to this question.

Answer 3

"... there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know."

Donald Rumsfeld

Comments

Thanks for the star, Pip! 

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If Donald Rumsfeld said that, he was plagiarizing.  I first heard that idea expressed about the time Donald was in diapers.  When you've been 21 as long as I have, they say the memory starts to go, so I'm not positive who said it first - I am associating it with Abraham Lincoln, but can't be positive that's correct.  Anyhow, the original was that there are 4 kinds of people:

1. the ones who don't know and don't know that they don't know
2. the ones who don't know and know that they don't know
3. the ones who know but don't know that they know
4. the ones who know and know that they know

I originally heard this applied to the 4 college years, as "definitions" of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, in that order. 

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If you insist on taking it seriously, Rumsfeld said it at a press conference.  Of course the concept had been around long before that, but his statement of it became famous at the time.  The four types of people, apparently, goes back to the 13th century.(Persia, ironically enough).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns

Maybe this history has some value for these profiles.