Mrs. Charlemagne

Question

A number of Gedcoms that were uploaded back in WikiTree's "Wild West" days when "anything goes" seemed to be the rule include profiles for the spouse of a known person.  If the known person was, say, Charlemagne, a profile appeared for "Mrs. Charlemagne."  

As we've worked on profiles, often the spouse of the person was known, so we could take that profile, correct the LNAB and add appropriate, well sourced information.  Excellent!

But there are other profiles, especially of pre-1500 persons, where it is unlikely the name of the spouse will ever be known, or anything about the spouse.  "Mrs. King Alfred," or "Wife of King Alfred" persists as an embarassment on WikiTree.

In such cases we really need to get rid of the profile.  I'm told that simply deleting a profile messes up the referral processes built into WikiTree.  Given that, I propose that it become customary that as we encounter such spouses whose identity is unlikely ever to be known, to detach the spouse from children, change the gender and merge the empty profile into that of her husband.

Comments

If you change her to Mrs Charles Charlemagne, the Suggestions system will take it from there.

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Hands off "Mrs Miller" though. 

I have work to do!

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Connes-2

 

Answer 1

Jack, I would agree with you on Medieval profiles, but, I would want to be very clear that this is not a standard practice.   Perhaps it is done only by a project, or a leader.   Also, the team is currently working to "delete" fictitious profiles, where we know that fraudulent ancestries were loaded into Wikitree.   This is done by creating a "Category", then the profiles in that category can be deleted.   Perhaps, that is a better approach.

Comments

I have worked hard to document fictitious persons who appear in many popular genealogies, especially those the result of historic frauds, and also including some widely-believed and accepted but  erroneous non-persons in Maryland.  I hope there has not been a decision to delete all these persons and the entire structure of fraudulent and legendary genealogy categories we have created to identify these!

If one person creates nonsense and uploads it and it has no connection to anything else, I'm all for deleting it.  But if it's been around and become widely accepted, then it seems very important that we document what it is and why it is wrong, so that people looking for them can find them and know what the truth is.  And, since people who never existed cannot have parents, spouses or children, de-link them from all other profiles.

I have a special interest in pre-742 profiles,  many of which comprise people who never existed in life but have been written up by famous medieval authors, and others of which, like "Mrs. Charlemagne" are the creation of people who didn't know better.  I have operated on the basis that profiles can't be deleted, so if the game is changing, it's important to know the rules.