My unconnected profiles increased from 172 to 355 overnight . I don't know how. [closed]

Question

I couldn't find any clues in my contribution list.  Any ideas?

Comments

Comment removed and added as an answer below

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can someone please add the TECH tag or SYSOP tag to the question?

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The tags tech and sysop have been discouraged by the Team (except for the surname "Tech"). Earlier I added "bugs," which is what we are encouraged to use for this type of situation.

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Okey dokey then, thanks.

Answer 1

Thanks for reporting this, Karen.

There was a recent update to the connection finder and it looks like a bug was introduced.

Answer 2

Probably because someone disconnected a relationship. Try looking at the Unconnected report under the Find menu. If there is a name there with a large cluster of connected profiles that may be where the disconnect occurred.

Comments

This got me looking at my Unconnected, just a little.

I quickly found one unconnected woman, married to a connected husband - both created about a year ago and not touched since. Being married to a dscendant of one of my wayback ancestors, she is not very close to me - byt since her husband is connected to the global tree, she should be, as well.

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I am also seeing quite a few spouses of those who should connect to various PGM ancestors on both sides of my ancestry

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Interesting. I will need to go and take a closer look at mine too. Do you think they have changed the algorithm or is there a bug?

Answer 3

I'm seeing an increase as well. They all appear to be spouses (and their families) of someone connected. They used to be considered connected.

Comments

That's what I'm seeing, too. Connection Finder seems to have failed to detect a large number of connections by marriage. People like my 2G grandfather's third wife https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gilbert-3907 should not be unconnected.

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Same thing has happened to my unconnected list. Spouses without an exact marriage date I think but will have a look.

Not sure what has happened but first one has a full marriage date and place and is married to a relation of mine.

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I'm seeing the same thing... unconnected spouses, with and without marriage dates. Hmmm. I guess in-laws have always been under suspicion, right? 

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Yep - same situation on my, now large, Unconnected list.  Clicking on linked family members of the Unconnected person, shows spouses family as connected.

Answer 4

I just discovered my aunt (by marriage) and all her family that I added are now unconnected despite her husband (my mother's brother) being connected. I wonder if this has something to do with the recent unlisting of living non-member profiles. If previous connections were made through now unlisted individuals, that may explain the issue.

Comments

Hmmm, maybe not. My brother-in-law is connected even though his connection runs through two unlisted profiles. Very strange,

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When I first started looking into this, I suspected that it was related to Unlisted profiles in the connection path, but then I started seeing people who used to be well-connected through paths that had nothing to do with unlisted people. I am convinced that the problem is in the Marriage links.

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Yes, as I've begun checking more of them, I tend to agree.

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It appears that marriages are no longer being recognized as connections by the connection finder. So if there are no children in common the spouses are no longer connected to each other.

I don't have my aunt and uncle's only child on WikiTree. I'm going to add him now (he's an adult) and see if that makes the connection when it's updated tomorrow.

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Did the unlisting of living profiles happen yesterday or maybe two days ago?  Because that's when this problem started.

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Doesn't the connection finder often experience some indigestion around the time the anchor persons are changed?

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It does, Eva.  I've never seen this, in particular, happen though.

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True. It's a new thing.

Could be they're working on something, as you suggested.

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It does look like marriage links. All of my new ones are marriages without children. For some I didn't want to add living children but for most, there were no children in the marriage. Anyway, it does seem to be through marriages without children.

Answer 5

The connection finder itself must be having a problem right now. I also notice a huge jump in the total number of unconnected profiles on wikitree, a much higher jump than I typically see.  Typically there's about a thousand more per day, but today I saw that it jumped by about 2.5 MILLION PROFILES!

I noticed this started happening for me yesterday.  Profiles that I connected the day before weren't connected like the should be, but the profiles I connected them to are.  Now today, they are connected, but profiles I know for a fact are only related to me by marriage are not connected, despite being connected for the past two months.  I checked to see if they were still connected to my blood relative who IS still connected, and the relationship is still there.

Also, check out the connection finder.  For me, when I see my connection to Emily Bronte or the current member of the week, it now won't consider marriages to be a degree of connection.  For example, instead of a piece of a chain saying "woman -> her husband," it now has an extra step, saying "woman -> her son -> his father."  I did check and the two parents in the chain are still married.

Hopefully the tech team figures out what is causing this.

In the meantime, it seems that for in-laws to be officially connected to the big tree, the marriage that connects them needs to have children, related by blood to both parties.

Comments

Could this be something temporary?

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I don't know.  Hopefully.  Maybe the wikitree team is trying something new with the algorithm and we're in the middle of the transition?

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Hopefully temporary. It does not make sense for childless couples to be considered as not connected to each other.

Answer 6

YEP some of my Notables whom I KNOW were connected are now UNCONNECTED.

I am still connected to the tree and to my husband - despite me not including my living son!!

But Richard Carpenters connection box to the global tree has disappeared. And yes I have NOT added in his living children.

Annie Lennox's connection to the global tree has disappeared

Sir Peter Blake's (from NZ) connection has disappeared and I know he was connected only through his English wife. And of course I have not added their living children!!

Helen Reddy (the singer) has lost her connection, but Michael Learned is still connected, As noted on my profile - Michaels son married Helen's daughter!!!

The actress Maggie Smith has lost her connection box - and I beleive she was connected through one of her ex-husbands.

The author Arthur Ransom is now disconnected and he was connected

And OMG - The marriages thing does seem to be the missing link

I have just discovered that my maternal grandmother's husband and his entire family has been disconnected from the global tree - because I never added any of their living children to their marriage.

Looks like this new GDPR policy of making living people unlisted - so that we no longer add any living children to the tree -  is now causing problems.

Comments

I don't think it has to do with Unlisteds - I don't have any, because I just don't add living people. This Unconnection bug, on the other hand, is affecting profiles on my watchlist (who lived well back in the all-open era).

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So did any of those open era people have any children added to their profile? If they had no children are they still connected or not?

If they are no longer connected then it seems to be marriages with no children (no matter when) that is causing the problem...

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Most of the unconnected I found were those who had no children listed.  I did however find several profiles who are now unconnected but do have children.  In these cases the profile itself has no parents, so the original connection for them was only through their child's marriage.

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Yes, marriages with no children.

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Eva, I am still confused by your comment  Yes, marriages with no children. 

It is not all marriages with no children though.  I have several profiles who were married and had no children but are still connected to the spouse and to the tree. One was married twice and had no children by either marriage but she and both spouses remain connected to each other and to the tree.

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I'm not worrying too much, because I think this is a bug that is going to be fixed.

What I meant by "Yes, marriages with no children" was that yes, the few that I checked where a spouse had become unconnected in spite of the other spouse being connected was when they had no children in common. In WikiTree, that is.

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Don't worry Eva, I knew exactly what you meant.

You were responding to MY Comment of - marriages with no children, (no matter when).

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I think, as I mentioned above, that this is simply a case of the connection finder no longer recognizing marriages (that is ALL marriages) as a connection between two people. So, if there is no genetic trail to connect an individual to the big tree they are no longer connected. For married couples with children, where one spouse is genetically connected via ancestors but the other isn't, the genetically unconnected spouse becomes connected via the genetic connection to the child who is in turn genetically connected to the spouse who is connected through their ancestry. But if there is no child to connect the spouses through a genetic link, then a spouse whose ancestry does not connect to the big tree won't show as connected. I hope that made some modicum of sense.

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Not ALL marriages surely?  Just certain ones that have no children to connect the unconnected spouse - which is actually pretty specific.

My husband and I are both connected to the global tree by our own families and in  our own rights. We are linked as a couple but we are not linked theough our child since my child does NOT have a profile on wikitree?

Both of my brothers in law (my sisters husbands) are still currently connected to the global tree despite one sister not having any children connected.

This not being connected through the missing children is actually quite  specific.

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Yes, it's all marriages that have been disconnected. The only reason some still appear to be connected is that the spouses are connected through their children, but the underlying issue is with all marriages. The connection finder doesn't-recognize any marriage as a connection. So it is essentially only recognizing genetic connections of one form or another. If there is a different connection to the big tree via genetics for a spouse then both will remain connected, even if there are no children. If one spouse's only connection to the big tree is the marriage and there are no children then that spouse will become disconnected and all his family will also be disconnected.

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My connection to Queen Victoria went from 15 or 16 steps (I don't recall what it was) to 21 steps, on a completely different path, apparently due to the loss of a number of connections due to marriages.

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Thank you Deb. I appreciate the explanation.

Ellen - I hear you.

My link to Queen Victoria was 16 steps going through my brother in law,

Now its back up to 22 steps going through Princess Diana and my 3rd cousin.

Answer 7

Ok, I get to join the club. Just checked my watch list and my unconnecteds went from a small handful to over 100. And that includes my sister-in-law! Both my brother and I are connected but they never had children so now she is not connected. I do hope that Admin is looking at this problem and will fix it soon?

Answer 8

Last time I checked I had no unconnected people, now I have 86, all spouses of connected ones. Well at least the guys I could identify without big problems. This is... I think you can say that there is a bug in the program...

Answer 9

Something is being worked on (I recall this happened recently (and an answer albeit extremely paraphrased) was given).

It is interesting in a way which that I have profiles from collaborations with projects, profiles from self-directed projects, and profiles from within the family.

Yes, I am meant to have unconnected profiles (some of these are living NZ notables who have been created and then cast adrift)