My entire paternal ancestry has disappeared/become disconnected ... where did it go ?

Question

We had a comprehensive family tree with respect to my fathers' family which seems to have become disconnected / disappeared.  He was one of 13 children but only two of them show now, His entire profile and those of his siblings are just gone.  Is this a glitch that can be reversed?  I cannot even find him in the list when I check the surname.  His name was Gustave Adolphe Maeder, born 1924 died 2017.  Please help someone.

Comments

I can't find him by searching, but that could be a privacy issue.  Profiles don't disappear, but they get merged, disconnected, names changed, etc.  If a profile existed it should still be here.  If you were his profile manager, look in your watchlist for his profile.  Once found, you can fix whatever problem it has, or at least describe it better.

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Thanks Herbert

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My grandfather (Maeder-35) [fathers' father] is still there but he is missing 11 children and I do not see any of them in my watchlist or in the "surname list".

My grandmother [fathers' mother] is missing too.  Her name wa Lavina Maria Hillitjie Maeder (nee Wepener) and all her brothers and sisters are there as are her parents ...  Very strange

Dads profile number was Maeder-63

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Theodore has 12 people on his Trusted List, any of whom could have made a mistake and disconnected people.  If your father isn't on your Watchlist, maybe someone took you off his Trusted List?

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It looks like originally it was owned by someone else and their account was closed? Maybe it has something to do with that?

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Hi Liz, well spotted !! This is probably it - I see the cousin who was manager of all these profiles is not on wikitree anymore - what should I do now, the profiles shouldn't be gone?

Answer 1

This is the only "Gustave Adolph Maeder (1846 - 1918" profile I find by searching. Here is a list of all the profiles by the surname Maeder at WikiTree.

Theodore Maeder (1847 - 1927)

Francois Maeder (1878 - 1890)

Adding Family by Connecting Existing Profiles

Comments

If he was Maeder-63 at one time, as Vicki stated, I think someone either Unlisted him, or changed his LNAB.

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Thanks David - I will try and see if I can find the profiles that are missing to add them back using numbers - hope I can remember the numbers...

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The Gustave Adolph Maeder you found is his father's brother, the person Dad was named after

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Click here for all the profiles already at WikiTree by the surname MAEDER.

Answer 2

Are the missing people all living or not have death dates entered?  They may have disappeared because of the GDPR privacy issues.

Comments

Vicki, did your Dad's missing profile include his 2017 date of death?

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Hi, yes they are all deceased, my Dad was the last to pass away and his death date is recorded.  I think it may be something to do with the comment Liz Marshall made.  A cousin of ours was profile manager of all the profiles because he imported a gedcom, but I see he is no longer on wikitree.

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Vicki, if the person who created the profiles closed their account before adding death dates, then the profiles may have looked like they were for living people and got deleted when the account was closed.

I strongly recommend that you double, triple check that the profiles do not exist any longer... And if it is the case, there is no reason why you could not re-create them.

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Thank you Isabelle, the death dates have been on the profiles for a long time, none of the missing profiles were influenced by the GDPR privacy.

Where do I look for profiles that are not in the surname list or in my watchlist, I don't know how to go about checking that they are not just existing somewhere where I cannot see them.  Do you have any suggestions?

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Do you have the WikiTree IDs of the profiles? See for instance, when you visit the URL where there should be Maeder-63. This means that the profile has been deleted. 

If you type in the WikiTree ID directly in the URL (like this: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Maeder-63) you should be able to check if that leads you to an "Error 404" (profile does not exist) or to an unlisted profile, which looks quite different. 

Apparently private profiles, even of deceased people, can be deleted when an account is closed. I was never quite sure of this.

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Vicki, I think you should e-mail info@wikitree.com for help, explaining about your cousin who left WT and how you want to find his orphaned profiles so as not to duplicate them.  If you can, give them the e-mail address he used for his account.  Good luck!

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Thanks Isabelle

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Thanks Herbert, I have done that, regards Vicki

Answer 3

I can see him* here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Maeder-12 [Maeder-12|Ds Gustave Adolph Maeder], He is managed by Sam Pellisier  [Pellissier-9|Samuel H. Pellisier]

Comments

Different dates, by 80 - 100 years.  Not the same Gustave.

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*That of course is the great uncle Gustave.

Please remind us who your father's father etc were.

Answer 4

It seems strange that you had to recently add yourself as manager to your grandfather's profile which you have managed for a long time. Perhaps something like a missed merge request flagged you as unresponsive?

 

13 Aug 2018

19:05: Vicki (Maeder) Tolmay added Vicki (Maeder) Tolmay as manager for profile of Theodore Maeder. 

Comments

Hi Dennis

Yip - it all suddenly got very confusing.  I think it must be something to do with cousin Heinze-34 who was the profile manager for practically the entire branch of South African Maeder's - I guess he became manager of them all when he imported a gedcom many years ago.  Everyone else who was part of that lineage just got added to the trusted lists - he remained the profile manager.  It seems that he has left wikitree and in the process something went wrong ... Hopefully info@wikitree.com can help sort it out. 

Ds Gustave [Maeder-12] is my Dads' uncle.  My Dad was the youngest son of Ds Gustave's brother, Theodore (last of 13 children).  Eleven of the 13 siblings have just evaporated ...  While looking for them I noticed a bunch of the other profiles that did not have managers so I adopted them, if you are interested in becoming manager of any, please let me know - I am happy to pass them on to anyone who would like to take care of them.

Regards Vicki

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Vicki, why don't you add the 'bugs' or 'tech' tag to your question  it might help get the right attention.

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Thanks Edie, I have been in contact with info@wikitree.com and someone is working on a solution.  Will definitely use this tip is something like this happens again which I hope it will not !!

Answer 5

I notice that his sister [Maeder-45|Margrita Johanna Maeder] is orphaned wrt management. The profile was originally created by Karl Heinze whose  Wikitree account appears to be closed. Perhaps this also affected your other shared management or trusted list profiles?