Total Frustration with Wikitree

Question

I have had nothing but frustration with Wikitree since I joined, and I'm maybe getting to the point where people are getting frustrated with me.  I thought about just not saying anything, however I need to speak my mind on this.

Earlier this year, I did a bit of a one-name study, for lack of a better term, on Swayne/Swaine/Swain in Ireland in hopes of finding more information about my own 3x great grandmother.  If you've done any kind of research in Ireland, you can understand how source material can be sparse - especially when dealing with Protestants because most of the parish records are NOT online.  Well, I actually was able to find a fair amount of information on various Swayne/Swaine/Swain families in Ireland, although ultimately it didn't help me to discover more information on my own ancestor.

I spent a lot of hours going through newspapers and other obscure records that are only available on paid sites.  I put together a pretty solid tree on most people and used very little speculation, it is about 98% factual.  I put it all up on a private tree on Ancestry.

I thought I should put it here, where everyone who is a descendant of an Irish Swayne/Swaine/Swain could view it and hopefully it would help them advance in their own research.  Now the problem - I can't use about 99% of the source material here.  It all comes from paid sites (mainly findmypast). I have hundreds of newspaper clippings, memorial of deeds, probably even a will or two - and I can use none of it.

I'm honestly at a point where I wish I could delete every person I've added on wikitree, but I can't.  If I'd known at the beginning I couldn't delete people, I might not have started at all.  My mother's profile is still managed by someone else, I can't edit it.  Someone suggested I just start adding her family and as soon as I did that, I realized that's useless, too.  My mother was born in Gaspe, Quebec and all the BMD records are on the Drouin collection, which apparently can't be used here.  So, what's the point?  My mother's families history is very well documented, there are books and websites about it but those books and websites don't always include source material that points to a free site.

So rather than increasing my frustration, and realizing I'm going to have to go over every bit of research I've done in the last few years to try to find a free source, I might just quietly back out of Wikitree.

Comments

Others have already said it, but just to officially clarify, WikiTree does not only accept free sources. It sounds like you have done a huge amount of work and we're excited to have you share it here!  Thank you! Using sources from pay sites is completely acceptable.

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family Search.Org is a free site.Only thing too watch ,when it says alternate

site.this often  means from family Tree"s.If you need help just contact me.

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Hey Debbie,

First of all, if they didn't kick me out for "venting" about GedCompare when I first got here, you are in no danger of being sent packing!

Obviously, the issue of paid sources has been clarified. You may suffer from the same WikiTree malady as me (I?). "I don't know what I don't know about WikiTree".

I started off at Family Search, did a free trial at Ancestry to bolster my tree at FS, then migrated here. The positives are that I have much more confidence in records here because of the sourcing. Also, in ALMOST all cases, when I have an issue about procedure or a profile, I get very quick feedback or assistance from other "Tree-ers". Even developed a relationship with some "cousins".

The down side is it IS a bit more difficult to navigate. I think that's because I'm not sure if I am following "Best Practices" because I'm not sure what that is.

I do believe as you get more comfortable, you will find this to be a VERY supportive and helpful community.

Lastly, thanks for your comment about FindMyPast. I also have Scottish & Irish ancestors and if that's been a successful site for you, I'll check it out!

Good Luck and Stick Around!

Michael

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Was a little upset when you said you could not use Drouin as I use it a lot. Granted I don't use the paid site, I have several published 'mariage repertoires" published by Drouin and I refer to them even though they are secondary sources. Anything can be used as a source, free or paid as has been stated. Granted primary records are best, but as you will see that many of the people use secondary sources. It is mainly when you have conflicting material that primary material usually takes precedence, even then the primary record can be wrong. One reason the rule of thumb is to have 3 sources for each event.

Answer 1

Of course, you can use all of those things, and sites, as sources. Who said you couldn't? Yes, free is better because it allows others to quickly see what you have seen without having a paid subscription, but that doesn't mean you can't use other sources. I have sources from Ancestry.com, FindMyPast, and others on some of my profiles.

Sourcing is about making sure others can find it if they want to follow the same route you did, not that they must find it by your method/means. If they don't want to use the same means to locate the source you did (a paid site), then they can look for other locations/means of access.

Comments

Well said, Deb.

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It is well said and yet I can understand how Debbie M came to feel the way she does as almost every day there is another g2g post decrying sources on paid websites.  And she's probably received messages from members who would prefer she not use them on her profiles. I'm glad Eowyn posted the official stance and I hope that will also slow down the flood of rants against sourcing paid sites.

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I hope so. I get a little tired of them too. If the source is available at a free site, I use that citation, but there are many source records available behind paywalls that are not available on FamilySearch and I'm not going to ignore them. I have discovered a trick for making images from ancestry accessible to all. 

When viewing the image, click the "tools" icon on the right side, then click share. This will give you a number of options. Click on the Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ icon. This will open a window to share on the chosen site. Close that window. Now you'll have a box with a URL that you can copy when citing the record. It will look something like the link below and anyone will be able to view the image. 

https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/14299633?h=0fd954&utm_campaign=bandido-webparts&utm_source=post-share-modal&utm_medium=copy-url

You can remove everything after the last number and the link still works.

https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/14299633?h=0fd954

This does not work for transcriptions without images. If you try to share those you only get a message that someone found the person in a particular record.

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Deb, nice workaround.  In the example you have, it looks like a low-resolution of the image and I'm not able to actually read the details. At least not on my iPhone...

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Yeah, just tried on my iPhone and it's not optimal, but if you're using a computer or tablet it is zoomable and very legible.

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You're right; zooming on my laptop maintains the clarity; zooming in from an iphone is a blur...

Answer 2

Who told you that you can only use free sources here?

Sure, we would all _prefer_ if we could freely look at every source cited, but sometimes, that's just not possible, and we do the next best thing: provide as complete a citation as possible, including a full transcription of the relevant parts.

Answer 3

My husband is French Canadian and I have found many of his Quebec ancestors on Family Search - which is the one free source that I use the most often here on Wikitree. The census records for Quebec are all available on Family Search.

I do not think that Drouin would or could "hog" all the records.

Comments

And you can always transcribe the information from the source.   Lots of my sources are books that aren’t on line and documents from the National Archives that aren’t digitized.  There’s nothing wrong with that.

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Agreed. If you cannot link to Drouin, you can certainly transcribe their records and include the details of where to find that source - whatever volume and page number - just in case anyone in the future does have a paid record.

Answer 4

If no one had ever paid to access information there'd be no Wikitree. Cheer up and hang on in. Thorough sourcing is wonderful.

Answer 5

As other have said, Drouin and other pay sources are perfectly acceptable. Just give good source citations that indicate where in Drouin the records were found. Books are also acceptable. Once you have those, you might want to use some primary sources, many of which are available online at places like FamilySearch. Primary records will verify that the Drouin records or those in a book are correct. Drouin does have some transcription errors in places.

Can you provide an example of profile of yours that someone said was unacceptable?

Comments

While waiting for your mother to get sorted out, you might spend some time working on improving your sources. I looked at some of your profiles and some like "McKeown Descendants book compiled 1990" isn't sufficiently detailed. You need to cite it with author, exact title, where it might be found(repository). The Sources Style Guide explains what is desired although other formats are acceptable if they provide enough information.

Answer 6

Your other concern is a bigger matter. Have you asked to be added to the trusted list of your mother's profile? Such a request could not be denied, surely? Indeed, were it me, I would be asking to be accepted as PM, and would expect the other PM to relegate themselves to trusted list, or relinquish the profile entirely. I wouldn't want anyone but siblings to be managing my mother's profile.

Answer 7

I think you only need to adjust your expectations a little...

Nothing happens quickly around here. I'm sorry about your mother's profile, but it'll get sorted... I promise. The "unresponsive profile manager" process takes some time, but its necessary to have proper documentation before any admin actions are taken. Just think about if the shoe were on the other foot, and you were the "unresponsive manager". You'd want every effort made to contact you, before your profiles were suddenly removed from your control.

And Deb Durham is correct about using paid sites as sources -- there's no requirement to use only free sources, at all. Many people hate those paid sites, and say so very loudly, but they still can be valid sources.

Comments

I hope venting and creating a dialogue has helped you feel better, and maybe a little less frustrated. I think we all have been there at one point working on WikiTree. Hang in there!

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Very good answer Dennis. I'd concur

Answer 8

Dear Debbie,

I don't know who has said what to you that got you thinking that sources from paid sites weren't acceptable on WIkiTree, but aside from what everybody else has said ("any source is helpful, paid or not", "hang in there, most WikiTreers are helpful", the thought occurs to me that possibly what whomever was objecting to wasn't the fact that the source is behind a paywall, but the way the source is put up.

Let me give two examples:

1. I have run across a number of profiles which list an event (birth, death, marriage, census, etc.), and then the source citation reads simply, "Ancestry.com". No details about what the source says, no link to the actual page on Ancestry.com, no details at all. Now, on another thread, I commented on that, and said, "That's not a source, that's advertising." That may have been overstating the case, but the point of citing sources is to help other genealogists find the same source you found. Partly, that's to confirm the accuracy of everybody's work (or to find and correct mistakes -- I had to correct a Wikipedia article the other week, because it gave incorrect information about the birthplace of a notable, based on a misreading of the handwriting on a scan of that person's death certificate. The misreading pointed to a place which doesn't actually exist, but by looking more closely, I was able to identify the actual birthplace. [Granted, the handwriting on the death certificate wasn't particularly good. My guess is that people whose handwriting isn't actually bad enough to enable them to become doctors so they can issue illegible prescriptions become records clerks or census enumerators, so they can write up only mostly illegible records to frustrate future genealogists.]), and partly, it's to help other people in their own sourcing. (As in, I might not be working on the same person, but on a sibling who appears in the same census, so your work might help me find the source I need for a different person.)
2. I have also seen a number of profiles created through the import of GEDCOM files originally generated on Ancestry. (In fact, I created a bunch myself, because like you, I had built out my tree on Ancestry before I discovered WikiTree, and used the GEDCOM import facility to move it over here. The result was a real mess. I don't know if the problem is due to limitations in the GEDCOM file format itself, or in the way Ancestry builds GEDCOMs for export, or the way WikiTree used to import GEDCOM files, or some combination of all three, but it takes so much work to clean up the results that I feel some sympathy with those who say that it's better just to retype everything. (I suppose I might be more enthusiastic about retyping everything if I had a better typing system than the Biblical Typing Method ["Seek and ye shall find" - more commonly known as "hunt and peck"].) Specifically, I have problems with two issues: first, I have never seen a profile imported from a GEDCOM from Ancestry that link to the actual record page on Ancestry, even when the record is linked to the Ancestry profile. It might say that it's from a particular collection, and that it's stored on Ancestry, but it doesn't link to the actual record. Second, for some weird reason, all the information that I would put into the source citation gets scattered into two or three layers of citations. The first entry says something like "Source: S1234", and when you click to go to Source 1234, it tells you a little more, and then might even pass you onto something like "Repository: R567", which tells you a little bit more. (I haven't yet seen a fourth level after "Repository", but it wouldn't surprise me.) When I put in a citation, I put all the information into one note, so people don't have to go looking all over the sources section to find it all. (For example: "England, Wales & Scotland Census, 1861, England, London, St Pancras, page 30, dwelling 153, George Slade; RG09, roll 94, sheet 18 (http://search.findmypast.com/record?id=gbc%2f1861%2f0000607375 : Accessed January 24, 2016).")

Now, granted, I personally only use sites that aren't behind paywalls (or registration walls), but that's a personal preference and not WikiTree policy. While I might prefer that other people also use sites where I can look up what they found without shelling out a pile of money I don't have (or answering a bunch of snoopy questions), sometimes those sites are the only sites that have the information we need, so somebody has to use them, or we wouldn't be able to discover the facts that only those sites offer access to.

For that reason, usually, if I'm working on a record which has sources from pay sites, and I find the same record in a free source, I will only use it to supplement the existing source, not replace it. (Well, unless the first source was one of those which only says "Ancestry.com" or "FamilySearch.org" something unhelpful like that. Those, I replace without compunction.)

Answer 9

On the newspapers be sure to give the full name of the paper, the location!!, the date, and I like the page and column too!!

Remember, even if you found that source at one paid site, with enough information someone might be able to find it for free, or on another paid site!

Comments

Pre-1880 most Irish records other than newspapers can be found on free sites, that's not to say there are that many of them to be had.