Should/how should I use categories to trace genetic eyesight impairment?

Question

I have inherited unusual eyesight impairments.  In 1940 a thesis was published in the Journal of Genetics studying these eyesight defects in 273 individuals spanning 7 generations of my family, beginning with William Shurly, born 1782 and including my late grandfather. I have created a page about it here [[Space:Eyesight Impairments]]. As a growing number of these 273 individuals now have WikiTree profiles, I am thinking it would be helpful to have them linked by a category.  Would this be appropriate and is there a naming convention I should follow? 

Comments

Very interesting question, Chris. Although Doug's recommendation on Personal Categories may be appropriate for getting started I hope that this is something that other WikiTreers will be interested in exploring in a broader way.

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Does this condition have a name? There are plenty of other kinds of "eyesight impairments," so that's not a particularly good name for a category, but if there's a name for the syndrome, that would be a good category name. Or if all of the people with this condition are descendants of William Shurly, you could categorize it as something like "Category: Eyesight Impairments in Descendants of William Shurly."

The title of the academic thesis refers to the human sex chromosomes, which implies that the gene for this condition is on the X or Y chromosome (probably the X). If subsequent research has confirmed that it is linked to one of these, then the WikiTree chromosome inheritance utilities could be used to identify people who might be affected or who might be carriers.

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Thank you, Chris, Ellen and Doug, that is really helpful. Considering your responses, I will create a category called "Eyesight Impairments in Descendants of William Shurly" as a sub-category of "Birth Defects, Health". This seems more appropriate than "Diseases" as the three eyesight conditions studied by White are all congenital.  Subsequent research has indeed confirmed the X-linkage so I am keen to learn more about the WikiTree chromosome inheritance utilities. When I have understood it, I will include links on the space page and/or the category page.

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I added a comment on your space page with a link to the  page that has William Shurly's X-DNA descendants. (Not posting it here because the G2G software doesn't support pasting from the clipboard on my phone.)

Answer 1

You can always use a personal category to group them together. One of those seems like the way to do this. See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Personal_Categories for details. I would create a top level category first then a sub-cat that adds the name you want to use for your study and then add a brief description of what that category is used for.

Comments

Thanks for your help, Doug.  I was wondering about a personal category.  I was thinking that as it will be useful to other family members known to share my interest in tracing the eyesight defect, that I would create the category with the ID of William Shurly, being the root person in the study and common ancestor for all those affected (it seems unlikely we will ever be able to get any further back as there are no more known sources of eyesight data of that age). Does this sound a good idea to you?

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Personal categories MUST be your Wikitree ID and not the ancestors. To do otherwise will result in an error report that will likely get the category renamed to yours. So, while it sounds like the way to do it, it isn't. In the future, if enough people are interested, you could possibly do a project.

If you want to do a real category, Ellen's comments about using the most appropriate name should be heeded and then make it a sub-category of [[Category:Diseases]]. In anycase, give a brief description on the category page and a pointer to your space page.

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I wouldn't use a personal category.  The particular sight impairment may be something that affects others who are descended from ancestors of William Shurly, so it could have wider application. This is true of polydactyly, when a person is born with more than five fingers and/or toes.  It could be a result of another condition, but there is a strong hereditary component to it, too.

When hereditary, it isn't a disease, so I question whether that is the place to put the category.

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Thanks for you comments, Vic, that is very encouraging as I was thinking along the same lines (see my comment above, under my original question). I have now set up the Category and just started adding it to profiles.