New project, just for fun

Question

I live in a boatyard and there are some real characters here. Two of them in particular, Sean and John, are in their late seventies and have travelled widely. Sean has English roots but has famous relatives in living memory while John, also English, has been a seaman all his life.

I've decided to do their trees, for no other reason than that they deserve not to be forgotten. Sort of an "adopt an old guy" theme. It should be infinitely more possible to do this while they are alive and sentient than trying to rake through records after they are gone. Hope it catches on.

Comments

Did Sean's preliminary tree on FamilySearch today. I always do that with new people, so the docs that are available can be gathered easily. He has a very distinguished family!

Family tree of Sean Du Pré Moore

The enthusiasm is building as I discover more details. He didn't even know the name of his grandmother, because his grandfather remarried after her death, so there's a lot of emotional stuff coming up. I just nod and listen. :)

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First generation finished on WikiTree. I'm impressed with how this is coming out. Thomas Edward Laws Moore

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Just put in a couple more generations and I've learned a valuable lesson:

There is NO WAY this tree could have been completed without personal information from an ancestor. So far there are family members born in Scotland, several English counties, Falkland Islands, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Bermuda, Egypt and Ireland. One of them spent several years at sea in the Arctic, and there were no records during that period. Some of them finished their days in Canada, and one died in Argentina.

Please, please do talk to older people and get their stories.

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SEAN'S TREE IS DONE!!

One down, one to go ...

Answer 1

Love this idea Rob!

Comments

It may be a great idea, but what are its limits?  Anything? Can I put up my tree of Vlad the Impaler under it?.  Or does he belong under "Notables?" Prince Charles once claimed descent from him.  Are we creating a World Tree, or a collection of little ones, like every other site?  I think that I have put up everybody I have data for, so from now on, I will simply watch.  I started wanting a small tree of about 500 individuals.  It has grown to over 6 000, of whom something over 3 000 are on my Watch list, and most of the rest are only names.  I have no intention of adding more just for the total; number-crunching is not my idea of genealogy.  For the same reason, I am not interested in DNA.  I look for real people, not disembodied genes.

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Sorry Doug but I don't follow your logic here, if there is any. Vlad the Impaler? I'm dealing with a real person here, a flesh and blood living human being whose ancestry isn't up on Wikitree, not some semi-mythical historical entity. That's what we do, we build the world tree.

His little twig may not yet be connected to the main tree but given time and further research it will be. I empathise in your custody of 6,000 records, mine is barely a thousand so far. Then again I've been on the site a mere eight weeks and it has all been entered by hand. With as many sources as I could find. Can you say the same?

Edit: Actually, I just checked your tree and can only see 190 members. You must have added a lot of unrelated people in your time, good for you.

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Wikitree wants me to accept secondary evidence (unconfirmed City Council statements) in preference to primary evidence (a date of death provided by the family) in Opperman-433.  The Australian Convicts Project puts defective tags on my profiles, which show up on my Suggestions in the hope that I can fix them up.  I can understand why so many users have left.

I am too old and too ill to fight the behemoth for the sake of accuracy and the Standards of Evidence that are recommended but ignored.  That is why I don't intend to contribute any further.

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Sounds like you fought a good fight all the same, mate. Thanks for your contribution, it's appreciated. I'm only nine years younger so maybe by your age I'll be fed up as well. 0:

Answer 2

This sounds brilliant, Rob. You should propose it as a new Topic in the England Project Google Group and we can get you set up if you like. Sounds like an "Old Men of the Sea" topic.

Susie :-)

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Lets do this, Susie! I like the service aspect of this.

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Unfortunately I don't use the Google group, but I like this idea.

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We don't currently have a Coordinator for Topics, so could you put this proposal in an e-mail to the leaders - myself, Wendy, Gillian and Amy? If you don't have all our e-mail addresses, send it to me and I can distribute it. Then we can help you get it set up and announce it in the Google Group and on here to see if anyone else in the project would like to join you on it.

Thanks, Rob,

Susie :-)

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Sounds like you're "volunteering me" to run a group here. Not quite ready for that at the moment. Let me get a couple done and see what sort of issues come up, then at least I'll have an idea of how it should work.

Being happily retired I'm also not really planning on making a career of WikiTree. :)

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Not at all. It would just fit under Topics. It only becomes a team if you get three or more people in it and then someone else could lead it if you didn't want to. :-)

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Yeah, all right. I'll fire you an email.

Answer 3

Cool! I can do the same for some of the older folks at church!

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If there's one thing that oldsters love talking about, it's their families. Sean has already regaled me with stories of Rear Admiral Thomas Edward Laws Moore, his great grandfather who was the Governor of the Falklands.

I'm going to enjoy doing this.

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 - ? is this him ? Rob - -

 = https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Naval_Biographical_Dictionary/Moore,_Thomas_Edward_Laws#top =

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The very same. This is also him: Thomas Edward Laws Moore

Answer 4

 - good one   Rob Judd    - perhaps you would like to 'adopt' a few of WW1 n WW2 profiles, and create a W/T Profile from  - (BtW - there are 800,000 to choose from)

= https://vwma.org.au/explore/people =  as I do -   You could start with the Qld RSL - -- cheers - john.a

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Leane_Fighting_Family_of_South_Australia#_ref-9

 - I have been 'Linking' the two sites = = https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/378781  LEANE, Raymond Lionel =  - - - WikiTree - Family Link

Comments

Being a pacifist I don't really have an affinity for military people generally. Probably best left to someone who likes that sort of thing.

Answer 5

What a great idea! Last summer we visited my mother's best friend who was in a nursing home. My mother thought we (I) should do her tree, so we pumped her for information. Unfortunately, she has passed on and so we talked to her just in time.

Comments

Cool, sounds like you got there just in time. I only wish I'd had the sense to talk to my grandparents more when they were alive.

Answer 6

It is a good idea.  One of the things we do in the Aged care industry is ask them to either write 'My Story' preferably before they enter their new home.  Or to answer a set of questions when they enter. This is to give the nurses and staff an idea  of their life.  It could help with behaviours  e.g.  a man gets up every morning  and starts walking around, checking his story staff learn that he was a dairy farmer and would rise early  to milk the cows.

So in essence this is being done in aged care.  It would also  identify parents and where they live.