Old profiles lacking sources or basic headings

Question

Every now and then, I search for orphans in my little section of wiktree, sorted by profile creation date, to make sure there is at least some sourcing etc. I have been working on profiles added in 2010. They have often not been touched since then (although they have a more recent update date, I believe corresponding to when they were orphaned).

When I say these have little information, I have seen quite a few profiles that have only something like this in the Bio "This person was created on 03 November 2010 through the import of wikitree_1850_1855.ged." or the gedcom statement and burial information (without a FAG reference), or the gedcom statement with gedcom information about the family like this: 

@F7194@ FAM

Husband: @I17692@

Wife: @I17613@

Marriage:

In this specific case I have googled this gedcom name and have added {{unsourced}} == Biography == to hundreds that are outside of my little part of wikitree. And my method of looking for orphans by original creation date will keep me busy for some time. However, this won't help me find profiles still managed by someone that have not been touched that need serious help (unless I know of a specific profile manager)

Is there an existing way to find profiles like this? For example, can you search wikitree+ using profile creation date? Has there been any thought to adding suggestions for profiles that lack the now required headings? I am sure this would be yet another flood that no one wants in the suggestions, but if this could be focused on profiles originally created before X date, it might be doable.

Comments

* See Kay's answer below. Clumsy, I admit, but could be workable

* Alternative would be to request an EditBot operation to insert the {{unsourced}} == Biography ==lines on top in all profiles having text "Nobody has entered any text or sources for <name> yet."

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See my reply below. None of these said "Nobody has entered any text or sources for <name> yet." so for these specific items this wouldn't have helped.

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Here are some examples

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Verstegen-5 -- which I found from http://wikitree.sdms.si/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=19cen+netherlands+united+states+orphan&MaxProfiles=500&SortOrder=Default&PageSize=500

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ruppert-40 -- which I found from http://wikitree.sdms.si/default.htm?report=srch3&WikiTreeID=X-2467&SortOrder=Default&PageSize=500

Answer 1

You could try looking at suggestions 131, 132, 133, and 134. I've noticed quite a few that appear to be old GEDCOM imports.

Comments

Or suggestions 802 and 803.

And for all suggestions mentioned above on WT+ text search -1 (looks a bit silly, I know), will likely get you the first created profiles for all names. For suggestion 802 it gives 998 hits

And of course one can do more filtering, for example by location (netherlands being my favorite). And continue with other suggestions, and with -2, -3, etc.

Edit: Oops had max suggestion 1000. Raised to 5000 it gives 2150 hits

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802 - empty profile, first appearance Oct 2016

803 - almost empty profile, first appearance Oct 2016

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Ros,

You probably mean the dates the suggestions 802 and 803 were introduced. Running the WT+ query as I did, the first row is of Borgelt-1 created 3 Feb 2011.

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Yes, that is what I meant.  'First appearance' i.e. first appearance/introduction of the suggestion.  Not first appearance of the error itself.

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thanks for the suggestion. However, I am finding profiles that are not in 131, 132, 133, 134, 802 or 803 suggestions. I know this because I had already done what I could there and then am finding more profiles that are not currently on the lists.

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What I have found on the 133 are often relatives that don't have the same error number, but....if you searched that GEDCOM name you would probably find quite a few.

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That is a clever idea. In my case I have already skimmed off all the 133s that seem to be in an era I can do. But it is all these odd ways we have all come up to find them that I would like to improve. I want us all to be able to find these profiles more easily.

Answer 2

If you go to the find button, there is unsourced profiles in the dropdown list

Comments

Thanks for the suggestion. However, until I added {{unsourced}} these would not have appeared on these lists.

Answer 3

The England Project has a team dedicated to finding these old, unloved gedcoms and improving its profiles beyond measure.  We only deal with English profiles, though, due to the scope of the Project.

Comments

I have been wondering if Dutch_Roots (or are we now the Netherlands project?) should be doing some of that as well. In this specific case, the gedcom included people from a variety of countries, so I simply added unsourced to the profiles of people born in Germany, ireland, US, etc.

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Hi W. I think several members already are working on it, I often will add {{Unsourced|Netherlands}} (above content biography) and depending on how the profile looks or what it still needs, the sticker (below content Biography) {{Dutch Roots Sticker|needs=Birth|needs1=More Records|needs2=Biography}} also to make sure we all can find and work on them, without having to adopt or add them to the project immediately, the most important thing is they can be found, get some attention and sourced and improved eeh. I'm always adding the missing contents and references tag right away if profiles are totally empty and will clean up the Gedcom ones, that way they don't look to bad and more inviting to work on. 

So we could try to start a team or perhaps even several teams, to work on things like this or on sourcing and improving profiles from specific provinces or something together, or start more mini challenges like the one we had for the Van Vessem Gedcom, members really like to work on things together as a team eeh :D

And I know it's a bit confusing, but we still are the Dutch Roots Project W.  It's now a sub project of; Project Netherlands (which perhaps is going to be changed to The Netherlands again and with it's own page, but with the connect-a-thon coming up everyone is quite busy with that)

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@Bea I think mini challenges to clean up these old imports would be great. And thanks for the clarification re Dutch Roots / The Netherlands

Answer 4

A simple way would be to enter a surname in the Last Name field at the top of most screens. Then select Table view and click on the Edit Date column to sort the profiles by last edit date.

Comments

that is a great idea if you are working on a surname. Regarding the sort by an edit date -- if a profile was made in Nov 2010 and it was orphaned in May 2017, I believe the update date changes to May 2017, so it may not sort to the top of a list.

Answer 5

When I encounter totally unconnected and unsourced profiles like the one described in the question, one trick I've used to identify them is to search WikiTree for the gedcom ID (in this instance, "wikitree_1850_1855.ged"). Typically I would run the search from Google, using site:wikitree.com/wiki in order to be able to get a lot of results on one page. From the results, I am often able to find profiles for family members imported in the same gedcom, which makes it easier to research the family -- or find existing profiles for them.

Comments

Yes, that is exactly what I did, and added unsourced to hundreds of profiles (and sourced a few in my narrow interest area)

Answer 6

I have had to enter all of the headings of ==Biography==,
==Sources==, and <references/> to over a dozen of the unsourced DeCoursey GEDCOM as I do the New York unsourced category.  I would love to have editbot run the gamut of it and add them.  It breaks my thought of concentration and slows me down when entering a family.  Heaven knows I'm not very fast to begin with.

Comments

I once was doing that to a bunch of profiles (a few dozen) and copy pasted the unsourced/biography into each. And then copy/pasted the sources/references into each. And then click update in quick succession... and was locked out of wikitree for bot like activity. I quite agree that I wish there was an easier/more efficient way!