The featured Profile of the Week, John Paul Jones, has an unsourced wife and son.

Question

I think it's fun to check my connection to each new featured Profile of the Week, but I was pretty unsettled today when I saw that I am supposedly related to John Paul Jones through his son, Moses Wheeler Jones, whose profile is unsourced.  Even worse, when I clicked on Moses' mother--Keziah Wheeler Jones, supposedly John Paul Jones' wife--her profile is not only empty, it has a long (sourced!) note from August 2016 which indicates John Paul Jones had no wife or children.

I don't know how the Profile of the Week gets selected (is it nominated by Leaders?  Or a committee?  Or just one person gets to pick?), but I would hope whoever is responsible for the final selection would at least check the immediate family members to make sure no one is dubious or unsourced, since that is how all the connections are made.  And if the point of Profile of the Week is to feature a  good biography, then I would also hope that a biography which has no mention of a connected wife and son wouldn't normally be held up as an example that we should all emulate.

I don't think I'm the only person who cares about Profile of the Week--it's featured on the homepage and at the bottom of all connected profiles, after all--so I hope I'm not out of line expressing my disappointment here.  (And a heads-up to anyone else checking their connections to John Paul Jones--your connection is probably through that unsourced, dubious line.)

P. S. John Paul Jones' only other connection to the tree that I can see is his uncle Hugh Paul, whose son fortunately had numerous descendants, so even if the mystery wife and son got disconnected, JPJ would still have that one line to the GFT.

Edited to Add: I seem to remember in the old days that the featured Profile was more of a "Collaborative Profile of the Week," with the intention being to improve the profile.  If that's the case here, then I apologize for misunderstanding and thinking that this was a "featured" profile meant to show off what a good profile looks like.  I don't see the word "collaborative" being used for profiles of the week anymore, so that's why I'm confused, haha.

Update:  They've been removed! :)

Comments

Hi Sarah,

We use several methods to choose the EPOW. We also alert projects that their profiles will be chosen and hope they make appropriate updates. I follow up and try to make sure everything is on the up and up. I missed those relations, as the profile itself was well-sourced. We'll get those removed momentarily.

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Also noted, technically the EPOW isn't considered "completed" until tomorrow when the newsletter goes out ;-) Feel free to lend a hand.

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I misplaced my dictionary of WikiTree acronyms, so please forgive my ignorance … what does EPOW stand for?  Thank you

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example profile of the week

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Abby:  I hope that someday we reach a point where "genealogically defined" is the standard for featured Profiles on WikiTree (or a research notes section as a substitute if there's any disputed relationship).  Maybe you could link to that page to give a heads-up to any project whose profile is being considered for EPOW?  Letting the Projects know that they ought to (at least attempt to) verify the relationship for parents, spouse(s) and children would be a good way to prevent this from accidentally happening again, and ensure that those fun "degrees of separation" are more accurate.

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There doesn't seem to be any actual evidence that Hugh Paull was JPJ's uncle.

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When will the connection finder be updated? My connection goes through Keziah, but there is no connection to Keziah anymore

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It will update overnight. There's another connection via a sister of JPJ's, too.

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Thanks Abby and others for sorting this out! Nice work.

Answer 1

I found a death entry for Moses Wheeler Jones and put it in the profile, so he isn't anymore unsourced.

About the general concern that the profile of the week has unsourced connection (and that not being ok), I agree.

Answer 2

I think your comments are very valid.  I cannot see one primary source to validate the story.

Answer 3

Thanks for bringing this up, Sarah. You were definitely not the only one to notice and find the problem of concern.