Cobweb Catchers

Profile manager: Lance Martin [send private message]

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Welcome to Team Cobweb Catchers!

What are you working on?

Resolving conflicts with the data on Find A Grave and Wikitree.

This entails comparing profiles and Find A Grave data and determining where the error or conflict arises, notifying both the Find A Grave memorial manager and Wikitree Profile manager if applicable, and suggesting or making the appropriate changes to each. This is a great way to introduce Find A Grave members to Wikitree. By contacting the Find A Grave memorial manager you become a wikitree promoter, so do your research and make sure your suggestions are well thought out.

Some errors are obvious. If you are not sure how to handle an error, feel free to skip it. Be cautious in your work because these errors, like most errors in the error report, have some exceptions and peculiarities which might make the fix a little more complicated.

Things we are likely to see are duplicate profiles, typos and bad links.

We'll be focusing on the Find A Grave 570 and 580 errors.

If you are unsure of whether your correction is valid or not, you can simply choose to skip it. There is plenty of low hanging fruit in this category.

Using the Find A Grave Template

The simplist version of the template is:

{{FindAGrave|memorialnumber}}

If you want to add the Cemetery name, City and State you can use this template when adding Find a Grave as a source:

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=106388548 FindAGrave.com memorial #106388548] in Pontotoc City Cemetery, Pontotoc, Pontotoc County, Mississippi, USA

The most complete example is:

Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 08 February 2018), memorial page for Henri Langlois (13 Nov 1914–13 Jan 1977), {{FindAGrave|1234}}, citing Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France ; Maintained by Find A Grave.

You can also utilize the Wikitree X extension for Chrome.

With this exstension you

1. Go to the profile at wikitree.

2. Copy the WIkitree ID by highlighting it and ctrl-c

3. Go to the correct Find A Grave site for the profile

4. Click on the Wikitree X extension icon and paste (ctrl-v) the Wikiprofile ID into it.

5 Compare the information and correct any problems you notice.

{{FindAGrave|1234|sameas=no}}

This is an important template to know. Often times there will be a link in a profile which directs the viewer to a differnt Find A Grave memorial for more information. If a Find A Grave memorial for another person is in any way mentioned on a profile, please find a way to modify the link to include the above referenced template.

What to do

The link below works, but you can access suggestion reports here as well. DB ERRORS.

Choose a location and go to work on the errors with 570 or 580!

• Find a Find A Grave error code, by checking the messages here, that has not been adopted that you would like to work on.
• Post a message here saying you are adopting that error code. If someone else has adopted it perhaps you can work together starting from different points.
• Read the section Error Descriptions/Instructions for your error.
• Find an error, and do what you can to correct the error both at Find A Grave and Wikitree if necessary.
• Ensure that the wikitree person the error pertains to is intended to be the person at the Find A Grave memorial.
• Use the Wikitree tool for research on the wikitree page of the profile to attempt to find a better source and record any success you have.
• Recognize that even though you have adopted one error, the work you do will most likely impact other database errors, and conversely an error might be corrected before you get to it.
• Make a notation somewhere on the wiki tree profiles of the steps you have taken to correct the problem. Also, just noting why we think there is a problem might prompt the profile manager to make the corrections.
• Update the status page of the error even if you couldn't correct the problem so that the next person to come along will know what has been done.
• For extra credit, leave flowers on the Find A Grave memorial mentioning the correct Wikitree profile.

Quick Links

G2G Prize post

G2G Questions post

Spring_Clean-a-Thon#Hangouts Hangouts schedule

Spring_Clean-a-Thon#Tracking_Progress Tracking your progress

Error Descriptions/Instructions

Missing or Incorrect links to Find A Grave

571 FindAGrave - Link without Grave ID

572 FindAGrave - Linked grave not matching profile See {{FindAGrave|1234|sameas=no}}

586 FindAGrave - Link to merged Grave ID

587 FindAGrave - Link to nonexisting Grave ID

If you can locate the Find A Grave memorial, this is easily remedied. Follow the instuctions under using the Find A Grave template. For Linked Grave not matching profile, this may mean that it is of a relative and is attached for reference.

Conflicting Dates problems

573 FindAGrave - Empty birth date

574 FindAGrave - Imprecise birth date

575 FindAGrave - Different birth date

576 FindAGrave - Empty death date

577 FindAGrave - Imprecise death date

578 FindAGrave - Different death date

Birthdates and death dates can differ between sites. Sometimes this is due to typos, but sometimes there really is a question as to the exact birth date or death date. I would argue that a birth certificate signed and witnessed at the time of birth is the only conclusive proof of birthdate or a signed dated and witnessed death certificate for the death date and unless that is present, you need to note any discrepancies. If it is an obvious typo, and no sources contradict the correction, please correct it and make a notation. If the typo is on Find A Grave, notify the manager. Correcting or at least acknowledging the discrepancy will improve both sites. Also, by looking at the change history of the wiki profile, you might notice it has not changed since import, indicating that Find A Grave may have the most recent edits.

Location Problems

579 FindAGrave - Missing birth location

581 FindAGrave - Missing death location

You can make a difference correcting these errors, but you can also do damage so be careful. First look to see if there is a birth or death location listed and copy that information over to wikitree. If there is no such information given, I suggest copying the cemetery location over to the death location onto wikitree and marking it as uncertain as we do not know if the body was transported to the location of the cemetery from across the country. Even if the information turns out to be incorrect, at least other researchers will have a starting point and know where the information came from and where to start the search for correct info.

Duplicates and misleading sources

585 FindAGrave - Multiple profiles link to same grave ID

See {{FindAGrave|1234|sameas=no}}

First check if the Find A Grave memorial number might just be a typo if none of the information looks like it came from the memorial and find the correct memorial.

This offers many areas for improvement to a profile. First, a Find A Grave profile arguably should be assigned to only one Wiki profile. Sometimes there will be information on a Find A Grave memorial for a parent or sibling and the wiki manager will cite the Find A Grave memorial page as a source. All attempts should be made to locate the actual source of the information and use that instead. Find A Grave is really only a great source for information if there is a photograph of a headstone. and then, only an actual source for the information printed on that headstone. All other extraneous information, photographs and obituaries should be cited as such rather than through the Find A Grave memorial. If no other source can be found for information contained in the biography of the Find A Grave profile, the wiki profile which is the actual person buried at the Find A Grave memorial should be referenced and then one can be directed to their Find A Grave memorial.

It could also indicate a profile needs to be merged. If you are unsure if the profiles are the same, you can suggest an unmerged match with a comment. If they are obvious merges, suggest that as well, checking for sure that any defined relationships on the two sites are identical. If there are discrepancies, you must resolve those discrepancies before suggesting a merge. If you do not want to research it, again, just suggest an unmerged match.

Finally, sometimes the wrong grave site is adopted by an over eager researcher and pertains to someone completely different. In this case, if one wikitree profile seems to be dependent on the Find A Grave details, and matches exactly, I would leave this profile. The profile with the differences (ie different parents or spouses), I would remove the Find A Grave source. I would also make a notation in the wiki profile that you have identified a conflict between the two wiki profiles, why you chose the other wiki profile to have the surviving source and mark everything that seems to be dependent on the Find A Grave memorial in the questionable wiki tree profile to uncertain.

Members

• 1: Lance Martin, DataDoctor, Co-Captain |See your work
• 1a: Theresa Myers,DataDoctor, Co-Captain |See your work
• 2: Robin Shaules
• 3: Aleš Trtnik, DataDoctor, Pre1500 |See your work - I will probably help all teams in correcting errors. I will also check their changes. and here I will work on 572 and 585. somewhere in the middle of the lists. I have sysop rights, so if you need a profile status changed to comply with new rules, let me know.
• 4: Dean Anderson|See your work
• 5: Debbie Javete |See your work
• 6: Bonita McPherren |
• 7: Ron Floyd
• 8: Melissa Jordan
• 9: Rayburn Clipper
• 10: Phil Phillips
• 11: Lynda (Vollmer) McCann
• 12:
• 13:
• 14:
• 15:

Error reports