Tooting My Little Horn

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surname/tag: Process

Here Weldon TOOTS! his little horn. Poor Weldon, so many gripes, so little time.

Here find anti-exemplars culled from Wikitree members' profiles^[1][2][3][4]. Shouldn't we all agree to try to do better?

Contents 1 What's Important, Accuracy or Being 'Right'? 2 Fake Genealogy 2.1 Merge Process: Defenses for Fighting Off Fakes 3 Wikitree Quality Process 3.1 Arbitration 3.2 Projects 3.2.1 PPP 3.3 Quality Tags 3.3.1 Certain Tag 3.3.2 Uncertain Tag 3.3.3 Junk (Everything else, somehow even Junkier than Uncertain) 3.4 Junk in Profile Data Fields 3.5 Note speculation in profile bio; leave it out of the data fields 3.6 Smoke fills the air when JUNK in data fields is challenged 3.6.1 We Don't Have To Change Anything Unless You Can Prove Us Wrong 3.6.2 Majority Opinion Must Rule 3.6.3 Too Much Work To Undo 3.6.4 More Useful To Post Wrong Links Than No Links 3.6.5 We Are Special Case Needing Very Special Care 3.6.6 A Name Change Must Have Occurred 3.6.7 The EVIDENCE We Need is Just Around The Next Bend 3.7 Out of TOOTS. These 'arguments' took my breath right away! 4 Sources

What's Important, Accuracy or Being 'Right'?

History, and genealogy in particular, can be informed by lessons learned in the sciences.

It is common sense in scientific endeavors to maintain a neutral stance upon approaching a problem, to look in all corners of the problem space, as well as outside that box. Care must be taken, because a scientist or mathematician always has a preconception, a conceit if you will. One calls it a hypothesis.

How does one avoid allowing this wonderful, amazing hypothesis to color judgement and to interfere with dispassionate evaluation of evidence? One should always ask oneself: Is it more important for me to be right, or to enlighten? Hopefully, the second answer is where the passion lies. The correct approach is then to concentrate on disproving the tightly-clutched hypothesis with equal vigor. Then a valid hypothesis can result.

Fake Genealogy

In our new world order of fake news, conspiracy theories, and other lies, a blatantly fraudulent claim, repeated thousands of times, ends up decorating a plethora of scholarly-looking reports, replete with reams of computer-generated evidentiary sources of null value. Our Wikitree experiences show genealogy is far from immune from such nonsense.

Ancestral fakery is mostly due to invalid evidence being accepted as fact, due to misperceiving the nature of valid evidence for our facts (an increasingly common affliction), or due to carelessness/laziness (a universal affliction of humanity), or due to a quest to document self-importance (e.g. I will distort whatever evidence I can to show I descend from Royalty).

Fakery is everywhere, multiplying like wildfire by copy and paste. The abundance of hypotheses, valid and invalid, in new members' trees, becomes focused upon the collection/integration engine of a site such as Wikitree. Ultimately, a huge mess of GEDCOM noise can deluge a profile, and everyone's time is absorbed by fighting merge fires and false claims.

Merge Process: Defenses for Fighting Off Fakes

There are two approaches to this: a) Active merge validation and cleanup: the manager of the basis version of the profile takes charge and builds a correct, evidence-based profile from all the merge inputs, asking the merger for more evidence if unsupported claims are encountered; b) Default merge: a profile is created in many merged layers, that tries to embrace the majority opinion of all GEDCOMs loaded. Plan (b) is too often employed, with managers in absentia. Because of this, a false claim or even a known fraud can be enshrined in a profile, just because it is a popular lore.

Wikitree Quality Process

At Wikitree, members read the rules and sign the honor code, and then are given large discretionary powers regarding documentation accuracy. A wiki, by its nature, offers a first come, first served, duke it out among yourselves quality of life.

Arbitration

There is a little publicized arbitration function at Wikitree, the Mentor Intervention Request (MIR). Without this layer of review by talented genealogists, life here would be frustrating indeed. I have resorted to it once, and hopefully it was a one and done.

Projects

At Wikitree, a layer above individual members is provided by our Projects, created to provide zones of research expertise to whom members can address questions, and who assist with organizing profile merge efforts from multiple sources.

In our current state of affairs, joining a project means a commitment to that project's definition of active participation, which varies across projects. Please forgive my lack of interest in team competitions, spiffing up profiles of project-designated VIPs, climbing to the stratosphere on the Wikitree ladder of renown. To each his own path. I contribute regularly to my own lineages, but that does not qualify for project membership on some projects.

Exemplars: I've been stripped of membership in PGM for failing to sign up for 'group activities'; I've voluntarily resigned from NNS project after being red-flagged on G2G by the project manager. Reminds me of a proverb regarding abuses of power.

Unfazed and undeterred, I continue to embrace my personal mantra, to be a competent sourcerer for the profiles that I manage or with which I connect.

PPP

Our Projects are authorized to take control of member profiles of wide interest, importance, and with higher than normal potential for mischief. These become Project-Protected Profiles (PPP), with modified profile management rights, either shared rights (gentle touch: we're here to help you), or exclusive rights (heavy-handed: you're fired, with no notice!). I've experienced both here. I urge the softer touch be employed.

One might also expect Projects would be quality zones provided through Project-managed PPPs. Yet as with members, Projects do not have an assigned arbitration function, and Projects differ on discretionary approaches to evidence. A quality enforcement function would necessarily need to be backed by a uniform code of evidence categorization, with no discretion. Perhaps some day, Projects may enforce such a quality standard on its PPPs. But for now, one will encounter no more, and often less, quality than is found in profiles at large.

Quality Tags

Wikitree has tags to represent assumed quality of data used to fill the profile data fields.

Certain Tag

There is a 'certain' tag, but evidence is never certain. Certain here means something more like 'contemporary, original written records that have been viewed ('original' might be a better nomenclature than 'certain'). Original sources considered reliable include: public record archives, family bibles with complete dates, newspaper articles, first-hand history books.

Uncertain Tag

There is also an 'uncertain' tag. No one knows what that means, but Wikitree says such data is of a derivative type, somehow derived from original data ('derived might be a better nomenclature than 'uncertain'). Derivative sources include: family trees of others, LDS files, online sites such as Find-a-Grave, genealogy forum discussions, various genealogical publications, transcripts and indexes of original data, and circumstantial evidence, drawing conclusions from real people and events that are 'original' (i.e. the profile creator does the deriving).

If derivative sources provide original source citations, the profile manager is instructed to use the verified original source rather than the derivative, so that then the 'Certain' tag is directly applicable. Information from cited derivative sources, unless supported by other sources, should be considered uncertain and marked as such.

Wikitree allows trees to be extended based on uncertain data, as above, inserted in profile data fields. Here's what Wikitree says:

Never enter information on WikiTree, even uncertain information, without including your source. Why do you think it might be true?

Junk (Everything else, somehow even Junkier than Uncertain)

It's important to discern what's left in the 'all the rest' category beyond original and derived evidence, What is the 'evidence' that cannot be used in profile data fields? It's junk, the inventions, fabrications, and guesses that continue to litter our playground.

How does one identify junk? It is an assertion for which no original or derived evidence has been produced. This may be because the profile manager is too sloppy to produce it, or has not yet gotten around to it, or doesn't see the need for it. Or it may be because no original or derived data has been found, which likely means it does not exist.

The source of junk is often a GEDCOM loaded into our tree, or another tree found on the Internet that member trees and their GEDCOMs quote as evidence. Wikitree needs to protect itself from junk, moreso than it does now.

Here's what Wikitree says:

An Uncertain name or parent may be speculative but it should not be a guess. If you're only guessing at a name or parent you should not use the data fields. Instead, explain it in the narrative. You can link to highly speculative parents in the text.

Junk in Profile Data Fields

How do members fail to get it right? Often, they rely on a source that is in another ancestral tree, without going there to see if a certain or uncertain source is quoted. They assume the unverified tree is a valid source. Wikitree's rules are fairly unequivocal; this is not valid evidence to insert into a profile data field. But here's the rub. What if the referenced tree cites another tree, and it another tree, etc. Circular vacuous references likely result. None of these trees need cite a valid source, yet the weight of the number of trees involved acts to raise the evidence from junk to uncertain status, justifying it to appear in a profile data field. One project manager on Wikitree has argued this way to me. Wikitree needs to come down hard on this practice with specific prohibitions.

Note speculation in profile bio; leave it out of the data fields

The best approach for long chains of source-less family trees, and all other unsourced assertions, is to note speculations in the profile narrative, but never allow them to infiltrate the sacrosanct data fields LNAB, birth date and place. And if uncertain data is placed in the sacrosanct data fields for any claimed necessity, a section of the profile's narrative should keep all viewers apprised of the status of the ongoing research effort (Wikitree rules state such and require one to seek out an adequate source for the speculation and to keep relevant status up-to-date).

Wikitree still has a way to go to fulfill its promise of pushing away fakery. In my opinion, it is not yet discerning enough in its instructions to enable members to handle the fake claims that deluge it; it does not offer enough guidance; it gives too much credence to how often some 'fact' is reported by members; it offers too little support for enforcement as a defense from a public still too eager to clutch conceits, rather than to argue from the historical reality of the currently exposed evidence, or lack thereof. And it ignores the possibility of PPPs becoming quality centers, empowered to keep data in data fields real.

Smoke fills the air when JUNK in data fields is challenged

Speculators abound on Wikitree. We all do it, play what-if games, pencil in some connections temporarily. Rarely do we really take ourselves seriously, in my experience.

Yet, once in a while, we need to put on high boots and cue violins, when people clutch their conceits too tightly. Following are excuses, shoveled in my direction, when questioning profile data field credentials. Don't snark on me as a purveyor of conspiracy theories. I have heard all these, not so surprisingly from the same project leader.

We Don't Have To Change Anything Unless You Can Prove Us Wrong

That's obviously the kind of defensive double talk used by profile squatters: I assert something without evidence; if you want to rebut, you must assert something different, with evidence. In my opinion, the appropriate rebuttal to an unsourced assertion is UNKNOWN, followed by DISCONNECT. This rebuttal is proven by showing that no evidence has been provided for the original assertion, meaning the original assertion is a mere guess.

Majority Opinion Must Rule

The asserted speculation is the majority opinion of the genealogical community writ large. I'm told one project here measures such popularity by the number of family trees at Ancestry that parrot the unevidenced claims. Wikitree should never become a popularity contest (although sampling opinions of members is sometimes useful to resolve contention).

Too Much Work To Undo

So much genealogy is based on the assertion that it would be a tactical problem to change it. Yes, we all gain extra chores at Wikitree, performing housekeeping duty. Does that really justify neglecting the prime imperatives from which we all work?

More Useful To Post Wrong Links Than No Links

It is better (more useful to further research), at each generation, to have wrong (unsourced) ancestors linked, than to assert no ancestor. NO! Fake news is EVIL and serves no good purpose. Sometimes no news is all one can factually report. Slow news days are a fact of life. Never invent news to give your readers their full measure of expected news value.

We Are Special Case Needing Very Special Care

From a project dealing in 17th century data: Project's part of the tree is too sensitive to survive pruning. Only we understand it, so only we are trusted. We will take care of it ourselves, all in good time. Yes, it is true that many family trees merge in these distant times of the 17th century, burying a site such as Wikitree in duplicate and often conflicting profiles. Keeping it all sorted takes heroic efforts. But that should not excuse leaving unsourced data in data fields. On the contrary, it would seem essential to keep unsourced information from propagating, by removing it at every opportunity. And I do not see other projects, which manage 17th century profiles, making the same excuses.

A Name Change Must Have Occurred

The father must have been here that early. Obviously, he was using a different name. OK, what name would that be? And all existing evidence says he wasn't even born yet. Stop with the piled on suppositions. Let lex parsimoniae carry the day.

The EVIDENCE We Need is Just Around The Next Bend

Why change things now if we are just a document translation away from the evidence we want to find? OK, but be specific about the document(s) at issue, and how they relate to the assertions; then offer a time limit on how long the wrong information must be maintained. There are many native language speakers at Wikitree, undoubtedly some with familiarity with 17th century archaic forms, who might gladly contribute the expertise.

Out of TOOTS. These 'arguments' took my breath right away!

Sources

1. ↑ Personal recollection of SoandSo; aka SoandSo, first hand knowledge (aka 'what some so-and-so told me, and she knows her stuff')
2. ↑ This person was created through the import of SoandSo families b.ged on last Tuesday (aka 'what my family tree says, so it's gotta be right')
3. ↑ Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Name: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.; Repository: #R1 NOTEThis information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created blah-blah-blah-blah-blah (aka 'what a whole bunch of so-and-sos and family trees say, or at least used to say when they existed')
4. ↑ Wikitree needs to have prospective members take an on-line quiz on sourcing, where any 'wrong' answer leads to a teaching moment.