[Foundation-l] Rodovid.org, family tree wiki, wishes to become a wiki project

Fri Mar 24 02:22:57 UTC 2006

Patrick, Brad wrote:

>I would really hope that the people who look into this don't ever
>automate such a process.  One of the most compelling problems for even
>life long genealogists, much less newbies, is taking a fork in the road
>without knowing they missed the real turn a ways back.  Proof, sourcing,
>etc. of a common ancestor, much less linking two extended genealogies
>and really "advancing" a family history, should be worked out wiki-style
>on a talk page of each ancestor before there is a "merge"; such an
>instance may seem simple in the case of same birthdate, wives, children,
>etc., but genealogy is a field where things are very often not as they
>appear.
>
>I applaud the effort to move this forward; my critique is certainly
>meant as constructive.  The fundamental point of migration to such
>systems is that quality is the only credential making the system worth
>using.  If people upload a database of 1,000 unsourced ancestors, and
>expect a program to automatically match them to what already exists, it
>will be a failure.
>
Absolutely.  Some genealogists are nothing more than name collectors who 
are happy to find 20,000 relatives even if the research is very sloppy.  
In many families names are frequently recycled.  A father has two sons 
with different names but they both in turn have sons born the same year 
whom they name after the grandfather.  This is not as bad as a famous 
boxer who named all his sons George, but there's still ample opportunity 
for confusion..

Ec