Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Genealogy

Genealogy Project‑class

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Ancestry chart layout

(The former headings This is a suggestion, One problem and Query have been merged under this heading.)

This is a suggestion how a table with a graphical chart for a persons ancestors could be made. Theres probably thing or details I didnt think about and would therefore be glad to get som ideas and suggestions from anyone interested in genealogy. Dan Koehl 14:30 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Hi Dan, I'm not particularly interested in genealogy, but I have a practical observation. The table as you proposed it is quite wide and interferes with my quickbar (which I have placed on the right side). Maybe the table could be vertically oriented instead of horizontally? Dhum Dhum 14:36 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Aha, well another variety could of course be to go only three generations back if the table is too wide. Horizontal is, I believe the standard for such tables. Dan Koehl

Dhum Dhum, what browser are you using? The table displays fine for me at any width and regardless of the quickbar position. It should, too, since the table cell widths are relative. For the record, I'm using Mozilla 1.2.1. ---Eloquence

Eloquence, I'm using Internet Explorer 6.0. I have an explorer bar placed on the left (I don't know if that has anything to do with it). The column width is much wider than it should be, I think; eg. the first column is about 3.5 to 4 times wider than the word in it (proband). Do you know anything I could do to solve the problem, because the same thing happens with some other articles (I can't remember which ones though). Dhum Dhum 19:25 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

I'm using IE 6.0 also, and it's a mess. Tables really need to be limited to 7 to 75% in order to fit on the page. I edited it down to 70% and now it fits. -- Zoe

Eyes wide open. Look at the preformatted mess at Medici to get an idea of where we might want to use such a table. --mav

This is not the best way to do it. Thsi assumes that peole only marry 1 person and have 1 child. I supposed the best way to do it is bring in Image Maps to wikipedia and make images of teh family tree.

Y'all may wanna check out Family Tree of the Greek Gods, just to see how somebody else has done so. Tokerboy 20:41 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Not the best tree that, altough i know why they ahev doen it liek taht small fiel size etc. Its nto the easiet to read eitehr. -fonzy

I am sorry:

I was asked (by someone) about the genealogy for the Swedish king Magnus I of Sweden Some sort of graphical chart is the normal way to show this, since its easier to understand.
I asked at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Birger_Jarl if this was OK.
I also asked (at ) asked:"Regarding Magnus I genealogy: I do have it, and will also develop this on the Swedish pages aswell on the english. Is there any standard of how to present genealogy on the english wikipedia?"
I then had this answer: Hi Dan, Regarding Magnus I genealogy, there haven't been a general format for presenting family trees and members. Since each person people has a unique genealogy, you can try adding it as an attribute to Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography that collects all information of a person In the meantime you can derive your own format. kt2 18:49 Dec 8 2002 (UTC)
Which I did.
Like I wrote, this is a table for ancestors. People extremely seldom has more than one father or more than one mother, in fact ususally, they can only have 1 of both, which fits into the table above. Its not a tree, its an ancestry table.
On the page for king Eric_XIV_of_Sweden you can actually see a one generation tree. (But not his ancestors. My idea was to make a subpage showing four generations of ancestors, linked, to their "true" pages. Splendid?
For some odd, strange reason, people who are interested in such families are mostly concearned about their genealogy.
Image maps, as all images, takes more time to download than the text above.
I just did what I was asked for, it took some time, and I suppose it was waisted, if it is judged from a level where the difference between a tree and an ancestry table is not fully clear...
If I broke any rule, regarding what Wikipedia was not set up for, I ask for forgivness, where can I read about what Wikiepdia was not set up for?
I can assure you, that the crazy people enjoying writing about for example the family of Medici is in general also interested in the genealogy...
The word proband might be in an actual case be changed into, for example Magnus I of Sweden, why theres no meaning to make that one more narrow, it probably looks better if the "boxes" are symmetrical.
The words supposed to be written in the boxes are ment to be written horizontal, (like those word) why I think a horizontal table, (as a matter of fact, my screen is also horizontal) is better. A chinese table of ancestors (if its true they write from above and downwards?) would probably fit good into a vertical table. Imagine 8 persons in the 4th generation in a vertical table?
About size, I used percent and not pixels, how can you have a problem see a table which is 100%? Is it because of the fram layout? (Here my knowledge in general "puter-question" is too limited, maybe someone else can explain it?)
Give it some time, and think if its really so bad. It was just something I was asked for, I didnt mean to breake any rules!

Dan Koehl 21:49 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Hi, Dan, I think one problem is that tables are so hard to construct, and there's no way to link graphics (like the one I just uploaded to the page) to pages. And most people wouldn't understand an "Ahnenreihe", which could easily be linked (like this):

1 Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
2 George VI of the United Kingdom. 
3 Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon. 
4 George V of the United Kingdom. 
5 Mary of Teck. 
6 Claude George Bowes-Lyon. 
7 Nina Cecelia Cavendish-Bentinck
8 Edward VII of the United Kingdom. 
9 Alexandra of Denmark. 
10 Francis of Teck
11 Mary Adelaide of Cambridge. 
12 Claude Bowes-Lyon. 
13 Frances Dora Smith. 
14 Charles William Cavendish-Bentinck. 
15 Caroline Louisa Burnaby

I also suspect that people in general feel that 4 generations of anyone's ancestors would be 'genealogical overload', because most of these people wouldn't merit encyclopedia articles on their own.

Oddly enough, you CAN read about Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not <G>. I think the best solution may be an "ad hoc" graphic showing specific ancestors only where such a link is of interest (for example, the various monarchs descended from Queen Victoria), the problem being that you can't use it to "link" to a page.

Also, don't think you have anything to apologize about! You're being collaborative and contributing to the Wikipedia, which is a distinction of late! -- Someone else 00:05 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, I really felt strange for a while, putting work and time, since I was asked on this projekt, and after this getting reprimands.

The ancestry pic looks nice, no doubt. Apart from that you need some work in a graphical program, and some way to solve the imagemapping (is is possible here) so each person is "clickable" I see no disadvantages. Except the width, since some persons had problems with the screens size.

Since you are interested in the topic, dont you think its a shame not to use the possibilities here? Its like inventing a wheel, and dragging home your food on it, turned flat, used a sledge...

But I dont know. Kings and queens for me are merely genealogical material, since that was the attribute of their kind. Not describing their genealogy is for me logical if you also complain when someone mention the intruments on a page of musician, the books from a writer, and the horses from a rider. I just saw the possibility to add such a page, nad I suppose u agree with me, othervise u wouldnt had pasted that ancetry of Gustav Vasa.

I tried to start bringing order to the confused things written about Swedish kings here, and now understand how much more easy it is not to clear things out since this is for most people much more difficult to withtsand than being confused. It better if theres errors on a page than really absolute explanations?

But I have the feeling that Someone else could explain what I failed. I am now trying to get enlightened why genealogy is so stupid when people are describing dynasties...

Its like the fil of Amadeus, where the ruler looks sharply on the artist and says, maybe theres too many tunes? Haha, Cherioh, Dan Koehl 00:29 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

Dan, I don't think it were reprimands, it's just that things are a bit rougher here in the English part of the 'pedia. In the German Wp people often make comments starting like "It's a nice idea, but ...", or "Maybe it would be better if ...". People also try to be constructive here, but in a straighter way :-) --Kurt Jansson 07:14 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

I agree with Kurt. I too have needed some time to get used to the way English Wikipedia users "address" one another. (That's why I didn't have a user page in the beginning; I just read and contributed anonymously). Sometimes it's downright rude and uncalled for, but that was not really the case here, was it? Now about your idea. Like I said above, geneology is not a subject I'm particularly interested in. However, I do think it deserves a place in Wikipedia. I'm sure you have valid reasons to think so too. So, defend yourself, and explain why you think it's a good idea. Critisism comes in two forms: positive and negative. The positive is nice, but the negative forces you to think, and hopefully come up with something even better. I'm convinced that your idea is a good one. It just needs some tinkering to make it better and usable in Wikipedia. Dhum Dhum 07:46 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

I suppose you are both right. The thing was, I was so naive that I waited more technical critic, like changes of the concept, but not a redlight for the idea, this took the breath out of me since I had been asked to do something, and I started to wonder what the use of a page for monarchs was, if they were not supposed to be connected. The whole idea with the wiki? This seems more to be Wicked? If every king in the monarchy list had a bypage showing the ancestors, less errors would be made. I am still convinced that this is a good idea, but its sort of difficult to fight for it, when its said that theres no need. And meanwhile the genealogy on some pages are wrong. Sorry i cant defend me more I think.. But thanks again :) Dan Koehl 09:15 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

I do like the idea of family trees being added showing the connections to ppl i just think image m,aps would be nicer and you would have more info. I know image maps are not yet implemeted. But they wold help the periodic tabke project (already discussed, also maps of the world etc. -fonzy

As for the technical implementation, I would love Wikipedia to eventually get a <tree> tag or something like that, which would generate graphical trees with image maps on the fly, but right now we have to work with HTML tables as it's the only thing we have.--Eloquence

Hmm, seems theres some hope for constructive discussion. Just so settle one thing, so we all know what we are refering to, theres a big difference between a descendant tree, and an ancestry table. Please see http://www.koehl.nu/koehlk/sida0/h______1.htm for a normal Gedcom file converted into HTML page by a programme. For an ancestry table theres no need to vaste Kilobytes on pictures... Dan Koehl

A family tree is far, far more intresting than an ancestry table. For 1 main reason that you can get far more information from it. -fonzy

Well maybe, for me its two ends of a banana, locking a little different. As for history though, the explanation why a king was a king, was not because of his descendants but his ancestors. The invasion of England and the battle of Hastings 1066 is much more logical if you know the ancestors of William the Conqueror or, the invasion of Byzans by "the Turks". (Who in fact was directly descendants to the last emperor) But I agree, descendant can be interesting also. I like bananas in general.

PS Fonzie, I also just want to put to your attention that every person has ancestors, but some doesnt even have any descendants...= No tree. Dan Koehl 02:29 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Daniel de Rauglaudre has made some free software for genealogy (see GeneWeb), but it's written in some obscure programming language called Objective Caml, so I don't know who'd be able to understand it! But I think it would be nice if we could nick his family-tree-generating code and somehow build it into the Wikipedia. Or maybe not, since Wikipedia is not a genealogical database... Hmm... Sould we start up a new wiki genealogical database, called GeneWiki, or something? ;) -- Oliver P. 22:16 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

Looking back on this page again made me reflect about the confusion of ancestry chart and descendant tree again. One way to avoid this confusion would be to show them. The topic and question whether genalogies should be exhibited on Wikipedia is a little bit weird, becuase they already are, but in a way which might be more difficult for "non-genealogists" to understand. Most of the royal families are covered by the wikipedia, because of what they were famous for. Ancestry charts would explain why and how they were famous.

Since I´m also into biology I use the standard tables for animal species, showing their systematics. This is just the same thing. SameSameButDifferent! Dan Koehl 02:29 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not finding a guide for presenting family trees anywhere, and I'm wondering if there's been any discussion on the topic, or just suggestions if there haven't. In particular, I've been adding names to Family tree of Genghis Khan (which should probably be renamed), and it looks rather hideous. Hopefully someone can help out. siafu 19:27, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This project's purpose

(The former headings Purpose of this, genealogy pages are useful and GeneWiki have been merged under this heading.)

What is the purpose of this--are we actually going to have the genealogy of, well, everyone? Wikipedia isn't set up for that. Or is this only for famous people? If so, shouldn't we get clear first on whether there really is a need for genealogical tables like this for famous people? Just trying to put first things first, Larry Sanger

Hi Dan, i definitely think genealogy pages are useful in cases of famous dynasties. As for "non-famous" people being listed in such a table, well, we have extensive articles about characters of the animated series The Powerpuff Girls, so I see no reason not to include this data. The key criterion for everything we put into Wikipedia should IMHO be whether it is verifiable information. If someone puts their own familiy history into Wikipedia, this is not acceptable content because it is not verifiable to a reasonable extent. This was clearly Larry's main concern above -- Wikipedians can get a little carried away at times.--Eloquence

I have just posted a variation of the ancestor chart. Having read all of the above, I occupy the middle ground. I agree that Wikipedia is not the forum for the genealogy of the "great unwashed". Ancestor charts, in whatever format, and descendant trees, like the Greek Gods, are all part of a larger study of genealogy. They are needed for the kings and queens and such, and worked examples of some occasional mere mortal helps explain the process.

Where Wikipedia can be of real assistence is to explain WHY one engages in genealogy, HOW one goes about collecting and storing the data and WHAT it should all look like in the end. Lists of online genealogical resources will most likely be added in the future. I should add that I AM one of the people interested in this field, and will probably contribute in the future. - Gaz 11:50 4 Mar 2003 UTC

I think there is a widespread view among Wikipedians that an encyclopedia is not about building a database for personal genealogies. There are already plenty of sites on the net for that. On Wikipedia genealogy is most useful for understanding the relationships of various royal families, and some other famous families. The genealogy project is a tool rather than an end in itself.

I understand your concerns, and attitudes in the genealogical community are very much divided on this to the point where people at the other end of the scale consider your views as paranoid. They sometimes see giving this information as the only way of correctly tracing families. However, irrelevance will be a stronger argument against having this data on Wikipedia than fear. ☮ Eclecticology 19:28 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

This project appears to have stagnated sometime between 2006 and now. I can't promise any results, but I'm willing to take over this project and lead it as much as my time will permit. Here are the issues that seem to need immediate attention:

1. Should this project continue?

a. If it continues, should it continue in its current form, or should it become a task force or work group under WikiProject Biography?

I. If it continues in its present form, should task forces/work groups be formed?

1. If task forces/work groups should be formed, what they should be?

2. The original goals should be re-evaluated.

3. The genealogical data presentation standard should be re-evaluated.

I invite all genealogy-minded Wikipedians to chime in here. (Please preserve the talk page formatting that I put in place here in order to keep the page easily readable! Thanks!) -JohnAlbertRigali (talk) 07:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm commenting in reply to John's invitation to do so, and I hope others will, too. First, my bona fides: I'm a semi-professional genealogist and have been since the late 1960s. I spent 30 years on the staff of the Dallas Public Library, 2/3 of of that in the History Division, including the Genealogy Section (which is one of the largest of any public library in the U.S.), and also as Head Archivist for the library. Since retirement 10 years ago (and moving to south Louisiana), I've been the editor of the Louisiana Genealogical Register, the quarterly publication of the Louisiana Genealogical & Historical Society. I used to be one of the Asst. Sysops on Dick Eastman's Roots Forum on CIS, back in the pre-browser days. My wife and I teach classes most years through the LSU adult program and have done many seminars, etc. (In fact, we met by virtue of the fact that we were both in the original group convened by Bob Velke in a back room at CompuServe to design a new family research software project, which became The Master Genealogist.) All of which is to say that I'm not only a researcher in family history, I'm sort of a meta-genealogist with long experience and deep interest in research methods & standards, public education in this field, and useful forms of presentation of data.

Okay.

I poked around in Project Genealogy when I first arrived here some years ago, but the emphasis seemed then to be on royal and peerage families -- which is how many outsiders probably would define "genealogy" in the first place. I have no problem with that focus as such, and I have a long-standing personal interest in peerage families myself. (See [1])

But Wikipedia does not seem like the sort of place to house everyone else's "common" family histories and lineages. Therefore, there needs to be at least a semi-separate venue for all those of us who lack titles. Note that there already are sites like Ancestry's One World Tree -- which is huge and is also in many ways a dumping ground for heavily reiterated bad research. Ancestry has recently begun to impose standards on what gets uploaded, but they have a very long way to go with that.

A wiki-type project has both advantages and disadvantages -- most of them common to any wiki, so I won't repeat them here. But the very thing that distinguishes a wiki -- general access to everything and the ability to edit/change anything -- is also the greatest danger to serious genealogy. It leads to lack of standards, the uploading of family fairy tales as if they were actual fact, the copying of unverified third-hand information from self-published family histories, etc. How would this project enforce standards of research?

Not to sound pompous, but my personal "Smith" database includes ~6,000 individuals, including a great many collateral family members, earlier families of 2nd spouses, and everyone else of interest in my personal research. And every single one of them is documented in every statement I make about them. (Though, admittedly, I have two "sources" called "Inference" and "Wild-ass guess.") Then I go to Ancestry or Geni and see brags like "I've only been doing this for six months and already I have 100,000 ancestors!" We all know what the quality of most of that stuff is, don't we?

I guess what it comes down to is that I'm not convinced a wiki for the genealogy of everyone in the world is possible -- not in a verifiable form so that it means anything at all. If I can be convinced otherwise, I would very interested in taking part. But I've worked with too many novice genies to have any illusions.

NOTE TO JOHN: Consider breaking this discussion -- which I hope will grow and broaden -- out of its present position in the middle of things and re-establishing it at the bottom of the page. Maybe archive everything 2006 and earlier? --Michael K. Smith (talk) 21:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Identity protection concerns

When I first started wikipedia a month or so ago, the potential for sharing genealogical came into the forefront of my mind. However, while mulling it over, I've become concerned about personal security. Do I really want my name, birthday, and parents and their birthdays on the internet. Such information could fall into the wrong hands. Maybe 20th and 21st century information should be left out of the public access? Help me out here with this concern i've voiced. Have you thought about it too? Kingturtle 08:10 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

Personal genealogy wikis and communities

(The former headings Another place for genealogy, Is this project dead?, Cross-reference?, Great project! and Another Place for Genealogy have been merged under this heading.)

Do there exist now wiki-communities for personal genealogy? Can you point me in such a direction?

I came to Wikipedia and looked up genealogy because that is an interest of mine. The contributions that I have made to my family's history are stored online at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wtd2/index.html (if that doesn't work try it without the "l" on the html.)

That "index page" is an html table that I created to organize my ancestral web pages. The idea behind my researching was first and foremost to collect and post to the Internet the many photos that I had inherited of my parents, grandparents, etc. This rapidly spread because for each person, including my wife and I, a page with an image was created; each such page had links both up to the person's parents, and down to their children. The main assumption is that "family" means parents + children. Single people who die without issue have no lineage! They do get a web page with their picture, but no links to children.

http://www.rootsweb.com/ is the "main page" for the organization that provides the free space for storing these images and the web pages.

I would love to hear discussion about these ideas.

Ancient907

I have encountered the following situation. There is an organization for the descendents of X (a 17-th century person whose name I will supply if requested - not anybody famous) who have a data base of such descendents they claim has over 100,000 names. I haven't tried to verify that. The organization appears to me to be not very computer savvy - but they do have a web page up and running. The problem is that the web page is hard to use and not very informative.

The reason for looking at a Wiki is that each of these 100,000 names should, at least in theory, support a little biographic data. The best way to accumulate the biographic data is a Wiki where descendents can retell family stories.

The situation here is the reverse of an ancestor data base and is, in some ways easier. It is a natural for a hierarchal data base. For example, in file system terms: Suppose the ancestor is Thomas and there are children Thomas, John, Sally and James. The mothers need to mentioned in the supporting text. But they are not descendents. So "Thomas" is a directory and within that directory is a file named, say, "biog" and four sub-directories Thomas\Thomas, Thomas\John, Thomas\Sally and Thomas\James. Each sub-directory has its "biog" file and more sub-sub-directories for children. And so on. Modern operating systems can easily handle 100,00 directories. But one might well want to short out the complete file system and create a virtual one for these files. A design detail.

Within the biog files I would want wiki space for user annotations. But I believe the skeleton, personal names and dates should not be accessable for easy edit by the casual user.

Anybody have such a thing up and running? If so, please post me a reference to it here.

And now, conversely, ancestor data bases. The problem here is people wanting to prepare simple charts. Balderdash. This is the hyperlink age. Consider a person in a genalogical context. Not only does a person have a biog, in the sense I used above, a person has links. There is one links to a father and one to a mother. There is a none-to-many links to "marriages". Each marriage has two links to the persons "married" and none-to-many links to children. And every child has a back link to the "marriage" of their parents. This is NOT going to fit gracefully onto a flat piece of paper.

You trace your ancestors by going back up the child link to the marriage that produced you, then along the two marriage links to your parents, then up the child links to each parent's parent's "marriage" and so on. This is only one way to use the data base and, because each person has exactly two ancestoral parents, ones ancestors can be number neatly with binary number. This is the problem the project started discussing. As before the only part I would expose to the wiki is the biography information.

So what I need is a simple little wiki to embed in a more elaborate data structure. How does such a situation fit in with Wikipedia and the rest of the WikiWorld?

Kleinecke 02/24/05

Genealogy Wiki? I have started building a genealogy database using a wiki, here: http://marchildon.net/genealogie/ Each person has its page, with links to the parents, spouse, and children. Only one of the two parents needs to list the children.

I hope to host more than my own familly's genealogy with help from others, but I don't think I'll be very successful with the wiki as it is. I have written a small parser for extracting the information with the intent of moving this data, eventually, to a web site with a better data entry interface, better navigation, and reporting.

I am currently looking for such a site, which would have to be non-commercial and highly-collaborative. Until then, I'll continue entering data in the wiki I mentionned above, keep reading on genealogy data modeling, and keep thinking of what the web interface should look like.

Also worth mentioning are http://www.wikitree.org and http://rodovid.org, which are both using MediaWiki, and seem to be competing with each other.

--Elecnix 02:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive the question, as I am a newbie, but isn't WikiGenealogy sort of the point of Wikipeople? Buck 13:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I like much the idea to expand to common people the possibility to enter genealogy info and tree of their families. I am learning how to manage the codes to build the trees and i am going to post some family histories soon. I would like to know how to become member of this project, please let me know. Adrian Comollo (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While not for personal genealogy, I just stumbled upon http://wiki.familysearch.org/ which seems to be more concerned with sources of records. Looking through that wiki I see that it looks promising in that it is not a wikipedia type encyclopedia. Also I am not sure why if I where to join my contribution would be under "Creative Commons License" and not "public domain". gioto (talk) 11:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment on Biographies of living people

Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, nearly all wikiproject topics will be effected.

The two opposing positions which have the most support is:

supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect

Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.

Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced article if they are not sourced, so your project may want to pursue the projects below.

Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people

List of cleanup articles for your project

If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here

Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"

If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip

Watchlisting all unreferenced articles

If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip

Ikip 02:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comments on ahnentafel (ancestry) templates: an open and shut case

The template to open ahnentafels (ancestry tables) (Template:ahnentafel top) was changed last May to open all such tables on first viewing with an option to "Hide". The previous situation had been the reverse (a title bar with a link to "Show").

(1) Editors can now change the first appearance of an ahnentafel by adding "|collapsed=yes" to "ahnentafel top" (see Template:Ahnentafel top/doc.)

(2) I'm now taking a survey to see how many editors (or the editors of how many articles) would prefer to keep this situation, and how many would prefer to change the default so that editors who wanted to display a full ahnentafel on first sight would have to add "collapsed=no".

Since over 2,500 articles (some of which would clearly benefit from one option and some from the other) use this template, a large sample of preferences would be very helpful in discussing which default to use.

Please indicate your preferences at Template talk:Ahnentafel top/Requested Comments 1. And let other editors know about this poll. Thanks. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Extensive genealogy in bios

Does any WP policy exist on the inclusion of an entire roster of a person's descendants in a biographic article? For example: is it appropriate that the article on Lennart Bernadotte include all that? Are grandchildren and great-grandchildren, born long after Count Bernadotte's death, the slightest bit relevant to his biography? SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this might be useful in tabular form, but in a spin-off Descendants of Lennart Bernadotte, as in Grandchildren of Victoria and Albert. Or else look at the way that tables within articles handle the offspring of British royalty (grandchildren optional in the right-hand column). I collapsed the Ancestry table, but this article says next to nothing about the man ["Lennart Bernadotte concentrated his energy on his estate, Schloss Mainau in the island of Mainau in Lake Constance, Germany, where he died, and on his charitable fund, the Lennart Bernadotte Stiftung."], only about his ancestry, title, marriages and descendants. The article's really a stub and should be classed as such, so that an editor who knows more or wants to learn more can fill it out. —— Shakescene (talk) 18:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this helpful comment! I assume you saw my entry about this on the talk page there - and I hope you are OK with my moving the whole descendants section to talk for now, since I do not know how to make a table out of it all. I just don't think that much is relevant, and I know some of the titles are incorrect. SergeWoodzing (talk) 23:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a bit more guidance than this. WP:NOT says "Genealogical entries. Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety. One measure of these is whether someone has been featured in several external sources (on or off-line)." Dougweller (talk) 11:49, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hotung

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help me create a family tree of a famous Hong Kong family... There is a well-researched Chinese version of the family tree of Robert Hotung; the English one is but a poor cousin. It would be good to have this made into a tree in the standard format for the Hotung article. It's also highly topical at the moment, because of the drama surrounding Stanley Ho, who is related – having said that, I am sure a family tree of Stanley's branch would also be of great interest to readers. I'm not used to looking at these diagrams, and have no clue how to use the template, so any help you could offer to translate the Chinese version into a en.wiki-standardised format would be fantastic! Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have created a anglicised working version of the Chinese tree here. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:30, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can translate and quote the version from a book published by University of Hong Kong (or CUHK?). The book is on my bookshelf but I may have time on next Tuesday. Matthew_hk t c 08:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page project banner

I just created {{WikiProject Genealogy}} to help organize articles related to this project. Please let me know if you have any questions about it. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 23:54, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DoneGood work, thank you gioto (talk) 00:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Geneanet

I have created Category:Wikipedians who have access to Geneanet. Please add names as appropriate. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:20, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article for deletion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ua Maol Dhómhnaigh (2nd nomination). This came up 3 1/2 years ago and got 2 keep !votes with promises to add sources, but nothing has happened, and I couldn't find sources for Ua Maol Dhómhnaigh in Google books or Google scholar. No one even bothered to clean up the stuff written in the first person, eg " From what I understand they usually have little to do with the arms, but the Moloney's may be a bit of an exception here.". Dougweller (talk) 16:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pratt family and Romney family

Each is substantially unsourced (well _ i deleted some of the unsourced stuff from Romney), or uses a "genealogy site" for the information. I fear the articles are "genealogical research" and not properly sourced, and think the members here likely could find proper reliable sources which actually back up the extensive claims made about family members. I also suggest that the "linkage" of families based on one article attacking a fictional Mormon "doctrine" may run afoul of other policies, and would trust that those here would make the articles conform to the highest standards. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, one reason I have a problem with "online genealogy sources" is that I traced my own, using such online sources, to Muhammad on one side, and to Thor and Minerva on another. I think they might be unreliable as sources. Collect (talk) 13:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources?

Are there any unofficial (i.e. non-governmental) genealogy websites that are considered RS here? Examples: ancestry.com, familytreelegends.com, familysearch.com, etc.. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No (well, . . . ). I'm not familiar with familytreelegends, but both Ancestry and FamilySearch are chimeric sites, consisting of 1) original data, the use of which is excluded by the prohibition against original research; 2) user-submitted information covering the range from well-researched and reliable to novice and credulous, and usually without sufficient documentation to tell which is which; and 3) repackaged material originally published elsewhere (e.g. scanned out-of-copyright family histories). There are personal web sites that are operated by recognized experts, which cite sources and are compiled in a scholarly manner. I would consider such sites to be reliable, but they usually have very limited scope. Those of the type you mention, no. Agricolae (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would you say that the following statement is reasonable: "X was living at 1234 Avenue, Anywhere, US in 1920" and cited to the 1920 census? It's not exactly reasearch, just stating the facts. And similarly so for the other kinds of sources Ancestry.com has (e.g. old city directories, often indicating the person's profession)? -- kosboot (talk) 01:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, such a statement is not legitimate as it is based on primary data. You are just stating a fact, but to harvest that fact from the record you (or someone) had to have done original research, and hence its inclusion is a violation of WP:NOR. It is also a potential violation of WP:WEIGHT - if no journalist or historian writing about the person in question thought that the place they were living in 1920 was worth mentioning, then the Wikipedia article shouldn't mention it either. You need a reliable secondary source that makes such a statement before you put it in the article - our job is to synthesize what has been written about a person in reliable secondary sources, not to generate our own content. Agricolae (talk) 02:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha - thanks. -- kosboot (talk) 02:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Help at talk:William the Conqueror

Hi. William's tangled family connections, including to Harold, would be worth showing as a family tree. If any of you are able to help, please do visit the talk page I linked, above. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 08:24, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Genealogy and Wikipedia Loves Libraries

Hi folks - Genealogy is my hobby although I don't engage with it much on Wikipedia. I am active in my local chapter of Wikimedia (see WP:MEET/NYC and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_New_York_City). I was involved in last fall's Wikipedia Loves Libraries (Wikipedia:The Musical). Since I work at the New York Public Library, I've been wondering if there was some way WP:Genealogy could combine with the many genealogical resouces at NYPL to be involved in this fall's Wikipedia Loves Libraries event. Any thoughts? -- kosboot (talk) 19:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of articles on historic dynasties

Several requests to delete articles entitled "Line of succession to the former throne of X" (e.g. Württemberg, Tuscany, Two Sicilies) have recently been proposed for deletion from Wikipedia by Pat Gallacher. Although Wikipedians from various projects are being notified of these requests for removal, I think those who monitor this page may also appreciate being notified, since each of these articles includes a detailed genealogy which is key to understanding who is in a historic dynasty's line of succession and why. FactStraight (talk) 03:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New to wikipedia, here is my Zambrana or Zambrano Genealogy page

Please i need help getting this information about Zambrana or Zambrano and how they Spread all over the world. My goal is to show the origin and the families that branched out all over the world. Using local history, old records, Then people interested in their heritage can look for they ralatives and see how they got to America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Itzcoatzin/sandbox

Please dont delete any information if you dont like it state why, but dont delete data its hard to get all this info.

Jose Luis Zambrano De Santiago (talk)

Jose Luis Zambrano De Santiago (talk) 22:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion notification

There is currently a rather complicated AfD discussion underway regarding the article progonoplexia. If you are interested in commenting on whether or not the article is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia, please take some time to check it out. dci | TALK 19:40, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of user conduct discussion for Paul Bedson

There is an ongoing user conduct discussion regarding Paul Bedson, which may be of interest to members of this WikiProject, since Paul contributes to many genealogy articles. It can be found here. If you comment there you may wish to review the rules for user conduct comments first. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding scope of wikiproject

Hi.

Can I suggest that we expand the scope of this project? I have a feeling that it should to cover:

The article genealogy.
Biographies of genealogists
Publications of genealogical interest e.g. Burke's Peerage, etc.

Plus, there are

Identification of genealogical information in standard biographies, including:
1. Names of parents
2. Names of the maternal grandfather*
3. Details of marriage (incl. divorce)
4. Details of offspring, incl. their marriages when female*
5. Details of any notable close relatives (e.g. uncles, aunts, etc) alive concurrently with the subject who had a direct relationship with the subject.
Given the caveats that:
1. That the information is published previously (WP:NOR)
2. That the is not an unnecessary invasion of privacy of a living person WP:PRIVACY.

(* I hope project members understand that these are important in the genealogical sense of tracing ancestry. While deploring the fact that for centuries women were treated as possessions, it is far more likely that a man meets the notability requirements than a woman, due to society's past biases at the time). Barney the barney barney (talk) 09:33, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New member introduction - Technical_13

Hello! I'm the newest addition to this project, and would like to help build some templates, write some script/stylesheets, and fix some genealogical articles! The first thing I noticed was that this project doesn't have a WP:Userbox! Whereas I'm also a member of WP:WikiProject Userboxes I've taken the liberty of adding this project to my personal WikiProject userbox.

Code

Result

This user is a member of:
WikiProject Genealogy.

Usage

I'm not going to write much more about me at this point (you can find most anything you want to know about me on my userpage anyways). Happy editing, and I "hope" someone else is here that is interested in this project because although I have had interested in genealogy for a long time, I don't know much about it. Technical 13 (talk) 22:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Li family and various homophonic family names, and various spellings

See Talk:Lì (chinese surname) for a mess regarding various Lee/Li surnames. -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 04:11, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Qin"

See talk:Qin (surname) for two colliding surnames and WP:PDAB issues -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 07:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Li"

See Talk:Li (surname), where a (new) merger discussion has been opened concerning the various Li's -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 10:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The older discussion is still going on at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit") -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 00:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese names

FYI, this may touch on the area of concern of your wikiproject's topic. See Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Inadequacy of current WP:UE guideline with regard to Chinese names -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WeRelate

Participants in this WikiProject may be interested in WeRelate - Meta.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:41, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CannonFamily.gif

image:CannonFamily.gif has beenn ominated for deletion -- 70.24.244.158 (talk) 05:36, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

USGenWeb Project

A little surprising this resource with several hundred reference links hasn't a genealogy publisher article? their about page- Amgine (talk) 17:18, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed restrictions on styles & titles of former royals

A proposal is now pending to !vote to ban use of titles, honorifics and styles historically associated with titled members of no longer reigning families or to require that wherever such titles are mentioned in a Wikipedia bio, article or template that a disclaimer must be attached informing the reader that the title/style is not legal or is a courtesy title only. You may read opinions and express your views here. FactStraight (talk) 22:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Genus/Genera and genealogy v biology in categories

Hello, WikiProject Genealogy. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biology#Genus_and_genera_categorization_and_category_disambiguation.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

FYI, a discussion on naming and disambiguating categories that use the terms "genus" and "genera" is under way, related to the biology and genealogy senses. For the discussion, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biology#Genus_and_genera_categorization_and_category_disambiguation -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 05:39, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology § Genus and genera categorization and category disambiguation

Leaflet for Wikiproject Genealogy at Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 12:46, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

meta:Wikimedia genealogy project

There has been a request for comments over at Meta-Wiki regarding a Wikimedia genealogy project. You are invited to come participate in the discussion. Thanks for your consideration! --Another Believer _(Talk) 20:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you have not yet supported Wikimedia genealogy project with your vote, please do so here Dan Koehl (talk) 16:49, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, even if you do not support the concept of WMF hosting a genealogy project, or just want to discuss concerns and help move the discussion forward, please contribute. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 17:31, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns about family trees within certain articles

I didn't go through the years of talk topics on this page, so forgive me if I'm asking about something already discussed previously.

I have serious concerns about the placement of family trees into articles where there is no royalty, no extensive genealogical history that includes notable individuals. As well, putting a family tree into an article when the tree isn't actually that of the article subject, but of the spouse of the article subject. for example, this article (Eugene W. Chafin and this tree ([2]). The tree isn't that of the article subject but of his wife. Further, it makes no sense to me to have a family tree included as content when there is barely a branch represented and the tree contents could easily be put into prose within the article. I am reminded of this statement found at this project's article page: "...Wikipedia is not and never was intended as a genealogical tool...". Indeed, Wikipedia is not Ancestry.com. Helpful insight with the goals and policies of Wikipedia kept in mind would be appreciated. Thanks, -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 17:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If the article is about the person a full family tree should not be include, but a link to the family tree or an article about that family is on it's place. Now info on wikipedia article is used as source for the websites that are pure family trees, but the info in wikipedia based on persons and it is very hard to keep one line in all the articles of all the members of that family. I guess wikipedia has a very good name as source. Carsrac (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Clan Irving

Do you all think this should be approved and moved to the main article space? I'm a little wary of articles about clans/castes/etc. because they tend to be filled with original research and dubious sources. Any guidance appreciated. Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:27, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Help with Tom Hiddleston

An editor describing themselves as a PR rep for Hiddleston made a edit request to remove the statement "Through his mother, he is a great-grandson of Flag Officer Reginald Servaes, and a great-great-grandson of food producer Sir Edmund Vestey", saying it was false and the source used was not reliable. Currently, this is merely cited to Harper's Bazaar. This site supports this genealogy and purportedly uses Burke's Peerage as its own source. I tried using Burke's search function but the previews are a bit too limited. I was wondering if someone here had access to Burke's Peerage and could verify these statements. Thanks, Cannolis (talk) 22:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]