Curator Actions on 'our' tree, Unilaterally attached to big tree.

Scott, Jennifer Archibald is ill and has not been at her computer for a while, so she cannot respond at the moment. I'll refer you to Noah Tutak's recent announcement on 29 October 2010 of Geni's decision that enabled what you have described to happen: http://www.geni.com/blog/building-the-big-tree/. As a curator myself, I ask you to please not take offense with an individual curator who is carrying out Geni's policies.

Daniel, when and how did you learn about this merge with the Big Tree?

While I cannot speak for or defend the actions of any of the other Curators, I do get concerned when I hear that someone feels their tree is in worse shape after a Curator has touched it than before.

From your note, you appear to have previously resigned to the fact that you would eventually become a part of the Big Tree eventually, but you just got their sooner (and in a less orderly way) then you had planned. That being the case, my recommendation would be to tell us where to find the areas that now appear to be messed up, and what it is supposed to look like. All of the Curators I know were nominated for their ability and committment to FIX things, not break things. So I can safely say that most of them are eager to repair precicely the types of problems that you are reporting. I also will personally will help in any way that I can.

Scott, just checking - you are referring to [Hon. S.G.W. Archibald], right? (Your @ did not work for me, so I want to check).

And the other profile in question is [Sir Thomas Archibald], which is the same person as [Thomas Dickson Archibald]?

I don't know anything more about this, just want to make sure I'm looking at the right profiles.

Harald, thank you for your involvement.

I am the manager of Sir Thomas Archibald which the curator Jennifer Dongvillo Archibald proposed to merge the other Thomas Dickson Archibald

I rejected the merge because basic information in the merging profile was in error. Not knowing what information would be favored in the merge, I sent a message to the Curator Archibald offering to confer on details, but received no reply. Instead an essentially duplicate profile was created by Curator Archibald. This strikes me as counter-productive to the Curator mission.

Curator Archibald and I have access to the same sources, but the ancestor in question is in my line of descent, but many times removed from her family's.

I also added the "Hon. S. G. W. Archibald" you referred to, also in our line of descent. Any help you can give to prevent spurious intrusions into profiles of minor personalities by empowered Curators would be appreciated.

David,

Thanks. My brother told me a curator had merged one of his profiles and when I looked I found that we were also now part of the big tree.

That was a week or so ago and just days after her merge.

I would not say I was resigned to being part of the big tree. I was aware of the big tree because I took the time to read how Geni worked. But, I did not think I could be attached to the tree unilaterally.

I knew a universal tree was a goal of Geni and thought we would join when we found a reasonably suitable tree with which to merge.

I want to segregate my concern from some inflamed threads I have read on the subject.

My head is not exploding.

However, from the wiki on curators I took away that our family tree would not be dragged into the big tree by invisible force and that curator's primary goal was to fix problems on the big tree not to attack 'private' trees.

I posted on discussions to get perspective. I respect what curators are supposed to do and wonder if this type of action is part of unspoken intent or an example of coloring outside of the lines.

Pam,

I am sorry to hear that she is ill. However, she has been on-line almost every day and according to Geni is on-line now.

I don't have any qualm about her role as curator. I am sure she came by the designation via notice of her good work on the big tree. I am not sure her actions with regard to 'our' tree are consistent with her mission but I am not going to go berserk over it.

I read Noah's post about building the big tree. I understand that one big tree is the big goal of Geni and taht they can do whatever they want. It is their toy. But, no one coming to the home page of Geni would know that. They are told their tree will be private and secure. They are asked to get started by just putting in their mother and father. The only way anyone finds out about the big tree is by either digging or being attached to it.

Once they are attached to it, all of a sudden they cannot show their kids who GGGGrandmother is because there are dozens of lines going everywhere and her nickname is not 'MeMaw' anymore. (you know what I mean)

I do not take offense. I am just asking if this is the expected behavior of curators. Is this what you would do? Would you merge a profile entered by a very distant cousin in their own tree, still segregated from the big tree, without notice, without correspondence?

Harald,

Thanks-you for your interest. My brother has responded but I will add some detail and yes you are looking at the correct profiles.

He has been to Nova Scotia and done his own research on the Archibalds. Our great grandmother, alive in our (my) childhood, was an Archibald. The pictures he posted were procured from a museum in NS by Stewart.

One of the sources to which he refers is a recently published book, 'The Archibald Family of Nova Scotia' by Allan Marble. We are being careful not to trammel on Allan's copyrights.

Her new Profile of Thomas Dickson Archibald contains the same picture that Stewart brought back from NS and posted to his profile. Previously, she did not have a picture for her profile of Thomas Archibald. Not sure how that worked so I deleted Stewart's picture from the profile he managed to see if it would effect her profile. It does not.

I will put the question to you. Do her actions, at least how I have described them, seem consistent with your understanding of what curators should do?

Let me slice it another way. Previously, I do not remember any serious duplications of our profiles of Archibalds. I use my pro subscription to look for good family lines that intersect and there weren't any. She appears to have very recently been putting in her husband's family, perhaps from Marble's book, when she ran over our profile and then just merged it.

That cannot be a goal of curators.

Wow, overnight someone disconnected us at the Archibald joint.

Thank-you.

However, while we were in the big tree for a few days we were fair game and another curator, Daniel Walton, merged one of our other branches.

I manage my 4GGM Frances Moore (Taylor) circa 1763 and her mother Anne Taylor (Lewis) b. 1733. Moore is private but I cannot make Taylor private. Walton merged my profile of Taylor's father Charles 'Of the Byrd' Lewis, Sr.' with his master and now we are attached to the big tree there and many duplicates. The Lewis line is related to George Washington so there is plenty of interest and lots of differing profiles.

I had looked through many and considered offering a merge to one family that seemed to have a good tree but then it became part of the big tree and I backed off.

This morning I sent a message to Daniel explaining my situation and asking him to consider cutting us off.

Another question regarding media.

How are media files secured? If we post a picture or document and link it to a public profile, can anyone come along and take a copy of the file?

I am asking because I have posted several document scans that I bought from the Scottish Archive. The copyright allows me private distribution but not public.

Daniel, the "Big Tree" shows that you and I are connected. Take a look at the following path between us. Do you see a connection point that you didn't know you previously had?

Me
→
my mother
→
her mother
→
her father
→
Walter Henry Morrill
his father
→
Henry Codman Morrill
his father
→
Joseph Morrill
his father
→
Abigail Morrill (Knight)
his mother
→
Sarah Knight (Merrill)
her mother
→
Thomas Merrill
her father
→
Abigail Merrill (Stevens)
his mother
→
Thomas Stevens
her father
→
John (CAPT.) III Stevens, II
his father
→
Alice Stevens (Atkins)
his mother
→
Xptian
her mother
→
Thomas Chase
his/her father
→
Elizabeth Chase (Bould)
his mother
→
Margaret Boleyn Butler
her mother
→
Margaret Sackville (Boleyn)
her daughter
→
Anne Ann Lewis (SACKVILLE)
her daughter
→
Robert Lewis
her son
→
Robert Lewis
his son
→
Major John of Chemokins Lewis, III
his son
→
John "Councillor" Lewis, IV
his son
→
Charles "Of the Byrd" Lewis, Sr.
his son
→
Anne Taylor (Lewis)
his daughter
→
F. Moore
her daughter
→
A. Dale
her daughter
→
A. Robertson
her daughter
→
E. Robertson
her son
→
A. Robertson
his son
→
E. Robertson
his son
→
D. Robertson
his son

David,

What I 'know' comes from the book 'A Crane's Foot' by E. Stuart Gregg, jr. published in 1975. Gregg is a distant cousin and our families all contributed to his research.

It says that the father of Major John Lewis was Robert Lewis from Brecon, Wales sailing to VA in 1635. He also discusses some disagreement about the provenance of the first Lewis in VA citing an article by Dr. M. H. Harris in vol 56 of the Virginia Historical Magazine.

The link above is interesting and I get that is the big value of a big tree.

But, is it correct? The linkage goes through two 'Robert Lewis' posted in 2007 without additional support. His son, Major John Lewis has several profiles on Geni with differing fathers, etc.

So, while it is interesting, while it is fun, it is also confusing. As a pro user I wanted to use the ubiquity of the internet and Geni's very powerful software offering to connect our disparate branches of the family, recruit them to share their records and media, and then download a GEDCOM file as an archive for our own future generations.

I don't know if I can do that now.

What is kind of ironic is that the power of Geni and the reach of the internet has actually driven me back to the several books published about our family. In the end, that is what I have to believe that I know.

Well that's part of the reason I wanted you to see the path between us. Let's fix the errors. I know my way around the Geni software and have a few extra Curator tools at my disposal to make fixing things a bit easier. I personally haven't researched the Robert Lewis', so I am extremely interested in checking out the sources that you cite. Meanwhile, it seems pretty clear to me that you have done your homework, so just let me know when you encounter parts of the Geni database that are questionable. I am confident that everything in there is fixable.

David,

Thanks for your interest and constructive comments.

There is a curator, daniel walton, that has created a master profile for Colonel John 'Councillor' Lewis. It has 50 managers and there are several others that seem busy merging the numerous profiles at and above John.

I don't know that I can help that effort. He expects to have it cleaned up in a month or so. I referred him to the Gregg book.

A very interesting side effect of all of the work that is being done in the tree (including by me, around the two Robert Lewis's), the connection path between you and I has been evolving.

Take a look at it now:
http://www.geni.com/path/David+Kaleita+is+related+to+Daniel+Scott+R...

Excellent. You have switched from the Lewis line to the Warner line and can now claim kinship with George Washington.