The point of adding "Unknown"s

Shmuel, first please do not misunderstand the point of this project. I am not asking people to delete or get rid of "unknown" profiles. There needs to be a conscious effort while doing this. The goal for this project are to clean up those "unknowns" that we can.

I agree there are times when adding an "unknown" is necessary. I myself have done this, but I have now gone through the 20 somewhat unknowns that I managed and with little effort have added names or information to all but 7 "unknown" profiles. Unfortunately, the remaining 7 will be very difficult to address, and will likley remain, "unknown".....but I will not give up on them.

I have also been able to add additional information or names to some profiles that I am linked to as well. In this effort, I would hope that we (all of the Geni.com users) can work together to find information on as many "unknowns" as possible.

The "unknowns" that are a real bother to me are those at the top of a tree that have no information what so ever. We already know that these profiles are unknow - no need to add these.

This is common practice in the Genealogy circle to add unknows. I am not condoning this practice. However, in my observation on Geni.com there are many instances where adding Unknown profiles is not necessary - or with a little effort, more information can be added.

I hope that we can count on your to help out as you can.

Thanks!

jOel
Geni user

Joel,
of course you can rely on my help. Pop me a message when ever you need some. I understood that that was the point of the project and commend you for it. I probably wasn't precise enough in that regard. Perhaps the project definition also wasn't clear enough.

I just ALSO wanted to make it clear that there is a FUNCTIONAL need for many of these. I constantly have people deleting some of mine, because they rightly often don't understand the purpose and VALUE that these never-going-to-be-known place-holders serve.

I have also had some of mine deleted, because the Unknown became known, and I think that's great.

Thanks Shmuel! Working together is key!

I will add a note in the project that 'At your discretion, please delete only those unknown profiles you manage solely. If the unknown profile is shared with other managers, then please contact that manger(s) to discuss further action. Only unknown profiles that serve no purpose are the only ones that should be considered for deletion."

What do you think about this addition?

An unknown wife/husband is a genealogical fact and if you are working with merges you cannot do it without them,

They saves you for a lot of work.

Even if they are named Unknown (I use ?? because it is more international) there might be fact attached to the profile (like a source telling that the mother was unknown or some indication on where she was from)

An unknown wife problem can often be helped by adding her husbands name in the last name box. At lest it is a start.

Well, that is history falsification by fabricating facts like an indication that they were married and that she used his last name.

Bjorn, I have seen profiles for unknown showing husbands. How is giving her her husbands last name fabricating facts. I understand that in some areas, the wife does not assume the husbands name but on Geni, it might help find the correct matches without going through 500 so called matches. I have had profiles that showed possible matches as soon as I gave the unknown wife a married name. The matches were all good.

Bjorn, When you use unknown or ?? the profile should use some other identifier such as 1 son of (name) 2 son of name. then they should not get merged

Well, that is a fact as well you can add to the profile. Just don't add facts that you don't know, like a married name which is mostly a US tradition.

If you know the fact that a man had two unknown mothers to his child's you can add that as a fact to the profile to avoid them getting merged. In any case having an empty slot would only result that people would make the real siblings.
In this example I even added the mother fact as a suffix after several "corrections" done by people not familiar with the line and reading the info in the About Me: ?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother).

In the spouse profile's father I had to add a number on the two wifes named Ragnhild because people constantly merged them together even if the last name was different.

Today the profiles is locked so I might remove the numbers. I really dislike locking profiles, but if you look for disconnections in the tree revisions in this area you understand why.

I think the part that gets to me is the argument that placing "(Unknown)" at the top of the tree is unnecessary. Where there has been undocumented (mythical) information added to a documented top of tree person in the past, placing an Unknown as a parent helps to prevent such myths and maintain the fact that their parents are in fact unknown. Otherwise you end up with a lot of fictitious (garbage) lineages extending into the mists of time.

As an example, I specifically and unapologetically added such unknowns at the top of the Ostrogoth/Goth lineage to prevent such fictitious lineages being added to Gapt, the first Amal with any sort of documentation ( http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000009460913505 ). Gapt's unknown parents are MPs in order to prevent future merges from adding fictitious or unproven lineages as parents to Gapt. If I need to (because of the persistence of a hypothetical mythical line promoter, etc.), I will lock these MPs as Unknowns in order to prevent such mythical lineages (and I am do not lock profiles lightly - I'm hoping that will never be necessary).

Other than that, if there are placeholders for which documentation can be found, I'm all for replacing those, and would fully support that goal of your project. I would advise, though, to avoid blanket statements against the need for caps on the tops of trees where mythical lineages are frequently added to the tree. There can be a strong need for those Unknowns.

As a curator, I lock earliest known ancestors and add a curator note reading, "parentage known". It seems a lot less messy than adding two unknowns.

Well I go up one so I can cut off at the bad parents. I may try it your way Victar. They keep trying to give Mayflower royalty!

The goal is the same: to prevent the fictional from occurring.

When I look at documentation you get last names with unknown first names and so on. "The widow Samuels whose first name is not known" etc.

Not really seeing where it's messy to add two unknowns...

I just thnk about where it's to break it off from Thomas the Martyr for you (which Jenna did ... again ...)

I know what Victar means. Line begins here. Locked. No more. And probably better for merges that way too. It makes sense. Top of tree gets a fade haircut. :) :)

Haha.

It's 2019 and this discussion continues!

The following description doesn't seem right:
?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother)

Common Ways of indicating Unknown profile given and surnames

NN Common user abbreviation for No Name
Blank
Empty
Missing
Not Known
NoName
Placeholder
Temporary
Desconocida also Desondocido Spanish for Unknown
Inconnu also Inconnue French for Unknown
Sconosciuto also Sconosciuta Italian for Unknown
unbekannt German for Unknown
okänd Sweedish for Unknown
onbekend Dutch for Unknown
tundmatu also teadmata also pole+teada Estonian for Unknown"
tuntematon also ei+tietoa Finnish for Unknown"

M.Foss, two curators Erica Howton and Bjørn P.Brox, among other people have tried to explain you this already in the other conversation that you opened about this ancestor: https://www.geni.com/discussions/198093?msg=130668

That ancestors profile has been added 2008. You can be sure it has been checked out thousands of times. And there is no name to be forced on her.

It is hard to understand why to open many old conversations for nothing. Geni is for building bigger world tree and there has been amazing job done mainly by checking sources or building recent trees. I recommend that you concentrate to building your own trees basics, both parents, their parents and so on..that is how you can also contribute to other geni users, and there might be new info found, who knows. That is what we all do here. Have a great summer.

Saga,

Help me understand the objection to standardizing naming conventions? I ask only that naming conventions are applied consistently on Geni.com. They are not. Also, I was pointing out that N.N. is acceptable and the most common form; however, Geni.com allows for two methods.

The options, according to Geni.com best practices are:
N.N.
??

The best practice is not to have four question marks with a space in between as done with a 29th grandmother.
https://www.geni.com/people/Ingebjørg-s-mother/6000000010442614110

Much ado about nothing!
(Quoting my 12th cousin, 11 times removed)

private

There is “not” a difference between

?
??
?? ??
[-?-]

Bjørn chose what worked best in this scenario.

Enough.

Fine, however others have critiqued the naming convention since 2010. It will pop up again I'm sure.

But not from you, as it’s been asked and answered five times.

The "consensus building" is rather stringent and militant, yet subjective ~ I've come to accept that, Erica.

The curators have decided, heals into the ground:
?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother)

End of discussion. You may close the thread.