April is for About Cleanup!

I finished these two today:

William Beals, III

John Cope, Sr. (I)

Richard Otis

Sorry, My previous post included Richard Otis as being done, this was a mistake on my part. Richard Otis's "about me" section was not edited by me. Instead he has been edited by several people and is looking pretty good but it would be well if someone who had more knowledge of his family finished refining his "about me" section and removed him from the project. Do I have any volunteers?

--Randy

I'm currently working on Rowland Stebbins of Springfield

Although not a direct relative, the surname probably indicates a distant unproven connection, so his profile came to my attention.

The "about me" section was a major mess. I'm about 2 hours into organizing it and only about 1/2 way through. I'll take a stab at finishing it later this week.

Randy

I worked on some "down tree" Otis profiles - there's an early American artist Otis I still haven't gotten in there.

If no one else bites on the earlier guy I'll check it out and remove it. Want to put myself back in a New England mind first -- and today I'm in England and Virginia.

I added most of the Civil War related profiles, so leave any that you find for me and I will get them done.

Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, (CSA), U.S. Secretary of War is done, and already is MPd.

Rowland Stebbins of Springfield is now done and removed from the project.
--Randy

I cleaned up today's featured profile Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Sr.

Previously it was a copy and paste dump of the same wikipedia article several times over.
--Randy

Typo in Wikipedia in text (fixed) and want to try out display name as

Prof. Samuel Morse, Inventor of "Morse Code"

Does that read / look a little better? (Test: tree view AND profile view)

IF there's lack of stability in Display Name, suggest moving "inventor of the code" to Suffix field. But I'd rather test and see results before abusing Suffix field further.

Now what's particularly cool is I see he's married to a Griswold. I'm a Griswold descendant so there should be a cousin relationship? But she doesn't seem properly connected to the Griswolds of CT? Because I'm getting Sarah Elizabeth Griswold is Erica Isabel Howton's 12th cousin four times removed! I will look into that now ...

I swamped out the previous profile pic of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Sr. for one that a user had already uploaded which is a really nice Mathhew Brady portrait with Morse wearing all his medals.

I also updated his father's profile Rev. Jedediah Morse, Jr. and added a profile picture for him which was painted by Samuel and is in the Yale University Art Gallery collection.

MUCH better photo choice for Morse, thank you. Who wouldn't use a Matthew Brady photo as the default image! idiotos! basta!

I had to convert the terrific tombstone photo of Sarah Griswold to a PDF document to use as a fact for her profile.

Question: I think we should put in Morse's first family as well:

Lucretia Pickering Walker
Birth 15 Jul 1799 in Concord, Merrimack, New Hampshire, United States of America
Death 07 Feb 1825 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America (died shortly after childbirth)

Parents:
Charles Walker
1765 –
Hannah Pickering

Children:
Susan Walker Morse
1819 – 1885
Elizabeth Morse
1821 – 1821
Charles Walker Morse
1823 – 1887
James Morse
1825 – 1914

Anyone up for searching and seeing if they're already on Geni to connect somewhere? I want to continue the Griswold possible connection ....

I just added John Cooke, alias Butcher to this project. Is this what you call a "copy and paste dump"?

Not quite as the copy & paste is from other sites - which is fine for text. But it's been duplicated from merges and indeed needs cleanup. Some of the citations are good ones, just needs reorganizing.

Thanks for fixing Morse...he is my 11th cousin 9 times removed. I occasionally post historical figures to my Facebook page (trying to generate interest in Geni!), and he fascinated me, but his profile was a MESS! I started to work on it yesterday but my real job interceded...so thank you to Randy for taking the time.

Just want to clarify...when we are done with a profile, we are notating it here for the record and removing it from the project, correct?

Anita asked: "...Just want to clarify...when we are done with a profile, we are notating it here for the record and removing it from the project, correct?..."

Yes that is what I'm doing--noting in this message thread that a profile had had an "about me" cleanup editing pass and then removing their profile from the project. That way the project only contains those that need an editing pass. I also try and add only profiles to the project that I'm willing to clean up.

Maj. General John Gibbon (USA) has been cleaned up and removed from the project. Would someone care to make him an MP please?

Also, I removed the Floyd profile from the project.

Back to Morse...it is too bad we couldn't get it cleaned up BEFORE it was the profile of the day.

Is there any way we can get a power to be to either post some profiles they would like to make profiles of the day BEFORE they use them, or to use profiles we have already cleaned here?

Promoting Geni with a "profile of the day" that is a mess of typo's, duplicated and/or conflicting data and that is hard to read isn't exactly putting our best foot forward to make a great impression and bring new members on!

Maj. General John Gibbon (USA) is your 7th cousin 14 times removed's husband's great nephew.

our common ancestor: Sir Walter Blount, Kt., of Barton

Made MP. I finally get a general to curate! Or is that alas, a general to curate? :)

Anita I thought the same thing. I'm going to forward this discussion link on over to some people at Geni.

Too freaky! But SO what Geni is all about!

Maj. General John Gibbon (USA) is your 7th cousin 12 times removed's husband's great nephew.

our common ancestor: Sir Walter Blount, Kt., of Barton

Thanks on the push to Geni Erica...don't use that bad wrist to push with, though!

Brig. General Joshua Chamberlain (USA) has been cleaned and removed from the project, and is ready for MP status.

Thanks Anita. Got him. Nice work, as always. :-)

I've often thought that advanced warning would be nice for 'Featured Profiles/Projects'.

Quite a few times they've been some I curate and I've hurriedly, given them a brush-up when I would have preferred a spit-shine first!

Thanks and thanks, Jenna!

Hhhmmmm...should we tag Mike or Noah in this discussion?

I'll forward I link to Grant and Amanda. I think they generate most of the posts. Thanks for the nudge. Thinking it doesn't *do* anything about it!

Martin Henderson Harris is now cleaned up and removed from the project.

I would love it if "Geni's featured profiles on the geni blog had an edit pass before they were featured.

I just finished cleaning up today's featured profile
James Monroe, 5th President of the USA

Randy, I'm hoping Geni features Brigham Young on Pioneeer Day (July 24). Wouldn't hurt to make sure his profile is spiffym just in case Mike Stangel agrees.

Amanda does the profiles of the day (POTD) on the blog. I've forwarded your suggestion to her. I'm sure she'd be happy to, so thanks in advance if anyone can clean up Brigham Young's profile. We're discussing how we can improve the process, to give the curators some notice of upcoming POTDs.

Pioneer Day would work perfectly, as that's a Tuesday and we could publish a Family Tree Tuesday about Brigham Young.