So, I have been pondering... A Genealogy Wiki is so cool! :D But how do we link everyone together so that once you connect to a family, you aren't entering new pages for all the folks that are already here from another persons' family? For example: Let's say I have a Joe Smith, he was born in 1711 and died in 1760. I make a record for Joe and put in all the details. Later another researcher puts their tree here online, they, too have Joe Smith, so they make a record called "Joe Smith (1711-1760)", since that isn't exactly like my Joe Smith, a new record is created. Worse, their Joe Smith had three sons, my family is related through Kate Smith, Joe's daughter, but theirs is related through Joe Smith Jr, the son. So their record is Joe Smith I. How can we kind of "funnel" people into editing my Joe Smith instead of making a new Joe Smith? I've been thinking about how to make records work well (I have Stewarts in my family, a lot of them... and they love to name themselves "James"... so I have, literally, 20 James Stewarts... I'm going to have to do something to differentiate them). Is there a standard we can sort of encourage researchers to use so that all of the records mesh nicely? Personally, I've been using GivName FamName(bdate-ddate) as my naming convention, that pretty much gives a unique record for each person, and allows for a ton of "James Stewart"s (And it looked like other folks were doing that too, so I'm kinda following suit). Is this even a concern? Again, I'm really new to the Genealogy Wiki... so...erm... Thoughts? :D Aabh 21:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
A couple of things to keep in mind---in particular, this wiki has about 6000 articles, and 13000 pages. Compared to Wikipedia, this site is tiny. On the other hand, the site is growing. The significance of this is that so far running into duplications hasn't been much of a problem. There simply isn't that much overlap. If you create an article about your great grandmother, its not likely that you will find it duplicated by someone else. On the otherhand, its only a matter of time before we start getting significant cross connections. In point of fact, there are at least two contributors on this site who have found that they DO share some common ancestors---albeit by marriage. Eventually they will end up putting in those ancestors, and at that point the porblem you describe will arise.
How do you avoid that? Fairly easy in theory: you check the site to see if there's an existing article. To check, use the search function in the navigation pane. There's also a more complex search function that can be used, though the pointers to it are a bit obscure. First, check the Main Page. There's a link there to Main Page/Getting Started on the Wiki. One of the topics under that subarticle is using the search function.
Another mechanism that can catch duplications is based on the article name structure:
[First Name] [Middle Name] [Last Name] (YOB=YOD)
Theoretically, if you get the name right, any instance where there's an article with the same name will get picked up.
Definitely not foolproof. While the inclusion of YOB-YOD in the name does not guarantee each person article will have a unique name (There could be two John Smiths born 1806 and died 1896---long odds, but possible), its fairly unlikely that we would have any duplication simply because we have two different people with the same name and vita.
You might get a case where you miss a previous article about someone because of slight variatons in the article title. For example you might want to write an article about John Quincy Smith, search for "John Quincy Smith 1806-1896)", and miss an existing article simply because a) the previous article has a different DOB (""John Quincy Smith 1807-1896)", added an extra inadvertant space ("John Quincy Smith 1806-_1896)", or used an middle initial ("John Q. Smith 1806-1896)". You might spot such similar articles in a search, but the system wouldn't automatically warn you that there an article about "John Quincy Smith 1806-1896)" already existed.
It would take only a modestly intelligent algorithym to spot articles about the same person but under slightly different names. Its not likely to happen anytime soon, though I'm sure that eventually something like that will exist. (the basic approach for that would be a routine looked at simlarities in the name "John Smith" vs" John Q Smith" vs John Q. Smith" etc, and then compared significant facts in the articles (DOB's etc). Of course, it would have to recognize what was the DOB---realizing for example that 10/09/1806 is the same as "October 09, 1806", but different from "September 10, 1806".) Bill 00:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)