Person talk:William Brooks (2)

Message about data and sources to keep when merging [1 December 2008]

Hi JBS66,

It looks like you added some facts and sources that I would not normally keep.

First off, you added a 1610 birth in Concord. Concord did not exist until the early 1630s. In fact, there were no European settlements in Massachusetts before the 1620 landing of the Mayflower pilgrims at Plymouth.

Also, when I merge files, I generally do not keep GEDCOMS as sources, especially when other, better sources are available.

So unless you can make a good case why we should keep the above, I'm going to remove them. Thanks. jillaine 14:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Jillaine, you're welcome to do whatever you see fit to fix this page - and from what I've seen of your work - it will be outstanding! I've just been going through the merging motions and eliminating some things that I notice most glaring. I didn't intentionally add facts to the page that I am attached to. I tend to see merging as merge first and clean-up later.--JBS66 17:11, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Sorry if my initial post wasn't so friendly. I should have picked up that it was the result of a merge process. Sorry about that. I think I've been spending too many hours matching and merging. I should go do something completely different for awhile. You know, I kinda like this detail work, but it wears me out and makes me a little grumpy sometimes. Please bear with me. jillaine 21:44, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I didn't take any offense to your post at all! Any time that discussion and a closer look is encouraged is great! It did cause me to update 2 book sources, find their Google Book, and learn about the "citation needed" template - Oh, and I learned that I can use my name instead of username on posts. Progress...--Jennifer 08:53, 1 December 2008 (EST)

To Do List [1 December 2008]

1. Need source for his parentage. jillaine 14:39, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I cannot find proof for this parentage, so I'll delete these parents. Thanks for noticing.--JBS66 17:35, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I have a suggestion. Instead of deleting unsourced data, we could do one or more of the following:

1) add "citation needed" in the Description field of a given fact

2) edit the narrative section under "-- Origins--" (or wherever is appropriate) with, for example, current theory is that he was the son of... This needs confirmation."

3) use the Talk page for discussion of theories.

I prefer 1 or 2 and saving 3 for discussion of controversy/ies concerning data.

Sometimes unsourced/uncited data serves as a clue for where to look. We just need to make clear what the data is and is not.

What do you think? -- jillaine 21:49, 30 November 2008 (EST)

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In this case, I feel comfortable deleting these parents. I was the only one watching them, so it was clearly my error. This must have been left over from my EARLY genealogy days, when I thought uploading others' GEDCOM's was OK. I learned quickly though!

As for your suggestions - I think they are great. I really like your "citation needed" template idea (I've also seen the discussion at Watercooler).--JBS66 08:40, 1 December 2008 (EST)