More real, less illusion

"re: But oh my hell. I couldn't ever live long enough to research all of those. I have to rely on other users to do that work. ..."

And that should be a strength of crowd sourcing. Working together in different areas to research & correct - much easier than trying to do it alone! Also a great learning tool.

I don't use the relationship finder to toot my connection to distant ancestors. I use it as a tree correction tool, and work on the areas I think I can find answers for.

Justin,
Yes, we will give the Geni system a bit of time to see if it has a keel and brings us back upright from any new errors that have been introduced recently. I am motivated by Erica's call "I'd like to see more "doing" from the crowd." I also am motivated by your detailed comments which you made earlier today about Geni's relationship path between me and Clovis II "the Lazy", King of the Franks. My "doing" today shows Geni's relationship path from me to Richard FitzRoger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, Magna Carta Surety. Geni shows that Richard is my 17th great grandfather. The Geni path is at Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, Surety of the Magna Carta . I am sure you know this already but the path is identical up to Mathilde de Clare (my 16th Grandmother). Her father is Richard. Her mother continues the path back to Clovis II.

Michael M. van Beuren:
We welcome you as collaborator in the project "Geni as Illusion?". To date we have 3 discussions. It is good tosee you using the word "phenomenon".

I note your interest in the Native American Fantasy Descendant Phenomenon and the sub-topic "the Ramapo(ugh) Mountain People (the fantasy part)". I know that you are from Vermont. My father, William Worden Allen, was born in Vermont but we are not descended from Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys, a family myth about a real person who is not related to my line of Allens within North American history..

I realize that there are both real and fantasy connections to Indigenous people of North America. In Canada one of the three Indigenous nations recognized specifically in the Canadian Constitution are the Métis so there is fruitful ground tracking Métis ancestry using Geni. A central focus of the project is to stimulate dialogue about who we are as a civilization as a result of illusions embedded within Geni. For example look at the dialogue at http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.ca/2009/06/claim-they-have-nativ... To what extent in modern society do we perpetuate the kind of thinking that was expressed in 1757?

Historical fiction also is illuminating as we see in "Orenda", the best selling book by Joseph Boyden. See http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?R=3142702

So, Michael, thanks for joining us. We look forward to your contribution.

thks for posting the links very interesting to read

My extremely personal opinion is that one who is not willing to have one's family lines tested and (perhaps) found wanting by others, probably should not be using a collaborative site at all.

Maven,
Who is the target of your comment about "probably should not be using a collaborative site at all"? It would be helpful to know the background reason for your comment.

We've had some people who believe so completely in the (fantasy) family tree they've constructed for themselves that they get seriously bent if anyone presumes to contradict them. One of them was directly responsible for the Scarburgh Snarl that I've mentioned before, and another one had Justin giving a series of lectures on DNA research, which at least the *rest* of us learned something from. :-)

On the other hand there seems to be general agreement now that "Lady Grace O'Neill" was an elaborate myth overlaid onto a very real Grace Neale. (Her story is romantic and dramatic enough without the extra embroidery.) Grace Robins

As an end-of-month diversion I got working on some deep history. Geni tells me that Chlotharius Ii Der Franken D'aquitaine, Lothar Merovingin King (c589-c630) is my 42nd great grandfather. Its right there at Chlothar II the Young, King of the Franks
I pinched myself to see if I am real and am pretty sure I am. I am not so sure about Chlotharius Ii Der Franken D'aquitaine, Lothar Merovingin King. How much of this line is fantasy?

William, that line has some problems. You linked to a duplicate added by one user who didn't check very carefully to find the line was already on Geni. Also, he actually made a few mistakes in copying so the area had to be cleaned up.

This is a very common problem. I did some of the cleanup but it will take many more hours to get it clean again.

There are two things that could have alerted you this is a bad line. First, that copy of Clothar had only one manager. It would be unlikely that there could be a valid descent from someone in the 8th century but only person ever wanted to enter it on Geni. Second, One of the generations was "Unknown Father of Thierry I". If Thierry's father is really unknown, then then Thierry's grandfather must also be unknown. Someone has merged a bad line with good info and didn't do the cleanup.

After all the merging and cleanup, you end up with different line to Clothar II, through Hnabi. Then there's a new problem because Hnabi's mother unknown. So, I fixed that.

Now, you're connected to Chlothar but not descended from him. Enjoy it while it lasts. By the end of February the old line will be back.

Justin, I don't know how a pro like you puts up with the carelessness of others and the time it takes you to fix the mess. Thanks for the "one manager" alert and the "unknown father" alert. I will watch for these matters in the future. I am quite gun shy about these very early people, hence my question. I am under no illusion about any of this nonsense.

I don't know about Justin, but I know that for me, though I DO get frustrated (sometimes mistakes seem pretty foolish to me, to be truthful), mostly I have compassion for the vast numbers of users on Geni who don't understand the Middle Ages.

I spent decades of my life learning to be a medievalist; why should I expect normal humans to understand the problems in medieval genealogy without having spent all that time in study, cause they were busy doing something else?

And mostly what I see is users doing their best, and being pretty happy to be finding such old far away ancestors.

Just cause I know the lines are problematic, cause people miswrote them in the 15th century, or made transcription errors in the 16th century, or mistranslated them in the 17th century, or made them up in the 18th century, or mis printed them in the 19th century, or completely misunderstood them in the 20th century, doesn't mean that everybody else should know them.

There are some useful things about being a medievalist. Here is one of the places we are useful.

Though occasionally sometimes we get testy.

Staying out of that whole discussion about the plagiarized problematic genealogy book now for sale at exorbitant prices, for instance.

I enjoy working on these old lines, both with people who already know about them and with people who are just learning. There are only two things that make me nuts.

First, people who add all those duplicates that swamp the tree. But that's probably not their fault. They're usually new to Geni and don't "get it" yet. Geni does a very bad job of alerting new people that it's a waste of their time and everyone else's time to add profiles that are just going to be merged with a copy that hundreds of other people have already added.

Second, people who are determined to ignore the evidence. That discussion about the plagiarized book if full of them. Bad enough that the book is plagiarized, but it also contains fake lines, and, even worse, Geni supports them in promoting it. All any of us can do is note their names and never trust them about anything.

Funny story. A few years ago one of the curators broke under the stress of all the fake lines on Geni. In one marathon session in the middle of the night he cut something like 63 lines. No evidence. No analysis. Just anything he didn't like.

It was a major disaster because even fake lines have a certain integrity. You can't just cut them in the middle. You have to actually do the research and cut the line at the fake connection. If you don't, you end up making it harder to do real cleanup.

I don't think we ever got all of those lines repaired. Someday.

Eeek! Is the person still a curator? Did he say sorry?

1) there are people who deliberately make duplicate medieval lines -- not to merge, but I gather to enjoy making medieval profiles and putting stuff in them. Jason and I are following one of them now. Touch the Anglo Saxon or the Welsh, and we're on it. But I think mostly users just don't really understand how to find the extant profiles, or understand that they're causing problems when they make duplicates. VERY problematic in the Welsh, with all the varying spellings. Even if you're looking you can't necessarily easily find profiles.

2) Ok. This indeed bugs me. I have trouble when people won't follow lines of logic, or think that all pieces of evidence should be weighed the same. Very hard to ignore my training. Good methods seem so obvious to me. So, yep. That book is a Very Bad Thing, to my mind.

I don't think it matters who it was. The important thing is that we all understand now that this is not a good way to deal with problems.

I don't mean to sound preachy, but cutting a line takes just as much work and skill as creating a connection. In a collaborative environment you can't just claim the burden of proof in on the other side and cut anything that doesn't have supporting sources.

You have to actually figure out where the line came from originally, what real sources exist that make it unlikely or impossible, and be able to explain why you're cutting here and not a generation earlier or later.

True and true.

This comes up in the Welsh lines, of course; there are a lot of problems, but they can't be solved just by disconnecting. Of course, we're talking about real people in this case, not made up ones. But the same principles apply; even the seemingly stupidest mistakes come from somewhere. The underlying priciples need to get addressed.

The known fictitious profiles have begun to fascinate me. They too come from someplace. And sometimes they were sheer invention, sure, but mostly they are leaps of faith, I think.

The principle being that we are descended from gods and/or giant historical figures.

I just cut off a Welsh line yesterday; the Rices of southern Carmarthenshire are supposedly descended from A Giant Important Welsh Figure, but alas he was conflated with a guy with the same name, not as important, who lived 200 years later.

Too bad.

But it is an old and venerated mistake.

I put it in the About section and the curator's notes.

Anne, your comment about cutting off the Rices has caused me to revisit my own Rice line which is a brick wall at Deacon Edmund Rice . Is there anything more recent that might shed light on the ancestry of Edmund Rice, my 9th great grandfather?

William, i can answer the Edmond Rice question - it's my neck of the tree.

No.

:)

The Edmund Rice Association is well known, well funded & prestigious and have an active DNA project. They do not seem any closer (at least on their website)

http://www.edmund-rice.org/ancestors.htm

The ancestry of Edmund Rice raises an interesting "threshold of evidence" problem. His parentage is "nearly certain" but not definitively proven. The ancestry of many other colonial immigrants is widely accepted with far less evidence, but the ERA does not want to make that leap.

One of the problems with a collaborative website like Geni is that many serious genealogists have slightly different personal thresholds for whether they accept an identification.

When I look at my colonial ancestors on Geni one thing that always strikes me is the number whose ancestry extends into England. In the vast majority of cases I would not personally think the evidence is quite good enough, but it's good enough for some people. And, it's scarcely worth arguing the point when interpretation of the evidence is so subjective.

For me it is better to have a brick wall than live under a false illusion about the ancestry of Edmund Rice. A major drawback of using Geni at all is the willingness of so many to accept fantasy as fact, the very issue which sparked this project.

Geni tells me that Áed Ordnidhe mac Néill, Ard-rí na h'Éireann is my 38th great grandfather Áed Ordnidhe mac Néill, Ard-rí na h'Éireann . Is this the same person that is called "the semi-mythical tribal chief Ui Néill" at http://www.johnbrobb.com/JBR-ALLEN-R.htm#HaploGroup ? Is the person semi-mythical or is his role as tribal chief semi-mythical? Can a person be partly real and partly mythical? How is mythical different from semi-mythical?

The Allen page is worded a bit awkwardly. The semi-mythical O'Neill ancestor associated with R-M222 is Niall of the Nine Hostages, King of the Connachta.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_of_the_Nine_Hostages

Late 4th, early 5th century, not 500 AD. A common enough mistake.

He's semi-mythical because he was almost certainly a real historical figure, but almost nothing reliable is known about him. Many experts believe the O'Neills have the oldest reliable male-line pedigree in Europe.

The discovery that Niall's descendants have a common DNA signature (M222) was one of the earliest and most-publicized triumphs of genetic genealogy. (After Michael Hammer's pioneering study of Jewish cohanim.)

https://www.familytreedna.com/landing/matching-niall.aspx

http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/niall-of-the-nine-hostages.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron

> For me it is better to have a brick wall than live under a false illusion about the ancestry of Edmund Rice.

This is a very widespread illusion about the nature of historical evidence. It's almost never black and white.

I keep hoping we'll get a good debate started on Geni, but most people shy away from it because it's too hard to think about.

The genealogical proof standard is not -- as many people believe -- finding a clear and direct statement that someone was a child of someone else.

The Board for Certification of Genealogists defines the standard this way:

"Proof is a fundamental concept in genealogy. In order to merit confidence, each conclusion about an ancestor must have sufficient credibility to be accepted as "proved." Acceptable conclusions, therefore, meet the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). The GPS consists of five elements:

* reasonably exhaustive research;
* complete, accurate citations to the source or sources of each information item;
* tests—through processes of analysis and correlation—of all sources, information items, and evidence;
* resolution of conflicts among evidence items; and
* a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.

"Each element contributes to a conclusion's credibility in a different way, described in the table below, but all the elements are necessary to establish proof."

http://www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html

Notice that in legal terms, this is similar to "preponderance of the evidence" or "more likely than not". It is not "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Justin,
Thanks for this. The Genealogical Proof Standard is reassuring. I am trying to understand why Geni puts up with so many members who do not follow this standard. That seems like counterproductive policy.

Is there a way of suggesting alternative wording on the Allen page to clarify the issue you describe? The Allen page otherwise seems to have some pretty solid content from what I can see. I checked Niall of the Nine Hostages, King of the Connachta and, sure enough, Geni has him as my 39th great grandfather. Probably everyone with European ancestry could say the same. Is he a credible 39th great grandfather for me when the GPS is applied?

Certain people seem to have been especially successful progenitors. He's one; Somerled of Argyll is one; Genghis Khan is one.

Yes, Niall is a credible ancestor. I looked at your line. I can't speak to the details but it looks like about what I'd expect a real line to be.

The Allen page could change "500 AD" to "5th century CE" and it would be exactly right.

Everyone would have a different answer about why Geni allows members who do not follow the genealogical proof standard. It's a problem that really stands out. I get into tussles routinely with users who think Geni should link every claim and let users decide for themselves. (I'm not naming names.) I see the answer as having two prongs-- (1) people are still learning, and Geni is a good place for that, and (2) the philosophy behind Geni is always that the lines here will trend toward accuracy without ever becoming fully accurate.

Yes, and if we provide all the possibilities, we become, essentially, the web trees. It's not enough to list the sources and the logic and the arguments; not everybody can follow the arguments, not everybody agrees that not all sources are of equal value, and certainly not is reading the stuff in the first place.

I do hope there is some learning going on on Geni. I know that the possibility is there. I learn things all the time.

> Certain people seem to have been especially successful progenitors

I think we can circle in on that make another important point. The marketing side of the DNA companies have made a big deal out of the idea that M222 means someone is a descendant of NIall but that's not actually true.

Niall himself might have been an "especially successful progenitor" but that's not what we're seeing. We don't know who the ancestor of M222 was, but it's unlikely it was as convenient as Niall himself.

The ancient Irish were a warrior elite who used an agnatic kinship system and practiced polygamy. They were all successful progenitors. The higher their rank, the more successful.

The same is true of Somerled, Genghis Khan, and many others.

Maven,
Successful progenitors are actually less interesting since so many people can claim descendancy. I checked on Somerled of Argyll and, yes, Geni shows him as my 25th Great Grandfather Somerled, “King of the Isles” so he is yet another sticky note among the tens of thousands on my castle wall but I expect that almost everyone else with ancestry from the British Isles has him as an ancestor too so there is nothing particularly special about him. Genghis Khan is only a distant cousin by marriage but as an old great grandfather myself he teaches me that falling off a horse can kill me so I will stick to hobby horses instead.

As far as the Niall thing goes, there were some findings that the M-222 mutation occurred some generations prior to Niall himself, so it was passed down not only by Niall, but by his brothers and male-line cousins as well.

I am not comfortable with Nial's tree but someone should take care of this.
http://www.geni.com/list/requested_merges?focus_id=6000000000522977268