Feedback - secondary cause of death?

It would be a lot of work for one user to create them.

Although I don't understand why it would be one user's job...please no. We're too hypercategorized as it is, with diminishing genealogical value. Our cause of death projects are getting increasingly esoteric, and I don't think that encouraging a whole new subgenre would help.

I think it would be a tricky one to define and possibly source - like a lot of older people, my father died from pneumonia ("old man's friend") but was dying from various other diseases at the time and there is a limit to what you can fit on a death certificate. If it did list he was dying of lung cancer, but was spared that end by pneumonia, I assume you can already put someone down for both.

My understanding of this proposed project would be for other medical conditions that may be indirectly related to the cause of death (i.e. hemiplegia when pneumonia is the actual cause of death) or not related at all (i.e. gout. dropsy, Alzheimers/organic brain, Parkinson's disease). This might be a place for those health conditions that have a "Survived xxx...." project already in the system... (Polio, TB come to mind.) It would be one way of organizing some of those health conditions...

The medical conditions/illnesses may not even be related to the cause of death. It would have to be divided into "systems"-- respiratory, neurological, orthopedic, cardiac, vascular, etc... Many of these conditions would be for those living since medicine has advanced with improved diagnostic specifics... (maybe those living in the 1800's on ??? Those earlier than that may be with the "Old disease/condition names"???)

As has been stated, it would be a monumental project!!! The introductory page could be set up similar to the Cause of death portal as a primary project with the health conditions listed under as specific projects. Might even be able to include some of the "Old disease" names in the title for the specific projects (i.e. Rabies, hydrophobia/Canine madness)???

I would be willing to work on this & it's related projects (with some help) if it is decided that there is a need for this & it's many, many sub-projects... Would need a discussion (or continue using this one???) where people could put their requests as in the Medically Related discussion mentioned above that is associated with the Cause of death portal Or would it be best to use that discussion for both???

Would need a name for it and some guidelines...

The genealogical value of a project listing illness after illness to arrive at the cause of death escapes me. I agree with Ashley's "please no". We have too many loosely related project concepts.

Besides it being a monumental task to create this project that's not really the issue. Working a project could be managed. I am struggling to understand why a cause of death project should be necessary in the first place.

I see the mechanics of the project (or sub projects) will become simply a major copy and paste of medical text books of illnesses. Cause of death preceded by other health issues is an obscure topic that could be a sensitive issue for some users wanting to hold these personal details privately.

I agree with you, Pam up until you mentioned why a cause of death would be necessary in the first place. I have been asked by several "cousins" did some of our relatives die from whatever? because there are some medical conditions showing in present day families, they were trying to find out if the same were in the past. My problem is just yesterday I was putting up distant families on my mothers side and came across a sad case of suicide from the grandfather, father, and son. Now, what underlining condition could you ever put down for that? Not to mention, even though this happened in past generations this is still a very sensitive issue and probably is still happening in that family.
I guess I'm on the fence with this one. Though put me down to help if you decide to proceed.

At least for me, and I suspect for Pam as well, it doesn't seem clear how these projects help with individual family genealogy. For example, we have a heavy history of Parkinson's disease in my family, but me adding all of those deaths to the Parkinson's project doesn't really help me research my own family, help me find a pattern any easier, etc. It basically just tags the profile as a person who died of Parkinson's -- which, if I filled in the "cause of death" field, is redundant.

I think that there *are* a lot of illnesses for which having medical/cause of death projects makes a lot of sense. People with Hansen's disease (leprosy) were/are often sent to secluded communities and listed in public records, so there are special records to consult and learn to use. People who died in a historical event, like the sinking of the Titanic or in an extermination camp, have entire museums dedicated to special research about them.

People who died of pneumonia or in a car accident, however, don't really require any special research methods. We basically only create the projects so we have a project to put those people in. Personally, I think that's the wrong approach. It's okay for profiles to not be in projects.

I want to add that I sincerely appreciate the work that has been done on existing projects, and I don't want to make anyone feel like I don't value those efforts. I just think that it's time to stop creating new projects, and to instead turn the collective attention towards turning the existing projects into truly *genealogical* efforts, beyond just places to add profiles.

I don't think, for example, that any of the existing projects have information on how to conduct genealogical research specific to those conditions, where to find special collections (like the examples I gave), search terms to use, etc. That's a far more pressing oversight than us lacking projects for obscure infectious diseases.

I think that we have a lot of talent and knowledge available, and that we can channel it in more effective ways that fit the Geni mission.

Agree with you, Private User!

I believe projects was suppose to group related profiles together. Now, it seems redundancy and false organization is fast becoming the norm. Project should assist in genealogical efforts not hinder. Ultimately, projects if created/managed properly should serve greater purpose beyond present-day researchers.

Projects should not be sub-divided ad nauseum. It defeats the purpose of Geni Mission.

For example, I like the fact of having Project, "Neurological Diseases/Illnesses" which gives overview with bullet points for specific disease (hyperlinked to informational page on internet?).... all profiles with such cause of death may be attached, it may help in determining patterns.

Geni is a collaborative site, not a site which does your personal research.
Geni is a tool which may complement your own organizational processes. In other words, it is not for everyone. Sometimes, it seems there are many chiefs and not enough Indians. Many people wants to be in control and the collaborative spirit is abandoned.

Everyone does not like Geni, that's alright. Geni engages individuals with multiple levels of knowledge, interest, and expertise in Genealogy. Personally found Geni is useful to engage family members who have cursory interest in family history.... with hopes of spreading the genealogical bug/addiction to next generation! :)

Many of us have great knowledge and expertise, Geni is a forum whereby understanding may be imparted in a very succinct manner. We can do so while keeping Geni user-friendly for all (beginners, intermediate, and experienced)

>>>> "I believe projects was suppose to group related profiles together."

Sort of. The original idea was to give people working on a common topic, like a place or surname, a place to work together, usually with some kind of end objective. If you look at early projects, that's what you'll see. For example, the "Original Proprietors: Hartford, CT" project was a big effort to 1) assemble a finite list of everyone in Hartford before a certain year, 2) construct each of their trees, and 3) document both the profiles and the project itself. That was a typical early project and a great example of the intention.

At some point, they started to transition into what Justin Durand has wisely deemed "tagging" efforts -- tools less about genealogy and more about assigning profiles to specific categories. Under this model, virtually every profile can be part of an infinite variety of projects: location(s), occupation(s), alma mater(s), hair color(s), etc. It's how Wikipedia uses categories, and it's partly what I'm referring to when I say that projects have gotten hypercategorized. I'm assuming that at some point, we'll have a one-profile project for "Notable Finnish-Canadian Royal Air Force Veterans of the Sorbonne Who've Farmed in Polk County, Florida," because that seems to be the direction we're heading.

Lest anyone think I'm just throwing stones, I'm as guilty as anyone else of participating in the project boom that got us to this point. But now I'm regretting it and am asking us to slow down and think deliberately before continuing.

We have more than 40,000 projects now. Forty thousand! Surely it's time to think about whether this is sustainable. And that's why I'd urge everyone to pause with these cause of death projects and ask what genealogical need they're filling.

I believe if we can manage 114 million connected profiles, we can manage 40K projects. :).

I have a different reaction to "Notable Finnish-Canadian Royal Air Force Veterans of the Sorbonne Who've Farmed in Polk County, Florida.". I see a mini biography, and I'm amazed and impressed. That is more detailed than most of the profiles I've seen. Not everyone is a biography writer, but from these project memberships, the profile comes to life.

But the question always has to be, what genealogical value does this "project / attribute" add, not only to research efforts, but to understanding the life and times of an ancestor?

The "cause of death" field is filled in from death certificates, if we have them, obit's, etc.

The issues that are gleaned from secondary cause of death / contributing factors could in fact be more biographically revealing than "pneumonia, the old man's friend.". In our example case, the person was partially paralyzed for the last couple of years of his life, in the early 1910's. What did that mean in how he lived? How did it affect his family? How did other people cope in similar situations? In the 21st century? In the 16th? I am now interested ...

Here's the profile from Erica's example: Dr. William Ralph Bell.

Dr. Bell had the Haemiplegia for 2 1/2 years and the Hypostatic Pneumonia for 24 hours.

Aren't the Cause of Death projects superfluous? - We already have a Cause of Death field.

To me, a simple google search accomplishes a better result - and with imagination you can target your search...

site:geni.com "Cause of Death: * cancer" "Place of Burial: * Canada"

Remember that we can only add profiles to a project if we are managers or collaborators of that profile - it's a great effort to request permission from the manager just to add to a project - the manager might already have left Geni, in which case it can't be done

Curators can add any public profile to a project on request.

I've found collections in projects useful. And certainly I'm more careful to search out details and add to the profile because I'm aware there are projects for them

An early example was collecting those who died of bubonic plague based on known plague years. So that's an example of backfilling from other details of the profile.

I'm not sure though about secondary cause of death. Living with paralysis might be of much more interest.

It seems weird to generate all this work to create a 'gathering' mechanism when it is already available via google.

What would be required for the project approach to match this google query, which is available to all Geni users right now?...

site:geni.com "Cause of Death: * cancer" "Birthplace: * Canada"

Following along the line of 'too many projects' as raised above, there are whole bunches of projects that could be replaced with similar google searches.

I've tried a few, and as an example the cemeteries projects could probably be replaced by a simple google search. My sampling got an extraordinary number of hits compared to the number currently in the projects. It updates automatically too!

site:geni.com "Place of Burial: * Arlington National"

It can sometimes take several attempts - to add to the search criteria to eliminate any chaff.

Private User,

I totally disagree with you on the issue of there being too many cemetery projects.

There is a purpose to having them as it makes it easier to learn information about the cemeteries in one place.

"Arlington National Cemetery

This project focuses on bringing together all of the profiles of people buried at one of the world's most famous military cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, United States."

Google can do that - you don't have to do a thing.

Elaine,

You don't get the purpose of the project. Not everyone knows how to search on Google to find things on Geni.

Please change the project description to match it's purpose.

If you want the best of both worlds, insert the google query in the description so they know what to do, and delete the profiles from the project.

Private User,

Not going to happen at all.

Kevin

I realize that - as with Cause of Death, they'll just keep multiplying.

Database 101 taught me that you should have info only once in the database. I wonder if SmartCopy (or anyone) changes Cause of Death or Place of Burial, that anyone would redirect the project links.

Ashley's comments above are my views precisely.

I made a profile a few days ago where the COD was "Drowned in the Stanislaus river near (town name) tangled in chicken wire and weeds". Someone will probably create a project for that COD.
It is getting that bad!

Eldon,
That person would go into the following COD portal project: [https://www.geni.com/projects/The-Drowned/27729 Drowning].
The rest of the info could go in the "About" section.

As one of those who has worked on creating many of the projects for the COD portal I attempt to make them general enough that they will fit many situations. If there seems to be a great many profiles that might be in one occurance, then a sub-project may be warranted, such as in "floods" & under "Plague & "Died in a fire".

Some people are interested in how prevalent a cause of death may be.

Patricia Ann Scoggin The whole line is in the COD field. I will not put him in a project!

p.s. Some of the family are friends of mine.

Eldon Lester Clark
That's your prerogative.

The discussion was started by Erica who called for our thoughts on a COD project. The comments have been mixed as you can see with a few participants (me included) querying the necessity for a project.

Patricia writes " I would be willing to work on this & it's related projects (with some help) if it is decided that there is a need for this & it's many, many sub-projects..."

Have we decided that there is a need for a COD project? Obviously more doubts exist other than Erica, who writes:
"And what genealogical value does this project / attribute add, not only to research efforts, but to understanding the life and times of an ancestor?"

The COD projects have become simply a "holding place" for lists of profiles with obscure illnesses. I applaud the work that has been done on the various projects and like Ashley think we should hold our collective breath and really look at what we are doing by continuing to forge ahead with creating new projects without working/completing existing titles.

How many of these 40,000 projects are informative, well rounded projects meeting a genealogical need. I wonder.

So far no one has been able to satisfy my query as to whether any genealogical value is achieved by going ahead and adding these COD (or other) new projects without sufficient background information being provided. As an aside, a bug bear of mine is the explosion of projects that frequently only include a single sentence, no information or narrative and often without inclusion of a profile image.

• Why duplicate the COD that is already in the profile field with yet another project

• People who are deceased via a major trauma are added to a project - eg the Titanic. Again, adding the list of profiles to both COD and a specific project is superfluous.

• Cemetery projects are necessary (thanks Kevin) and do fulfil a purpose, a different topic.

For me, cause of death projects are of interest, or I wouldn't have created the portal some years ago. :). It's fine if others don't find them valuable; I haven't much gotten into the cemetery projects, as example, although I've tried; and certainly don't object to what others do.

For example, I have great grandparents who lost seven children to diphtheria, and over several years. Can you imagine what that did to them? I didn't, I couldn't, until working on the project, learning about diphtheria, and hopefully sharing some of what I'd learned with others, and in a manner that was less intrusive to my personal story. So for me that's a historic exploration, and I would have thought historic exploration is what genealogy is all about.

This particular discussion was about how to cope with a secondary cause of death or an underlying cause of death.

My first impulse was to say, no, too many projects, what genealogical value.

But wait a minute - and the example profile is a good one. What have we learned by the profile membership in "pneumonia?". Another example of the weakened and elderly? What if he had a chronic condition, is this of interest?

What if that condition was hereditary? Wouldn't that be of interest?

I don't have answers, but I'm not quite understanding why we can't ask these questions and look at it, instead of a blanket "do a google query" or "too many projects, the door is closed now."

Isn't that a way of shutting down conversation?