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A significant number of Australian Convicts and early Free Settlers and Marines already exist in Geni. When duplicates are created it takes hours and hours to merge them in and to clean up tree and data conflicts. The earlier we can detect duplicates the less duplicates will be created (This has been proven by The Medieval Tree Cleanup Project)
Why do duplicates get created?
- new Geni users do not realise that Geni is a World Tree or that they can merge their line into with existing lines
- Geni Basic users cannot easily find duplicates to merge them
- some profiles do not contain enough matching information to appear in merge lists
What happens when duplicates are merged in?
- tree conflicts are created when relationships are different in the two profiles
- data conflicts are created when there are any differences in the profile
Why have you been invited to the project?
- some of the profiles you manage are having duplicates created and we need your help to reduce the vast number of Australian duplicate profiles
- If one or more of your profiles has been put into this project, it's because it has duplicates
- some of the profiles that you manage have well researched information that would benefit from being locked (See below)
What to do when you find a duplicate .
Invite the profile managers to this project.
If you can, merge the profiles and the surrounding profiles.
If you can't merge the profiles - Add the profile urls into this discussion https://www.geni.com/discussions/179060 - We need help finding them.
For Those Who Have Created Australian Duplicates
- Geni can be confusing, because it's not like other genealogical sites. You do not have to enter into Geni all the ancestors you know, because a great many of them will already be there. Once you connect the nearest ancestors you can into the world tree, you are connected to all the early ancestors who are already in the Geni world tree. It is probable that if you have an Australian Convict or early Settler, it's in the Geni tree already.
- Since the goal here is to create one world tree, we all work at having one profile per person. That means that all the duplicates have to get dealt with.
You have done a lot of research on a profile but the data is being overwritten by merges from less researched profiles - What can you do to stop this? Geni curators have access to additional functionality to protect sourced data from being inadvertently overwritten during a merge or manually changed. Curators can:
- Master a Profile - see https://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Master_Profile for more information
- Lock a specific field - used to lock a sourced or disputed field (ie birth date)
- Completely lock a profile - used when a profile is complete or subject to disputes
- lock a profiles relationships - used when spouses/partners keep getting incorrectly added, or when a profile has disputed parents
Locked fields become the default in the case of a merge and cannot be overwritten without discussion. If you would like a profile locked please request via this discussion https://www.geni.com/discussions/179059
- check if there is a discussion about the field already attached to the profile
- If not, consider whether a discussion is needed. Things to consider are
- are there internet trees that contain different information
- is there other data that has been discounted
- copy the URL of the profile to the discussion and note what you would like locked.
- you will possibly need to add a reference to the source of the information - particularly if there is debate about the information (if possible and it does NOT contravene copywrite or privacy please attach a copy to the profile)
Did You Know:
* Geni uses blue boxes (& blue circles on tree view) to let you know that there may be a duplicate of the profile you manage. It can be difficult to find the early duplicates on Geni, because often the spelling of a name was very fluid. If you have trouble finding duplicates for early profiles, please contact one of the Australian Curators. The list of curators, by geographic area, is here: https://www.geni.com/projects/Geni-Curators/9960.
Curators working on this project include:
*Instead of creating duplicates of the historical profiles on the Australian part of the tree, just use the top right pop-down menu to Request Management. Or, if you have information that differs from what you are seeing in the tree, you can contact the managers -- or the curator, if it is a Master Profile -- or start a public discussion from the profile itself. (Please be aware, though, that the quality of your sources will matter to your argument! There is an enormous amount of misinformation on the web, and personal trees that are on the web, without sources to back them up, are not in themselves reliable sources.)
* Remember however, that if you're in the World Tree, & Geni shows a relationship line between you & that profile, it is already part of your tree Once you connect the nearest ancestors you can into the World tree, you are connected to all the early ancestors who are already on the Geni World Tree.
How to minimise data conflicts on your profiles on a merge
- enter names in correct case - ie James Smith should be entered as James Smith not James SMITH
- enter names in correct fields. Ie first name in the first name field, birth name in the birth name field (for men and women), last name in the last name (this would be the married name for woman)
- use aka field for alternative spellings and nicknames
- enter full dates and locations where possible
- enter deceased people as deceased (if you don’t want the profile visible in Geni, don’t add it into Geni)
- request fields or profiles to be locked
- where possible don’t use the display name field - you can change your settings to change how you see names.
- use the overview to give a brief summary of the person.
- for children who die young (and have a later sibling named the same name) add infant into the suffix field and if you don’t have a death date enter “before siblings birth date” and cause of death “sibling of same name born”. This will hopefully stop someone from merging the siblings or adding a spouse to the wrong sibling.
New to Australian genealogy? Different countries have different conventions - here are some for Australia that may differ from other countries
- children are NOT automatically given the mothers maiden name as a middle name. Only enter this if you have evidence that the particular person was given the name
- the spelling of early convicts and free settlers names often had multiple spellings due to the level of literacy
- from 1788 woman usually took the husband’s surname and children usually have the fathers name except for some children of convict women
- early convicts who were married prior to sentencing could be allowed to marry as it was considered nearly impossible for them to return from transportation.
- early convicts who were denied permission to legally marry, may have lived for all intents and purposes as husband and wife.
- not all early marriages were recorded - a lot of marriages on Norfolk Island were not recorded.