Wikitree pluses and minuses, mainly pluses

[Kathy Alvis Patterson]

Dear EuroAristo and Mayflower groups,
In case any of you want to know what I've been doing recently, I have
been going through my Watchlist (48,800+) and making the changes the
first group decided on a few months
ago, namely, adding most recent married name instead of maiden name as
preferred last name, removing prefixes (which is where I run into
supervisors with a different strategy and priority, perhaps), and
changing names into the language the individual actually spoke (the
dreaded Bourgogne). I finally finished the De Whozits and am into the
N's, obviouslyly approaching the Of Whatzits. I'm at about
29,000/48,800+, plus many of the later alphabet folks have already
been changed, so it should very fast toward the S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z's.

I am always concerned with having final profiles that are consistent
and accurate.
I am very frustrated at finding profiles I have cleaned up a day or
two ago now tagged with suffixes like "[Lord]" and "[princess of Wa]."
I just wish everyone would follow the guidelines at
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Fields.

Please be aware that I am happy to received corrections and/or
additions at any time from anyone. But it is too late to change what
we use for prefixes and suffixes, since I have now done about 29,000+
corrections, at least.

One procedure I have done twice so far (as far as I know) is when
there is a nonexistent child, I will merge him/her to a real child. I
had a complaint a week or so ago about the merge I did between a
Geoffrey Plantagenet (not a son) and a William Plantagenet; this was
called "alarming."

And since Lianne emailed me to be sure to merge into the smaller id
number, I have been trying to do that as well. Yesterday (I think it
was), I spotted a merge the wrong direction just after I pushed the
button. Sorry.

Part of what I see with EuroAristos is a variety of LN's: Burgundy, Of
BURGUNDY, of Burgundy, Bourgogne, de Bourgogne, plus misspelled
versions, you get the picture... Which is A, which is B and which is
C? We decided some time ago to use Bourgogne as the final LNAB, but
what's the big deal about the order with the other variants?

My "reward" is the fact that about 2-3 people a day contact me via
Wikitree to inquire about my profiles, 99% American and not the
all-absorbing descent-from-Charlemagne folks. Wikitree is reaching a
lot of people.

I've done genealogy since 1966; isn't it fun how we are such varied
people, but with the same interests? I am State Historian and national
Education Committee chair of one lineage society; presiding officer
and state committee chair of another; lineage volunteer specialist
with three college degrees; married 43 years this week; Phi Beta
Kappa; and so on.
Kathy