Theunis b1 Both - proper placement of profile

June, if the one duplicate defines him as Theunis Appel under his biological parents, surely he will be found in a search. Admittedly he descendants not if they are linked to the traditional Theunis Botha(the other duplicate).

Yep - I was pointing out that if you wanted to find people who would have DNA connections to Theunis (not Appel) it wouldn't matter who he was connected to as a son on the tree.

[ I'm still dying of anticipation]

This just the popular cover story, but Jaco Greeff wil be able to give all the source references. In the meanwhile I will dig further
http://www.beeld.com/bylae/2013-08-16-die-appel-wat-onder-die-botha...

Sorry I had my formulation wrong - Kickers had the children from Both(a) while married to Jan Corneliszn. The latter was the defacto father based on the baptisms.
Also see http://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/g7/p7773.htm

I'm confused.

People seem to be saying - of course we must reflect the proven reality that this Botha's bio father was Appel.

So ... I'm a family researcher. I have worked my way up the Botha tree until it hits the Appel NPE (non paternal event). It's easy to see what happened because Maria shows partnerships to 3 men.

Now I'm ready to explore his ancestry. I will go up two trees - Maria's and Appel's. Why would I go up further the Botha tree? He's not my ancestor.

I'm also confused. I have a feeling that I'm missing something.

This doesn't seem to be a case where there is a dispute about Theunis' ancestry. Or is there? Is the underlying point that some people have reservations about the DNA results? Maybe that the results can be interpreted in some other way?

If not, I'm at a loss to understand the controversy. In western European genealogy we *always* show the actual, biological parents when they are known. There are illegitimate children in every European royal family and old noble family. If the evidence is good enough, we show them as children of their fathers even if their mothers were married to someone else at the time.

I can understand that some people might prefer for vanity reasons to keep the Botha link rather than routing it through the mother's husband, but that seems to me to be a dishonest presentation if Theunis was a son of his mother's paramour.

So, what am I missing?

Justin not really a dispute - just a preference to show the profile under the de facto family which were the only family they ever knew as expressed by many South African and International curators in the different discussions on Theunis Botha.
Although my preference in this specific case is also the traditional parents, I am easy either way. The issue for me is why we want to "enforce" a choice j between biological OR traditional parents when it is possible to accomodate both through using duplicate profiles - at least you satisfy both preferences, one fully and the other partly.

Erica and Justin - one BIG problem is the published de Villiers numbers - I think! Theunis being classified as the eldest son in the Botha family is b1 in published Genealogies. This means that all the way down his lineage people have been allocated numbers according to this - it is far reaching with over 5000 descendants - not all have their allocated number on GENi. b1c1d1 etc

These numbers are now incorrect and how they are corrected is a far reaching. If he is moved to his rightful place on the tree his number should be b2c1. Apart from having to re-number all the Appel children - they shift up a number as the previous b2c1 becomes b2c2 and so on - all the other Botha children also change - b2 becomes b1 and so on.

These numbers have been discussed extensively and generally getting rid of them would be almost impossible in the suffix field (unless GENi banned them, made it impossible to add them etc. to that field) - people will always add them again at some point, and those not in the know, new researchers who stumble into the Botha tree, will be inclined the "correct" the numbers in accordance with the published genealogies. So changes need to be clearly noted, explained and locked on all the profiles involved. This is an ENORMOUS TASK!!! It can be done - similar exercises have been carried out where new information has been found, but not to such far reaching extent.

One way, which would require the less work is to use the GISA (the publisher of these tables) way of indicating adoption - bracketing the number - so (b1) - leaving the numbers as they are except for the bracketed (b1).

The response to my query to GISA was - "We are aware of this problem. This will be discussed at our next board meeting in the next couple of weeks. At this stage GISA will not change its records as we are using certificates and death notices as proof of detail and the current Botha's certificates show that they are Botha. Maybe a solution will be to move them with reference to the DNA study. I can not give an answer at this stage.

I assume that adopted children will stay with their adopted parents. You can not move them somewhere else."

Obviously GENi does not have to follow in GISA's footsteps, but how we represent this situation on the tree is complicated, I think, because of the numbers! It would be much simpler without the numbers, BUT removing the numbers completely would be nigh impossible because users would just add them again - and add the incorrect ones to boot. So the solution is to correct the numbers, document and lock.

Well, now I'll express an opinion.

1) the numbers are issued by GISA and applies to "descendants", not ancestors. So someone looks up the number in their published tables, finds the name, number & dates. Uses Geni name search & locates the profile. Numbers "must" correlate & I don't understand how the Geni tree can fall out of sync with GISA. In other words, if & when GISA publishes new tables, then Geni profiles should be updated, and not before, because we just be guessing what their decision will be.

2) this has nothing to do at all with tree placement, anymore than legal name does.

Analogy from Colonial Virginia in the 1600s. The mother remarried & her daughter was "known by" her stepfather's name at her 1st marriage (and "only by" her 1st husband's name at 2nd marriage).

A published article called "a genealogical bombshell" clarified it only a few years ago, so we're still dealing with loads of incorrect records.

I do not know what her "maiden name" actually was at 1st marriage - doubt there was a formal adoption. So tree placement is very clear and name is -- multiple, oh well. :).

Why is it any different here? You have the advantage of knowing his legal names - they do not change; his genealogical chart number "maybe" will change; but his tree position "must" change, or the tree is false.

And here's another analogy "from" a numbering system I use daily - qualified patriot ancestors of the American Revolutionary War. It's the daughters of the American revolution database, they issue the numbers based on their own schema, we reference that number for lookup in the Geni profile.

Again, why would this situation be any different? It's their number but our tree.

I get all that Erica, the numbering is a knock on effect no matter where he is placed and has to be dealt with.

I don't see why, frankly. Geni is a tree. A profile references a number. The two are not coupled nor is there any requirement they stay in sync.

What this could lead to is saying the Geni tree, which is global, is determined in its placement by a local numbering authority.

That would be like saying the Geni tree must use the DAR numbering system.

Look at the description here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogical_numbering_systems

Several genealogical numbering systems have been widely adopted for presenting family trees and pedigree charts in text format.

=====

TEXT format. So for a report, publication, etc. Numbers are useful and gets crazy when the numbers must all shift over, but anyway in Word reports etc it can be automated, I could probably still write a WordPerfect macro to update any 1000 page report!

This does not apply to a chart, which is a visual diagram, and not a text artifact.

Then there needs to be some sort of directive about their use on the world tree from GENi - restricting them to the About, AKA or Curator note. Getting the users to not use them is always going to be a problem. Probably off topic here - sorry to have brought it up in this discussion

Geni probably would never (and rightly so) say any such thing as the members collaboratively use the software provided by Geni as best suits them.

So if members want to reference numbers, why not? They can be very helpful in organizing a tree. I would argue the numbers don't belong in name fields but since this isn't my tree area it's just an argument. :):)

What I "can" object to is tree placement that is counter any genealogical practice; that is, biological parents are known; in fact in this case they are proximate to the legal parents, which means there's no awkward tree "jump" needed; but the fictional ancestry is maintained??

I'm at a loss ...

June, thanks for the explanation. I understand the problem better.

My thought is that numbering is just a tool. It should not drive the structure of the tree. Would it be too awful to keep the approved numbering system but use the proper placement on the Geni tree?

If it were me, I would be very reluctant to eliminate or make unofficial changes to a numbering system that is so widely used. As a personal aside, I don't really like seeing those numbers in SA profiles but I understand that they are meaningful and used so universally in SA genealogy that eliminating them would be odder than using them ;)

So, my preference would be placing Theunis properly (biologically) in the tree, but retaining the numbers. For now, the numbers would not match the placement, but that would be a nice way of highlighting the disconnect.

Just a thought. This is a decision for SA users. I'm weighing in only because it could be seen as a precedent for the rest of Geni.

Daan, I like the idea of a "cross-reference" but I would like it better if it were a Geni option instead of something patched together by users by users trying to solve a problem that Geni should solve.

I can tell you a story about using cross-references that might explain why I'm cautious.

There is a famous problem in medieval genealogy with trying to place Beggue, count of Paris, and his wife Alpais. Some of the medieval curators struggled with how to present this problem. Sharon suggested trying duplicates and we all agreed. Sharon set it up, wrote the curator notes, and made it as easy as possible to understand why there were three profiles for one man. But, it turned out to be very difficult to maintain. Like Theunis, it seems like users just had to add and merge duplicates every few weeks. They generally didn't read the notes, didn't understand, and merged the wrong profiles which meant we had tons of ongoing cleanup. In the end, though, I was the one who messed it up (mea culpa!). I forgot what we were doing, and tried to untangle the latest mess the wrong way. Sharon was far too polite to ever point the finger at me, but I know her opinion of my abilities plummeted after that ;)

Now, we're trying a different solution that doesn't involve duplicates or cross-references.

You and I have talked about how to make a cross-reference that could really work. Maybe make it unknown gender, give it minimal information, write a curator note that points to the main profile, and lock it so that only curators can merge it and so it never has any children.

I can see how that could be a workable solution, but my main reservation (still) is that there are hundreds of cases similar to Theunis. If the SA users do it for Theunis, we will, inevitably I think, end up doing it all over Geni in every case where there is some doubt or some problem where it isn't easy to handle with Geni's existing system. And, knowing how much trouble we had with Count Beggue, I wonder if we want to invite that much maintenance and confusion throughout the Geni tree.

[This is a decision for SA users.]
Agree Justin, but any wisdom from international curators can always be applied for the good.
Until Geni has got a suitable solution we have to handle the situation. Although there are many such cases, I believe most are lower down in the tree where there are less traffic and common profiles - where personal preference would not pose much conflict.
If our interim "solution" is utilised on the first two levels of the SA tree, I believe the volume would not that big. I can understand the problems you had in the "historical tree" since traffic exponentially increase as you go up the tree.
I volunteered to curate the Botha/Appel profile and will give it a go - very similar to a handful of others which works well for me. If the solution does not work, i will be the first to admit it is not viable.
So at least we do not just sit and philosophy about the problems but try to do something until Geni comes up with a super-duper solution!

Summary:
Justin says =In western European genealogy we *always* show the actual, biological parents when they are known…I can understand that some people might prefer for vanity reasons to keep the Botha link rather than routing it through the mother's husband, but that seems to me to be a dishonest presentation=

Daan says = The issue for me is why we want to "enforce" a choice j between biological OR traditional parents when it is possible to accomodate both through using duplicate profiles - at least you satisfy both preferences, one fully and the other partly.=

June says =one BIG problem is the published de Villiers numbers - I think! Theunis being classified as the eldest son in the Botha family is b1 in published Genealogies. This means that all the way down his lineage people have been allocated numbers according to this - it is far reaching with over 5000 descendants=

Erica says=Geni is a tree. A profile references a number. The two are not coupled …What this could lead to is saying the Geni tree, which is global, is determined in its placement by a local numbering authority..
What I "can" object to is tree placement that is counter any genealogical practice; that is, biological parents are known.. but the fictional ancestry is maintained??I'm at a loss ...=

Justin says =My thought is that numbering is just a tool. It should not drive the structure of the tree. Would it be too awful to keep the approved numbering system but use the proper placement on the Geni tree?=

I see this profile's image and suffix have been changed to reflect a situation prior to the DNA study.

I welcome this discussion and support any efforts towards clarifying the designation SM, PROG etc.
Thank-you!

:-)