RE Leanne's comments 4/15/2025 11:02: I would appreciate if these comments of yours could be added to our main project page, perhaps as part of the instructions?
My greatest concern with the ancestor I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, whose parents were summarily disconnected by a project member, is that, as far as i can tell, it was a unilateral decision made, without the knowledge or input of any of the long time geni managers for that profile. I have been one of the 20+ long time managers of the profile in question, but i do know that I certainly was not contacted or presented with any opportunity for discussion prior to the disconnection of the parents, the dismantling of our combined ancestry. I accidentally came across the discovery, when reviewing some of my profiles with a new dna match, seeking potential common ancestry. I do have dna matches which, thus far, can only be explained when those parents are connected. That does not exclude other possibilities, but does not prove them either.
Many records have been destroyed in wars and accidentally over the centuries, and entire mennonite church and community record books are known to have been lost in the russian revolution and its aftermath, which included the systematic dismantling of the mennonite communities, forced mass displacements with very little if any notice, summary arrests, torture, banishments to siberia, and executions of many mennonites in countries and territories taken over by russia in the 20th century. I lost a number of relatives in those times. It has been estimated that more than 33% of the mennonites living in those areas in the first half of the 20th century lost their lives as a result of targeted persecution directed and executed by official government forces.
GMOL has not found specific documentation thus far the prove or to disprove the ancestral connection in question. The parental connection however exists in the oral traditions of a number of families with whom i have dna connections. The parents may or may not have been Mennonites, but that has nothing to with parentage. The decision to disconnect or not to disconnect the parents should have included a collaborative effort with other profile managers. We should all have been alerted of the potential action, and provided time to consider, to reply, to participate in the decision making.
The profile did Not need to be culled in order to verify it for the GMOL project. There was No need to add it to the project. It could have been left outside of the project, still quite accessible, but not conforming to the current gmol profile.
The search for records is ongoing. Many are difficult to access due to language (translation programs are far from perfect) and other barriers (prior to russia Invasion of ukraine mennonite, mormon, and other groups were actively researching records in ukraine and russia, working on translating and digitalizing as many as possible, but their work ended abruptly when russia invaded ukraine. There is much yet to be discovered. But the opportunities are hampered while this current war and devastation is ongoing.
