Family trees on Wikipedia?

[kiterunner]

I just came across this while researching the Kingscote family in my tree:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingscote_Family

Is it common for a family tree to be uploaded to Wikipedia like this? People expect stuff on Wikipedia to be accurate, but I doubt that this is particularly so. I can certainly see a few mistakes on there. I hope this isn't a trend because I can imagine people will copy a tree off there taking it as gospel (well, I know some people do that with any tree they find, but Wikipedia seems to give it more authority). Also, I assume that if I correct the mistakes I can find, I would have to give my sources, and Wikipedia doesn't accept "original research" as a source!

[Olde Crone]

I have seen a few trees on wikipedia but none that I would call a family tree. As you say, this does have a claim to authenticity by virtue of being on wiki. I think that any serious genealogist would be wary of this tree which has no dates to support the earlier part which has been culled fro Burke's Peerage I suspect, or from that strange site the name of which escapes me. Edit - stirnet.

Unfortunately any inexperienced researcher will probably swallow this hook line and sinker. I don't think there is much you can do, sadly, if Ancestry trees are anything to go by, people don't want to know the truth.

There is a link in the sources there which I think might be the author's. It leads to an odd page on which he is basically saying that if he disagrees with you he will block you. You can but try.

OC

[kiterunner]

The only link I can see in the sources takes me to "The Peerage.com", OC. Which link do you mean, please?

[Olde Crone]

Pooh sorry, scroll to the bottom and click on Were spiel chequers, who was the most recent person to edit the page. Perhaps he is not the author?

OC

[kiterunner]

Thanks, OC. As far as I can make out from the edit history, s/he just fixed a typo. I think it's just a coincidence that s/he mentions trees on that strange page!

[kiterunner]

Having read through Anthony Kingscote's will, the most interesting bit to me is that he disinherited his eldest son Christopher for being "very disobedient" and ignoring the advice of his parents and friends, embezzling money which was rightfully his brother's, and not marrying "the woeman that he hath taken to him", but this isn't mentioned on the Wikipedia page, nor The Peerage.com, which just say "Christopher Kingscote married Ann" or some such and give the impression that he was a younger son.

So the Wikipedia page is really not much use!

[Olde Crone]

Sounds to me as if the wikipedia entry is just a copy of the Peerage entry. I have a couple of these Peerage entries which glide past any unsavoury happening in the family. A bit of original research as you say, turns up a completely different picture and it is usually a more interesting one.

I have never tried to amend a wiki entry. Is it difficult?

OC

[kiterunner]

I have never tried to amend a wiki entry. Is it difficult?


I don't think it's the actual editing process so much as the fact that your changes might be edited by someone else if they don't conform to the standards, or even reversed if you don't provide the requisite source information. But I wouldn't know where to start with amending that family tree page anyway.

[James18]

I remember reading through the Plantagenet family tree on Wikipedia a few years ago.