Unsourced Profiles I Can't Validate

Started by Debbie Gambrell on Saturday, October 26, 2019
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I just posted here: https://www.geni.com/discussions/203413?msg=1339124 and was basically told to bring it here. I'm very wary of some of the unsourced profiles I've encountered. If I can't find them in Scripture or anything historically documenting them, I'm unsure they're even real people. Is this the correct group to bring them to?

Thank you, Debbie, for raising this issue. I would welcome you and others to specify unsourced profiles. If we can't find out where they came from, they discredit to our whole project.

Douglas, what a breath of fresh air! I have just had the worst Geni experience I've ever had in the previous group I linked to, as you can read for yourself. I'm sure there are likely others, but here are the profiles I searched online trying to find scripture and/or any historical reference for and was unable to find anything:

Hananiah?

Tobit ben Hananiah (twin)

Elias ben Tobit, Governor of Judea 365-360 BCE (I found one reference for him, in a book about the AntiChrist!)

Antigone Soko ben Simeon

Zeredah ben Antigone

This may mention the same person but doesn't seem to give any genealogy:
Rabbi Joazar ben Zeredah

I found the trail from his son Yose to this one but nothing referencing his parents: Rabbi Yohanan ben Joazar

Supposedly these are in my ancestral tree but I always check for documentation to put in their profiles in my personal tree and I had little to no luck with these and figure others may experience the same thing. When profiles are added in Geni, if the connections have a source, it only takes a minute to add it so everyone knows it's a valid connection, so I appreciate your willingness to help me and others with this.

The way I understand it, "ben" works like "mac" does in Gaelic lines meaning "son of" so Simeon's son Antigone, Antigone's son Zeredah, Zeredah's son Rabbi Joazar and Rabbi Joazar's son Rabbi Yohanan are all unverified. So it's generations of the same line. Hope that helps.

For your discussion on Biblical trees, I did not create these trees, sources were already on these trees.
Dona Floyd Kimmons

As I said on the other discussion there are lots of information in books written in Hebrew, that are about Ancient Jewish Greek history, Essene texts‎, hellenistic Judaism‎, Jewish Ptolemaic history‎ and Rabbinic literature‎. Those profiles are added in the quite beginning of Geni, so it might get a while to get there. I tracked down some info about רבי יוחנן בן יועזר yesterday with basic google search, but the other ones you really have to know the culture and language and correct names, there are tons on info outside of internet still, I have understood that there are scholars specialized in these areas.

Private User, your points are understood. The problem is that people have already in the past added these profiles and not put any references in them, which is something trying to be addressed now in hopes of finding references to validate the profiles. Whoever originally posted the profiles should have done that at the time but obviously didn't. If we have any Biblical scholars available to help with these issues, we're asking for their assistance. People who can't provided references for supposed scriptural / historical people who shouldn't just add them and leave them as an open question. Without raising the question, the problem continues. I almost wish I'd never even brought the subject up, but ignoring the lack of references doesn't help anyone. There are obviously plenty of people happy to accept unreferenced profiles in what is supposed to be a historical / scriptural branch of the world tree. I'd prefer to have the less well-known people documented. I don't understand why anyone has a problem with that.

Dona Lorine Kimmons, Sr., I haven't seen where anyone said you created the tree(s). ?

Dona Lorine Kimmons, Sr., yes, that's my understanding of the naming sequence as well, and thank you so very much for understanding the point about unverified profiles in the lineage. I've not understood the pushback on my inquiry about that.

Correction, my last comment was intended for Private User

Debbie Gambrell If Simeon can be verified, wouldn't the line be verified by the "ben" in the rest? Or is that not viable because someone else knowing the use of "ben" may have entered the various names with "ben" as the link? Just a thought to help with the research. :)

Private User, what you said could happen is a a possibility but also, it's unlikely there would be just one person by the name of the parent being connected or the person they're connected. How would anyone know they were attaching the right ben "whoever" to the the correct parent unless they had a reference for the connection, either scriptural or some historical genealogical reference.

I saw at least a couple of profiles that the only "proof" of their connection was a historical reference to their existence but no mention of who their parents, spouse, and/or children were.

Genealogy lines are full of same-name people. I know two other people with my name, one is a judge in a town I lived in but we're different races and the other is in another town I lived in for a while and we had the same married names. On Geni when I search for someone, I very often find multiples of different people with the same names. Other data has to be used to distinguish who is who and validate the connections. So just using the "ben" naming sequence as the only "proof" of a blood connection isn't really reliable.

In an ideal world Geni would have someone among their volunteers with the scholarly background in Biblical lineages AND access to resources to look these profiled people up and gives references to the correct connections and correct any incorrect ones found. I don't know if there are any such volunteers among the curators, but that seems to be the only way to be certain such very old lines can be truly confirmed. I know Jewish scholars have resources unavailable to others.

It's to everyone's advantage if these profiles could be sourced and referenced, because then there would be no question about them. The curators actually ask that we do this on all profiles, as we should.

I understand now. For all I know, Antigone could've been as common as John is here. Since there were no last names, it was probably even worse. Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. ;)
There's a woman in Australia with my first and last name who received a mechanical eye implant.
I hope a curator who can assist finds this discussion.

Not sure how common the name Antigone is but most of the other names in the line are more common. I Googled Antigone and got these results, which are just mythical and/or from fiction. Not a single historical person popped up:

https://www.google.com/search?q=antigone&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS851US8...

A search more specifically for Antigone Soko ben Simeon just brings up undocumented online tree info like this:

https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/stamboom-homs/I60000000132372373...

He's supposedly my 76th great-grandfather. His name is pretty specific, so I'm "assuming" he isn't just made up, but I'd love to see documentation on the connection so I can know whether he really was my ancestor or not.

Antigone is my 76th GG, too. I just checked we're 11th cousins once removed.
If no one here can help, maybe it's time to hire a genealogist with strength in this area.

https://www.theroot.com/how-to-hire-a-professional-genealogist-you-...

Well, nice to meet you, cousin. That's at least one positive thing to come out of all this. :)

Antigone is Sarus in hebrew, so you may be looking at the house of sarus for research.

Debbie Gambrell Agreed. :)
Jessica Christophe-Dymock Paternal Ydna QM 242 Hi 17th cousin thrice removed. :)

Hello everybody, sorry I couldn't get involved sooner.

I would ALSO love to find sources for many of these profiles. Some of these, especially around the family of Jesus seem to be on the level of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" thriller novel, i.e. fiction and/or wishful thinking.

Many additional profiles DO have sources, but these haven't been entered into the profiles. Good examples of such sources would be the NON-canonical "Book of Jubilees" and the FAKE "Book of Jasher". I simply have never had the chance to carefully read the two, and then decide which profiles to source and which to delete.

This is a BIG problem with the very NATURE of the "Biblical" Tree, as I explain on the project page:
https://www.geni.com/projects/Biblical-Tree/38

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In this regard the "Biblical" Tree is MUCH more COMPLICATED than later parts of the tree, because there are SO MANY possible sources. How well do we all know the Quran, Christian Bible, Mormon holy-books or even the Dead-Sea Scrolls? How about the NON-canonical writings of ALL of the above faiths? There are about 50 such (ספרים חיצוניים) from Jewish sources, hundreds for Christianity (never mind the different definitions of the Christian Bible (compare list of books in KJV to Eastern Orthodox Bible). There are actual examples for all of the above already IN the tree. There are certainly MANY more sources beyond those. So just because a profile is not in the sources that you are familiar with, doesn't mean it is bogus. We DO strive to find sources for all, but it's a big tree and an even bigger world out there.
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So if people have the time and patience to help find sources, I would be VERY grateful.

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