Today I received an email from WikiTree indicating that someone had made an edit to Benjamin Boyce — specifically adding a daughter Elizabeth.
(I’ve set up my WikiTree account to receive notifications about edits to people named Boyce, Boice, Buys, Buis, Buijs, and Bice, as well as other significant names in my tree. Not because I’m anal (well, OK, maybe a little) but because I’m interested in knowing when relatives are uncovered. And then there is the QA1 thing.)
Benjamin Boyce (1775-1850) was my fourth great granduncle. Someone had added a daughter — Elizabeth — and I remembered that he probably had a daughter named Elizabeth because most Boyce families back then had an Elizabeth (and a William and a Margaret and a John and a Rachel) and because Benjamin’s Mother’s name was Elizabeth (second marriage in Kingston in 18222). I was pretty sure I had not yet added a profile for his daughter Elizabeth, just because, well, you know, it never ends. But I was keen to find out if the person who made the addition cited sources and could be relied upon going forward.
Well, the editor had not noticed that WikiTree already had a Benjamin Boyce (1775-1850), born in NY, died in Ohio, and lived in Loughborough for many generations in between, so she created another one. She did have Elizabeth’s birthplace as Fredericksburg, Upper Canada, and that her first husband was Moses Spafford. (Ever notice Spaffordtown, just east of Sydenham where Keeley Road crosses the Rutledge Road? Same family.) And, the person who created the profile for Elizabeth did cite US censuses — good enough to get Elizabeth started; more can be added or cleaned up later.
So I am confident that this is the right Elizabeth, connected to the right Benjamin, and that this editor does real research. Cool!
In fact, I checked and saw that I had already recorded in the text field of Benjamin’s profile that his oldest daughter was named Elizabeth, and I had a source (1817 census prepared by Thomas Rail (Railton is also in Loughborough Township, just south of Spaffordtown)) that gave her nickname as Betsey.
So I initiated a merge of this new Benjamin with the one that I created, because WikiTree should only have one profile for each person. No problem, evidence suggests that this new editor will also be a good custodian of the records, and I’ll still get notices if anything is changed.
So without going into Benjamin’s family, how they were Dutch New Yorkers and small-l loyalists and migrated to Canada in about 1799, or how he joined the LDS when Joseph Smith and his missionaries evangelized in this area in the early years, and then he followed the LDS flock to Ohio (because if I started, then this will never end3), here are some of the cool things about WikiTree that this brings to mind:
- You can be notified if people are working in the upper branches of your tree.
- It is all public, so you can evaluate the calibre of their work, and act accordingly.
- The culture is professional, scholarly, respectful, and cooperative, which leads to all sorts of good things.
- Once you decide someone can be trusted4, then your tree grows without much effort from you!
- QA: Quality Assurance ↩︎
- See profile of Elizabeth (Snyder) (Boice) Holmes for references. ↩︎
- Click on the profile for Benjamin and read his profile for all the sources. ↩︎
- I think our April speaker at the Kingston Branch meeting will be talking about this. ↩︎
