Help:FAQ/Genealogy

Login and accounts

See Help:FAQ/Accounts.

What is Wikidata? How is Wikidata different from other genealogical websites?

See Wikidata:Introduction for an overview of Wikidata.

• Wikidata is entirely free. The data is under CC-0 and can be reused for any purposes without asking for permission.
• Wikidata is a secondary database. All information must be verifiable. Therefore Wikidata is not intended to have items for all 8,028,504,258 living people, and not every Wikidata user will have a Wikidata item about them.

 What about a notable celebrity : should we add his father/mother (even if they are unknown) ?

Can I import data from other genealogical websites to Wikidata?

It depends.

• Even if other genealogical websites are copyrighted, the facts (fathers, mothers, dates) in these databases are not copyrightable. Other information may be copyrighted and should not be imported.
• Wikidata is an American website, and database right is not honored. However Wikimedia does not encourage import from sources protected by database right.
• Import from any open (user-generated) database is discouraged as most of the data are unsourced.
• Large-scale import may result in duplicates of data already in Wikidata.

Family tree

Wikidata is a document-oriented database; each item represents one thing (e.g. an individual), and contains all data about this thing.

Items may be connected by statements. All father, mother and child etc. statements form a large graph, this is the family tree in Wikidata. Due to the limitations of available information, not all people will have genealogical connections, but Wikidata does contain tens of thousands of connected people.

Who can be added to Wikidata?

See Wikidata:Notability for policy.

You can create an item about someone if verifiable information can be added to it. Wikidata has a more lenient notability standard than Wikipedia, but the existence of records in user-generated websites (such as Geni.com) does not automatically make someone notable.

Can I create item for living people?

You should create them if they are covered by reliable secondary sources. Primary sources should not be used.

For living minors (under 18) usually you should only add them if nontrivial information (other than names, birth date, family) are described by multiple reliable sources.

What should the labels be?

See Help:Labels.

Usually, follow Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) (Q10972639), but remove all disambiguation information (which belongs to descriptions).

How to model names?

• given name (P735)
• family name (P734) - add both married and maiden names with qualifier object has role (P3831)=name at birth (Q2507958) or married name (Q30232378) for women
• family (P53) - especially for royalty without surname
• patronym or matronym for this person (P5056)
• name in native language (P1559)
• birth name (P1477), married name (P2562)
• nickname (P1449)
• name in kana (P1814)
• McCune-Reischauer romanization (P1942) / revised romanization (P2001) for Korean names

See Template:Name properties for other properties useful for Spanish, Roman, Chinese, etc. names.

Never use disambiguation items as surnames or given names; create new ones if needed.

How to add a someone to Wikidata?

First, check whether an item exists. If it does not exist, create one via Special:CreateItem. Add P31=Q5 to it. You should add more statements (e.g. sex, date of birth, etc.) to the new item; when you click "add statement", some possible statements to add will be suggested.

Then, you may link father, mother, child, spouse, etc. using statements. They should be added for both people; when adding a relationship about someone, don't forget to also update the target.

• Examples (?randomized) of well-written items for people:
  • Kim Yo-jong (Q4330912)
  • Thérésa Tallien (Q255635)(add some more)

How to add a relationship without a Wikidata property, e.g. stepson?

Use relative with type of kinship as qualifier.

How to visualize a family tree?

• EntiTree navigable Family Tree (D3 inspired) using ReactJS
• Relator to show (or edit) immediate family of someone
• Geneawiki for small connected family tree (this is not suitable for most item as they are connected to a huge number of items).

How to upload a photo?

You may upload photos to Commons that:

• You created yourself, or
• That are old enough that the copyright has expired, or
• That are explicitly available under a free license

Go to Wikimedia Commons Upload Wizard to upload a file. Once uploaded, it can be used in Wikidata items.

How to merge duplicate items?

Everyone can merge items; see Help:Merge. You may also need to merge items about their relatives.

Management

Who manages items?

Everyone is able to edit most items, but items can not be owned or claimed; you do not own an item even if it is created by you and/or about you.

What can administrators do?

Administrators may delete items, block users or protect items from being vandalized or items in dispute (usually, users after 4 days and 50 edits may edit them). See Wikidata:Administrator for more details.

Vandalism and disputes

What if I believe some information is wrong?

• You may remove the information yourself, or revert the edit that added it. This is usually used if the information is wrong or unsourced.
• You may discuss the edit in the user talk page of the editor.
• You may discuss the edit in the talk page of the item. Note that item talk pages are not widely watched, so you may use Wikidata:Project chat if broader discussion is required.

How to report vandalism or spam?

• Individual items that serve no purpose may be requested for deletion at Wikidata:Requests for deletions.
• Vandalism and spam may be reported to the Wikidata:Administrators' noticeboard.

How to report copyrighted information?

• Remove it if it appears in only a few items.
• You may request further administrator involvement by reporting it to the Wikidata:Administrators' noticeboard. They may remove specific revisions from public view.

Privacy

Wikidata does not have any private items; all information are public.

How to remove private information from Wikidata?

• You may request the removal of specific information by emailing privacywikidata.org.
• See Wikidata:Oversight for removing sensitive non-public personal information that may increase the potential for harassment, such as phone numbers or home addresses.