Posted by Kaapuikinaea on January 31, 2010 at 8:12am
Been seeing that commercial advertised a lot lately. This site may be beneficial for many White Americans, but not the case for us Hawaiians.The way that Ancestry.com basically works, aside from housing various documents that people can use, they also rely on people's submission of their own family tree.This reminds me of how some people here (I won't mention any names since they have minions lurking about on MW) in the past have claimed, if not actually brag of their extensive genealogical research, and even ridiculed other people's research and have gone as far as being disrespectful to some of our ali'i and their legacy. The accusation that we should actually go to the archives ourselves rather than do research via the internet, kinda akin to using ancestry.com.The fact that they have made claims that because they spend oodles of hours at the archives as justification why their work is valid versus anyone else is misleading. The main reason, comprehension of reading documents, something they have a problem with, aside from not being able to read the Hawaiian language as evident in a particular accustation of the Princes Ruth Keelikolani.On top of that, after begging for citing of recrods, that person showed actual links of documents they scanned (?) or obtained as proof of a few of their information as far as dates are concerned.What it was, is nothing more than index cards of aliis' names and dates when they born, died and parents' names. But this too is nothing but the same thing this person accused others of doing. Just because the index cards came from the archives doesn't make it any better than say someone actually pulling up on the internet actual references taken from old Hawaiian newspapers, which is where whoever typed up these old index cards got teh same information from. In fact, on those index cards, it states exactly where that information came from.Just goes to show you that, unless you really understand where you are getting the information from, don't be too quick to pass judgment on others' research.Now if only these people could follow either 1) western style of genealogy or 2) Hawaiian style of genealogy. Because reading what they write, something they've proliferated over the internet in error doesn't do them justice.
Oh, I should've said on each wiki page, the sources are cited at the bottom which I RARELY look at. I usually click on the DISCUSSION tab to see if the article had any "pseudo-intellectual wars" going on where people debate what should be or shouldn't be discussed on the article. It's fucking crazy, these fucking nazis create their own rules. lol They obviously need a life. But then there's the HISTORY tab, and every time someone makes an edit, they usually should state what type of edit was done. People revert it back and forth, back and forth, etc. I know I've done that w/ the Keanu Reeves page too. Someimtes the DISCUSSION tab is the only way to air it out. But my point is, you can see how reliable or not it is. I meant to do that for the LILIHA or KUINI LILIHA section on Wiki and figure out about her hanai parents, which I didn't know. I had 2 diff. Lilihas in my database but figured out that they were probably the same although many sources I saw listed these Lilihas' husbands separately until the Wiki article was the only source of saying she had hanai parents which made me believe the 2 were the same, which I suspected. However, i still need to get a more concrete evidence or pointed into the right direction that states she was hanai'd by Hoapili/Ulumaheihei and had a diff. blood lineage.
"With wiki I always look at who did it" oh, that's the better answer, I should of told him that.
Just noticed I said myfamily, but it was familysearch.org I was talking about. Yeah, I don't update things anymore for the reasons you stated. Whatever is there now is enough for someone to get in contact with me. I may do other trees, but I'm very selective now and will only release info I have total control over, which will probably be my own web site.
I'm one of the administrators of the Native Hawaiian Genealogy Group on facebook and one of our ideals was to make some sort of wiki type page for native hawaiians. Then people could make pages for their ancestors. It would be where you could link your person with any other person, but won't be able to edit info that another person entered, similar to findagrave where you can link a person to their mother and father if their already added to findagrave. Actually it's been over year since we discussed it, and I have no clue how to set that up, so it's gonna be awhile before that gets up and running, bit it ever does.
H for Haitian? Dumb fucks. lol I saw OC, which I mistook for Octoroon, or was wondering if that's what it meant b/c in some of the census I thought they had that classification. It was OTHER CAUCASIAN, I believe, is what was used in one of the census for Hawaii.
I forgot about myfamily.com. Haven't been to that site in ages. Sites like that, the LDS' familysearch.org, once info. goes in, that's it, it's there to stay. I had submitted info. to them in the 90s and I see how outdated that is. You send in new info., it doesn't override it, but duplicate it. I've seen so many recs. like that, so it becomes problematic to figure out which one is the most current, and then you have, as you mentioned, misnumbering of films. It's just that their updating/correcting feature is pretty non-existent.
With wiki I always look at who did it. They're good about citing sources and I've seen so many, questionable ones with members of the royal family who aren't well known, like the Young family, like Jane, Margaret, Abigail, etc. We only know of Emma Rooke, and then Peter Kaeo, but the other cousins we don't hear so much about. I've found these pages to have a discrepency, one actually explained or verified my hunches where there was hanai involved with Liliha (wife of Boki). But if there was hanai, why wasn't her other more famous husband (Boki) mentioned? It's still not fully trustworthy.
But recently, this week actually I've been taping from our BYU channel a segment called - ANCESTORS, which if I remember correctly the LDS plublishes a magazine w/ the same name. But they have good tips, many of which you and I already know, and they always showcase someone's personal story and sojourn as to finding out their roots.
Anyway, they talk a lot about verifying ORIGINAL sources, which is what I've learned to do the past 10 years now. I may get some info., dates, etc. but I end up using that as a basis and start (if need be) to verify it for myself with true, or original records. So that helps.
Ancestry.com is very frustrating. I have seen Hoopii indexed as Hooper and I forget which census year it was, but anyone with the race of "H" is Haitian. So in Hawaii in 1900 or 1910 census, there was a ton of Haitians and no Hawaiians. I haven't complained yet about it, but will. Myfamily.com is another one where I complained about a mis numbered microfilm # for Baptisms for the dead in Laie and the lady assured me it would be fixed next year, but here we are 5 years later and nothings changed. I think the Hawaii things are of interest to such a small number of people they just don't care.
My cousin recently asked me if wikipedia is right or not and I told him neither and he said it's either right or wrong info there, it can't be both. I told him no. The people who make the pages, know what they know, but don't everything and reference everything there is to know on a particular subject, so don't take everything there as the abosolute truth and don't think it's a bunch of lies and has no merit cause you find some misinformation there. It is what it is. Take what you need off it, decide how accurate the info is and move on to the next source. I don't understand how people get so stuck on only one way of doing things, or there can only be one source kind of thing.
Comments
Just noticed I said myfamily, but it was familysearch.org I was talking about. Yeah, I don't update things anymore for the reasons you stated. Whatever is there now is enough for someone to get in contact with me. I may do other trees, but I'm very selective now and will only release info I have total control over, which will probably be my own web site.
I'm one of the administrators of the Native Hawaiian Genealogy Group on facebook and one of our ideals was to make some sort of wiki type page for native hawaiians. Then people could make pages for their ancestors. It would be where you could link your person with any other person, but won't be able to edit info that another person entered, similar to findagrave where you can link a person to their mother and father if their already added to findagrave. Actually it's been over year since we discussed it, and I have no clue how to set that up, so it's gonna be awhile before that gets up and running, bit it ever does.
I forgot about myfamily.com. Haven't been to that site in ages. Sites like that, the LDS' familysearch.org, once info. goes in, that's it, it's there to stay. I had submitted info. to them in the 90s and I see how outdated that is. You send in new info., it doesn't override it, but duplicate it. I've seen so many recs. like that, so it becomes problematic to figure out which one is the most current, and then you have, as you mentioned, misnumbering of films. It's just that their updating/correcting feature is pretty non-existent.
With wiki I always look at who did it. They're good about citing sources and I've seen so many, questionable ones with members of the royal family who aren't well known, like the Young family, like Jane, Margaret, Abigail, etc. We only know of Emma Rooke, and then Peter Kaeo, but the other cousins we don't hear so much about. I've found these pages to have a discrepency, one actually explained or verified my hunches where there was hanai involved with Liliha (wife of Boki). But if there was hanai, why wasn't her other more famous husband (Boki) mentioned? It's still not fully trustworthy.
But recently, this week actually I've been taping from our BYU channel a segment called - ANCESTORS, which if I remember correctly the LDS plublishes a magazine w/ the same name. But they have good tips, many of which you and I already know, and they always showcase someone's personal story and sojourn as to finding out their roots.
Anyway, they talk a lot about verifying ORIGINAL sources, which is what I've learned to do the past 10 years now. I may get some info., dates, etc. but I end up using that as a basis and start (if need be) to verify it for myself with true, or original records. So that helps.
My cousin recently asked me if wikipedia is right or not and I told him neither and he said it's either right or wrong info there, it can't be both. I told him no. The people who make the pages, know what they know, but don't everything and reference everything there is to know on a particular subject, so don't take everything there as the abosolute truth and don't think it's a bunch of lies and has no merit cause you find some misinformation there. It is what it is. Take what you need off it, decide how accurate the info is and move on to the next source. I don't understand how people get so stuck on only one way of doing things, or there can only be one source kind of thing.