User:Dontiknowyou

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dontiknowyou
User dontiknowyou is a member of the Guild of One Name Studies. On Family Tree in FamilySearch this user has made over 13,000 new person profiles and attached over 100,000 sources. Most contributions are on German surnames Centner, Czentner, Jentner, Gentner, Genthner, Sentner, Tzentner, Zehentner, Zehntner, Zentner; also English surnames Clough, Verry, Yarrall. This user is especially interested in breaking through intercontinental immigrant "brick walls".

Intercontinental immigrant brick walls
Tables in this section show data from FamilySearch. Indexed historical records divided by Family Tree profiles gives a very rough estimate of the completeness of a surname study. The estimate is not intuitive. A large ratio usually means many profiles have yet to be created. However, a small ratio does not mean the study is complete. There are surnames for which many profiles exist but almost no historical records have been indexed by FamilySearch; in this case the ratio is less than 1. It has been my experience with some rare surnames that when all historical records are linked to profiles, there are about 7 records per profile. That is, the sweet spot is 7.

Clough in British Colonial America
A young single man named John Clough L2VM-FFH was among the early 17th century immigrants from England who settled on Martha's Vineyard. His place and family of origin in England are not known. The surname Clough is not rare, and there are many known spelling variants. Numerous villages in Ireland and England are named Clough and in northern England the word clough means a steep sided valley.

This John Clough was one of at least 6 men named John Clough who are known to have immigrated to British Colonial America in the same period. The others do not yet have profiles on Family Tree.

This John Clough has many candidate families of origin in England. Systematically attaching historical records to profiles of anyone named John Clough (or variant spelling) in England circa 1550 to 1650 should help to find his family. Some of this work has been done but there is more. Another line of research is Y-DNA. On FamilyTreeDNA two projects have Clough participants: Northumberland and Clewis-Clough.

This table reveals that FamilySearch Family Tree contains over 40,000 profiles with neither standardized place names nor historical records attached. Note, however, that the worldwide number of records divided by profiles is near the "sweet spot". This suggests that nearly all profiles relating to this surname already exist in Family Tree, but most profiles have not been reworked since the mass import circa 2012 of legacy trees into Family Tree. This situation begs for a community project. Many hands make light work.

2021
One year ago almost no profiles on John Clough's descendancy tree in Family Tree had any historical records attached. Now, that task is nearly complete for at least the first 4 generations. Just a few hints remain. With so many hints resolved the tree is now much more stable. See the tree on Family Tree.

Verry and Yarrall in New Zealand
Verry and Yarrall families were among the first immigrants to New Zealand; there is good documentation of these families in New Zealand but their origins in England are unknown. Numerous genealogists have worked on tracing back the Verry line, so far without success.

The number of profiles in England, New Zealand, and the United States combined do not approach the number of profiles worldwide because most profiles lack standardized place names. Place names not standardized causes undercounting and, more importantly, poor search results.

Forebears.io reports that today the surname Verry is most numerous in the United States, France, Indonesia, and New Zealand. It is likely of French origin.

Verry tasks

 * M9QL-GND Elisha Verry (before 9 January 1738 – Deceased) merge duplicates, then merge duplicates for his wife Mary.
 * On Family Tree search for the exact surname and a country where that surname is not likely. The results will be populated with profiles in need of standardizing of place names (and dates).  Example:  Verry in Argentina