User talk:Queenmedb99

Cenél nEógain

Hi Queenmedb99, I appreciate your interest in history of the septs of the Northern Uí Néill, namely Cenél Moain and the Mac Giolla Uidhir, but your contributions to said subjects are simply not encyclopaedic per WP:WIAE. Listing the extensive genetic markers/DNA of the McAleers is not needed on either page and quite a mess. Furthermore, you have not added any citations to support your claims.

If you have any questions, please use the talk pages. Otherwise, please remove/shorten and or reference your additions. Thanks, Gaelicbow (talk) 13:07, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello, whoever you are. According to FAMILIA ulster genealogical review 1990 Vol 2 No 6 on page 55 the McAleer's are Cenel Moain. This can be further verified by recent DNA testing, besides who are you ? what qualifies you to comment? Furthermore I have firsthand knowledge of the McAleer's by birthright. What qualifies you? Queenmedb99 (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

As a late reply to this specific concern, there is no ownership of content on Wikipedia, and that policy linked here in my message describes why. There is also a prohibition of original research (so much about first-hand knowledge) and a general openness to editing by anyone (WP:5P) independently of their alleged qualifications. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:18, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

May 2023

Please do not add or change content, as you did at McAleer, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. – dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 21:35, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I have cited sources. I have cited Moain 1 30 2023 Jaski McFh Lineages with SNPs which is in the public domain.I have also put reference to the FAMILIA ulster genealogical review 1990 Vol 2 No 6 on page 55. which is a publication . I have published McAleer DNA results which can be verified. The McAleer's are descended from the Cenel Moain. Besides citing a questionable source like like George McAleer which is largely based on conjecture and myth. And to state the McAleer's are of Norse descent without any proof is also a load of nonsense. The McAleer's are Irish and I have posted the McAleer genetic mutations. Who are you to question anyway? you know nothing about the McAleer's Queenmedb99 (talk) 22:41, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I have been researching the McAleer's for a number of years. I have had deep DNA Analysis of the Family DNA carried out. Gorge McAleer's book which was published in 1909 is a load of conjecture and myths. Modern DNA has established exactly who the McAleer's are. They are not Norse and are descended from Niall of The Nine Hostages. Queenmedb99 (talk) 22:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war; read about how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you do not violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. 76.119.253.82 (talk) 22:56, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I have restored the last stable revision and protected the page for now; Talk:McAleer is a good place to discuss the article's content and find a consensus. Wikipedia's dispute resolution policy contains further advice.

If the edit warring simply continues after the protection expires, I'm afraid a block from editing would be the only solution left. Please carefully read the advice provided by others above, as ignoring or persistently rejecting these concerns would be disruptive (cf. WP:DISRUPTSIGNS). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:07, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I am not an expert here at all. I will admiit to being a novice at editing. But my points are valid. My intention is to update with truth and not conjecture from an antiquated book full of inaccuracies that was published over a hundred years ago. I have had Deep family YDNA testing carried out to establish exactly who the McAleer's are. I have published results. I am also a member of a number of Projects at FTDNA researching the ancestry of the Cenel nEogain, the Cenel Moain from which the McAleer's descend. Queenmedb99 (talk) 00:01, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

ANI notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. 76.119.253.82 (talk) 23:06, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Friendly advice

I encouage to read Wikipedia:Expert editors and think carefully about what is written there. This passage is particularly relevant: The only authority for content, is what sources say, and the policies and guidelines under which we summarize them and work together. In its early days Wikipedia did stray into accepting the authority of editors, which led to the Essjay controversy. Since then the community has rigorously adhered to the principle that it doesn't matter who you are or who you say you are — what matters is the quality of the sources you bring and of your edits summarizing those sources, and how well you work with others. You will gain a reputation here, but it will be based solely on what you do here.

This is a collaborative project where editors with different points of view and different levels of expertise discuss the reliable sources and how best to summarize them, with the goal of reaching consensus about article improvement. This is a Top Ten website worldwide and its success is based on sticking to its established policies and guidelines. Among the strongest standards here is that edit warring is absolutely forbidden. No editor, even if 100% correct on the content, has the right to force their preferred content into the encyclopedia. Instead, we discuss and analyze the reliable sources, and either come to a consensus about changes, or utilize the various forms of dispute resolution that are available.

I have written and expanded thousands of Wikipedia articles in the past 14 years. In some cases, I had a high degree of expertise about the topic. In other cases, I knew little or nothing about the topic before beginning work on the article, but had the willingness to read and accurately summarize the reliable sources discussing the topic. The result is the same: an encyclopedia article that accurately summarizes the published reliable sources.

So, I encourage you to try your best to understand Wikipedia's behavioral norms. If you continue on the same path, it is likely that you will be blocked, either from the articles that interest you, or from the entire encyclopedia. Why not choose to collaborate instead? Cullen328 (talk) 03:46, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for you advice. I will admit to being a novice on wikipedia and making mistakes. My objective here is to update the entry. What has been posted needs updating as most of it is not based on fact. I am open to discussion with anyone who has constructive input and who is not relying on outdated and suspect sources. Modern DNA testing has proved who the McAleer's are. I would like to know why the results are not acceptable and why unprovable comments and pure conjecture are acceptable. I want to resolve this dispute amicably if possible. Queenmedb99 (talk) 07:21, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

References to reliable published sources are like nuggets of gold on Wikipedia. Assertions like I have firsthand knowledge of the McAleer's by birthright and I have had deep DNA Analysis of the Family DNA carried out are of zero value on Wikipedia, much more like sawdust instead of gold, unless the DNA analysis you mention has been published in a peer reviewed academic journal. It is all about the quality of the references to published reliable sources here on Wikipedia. That is the only way that we can comply with the core content policy of Verifiability. So, please be specific and provide links to the published results about the DNA analysis in reliable sources. Cullen328 (talk) 07:34, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I am in discussion with an administrator of one of the projects at FTDNA and we are discussing up to date published DNA analysis. I have been explaining to him the difficulties I am having here at the moment. Hopefully we can find a way forward. Queenmedb99 (talk) 08:15, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Queenmedb99, mind if I offer some thoughts on why we need the kind of reliable sources that Cullen328 speaks of? I have no reason to doubt your honesty at all. But suppose I came along and claimed I have firsthand knowledge of the McAleer's by birthright and I have had deep DNA Analysis of the Family DNA carried out and that my research shows conclusively that these people are of some other origin? How could Wikipedia readers know that you're right and I'm wrong? They could only know by checking the sources that we cite, and by the reliability of those sources. Now, I could publish my own claims somewhere and cite that - but my own publication to support my own claims would not, on its own, be considered reliable (because anyone can publish anything they want these days). So no, I'd need to have my results and claims published and scrutinised in a reliable peer-reviewed source with a reputation for the quality of its fact-checking. That's why we can't accept first-hand claims of expertise and of research results. So to answer the question "I would like to know why the results are not acceptable", it's because we only have your assertions for those results. And an encyclopedia does not use the results of first-hand research. We can only use results once they have been properly reviewed in independent reliable sources. If you have your results published in a source that is considered reliable (see WP:RS) for Wikipedia's purposes, you could use that. Otherwise, you might have made some breakthroughs, but an encyclopedia is not an appropriate place to pubish them. I hope that helps. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your insight. I totally understand what you are saying. I am working towards getting something together that will be acceptable. I am also trying to enlist some people to help me with this as it turning out to be more of a minefield than I had first imagined. At the end of the day I am determined to resolve this. Much of what has been written in the past is nonsense. A lot of it is heresy and old tales handed down from generation to generation with no basis in fact. for example the name McClure. It is a name that has been associated with the McAleer's because it sounds similar. Yet the McClure's are not related in any way to the McAleer's. One is of Irish descent the other Scottish. Because they have sounded similar people have always wrongly assumed that they are related they are not. Modern DNA testing has conclusively otherwise. There are many things concerning the McAleer entry on wikipedia that are just not true, yet they are posted without question. Another example is the McAleer's are believed to be of Norse descent. That statement has no basis in fact. Where is the evidence. yet that has been posted. why has that not been queried. I am working on getting this resolved and I will. Queenmedb99 (talk) 08:43, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I've done a fair bit of genealogy research myself (and I have a background in biochemistry/heredity), so I share your frustrations. Much of the accepted "knowledge" these days comes from little more than ancient heresay. But, as I caution below, DNA can help us with genealogy (providing we have the samples to use, which become scarcer the further back we try to go). But it can't provide the origin of names - our name is not in our DNA. Anyway, this is the kind of discussion that needs to happen at Talk:McAleer, when you have the documentary evidence you need to support your name origin findings. I'll watch that page, and I'll try to help there if I can. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:57, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh, and can I just suggest one thing I would be cautious of here. That's being careful not to confuse the origin of names with the DNA lineage of people carrying those names today. Names do not have DNA, and it is entirely possible (and not uncommon) for names to be transferred, adopted, modified... outwith any direct DNA connections. I've no idea of any likelihood of that here, but I think it is one of the things that should be brought up in any origins discussion. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:31, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I know what you mean with names. I have no doubt in the past that McAleer has been mis heard and recorded differently. Many of our ancestors were probably illiterate. Add to that a thick Irish brogue and whoever recorded to name probably wrote it as it sounded. What you omitted are those who changed their names or were NPE's(Non Parental Events) and have different names but carry thew McAleer DNA. I have spoken with quite a few in my research to date. Queenmedb99 (talk) 08:57, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

In my own family research I've found different generations who share a surname but no Y-chromosome (non-marital sex is not a new invention), and different generations who share DNA but not a surname. And we have no DNA at all from any of those postulated ancestral people from thousands of years ago to be sure of who begat whom. There's a myriad of ways that today's families could have arrived where they are. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:03, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

With YDNA you can trace a line back from father to son right back through each subsequent generation to your earliest ancestors. So it is easy trace a line back especially if you have ancestral records which are a bonus. The O Neill/Ui Neill family are pretty unique as they have records that date right back to the 5TH-6TH century. Couple that with DNA and you have a pretty remarkable ancestry. The McAleer's have a Ui Neill ancestry. Queenmedb99 (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

RE: "YDNA you can trace a line back from father to son right back through each subsequent generation to your earliest ancestors". Yes, if you have the DNA samples - but we don't have those going very far back. And even when you do have the DNA you can not trace their names that way. And that's my key point here. I have an ancestor who shared the same surname as the man recorded as his father - but I have pretty conclusive evidence that they were not father and son. Any DNA test, were it done, would find no match - and if we tested any of today's offspring from the son, their Y-DNA would give us the wrong origin for the surname. Even in my own genealogy, I have many cases of sons not bearing their genetic father's Y-DNA. Y-DNA is simply not reliable for identifying the origin of names. There are more examples and reasons I could give (like, for example, many surnames belong to people with multiple different genetic lineages), but I suggest we save it for any future discussion at Talk:McAleer. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:29, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

You obviously have not had much DNA testing carried out. We have had deep ancestral analysis carried out. Certain unique genetic markers have been identified with many of the ancient clans and races for example the L-21marker is associated with the Celts. Those who carry the S588 and the S603 genetic markers are associated with Cenel nEogain ancestry. But then as you say we shall leave that discussion for Talk:McAleer. Queenmedb99 (talk) 09:46, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Please don't make assumptions about what I know about DNA (and please try not to be combative about this - I'm only here trying to help, not to argue. You might be entirely right about the "McAleer" name, but your current reasoning might not be sufficient - and that's what I'm trying to help with). I know about genetic markers, and their connections become more vague and generalised the further back we try to go. There's a lot of useful things they can tell us, but we can make big mistakes if we try to analyse them with a resolution that they don't support. And you are still missing my point about names - even if the S588 and the S603 genetic markers are associated with Cenel nEogain ancestry, those people might have been called "Clegg" back then. There are potentially (at least) two ancestral populations here - one population with the genes, and one with the name, and they're not necessarily the same. That's even if all of their apparent descendents today share "Cenel nEogain" names - I can explain what I mean further if and when we get there. Anyway, I came back with one final thought before I go off and do some work... You say "The O Neill/Ui Neill family are pretty unique as they have records that date right back to the 5TH-6TH century." Can you be sure that not a single one of the recorded paternal linkages is an "illegitimate" birth (I hate that judgmental word, but ykwim)? You need every single one of them, all the way back, to be a genuine biological father-son relationship for DNA testing of any modern people to be of any value in a name origin search. And you just can't have that confidence. My oldest genealogical line goes back only as far as the 14th century in paternal links, and there are some links there that raise my suspicions. To assume that any written ancestry going back 1,500 years accurately reflects Y-DNA heredity is, I'd say, very optimistic at best. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:57, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

McAleer source

I've commented about the George McAleer source for the alleged Norse origin of the name - see Talk:McAleer#Source problem. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:01, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Some words on sources

I'm going to try to help you with some explanations of Wikipedia's source requirements, as they can be very confusing to a newcomer.

Firstly, I think it's important that you have a grasp of Wikipedia's approach to primary and secondary sources, and to research done by Wikipedia editors (based on their own expertise, or otherwise). WP:OR is the core policy page, and a read of that should help you.

The examples given there are, necessarily, limited. But essentially, any research you do yourself, or any original research that anyone else posts (on a blog, on a personal web site, etc) is a primary source. Any genetic marker research you have done personally is a primary source, for example. And a spreadsheet of results posted on a blog, or a shared web space, is also a primary source. You can not (with a few exceptions that don't apply here) use primary sources as citations in Wikipedia articles.

This brings me to the problem of synthesis, covered by WP:SYNTH (that's a quick link to another section of that same policy page). I think it's fairly clear. But what it means, for example, is that you can not combine a genetic marker study with a family genealogy and use that to conclude anything that is not explicitly stated in either source (like a name origin).

So what sources can you use? Well, if they're for doing your own research and trying to draw your own conclusions by synthesis of research, none. You simply can not do that on Wikipedia.

We rely on what we call Reliable Sources (we've spoken of WP:RS a few times, but it's worth repeating the link here).

The core of it is: Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves.

So, to include the material that you want here, you would need to find a source that analyses the data (the genetic markers, the genealogies, or whatever else) and has published conclusions in a WP:RS-compliant publication - basically, a source that has already done the analysis that you are trying to do. So if there's a publication that allows researchers to submit such analyses for peer review, or a publication with a reputation for expert fact-checking, that might do it.

But what you can't do is use the spreadsheets, the family trees, and any other raw data, and draw your own conclusions from them. You can only report conclusions reached by authors published in reliable sources, not your own conclusions. (It's probably worth repeating the WP:EXPERT link at this point).

This might all seem arcane and convoluted, and I would not disagree with that. But there's a good reason. It's because an encyclopedia is only supposed to summarise the current academic consensus as published in reliable sources open to expert review. An encyclopedia is not supposed to push knowledge forward by covering and analysing new research, synthesising new knowledge by combing sources, or anything like that.

No, Wikipedia is at the trailing edge of academia, not the leading edge. And that's by design.

One final thing, which is the immediate issue that got you trouble. If you add any new content to Wikipedia and it is reverted, you must then seek a consensus on the article talk page before you try to add it again - see WP:CONSENSUS, which is the core of how Wikipedia works.

If you just keep re-adding your material without gaining prior consensus, that's considered edit warring (see WP:EW) and will quickly result in sanctions. It makes no difference whether you are right or wrong, edit warring is one of Wikipedia's hard-line prohibitions.

So, to summarise what you need to do next... You need to find reliable sources that analyse the data and draw the conclusions that you want to add (and not just publish the raw data itself). And then you need to present those sources at the article talk page, state the changes you want to make based on them, and wait until you can get a consensus for your changes.

And, I think that's probably about all the help I can offer right now. But I'll keep the article (and its talk page) on my watchlist.

-- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:56, 11 May 2023 (UTC)