Q: Why are some Page Descriptions appended with {figment}?

A: These are Person Pages for non-existent people.

TRP has only a very few Person pages where the Page Description has been appended with the word {figment}.

We believe the individuals represented by these pages are figments of the imagination. These phantom individuals often combine valid facts pertaining to two or more individuals and at first glance the story seems credible. That is why we see these phantom individuals appearing in multiple online family trees at other sites.

Where a page is created by a well meaning community member for a phantom individual, we will work with that community member to explain why we believe this individual is a figment of the imagination.

TRP does not delete such erroneous Person pages. Rather we will keep the page but strike through all the content and remove all wiki links, keeping just the target TRP Page Names.

New Research Notes in clear text will be added explaining why TRP believes this individual did not exist. The Research Notes section of the phantom person page should commence with a clear warning similar to

The individual represented by this page did not exist. It is now accepted that the detail above results from a misunderstanding of individuals named in various historical documents concerning this family.

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We adopt this approach (1) to avoid another member trying to add a similar erroneous page at a later date and (2) in the hope that, by sharing our knowledge, we can assist others and in a small way reduce the amount of misinformation relating to Re*v*(s) individuals in circulation on the web.

Senior TRP community members may also occasionally deliberately create a page for a commonly found phantom individual. They are invited to share a draft text with senior community members in advance of creating any such new phantom page.