Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martha Parke Custis




 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. BD2412 T 04:19, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Martha Parke Custis

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Taking to AFD after a PROD was contested. Per WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:NOTGENEALOGY, Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a genealogical collection of famous folks' relatives or a memorial place for the deceased. This teenager wasn't known for anything of own merit (meaning things that don't have to do with family connections), plus most or all of the trustworthy references that mention her at all seem to be closely affiliated with mother Martha Washington and/or stepfather George Washington, and thus don't qualify as coverage independent of the subject. Such connections do not by themselves mean she warrants a page. Fails WP:BIO as far as I can tell. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Just so it's clear to everyone reading this...it was a completely different article when it was first nominated for deletion. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:40, 25 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete Nice biography but I don't see what she's done to earn a wiki bio. Was born, grew up, had epilepsy and passed away. Oaktree b (talk) 23:17, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Skynxnex (talk) 19:01, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't see how this doesn't meet WP:BIO. One doesn't have to had "done" anything to be WP:NOTABLE and have an encyclopedic entry. WP:BIOFAMILY says Articles about notable people that mention their family members in passing do not, in themselves, show that a family member is notable. there are at least 5 reliable sources where she is mentioned more than in passing. It has two major published articles about her and her illness (and are even independent from the Mount Vernon Lady's association.): "The sudden death of Patsy Custis, or George Washington on sudden unexplained death in epilepsy" and "Epilepsy and Sudden Death: Notes from George Washington’s Diaries on the Illness and Death of Martha Parke-Custis (1756-1773)" already in the article, in addition to "A Cryptic Record of a Family Tragedy: The Unhappy Progression of Patsy Custis’s Epilepsy" in The Washington Papers which is a bit more connected to Mt Vernon but is also part of UVA. Additional searches have found:
 * This isn't about her but has at least 5 mentions spread through the paper: Henriques, P. R. (1999). The final struggle between george washington and the grim king: Washington's attitude toward death and an afterlife. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 107(1), 73-97. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/final-struggle-between-george-washington-grim/docview/195927885/se-2.
 * Again another non-subject of but significant mentions: Sarah, B. C. (2000, Jun 19). The father of more than our country: [FINAL edition]. The Washington Post Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/father-more-than-our-country/docview/408650104/se-2
 * There was apparently a newspaper article picked up by a few articles in 1971 focused on her and her epilepsy: "Washington's Stepchild Was Epileptic", Appleton Post Crescent Newspaper Archives February 22, 1971 Page 8, https://www-newspaperarchive-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/us/wisconsin/appleton/appleton-post-crescent/1971/02-22/page-8/
 * This has ~12 sentences about her life and her epilepsy: "History of the Epilepsy Movement in the United States", Epilepsy Foundation of America, 1973, https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels2/pdf/70s/74/74-EFA-HEM.pdf
 * Another book, George Washington's women : Mary, Martha, Sally, and 146 others, George Washington Nordham 1977 by Dorrance Publishing Co., has many passing mentions and a 2.5 page section about her and her relationship with G. Washington. https://archive.org/details/georgewashington0000nord/page/50/mode/2up?q=patsy
 * Skynxnex (talk) 20:13, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The fact that she didn't do anything important of her own certainly raises red flags. I wouldn't say dying from epilepsy or even having it qualifies, especially when far from the only person to do so. It admittedly doesn't feel like a very encyclopedic entry unless a subject's article is above all else focused on their own merits (and the use of "tragic death" in prose is blatantly subjective no matter how sad one finds it to die that way). Without or without being a child of a First Lady and stepchild of a President (which I suspect were the real reasons for developing a Wikipedia page to begin with), Custis at best comes off as a case of WP:BIO1E and in retrospect I should've specified earlier how I was referring to this section of WP:BIO. SNUGGUMS</b> (<b style="color:#009900">talk</b> / <b style="color:#009900">edits</b>) 22:26, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Noted re: "tragic". For me, the main question is whether the page needs to be renamed to something like Death of Patsy Custis – but I still haven't gone through all the sources yet and haven't decided. (But from me, definitely a "keep" either way.) The page when you nominated it for deletion turned out to have numerous, serious issues including multiple cases of "Failed verification" – at one point I even wondered if there were bad faith edits (given the history with banned sockpuppet accounts) – so it has taken a long time to clean that up, too. For that reason, I think you were right that something "felt off" and was suspicious about the article, on top of which it was written a bit like a high school paper, with no clear claim to notability in the WP sense. Cielquiparle (talk) 22:37, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If it wasn't for how multiple other editors made non-minor contributions to this page beyond what the sockpuppet creator added (who has since been blocked) before I came across it, then I would've gone straight for speedy deletion instead of PROD or AFD. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see bad faith edits in the history when looking at individual diffs. Reworking the page into one focusing on death in the way you've brought up (which reminds me of how pages like Murder of Ennis Cosby exist) would certainly be preferable to what we have now. However, I'm not sure whether the death was significant enough to go beyond a brief mention on the pages for her brother Jack, namesake mom, or George. <b style="color:#009900">SNUGGUMS</b> (<b style="color:#009900">talk</b> / <b style="color:#009900">edits</b>) 22:50, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We don't have Edward Baker Lincoln at "Death of" either (and I don't think we should). He and she aren't just notable because of their deaths. Do you have examples of either people who have this much coverage about them, that isn't a a recent BLP issue, that have a death of page?
 * The sockpupperty/issues with current article isn't a reason to delete or move--just reasons to improve because she seems clearly notable and encyclopedic to me. Skynxnex (talk) 23:03, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd rather not delve too far into WP:WAX, but excluding folks who were alive within the last decade, I have seen articles on death such as Death of Diana, Princess of Wales and Assassination of James A. Garfield even when subpages of their respective biographies. There's also Murder of Martha Moxley which focuses on how its subject was killed and her name redirects to that article. Getting back to this page, sockpuppetry would've been quite a valid reason to delete it without substantial edits from anyone else per WP:G5 of WP:Criteria for speedy deletion. I also just remembered that WP:A7 exists for bios that don't give any credible indication of how a person is important. <b style="color:#009900">SNUGGUMS</b> (<b style="color:#009900">talk</b> / <b style="color:#009900">edits</b>) 23:49, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, per Skynxnex, there are at least three sources cited that are entirely about her. Moving to "Death of Martha Parke Custis" also seems reasonable. I expect merging would give her undue weight in her family member's biographies. Rusalkii  (talk) 22:56, 25 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Right, I didn't want to get into WP:WAX too much other than looking for examples to apply policy from. For "Death of" articles my point isn't that they don't exist--of course we have many of them but they almost always are two different types: 1) a notable person's death whose death is so notable/covered that there is Death of in addition to their main article; 2) someone with zero other claims to possible notability. Neither of them are true, I think, in this case. It seems that the medical study about her death, articles by the epilepsy foundation, and other sources unconnected to Mt Vernon itself meet independent coverage and just because she is related to someone famous doesn't mean she can't be notable if enough people write about her and her life? Skynxnex (talk) 13:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You appear to have misunderstood my point about famous relatives: having such family members doesn't automatically entitle one to a Wikipedia page, and it's not a good sign when a person gets more attention for those connections than any other reason. Her epilepsy doesn't strike me as very strong claim to notability either. This wasn't some one-of-a-kind medical case or anything like that. <b style="color:#009900">SNUGGUMS</b> (<b style="color:#009900">talk</b> / <b style="color:#009900">edits</b>) 17:01, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Per WP:NOTINHERITED, Individuals in close, personal relationships with famous people (including politicians) can have an independent article even if they are known solely for such a relationship, but only if they pass WP:GNG. Which she does, per my !vote below. Also, it's not up to us to decide whether her epilepsy was historically significant; we go by what the sources say. Cielquiparle (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep. According to the medical journal articles cited in this article, the case of Patsy Custis is one of the first well-documented cases of SUDEP or sudden unexpected death in epilepsy by a witness who happened to be her stepfather, George Washington. Washington and family members documented Patsy’s epilepsy from the age of five through her death in 1773, at the age of 17. The current article cites reliable secondary sources covering her early life, the progression of her epilepsy (and her quality of life) over time, and the various treatments of the day she received from at least seven physicians, leading up to her death. In-depth coverage focused on Patsy Custis in multiple sources which more than satisfy WP:GNG include:


 * Medical journals: Epilepsy & Behavior (2004), "The sudden death of Patsy Custis, or George Washington on sudden unexplained death in epilepsy"; Epilepsia (1999), "Epilepsy and Sudden Death: Notes from George Washington’s Diaries on the Illness and Death of Martha Parke-Custis (1756-1773)"
 * Newspaper articles: The Post-Crescent (1971), "Washington's Stepchild Was Epileptic"; Washington Post (2000), "The Father of More Than Our Country"


 * Numerous additional sources are cited which validate the significance of the case of Patsy Custis from a history of medicine point of view, with mentions in journals including Clinics (2010) and the much older Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine (1933) in the U.S. and Rechtsmedizin (2011) in Germany. The article itself contained many errors and problems when it was first nominated, but has been completely rewritten now. Cielquiparle (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2022 (UTC)


 * ''The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.