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Below are four lessons that teach nearly everything you need to know about creating person pages on WeRelate, such as Person:George_Tuttle_(1). These pages can also be semi-automatically created by GEDCOM upload.
For this lesson you will need the name of the ancestor for whom you wish to create a page, the name of one of their parents, the name of their spouse, their birth date and place, one source of information, and one already uploaded image. If you need help uploading an image, see the Images tutorial. Each lesson builds on the one before, so you will need to finish this tutorial in one sitting.
- You may want to open a new browser window or tab, allowing you to both complete and consult this tutorial at the same time. Alternatively, you could print this tutorial page for your convenience as you work through the lessons.
Lesson One: Creating a person page
Objective: This lesson will teach you how to manually create a person page.
- You can semi-automatically create person pages for all pages in your family tree by uploading a GEDCOM file. If you want to upload a GEDCOM file, click here. This lesson assumes you're going to create a person page from scratch.
There are several ways to create a person page.
Option 1
Let's start with creating an individual person page for the very first time. From any screen on WeRelate, there is a menu bar at the top of the screen. From this menu:
- Click on the Add option. A dropdown selection menu will appear. From these options:
- Select Person. You will be taken to the Add Person screen.
- Enter the given name and surname of the person you want to create.
- Enter only the given names in the Given name field. Do not enter a title (Dr., Capt.), suffix, prefix, or nickname. These will be handled later.
- Enter only the surname in the surname field.
- Do not enter a number. WeRelate automatically generates unique pages for each person. See person index numbers.
- Do not enter all CAPS for a surname. Mixed case should be used. (ex. Townsend, not TOWNSEND)
- Do not enter a husband's surname for a wife's surname unless it was her surname at birth. Using parenthesis () or some other symbol around a wife's married name in this space is also inappropriate.
- If the Given name is not known, leave the field blank. If the surname is not known either leave the surname field blank or type in Unknown. The system will automatically title your page in the proper format: Unknown Surname or Given Unknown.
- For example, to create a page for Captain Robert Harold Townsend III, enter "Robert" as the given name and "Townsend" as the surname. There will be an opportunity to enter "Captain", "Harold", and "III" in following lessons. WeRelate has an advanced matching system which allows every individual to have a unique page and helps users match their information to individual pages which may already be in the system. For more information on naming pages, click here
- Enter the Birth date in the following format: DD Mmm YYYY (ex. 4 Jan 1725)
- If the date of birth is unknown, leave this space blank.
- Do not use a leading zero in the dating format. (ex. 4 Jan 1725, not 04 Jan 1725)
- The date may also be entered in a looser format (ex. Abt 1725, or Bef 1726). See Date Conventions for more detailed information.
- Enter the Place of birth in the following format (for United States places): City, County, State, United States (ex. Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States)
- If the place of birth is unknown, leave this space blank.
- Places may be entered as detailed as the Boston example, as global as United States, or somewhere in-between. Do not enter County as part of the county name. WeRelate automatically attempts to find the place in its place name database. Once you type the first comma in your place name, the place name database will show a dropdown menu with choices for your entry. You do not have to use the dropdown menu to make your choice, but it helps to make sure your place name matches what may already be in the system. See Place pages for more detailed information on places.
- Enter the Death date and Place in the same manner as Birth. If neither of these are known, leave these spaces blank.
- Click on the Next button. This brings you to the WeRelate matching system which will allow you to determine if the individual you've just entered already has a page on WeRelate. You may also add Birth and Death information on this screen similarly to how it was added on the Add Person screen. For this tutorial, it is assumed that the individual you are entering is not found as a possible match on this screen.
- Click Add Page. You will be taken to the individual's editing page where you can include more information you have about this person. Lesson Two will explain this process in more detail.
Option 2
Another option for creating person pages is if you have already entered the person's name into a family page, such as a spouse, parent, or child. You can simply click on that person's link on the person or family page. Family pages will be explained in more detail later.
This image shows adding a "New Child" to a family page.
Lesson Two: Entering name and family information
Objective This lesson will teach you how to enter relationship and name information.
- If your person has a middle name, add it to the Given field after the first given name.
- Add any titles--either prefixes (e.g. "Captain") or suffixes (e.g. "III")--in the appropriate fields.
- Example: Captain Robert Harold Townsend III, the Given field should now read "Robert Harold"; the Surname field should read "Townsend"; the Name prefix field should read "Captain" or "Capt."; and the Name suffix field should read "III".
- Additional information entered into the "Given name" field does not affect the title of the page.
- For additional help on any of the fields on this page, click on the ? beside field name.
- If your person has an alternative name (alias/nickname/name change) click on the Add alternate name link and fill in the fields as before. This is useful, for there may be records in which the alternate names are used in place of the original. In our example, Robert Townsend was nicknamed "Bob". This should be added as an alternate name. A drop-down menu enables you to select the type of alternate name that you are entering. For this example, it would be Alt name.
- Please do not add any numbers or special characters (i.e. *, &, parenthesis, etc.), to the name field, as they may interfere with search and or merge capabilities.
- The Source(s) box creates a link to a citation or reference for any source(s) you have for the name of the individual. This will be covered in Lesson Four: Entering references.
- The Note(s) box creates a link to any notes, which appear further down the page, regarding the name of the individual. Note 1 would appear as N1 in this box. More information on this later.
- Select the person's gender from the drop-down box.
- The Parents and siblings family heading references the family page where this person is a child. You are given the option to Add parents.
- Whether you have (or someone else has) already created a family page for this person's parents, or a new family page must be created, click on Add parents. This will open a new window containing an "Add a Family" page.
- If you do not know who the individual's parents are, you may skip this step. Otherwise,
- If you know a page already exists and you know the page's exact title (including the family index number), close the pop-up window and enter the family page into the space provided beginning with the name of the father. If you added the family page previously, a drop-down menu will appear as you type helping you fill in this blank.
- Note: For now, the family pages that appear in the list are selected from your watchlist. This means that you must be watching a page in order to link to it in this manner.
- If you have not yet created a family page for this person's parents, enter information into the "Add a Family" pop-up page. In the boxes provided, enter the given names and surnames of the parents. Enter them in the same manner as was given in Lesson 1, Step 3. You may also enter the Marriage date and Place at this point, but it is not required. Click Next. This will take you to the matching screen which matches against other family pages. For this tutorial, it is assumed you are creating a completely new family. Click Add Page.
- Each individual which is new to WeRelate will be added as individual pages. Follow the steps in Lesson 1 to add pages for new parents.
- For more information, see Family pages.
- The Spouse and children family heading references the family page where this person is a spouse and parent. You are given the option to Add spouse and children.
- If you do not know who this individual married, or if they were unmarried in their lifetime, you may skip this step. Otherwise,
- Click on Add spouse and children. The method for adding a spouse is exactly like adding parents in Step 8, except that one of the individual's will already be entered for you. Repeat Step 8 of this lesson until you've completed this family.
- If you have additional spouses to add to this individual, you may click on Add spouse and children again and repeat Step 8 until you are finished.
- The Events and Facts heading will be covered in Lesson 3.
- The Source Citations, Images and Notes headings will be covered in Lesson 4.
- The Personal History heading is for biographical and personal information.
- Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Show preview. Review and make revisions if necessary.
- Click Save page. The page you just created will automatically load. Check to make sure that all the information has been entered correctly. If you wish to make a change, click on the Edit link in the left-hand menu at top of the screen.
- At this point, if either of Steps 8 or 9 were skipped, you can create family pages for this person and their spouse, as well as their parents by clicking on either Add Parents and Siblings or Add Spouse and Children on the right-hand side of the screen. See the Family pages tutorial.
Lesson Three: Entering events and facts
Objective: This lesson will teach you how to enter basic facts on your person page.
- Navigate back to the person page you just created. Click on the Edit link in the left-hand menu at the top of the page. This opens a page that lets you enter and change information about the person.
- There are 4 basic events that you can enter for your person. They are listed under the Events and Facts heading. First, enter a birth date in the box to the right of "Birth" and beneath "Date" in the "Day Month Year" format (for example: "9 Aug 1812"). See Date Conventions for other options.
- In the next column, a space is given to record a place of birth. Type the name of the town or village and then type a comma (,). A drop down menu will appear listing all of the cities with this name, worldwide, along with the county, state (province), and country of each. Click on the place where your ancestor was born. An automatic link will be created to the appropriate place page, under the Birth heading on the left side of the person page.
- Place pages contain information about the place, and may include research tips and links to family and historical societies.
- A Geocode will be assigned to your event so that it can be displayed on a map.
- If the place you're looking for is not listed, try a different spelling. If it is still not found, type in the full name, (city, county, state (province), country) to create a new place page; see place page naming conventions. When you save, a red link will be created on the person page for that place. You can add this place to the place index by clicking on the red link and entering some information about it. For more information about places, click here.
- For example, if Robert Townsend were born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, just enter "Columbia,". The system then displays all the Columbias listed in the world. Robert's place is listed as "Columbia, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States". The place index helps you locate a place, even if you don't know the name of the county.
- Similarly, you can include dates and places for any of the events listed. If you want to include information for an event other than the four listed, you can click on Add event/fact and a new field will appear. If you click on the drop down arrow, a list of about 40 life events/facts (including options for recording alternate--"Alt"--dates and places for the same event) will appear for you to choose from. You may continue to add events as you please. Just fill in the boxes with the information you have. You may also click on "Remove" at the end of an event field to remove that event if you need to. You can add numerous entries and alternate opinions for the same type of event or life fact.
- To cite a source for an event, click on the plus sign (+) next to the source field in the event's row, and you will be directed to a place on the page where you can cite your source of information about the event. Lesson Four: Entering references will explain more about entering source information.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Show preview. Review and make revisions if necessary. Click the Save page button.
Lesson Four: Entering references
Objective: This lesson will teach you how to enter reference information--sources, images, and notes.
Sources
- Click the Edit link at the top of the person page you have created. Under the Name heading, you should see the person's name along with any alternate names you have entered. To the far right is a column labeled Source ID(s). A similar column appears next to each of the person's events/facts. Click on the plus sign (+) to the left of the Source ID(s) field of the event for which you will cite a source. You will be taken farther down the page, to the source list where you can enter relevant information about your source for that data.
- Each source is assigned a referenced source ID number indicated by "S" and a number, such as "S1".
- To reuse an identical source on the same page, you can just enter its number in the Source ID(s) box (for example: "S2").
- Clicking on the plus sign creates a source link on the person page, tying the information taken from the source to its citation in the source list at the bottom of the person page.
- Clicking on the same plus sign more than once will allow you to cite additional sources for the same data. Additional links will be created on the person page.
- There are three types of sources: Sources, MySources, and "Title only" sources. Sources are of general interest, including books, microfilms, websites, etc. MySources are created from sources in uploaded GEDCOM files if you do not match to a catalog Source at the time of import. You can also create MySources from the add menu. They can be used anytime you need a reusable source for a limited group of people. Examples would be for Interviews, Family Bibles, Transcripts of Wills or any other document which mentions multiple people. "Title only" sources are any other reference you don't want to create a wiki page for. These are not reusable. By using Sources and MySources, you can easily reference sources without re-entering all the reference information.
- To reference a Source or MySource:
- a. First select Source or MySource.
- b. Then, check to see if your source is already listed in the index. To do this, first copy the title then click on the find/add button next to the title field. This will take you to the find and add page, then select source type, paste in the title and click find/add button.
- c.This will show you if the source already exists and find it. It will automatically appear as a source link on your person page.
- d. You can also leave the edit page and click on the search button in the upper left corner of the page. Enter key words to find your source. When you click on the source in the search list.
- To enter a simple Title only source:
- Enter the title for your reference in the title field. And any other information your wish to share in the appropriate fields.
- No wiki page will be created for this source. If you wish to reuse this source, you will need to re-enter the information again.
- To create a new Source or MySource:
- a. Select whether the source is a Source or a MySource.
- b. Enter the unique title in the title field.
- c. When you save the person page, the link will appear in red. Click on the red link and fill in the relevant fields. Reference information only needs to be entered once on the Source or MySource wiki page. Next time you want to use this source, you can Choose it from the source list and link it to another page. Creating Source and MySource pages does two things. First it saves you time, you only enter the reference information once and then just link to it when you want to reuse it. Second, it let's your cousins see and use your sources.
- Click the Save button at the bottom of the page. Blue links go to pages with information on them. Red links are for pages you can create by clicking on the red link.
Images
- Images are assigned numbers similar to sources with an "I" and a number ("I1", "I2", etc.). You can use the same image again on the same page by typing in its ID number. Multiple image ID numbers in the same field should always be separated by a comma (,) and a space. You can use the image ID numbers to connect images to different facts/events.
- Go to the person page edit screen.
- To add an image of the source:
- Click on the + sign next to the image box if you want to add an image of your source. This will take you to the image list where you can add your image. See Images or click on the "add image" under the Images header.
- This will open an image field under the Source section. You may choose from already uploaded images or upload a new image.
- a. If you know the exact name of your image you can add the image of your document/picture by typing the filename of the image in the box.
- b. To choose an image that has already been uploaded, click on the choose button next to the title field. This will take you to a pop up window where you can browse the images.
- c. Select whether you want to browse all image pages in the index or just the ones you are watching. You may enter keywords in the search box or simply browse the list. Click on the desired image when you find it. It will automatically appear as an image link on your person page.
- d. You can also select the Search link just under the Choose page title in the upper left corner of the page. Enter key words to find your image. When you click on the image in the search list, the link for this image will automatically be entered on the person page.
- a. Select the upload link next to the title field.
- b. You will see the image upload pop up. The scanned image must be available to your computer. Fill in the appropriate fields.
- c. When you upload the image the title will appear in the Image title field on your person page. See the Uploading Images tutorial.
- Enter a caption for your image.
- Mark the primary box beside the image that you want to appear at the top of the completed page. Only one image can be featured at the top of the page. If you check more than one image as "primary", the highest checked image on the list will be featured. All non-primary images will be included in the image list at the bottom of the person page. To insert an image into the text of a page, follow the instructions here.
- Save your work.
Notes
- Notes are used to share information that does not fit elsewhere.
- To add notes about the source, click on the + next to the note box. The notes list will open below the Image section. Enter information such as your opinion of the source or its reliability.
- Like sources and images, Notes are referenced with an ID number--an "N" and a number, such as "N1", "N2", "N3", etc. Click on the "Add note" link to add notes. Or, if you would like to refer to a note already used on this page, type in that note ID number in the box. Multiple notes are entered by adding a comma and a space between each reference.
- Type your note. For example, if a family Bible disagrees with church records, one could discuss reasons for choosing the church records' data in the note field.
- Save your work.
Where do I go from here?
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