Person talk:Alexander Buchanan (23)

POB [1 December 2011]

I suspect that the POB should be "Coleraine", not "Coldraine". I see a number of lineages that use this Coldraine spelling, but there doesn't seem to be an actual placename using that spelling---though there is a "Coleraine". "....a large town near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is 55 miles (88.5 km) northwest of Belfast and 30 miles ..." per wikipedia. its not in County Tyrone so maybe not. In anycase, to accept "Coldraine" it needs to be identified as an actual Irish placename. I did find a New Hampshire marriage record that gives a POB for a groom as "Coldraine [Coleraine], County Derry, so perhaps "Coldraine" is a spelling variant---but this paritcular example seems to be in yet anothyer location "County Derry". Q 13:33, 1 December 2011 (EST)

DOD

Why was the estimated death date removed - <event_fact type="Death" date="WFT Est 1713-1768" sources="S1"/>

I do not know. It's a fairly broad range--50 years, so I don't know how useful it would be. The early end is probably related to the DOB of his youngest child (1710), don't know what the end point would be. But all of these vita for this person probably need some concrete work pining them to specific records, and specific logic trains.

Jim, Don, lets find what the documentary support is for all of the vita. Where does the DOB come from, where does his children's Dob's come from. Why do we think he died...

WeRelate is definitely heading toward Dallan's Pando world. In that world there's only a single card per person---no alternative realities. The only way you can do that is to have concrete data to back up the position taken on things like this. Eventually, the really big effort on WeRelate is going to shift toward documentation. Its where the future lies. Good documentation makes for better data, and reduces things to objective issues. Q 22:13, 26 July 2009 (EDT)

Bill/Don, I tend to remove "wide-range" estimated dates (as you mentioned), especially for dates of death, since it really does not add anything time-specific to the knowledge-base of an ancestor (in my estimation), unless you can pinpoint a specific time period (for instance, if you know someone died "between 1810-1820", because they no longer showed up in a census, etc). I have also noticed the same thing in my own files (mostly older gedcoms from others), that I've tried to clean-up before loading them into WeRelate. Maybe it's just a pet-peave of mine, but it just seems that it is better to leave a date-of-death empty, unless we have a more specific time period identified. I saw one the other day (not any of our mutual ancestors) that had a date of death listed as "WFT Est. 1701-1856", like that really solves anything... lol :) Don't mean to ruffle any feathers, so let me know what you both want me to do in the future with any pages we all are watching, won't bother me one way or the other. Best regards, Jim:) Delijim

Bill and Jim...I agree with both of you, I got that in some back work copied from another person....to be honest I had not paid any attention to how wide spread the time was....Jim I am with you on on more than ten years....and we do need to look for more on DOB because I fine several years given for his birth and I have found nothing really on his DOD....I just seen were it had been removed and wonder why...I am glad I ask...because you are both right on it serving no purpose because it is to wide of time.....glad to be working with both of you for we catch what the other over looks......--Dlbradley1 15:40, 27 July 2009 (EDT)

Jim/Don: I agree with you both on this. I'm not going out of my way to scrub these things, but when I'm working on a particular person I try to find something a bit more precise, even c1725 is better than nothing at all. Q 16:15, 27 July 2009 (EDT)

Agree, too:) It is much easier to estimate a birthdate (roughly 20-25 years before a first marriage for males; 18-22 years before a first marriage date for females) or marriage date (a year or so before the eldest child) than a date of death, unless you have some kind of will or administration to base it upon. This is one of the flaws of the WFT program, which "assigns" these wildly approximated dates as part of their program.... Nice to be working in concert with both of you, appreciate your input on our common ancestors. Best regards, Jim:) Delijim

Hi!

Hi Don. Glad to see you back with us! Q 21:23, 29 November 2011 (EST)