User talk:BobC

Pre-2011 User Talk discussions archived by year and moved to Archive 2009 and Archive 2010.


Topics


‎philgibbs1.ged [4 January 2011]

You uploaded a gedcom, ‎philgibbs1.ged, on 6 Oct. Since this time, WeRelate's gedcom uploading software has been updated. As a result, the warnings for your gedcom may not be properly calculated. It does not appear that you have processed this gedcom to date. Please remove the current gedcom, and reupload so that any warnings display accurately. Let me know if you have any questions, --Jennifer (JBS66) 09:49, 13 December 2010 (EST)

Seems like someone removed the GEDCOM for me. Contrary to what you stated, the GEDCOM file was being processed by me. It was a larger one, over 100 names, and as time permitted, I was processing it name by name slowly over two months, adding information from other sources to the data file for more completeness, accuracy, and source referencing. To know that someone, perhaps you JBS66, deleted it in one stroke of the keyboard illustrates well the ease of which someone can disregard and disrespect the efforts of another contributor at WeRelate and the complexity of the GEDCOM upload process. I think my time would have been better spent updating and/or correcting the possible problems and warnings caused by the upload, but you or some other caring and dedicated Admin decided that deletion of the file was the simplest and most efficient method to handle the situation. I could say more, but to do so would not get me anywhere but Heartburn City. --BobC 21:44, 4 January 2011 (EST)

Record check for John Michael [8 March 2011]

Hi Bob, could you check your records for John Michael, son of Frederick Michael and Elizabeth. You have his first wife as Elizabeth Williams, I have another source that has her as Juliana (surname unknown). I've listed the link to the article on Frederick Michael that claims his first wife is Juliana (no records listed), so maybe you have something that shows otherwise.

Thanks and best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 20:09, 7 March 2011 (EST)


Your recent Jackson contributions [22 December 2011]

Bob, I am SO glad to see you posting here again!!
And Gen. Stonewall's line at that! Double blessing. I thought you might want to know that two distantly related, well documented descendants of John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins are currently awaiting results of their DNA tests. Since they were well documented, they did not need to do this testing, but did it so that other Jacksons would have another way of verifying their relationship. The Jackson Brigade group sponsored the tests. I am a volunteer admin for FTDNA Jackson group and had written to Dan Hyde asking if this could be done.
Getting two distantly related, well documented men to test has been such a benefit for my own Jackson line (Robert Jackson of Hempstead, NY) that I wanted this for Stonewall's line also. Now I'll go back to see if you have info on the two men who have just recently tested. Results will probably come in sometime in January. Just hoping the haplotype will be unique enough to distinguish this line from other Jacksons! --Janiejac 00:44, 20 December 2011 (EST)

Happy for you - as well as the DNA contributors/testers you mentioned. I couldn't believe all that information on the Jackson line and even the grandparents to the famous Civil War General here at WeRelate, but no Stonewall posting! I just had to add it, even tho' I don't believe I have a connection.
Needed a break from WR for awhile, both because of work and because I was getting discouraged at the new protocol being developing here at WeRelate. Also, I had a couple fairly large GEDCOMs prematurely deleted by an infamous contributor/administrator who must have felt I was taking too long to update them and decided she'd take it upon herself to decide the fate of them without asking or giving notice. Made me reconsider using this site because of the ease at which information can be discarded without considering the thoughts, hard work and time people invest into their own contributions. So for now I'll take it a day at a time.
Good luck with researching your line, Janie. --BobC 23:16, 21 December 2011 (EST)

Congratulations! [11 February 2012]

You just won the first WeRelate Genealogy Contest - Billy the Kid!! Thank you so much for contributing and making WeRelate a great resource for historians and genealogists. Your graphic prize badge is on the way. Congratulations BobC!! ~ The Contest Organizers --cthrnvl 14:52, 1 February 2012 (EST)

Thanks and it was a learning experience for me as well. Appreciate your novel approach to reinvigorating WeRelate. Good luck with it. --BobC 00:21, 2 February 2012 (EST)

Here is the graphic badge [[Image:Img0772012 werelate winner.gif]] signifying that you are a winner. You can add it to your user page if you like. Thanks for playing! --cthrnvl 10:10, 11 February 2012 (EST)


Next step: Review your GEDCOM [23 February 2012]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded WECKERT.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.


--WeRelate agent 22:49, 23 February 2012 (EST)

WECKERT.ged Imported Successfully [23 February 2012]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may now:

For questions or problems, leave a message for Dallan or send an email to dallan@WeRelate.org.


--WeRelate agent 00:58, 24 February 2012 (EST)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [24 February 2012]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded WECKERT (1).ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.


--WeRelate agent 08:09, 24 February 2012 (EST)

WECKERT (1).ged Imported Successfully [24 February 2012]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may now:

For questions or problems, leave a message for Dallan or send an email to dallan@WeRelate.org.


--WeRelate agent 12:33, 24 February 2012 (EST)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [27 March 2012]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded a211.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.

--WeRelate agent 23:08, 1 March 2012 (EST)

This is a somewhat larger GEDCOM file than I usually load and will take awhile to review and edit which I'm doing as best I can as time permits, so please DO NOT DELETE! --BobC 09:22, 16 March 2012 (EDT)


Hi Dallan: The latest GEDCOM import (a211.ged) I have been working on for the last three weeks has disappeared from my UserPage and Tree list. I have been working on it diligently as time permits and am just a little anxious about it and the time I put into it. Please either restore it or let me know what I need to do to recover it, hopefully with the changes I've made to it. Thanks. --BobC 11:36, 27 March 2012 (EDT)

I'm *really* sorry. Your gedcom was removed yesterday. I can recover the original file that you uploaded, but any changes that you made during gedcom review have been deleted, and I don't have any way to recover them. So you'd have to start over :-(
I've just made a change so that in the future if a gedcom is removed we'll be able to recover it along with any changes that were made during gedcom review, but that's not going to help your situation unfortunately.
I'm not sure what to tell you. If you decide to start over, would you give me a heads-up that you'll be spending awhile on it by sending me an email or leaving a message on my talk page? --Dallan 13:36, 27 March 2012 (EDT)
It's our fault that your gedcom was deleted. It had been in there awhile, but since you're a long-time contributor we should have contacted you before deleting it. I'm sorry that we didn't do that and that I don't have a good solution for you. --Dallan 13:36, 27 March 2012 (EDT)
Your apology is appreciated, but this is not the first time this has happened at WeRelate. Admitting fault doesn't bring my killed work back to life.
I hope you understand my time is valuable to me - what I choose to spend it on is extremely important to me, because it usually means something else is not being done. So when I spend a lot of time on something, maybe not all at one sitting but over a period of time, it means something to me personally. The loss of that GEDCOM data means that I wasted that time, valuable time I could have been doing something else meaningful to me, to my wife, to my family, or to my friends. I'm not only resentful, I'm angry. I can't imagine having to start that file over again and I'm dumbfounded that it cannot be restored to where it was when I left it. I can't even understand WHY it was deleted! Your message didn't even address the "WHY!" I'm so upset I'm seriously considering ending my association with WeRelate, but that would only compound the loss and the waste of time, and destroy the purpose of my deciding to keep my data on WeRelate. But I see now I am going to have to look at other options elsewhere.
Procedurally, I can't understand your action. You encourage quality, edited, sourced uploads to WeRelate, but only allow a month to go by before you delete not-fully-processed GEDCOMs. Anyone can restore any wiki edit made within WeRelate to any point in the life of the wiki page, but only now, four or five years into the life of this app, are you willing to add the capability to restore a partially edited, prematurely deleted GEDCOM file. Not acceptable! --BobC 14:28, 27 March 2012 (EDT)
I wouldn't blame you for leaving. I don't have any solution for you. This is the first time that I've been made aware that a gedcom has been deleted prematurely.
Actually, your gedcom wasn't deleted prematurely. Gedcom's are deleted because many people never complete the review. The policy, which is in the message left on your talk page when your gedcom is uploaded, is that gedcom's are deleted two weeks after upload. You left a message on your talk page asking that it not be deleted, but leaving a message on your talk page is not a good place to leave it. The admins didn't see your message. --Dallan 14:50, 27 March 2012 (EDT)

GEDCOM Export Ready [27 March 2012]

The GEDCOM for tree Cherokee1 is ready to download. Click here.


GEDCOM Export Ready [27 March 2012]

The GEDCOM for tree Marquez1 is ready to download. Click here.


GEDCOM Export Ready [27 March 2012]

The GEDCOM for tree Welk1 is ready to download. Click here.


GEDCOM Export Ready [27 March 2012]

The GEDCOM for tree Schonauer1 is ready to download. Click here.


WeRelate Featured Page - week of July 9, 2012 [11 July 2012]

Hi Bob, just wanted to let you know that your Person Page, Charles Addams is this week's WeRelate Featured Page. Terrific use of narrative, photos and records on his life! Thanks and keep up the good work.

Best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 18:38, 11 July 2012 (EDT)


Civil War era FamilyBible John Utz/ Minerva (Starr) Utz [12 April 2013]

I have this Family Bible it has first hand accounts of the two of the Utz brothers who died in the war. I was under the impression Minerva Utz, the mother of said brothers, was a Cherokee Indian. If you have any interest in the Bible or have any information concerning the Starr family please contact me at G_Clore@hotmail.com. Thanks--Gclore 17:26, 12 April 2013 (EDT)


featured pages [24 August 2014]

Hi Bob,

I have volunteered to nominate some featured pages and I have noticed that you have some good ones. Are there any which you are particularmy proud of.

Thanks Jeffrey--JeffreyRLehrer 19:16, 21 August 2014 (UTC)


I appreciate your comments about my contributions and your observations relating to some of the work I've done. But I would just as soon that my contributions stay under the radar and not be cited or recognized for any special attention. A few years ago I felt I was a fairly active participant in WeRelate, as reflected in my active dialogue with other users, my contributing to on-going discussions relating to WeRelate style and structure, my positive attitude with the program content and its community approach to genealogy and its lack of individual ownership, and my willingness to invest my time and data in creating a home for my ancestral information here for the benefit of future researchers. Unfortunately, human reality, pride, power and a "my-way-or-the-highway" approach by one or two of the "administrators" took hold at WeRelate, and one of them assumed and/or was given more influence and more authority here, and then exercised that power over contributors and other administrators like a weapon it seemed. It came to a head for me personally when she deleted at least a couple fairly large GEDCOM files I was uploading, ones I slowly and carefully worked on for weeks during my free time to make them as complete as I could make them, with full references, sources, notes, and linked annotations. But because an arbitrary timeline for completion was not met, all my work was discarded without notice and could not be restored. (You may be able to read some of my dialogue with Dallan here or elsewhere about it.)
So, no, please highlight someone else's contributions. I would just as soon my few additions and updates to WeRelate these days not be elevated any higher than my own family lines and to those people now or in the future who may follow them and whom may benefit by them because of a family connection, rather than reach the critical and judgmental editorial eye of that one administrator who seems to have her nose everywhere. (I'm sure she knows who she is.) There are many more folks here at WeRelate that have devoted far more time to this web site and have much more talent than I in their individual areas of interest. --BobC 03:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [5 October 2014]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded kreplogle2.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.


--WeRelate agent 14:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

kreplogle2.ged Imported Successfully [23 January 2015]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may now:

For questions or problems, leave a message for Dallan or send an email to dallan@WeRelate.org.


--WeRelate agent 00:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

New categories needed [23 January 2015]

Hello ! Please, see here ! Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 17:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


Marc, please refer to your own Talk Page for my response to your message.
--BobC 19:42, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Early Pennsylvania Families Project invite [3 June 2015]

Hi BobC! I created a page for the Early Pennsylvania Families Project a couple months ago. I have noticed that you are an active user with Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. I have added some of my ancestors from colonial PA and some families I found in WeRelate, but the name "project" would be misleading without cooperation. I hope to do something similar to what the Tapestry has done in Virginia/PA to Pennsylvania. Would you be interested in the project? --bartsimpson 18:40, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the personal invite and for creating the page. Would certainly like to join the discussion and add information, names and content, but only if the "Early" reference limited inclusion of immigrants and families who settled there during colonial times prior to the period of the 18th century (before 1800) or pre-American Revolution time period (before 1776). I think that is your intent, but the timespan dates show otherwise. --BobC 15:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
The reason for the long timespan was to include the descendants of the settlers. I should probably change it. I explained on my talk page the purpose of the project.--bartsimpson 11:04, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Contest [6 June 2015]

Hi BobC, thanks so much for messaging me about the contest. I just logged in to WeRelate after being gone for so long. Long story, but in short my partner had a stroke and we are STILL doing all kinds of rehab and we run his business. He is doing much better and the contest has been at the top of my list of things I would try to get back up as soon as I have time. I would love help with it but I do have two great ideas. I will launch one tomorrow morning and then if you want to launch some that sounds like fun. But I am thinking about making them longer than a week. What do you think? Watch for a new contest June 7th! thanks Catherine --cthrnvl 22:35, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


Next step: Review your GEDCOM [19 June 2015]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded oh-interweavings.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.


--WeRelate agent 04:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

oh-interweavings.ged Imported Successfully [23 June 2015]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may now:

For questions or problems, leave a message for Dallan or send an email to dallan@WeRelate.org.


--WeRelate agent 14:59, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [14 July 2015]

You're not done yet!

WeRelate is different from most family tree websites. By contributing to WeRelate you are helping to create Pando for genealogy, a free, unified family tree that combines the best information from all contributors.

Now that you have uploaded phil_penny.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

Note: if your gedcom contains many errors or multiple families, we’d ask that you resolve and correct the errors, delete this gedcom and re-submit it without the errors before merging it with families already on WeRelate. If the gedcom is very large, we’d suggest breaking it up into separate files (or families) and importing them one at a time, which makes the review and correction process easier.

Click here to review your GEDCOM

Once you have finished your review and marked your GEDCOM Ready to import, one of our administrators will review your GEDCOM and finalize the import. This usually happens within 24 hours. You will receive a message here when the pages have been created.


--WeRelate agent 14:09, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Gedcom [18 May 2016]

Hi Bob

nice to see an active member here. WeRelate relies on the fantastic work that people do and you seem to be doing a lot, thank you.

I am currently reviewing some old gedcom uploads, if the user is inactive and the file is over 6 months old I am deleting it, most would not import due to the number of errors, I see you have one on hold since July last year, which implies you are working on it and I do not want to interfere with your work, just thought I would give you a heads up about it. I know life sometimes gets in the way and it is all to easy to lose track of things but if you do not want to import it could you delete it please. Or let me know and I will do it, but only with your permission. _Rhian 15:04, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I will continue working on it. As you probably know, Dallan instituted the Hold feature for unfinished GEDCOM imports a few years ago because of the issue of administrators deleting files that were went beyond the two week timeline for edits and imports (as it was a couple years ago or so), regardless of the size of the file, work involved, or impact on or the desire of the importer. I lost at least two sizable files that way and almost discontinued my participation here at WR as a result.
Appreciate your work in that area -- I know it can be challenging and thankless. The GEDCOM import & review feature is an important function here, because for most new users it is probably their first introduction to WeRelate and many don't want a lengthy delay in getting their work reviewed and uploaded.
Thanks again. --BobC 14:32, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
You are so right, the first interface for many people is gedcom import and it so important to get it right and checked in a timely manner, I would prefer people spent time understanding the how and why of the rules but once they have done that they should get feedback or approval at least the same day.

Thanks for your feedback, your gedcom will be safe, and thank you for all the effort you put into WeRelate, active members are the heart of the site.-Rhian 15:03, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Trying to import file. Warning message says it can't be imported. Not sure if it is because it is still on-hold or because of a couple "Alerts" that doesn't affect the data and which I can't further investigate background details at a later time. --BobC 12:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
Sorry about that, I did not realise I had put it on hold as well, you should be able to open it now. --Rhian 14:25, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Rhian. Submitted the file for import. Will continue to work on the names and details as time permits.
All the attention on use of ads on the WeRelate_talk:Support page, the subject flow-over and drama about WR's future on the WeRelate_talk:Watercooler, and the mysterious lack of response from Dallan relating to both issues is making me nervous. Not to exaggerate the situation, but it makes me think I need to back up everything on my watchlist just in case. --BobC 15:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
I've begun the export process of my four family files. Haven't done so in four years, so now is as good a time as any. I think I need to be prepared to look at other options again. --BobC 02:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

GEDCOM Export Ready [18 May 2016]

The GEDCOM for tree Cherokee1 is ready to download. Click here.


GEDCOM Export Ready [18 May 2016]

The GEDCOM for tree Marquez1 is ready to download. Click here.


GEDCOM Export Ready [18 May 2016]

The GEDCOM for tree Schonauer1 is ready to download. Click here.


GEDCOM Export Ready [18 May 2016]

The GEDCOM for tree Welk1 is ready to download. Click here.


email [30 May 2016]

I still need your email address so I can add you to the OC page.--Rhian 11:02, 30 May 2016 (UTC)


need a bit of help RE categories [10 June 2016]

Bob, I have two red categories on this page: Person:Mary Dennis (44). Can you tell me what I need to do to eliminate the red??

I do like to use categories but having only the state location and not the county is not very helpful. Since I sometimes do a county-wide study of one surname, I'd like to create some way to group them all together. I know to have every county in every state would soon get unwieldy but not many folks use them anyway so perhaps I could be permitted a few??? But I'm not sure just how to make sure the category 'Jackson in Loudoun, Virginia' would be created as a child of 'Jackson in Virginia'. Should I even continue to think along these lines or will county categories be shot down by the powers-that-be? If you think it worthwhile, can you tell me how to do it?

I'm glad you're going to be on the Oversight Committee! I wish you well and hope that the renewed committee can get some answers and move forward. --janiejac 19:10, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I added the parent categories (Category:Surname in place, Category:Dennis surname, Category:Surnames in Virginia and Category:Surnames in Kentucky to the appropriate red links on your person page above. Personally I wouldn't see a problem with adding a child-category showing the county surname in place (e.g. Category:Dennis in Loudoun, Virginia) and linking that to the parent surname in place category for Viriginia above, but that doesn't seem to be the protocol here at WeRelate. You would probably be the only one doing it, therefore would be of questionable value to you. But if you have hundreds of those surnames then it might be.
Re your comment about the OC, I hope to be of service and make a difference. I had such real problems a few years ago with some of them I almost left WR.
Good luck in your research. --BobC 19:50, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

OC-Committee [21 July 2016]

Hi I am writing this to you and to pckeegstra and cos1776. We appear to be the only active members of the OC-committee.

I have been trying to get my thoughts in order since we discussed possible reorganization of the Source box around 10th July. As I explained then, our household situation is not a smooth one. However, the work on the Source box has now moved out to the Watercooler without our really coming to a consensus. Have we reached any conclusions we can put to Dallan? From what he told me when he and I last discussed things, he should be freer of other commitments now than he was then.

Unfortunately, in the past 48 hours some section of my computer or my browser has denied me entry to our google groups OC-committee message board. The pinned tag I had leads to another organization completely. Can any of you help put me back into the right link?

Thanks. Pat --Goldenoldie 06:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Here is the "signature message line" from one of my email messages received thru WeRelate-OC Group:
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WeRelate-OC" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to werelate-oc+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to werelate-oc@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/werelate-oc/66e9ff38-0cd9-46c2-86d2-53348435ea86%40googlegroups.com.
Unfortunately, the access problem you experienced may not be you but the system. I cannot access the GoogleGroup page either. When I try to get to it the link sends me to a "Create Group" page. I'll keep trying from other avenues.
Let me know if you or the others have any luck. --BobC 20:18, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear - [24 August 2016]

I hope you'll give any ideas I may offer a serious chance on their merits - as you learn of them from me or my work - and not based on characterizations from someone with an axe to grind.

Thanks...

--jrm03063 02:55, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

I fully understand and am cognizant of the characterization background to which you are referring. I didn't mean by my comments in the Watercooler thread to shoot what I interpreted were your suggestions down or be unsupportive for at least further discussion, clarification, debate, consideration, and development for possible trial runs for your ideas, but I don't believe the present climate in WR management will allow or consider any serious changes to be made in the foreseeable future. I think we are pretty much running on status-quo here now. Are you aware the whole thread of OC agenda discussions were wiped clean and the GoogleGroup WeRelate OC site eliminated? Still not sure what that was all about. --BobC 04:32, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Definitely wasn't aware of all that - and I agree that it would be impossible to do anything without support from further up the food chain. I wouldn't even try... --jrm03063 05:18, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for modifying the "cohabitation" assertion. [26 August 2016]

I was about to post something on the WC - but the more I looked the more preachy it seemed. I really see value in the templates - and I thought the help offered a good explanation.

It seems however - that the community seems to have conflated the independent questions of the cosmetics chosen and the question of using templates for this.

The other issue out there - some folks want to move this information off the fact list. I agree that there are unfortunate cosmetics associated with this too - but putting things like this down in the narrative body means that exported GEDCOMs won't connect source/note support to the facts. I'm also hoping that we can get some improved code for Person and Page fact sorting/display - which is a better way to deal with that issue.

Anyway...I saw that you had taken a start at this - and I'm very glad to see someone else lead the charge. I'm right behind you Gunga Din! --jrm03063 16:55, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I too agree that templates have value, and used correctly standardize non-traditional or repetitive entries and their links or references. I didn't want to see the WC discussion, initially based on the politically-correct nature of the entry's appearance, degenerate to the use and value of templates. So I thought that just modifying the cosmetics would placate those who were concerned about it, while not really changing the substance and use of it. Believe me, I have little interest in, as you say, leading the charge here, just mollifying and placating the extreme ends of the spectrum, if you know what I mean.
When I have a little more time to look more closely, there may be other template displays that could be modified and improved somewhat, but I'll save that for later. --BobC 17:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Family Outside Marriage Template [31 August 2016]

The template was emitting your added content at all expansion points - which I'm pretty sure wasn't your intention. I added some wiki syntax to suppress that.

Still, that kind of extensive help may be more suited to a different spot. Perhaps this page? That page is included in several places where documentation of that template is desired.

I'm certainly not against some of the added characterizations being suggested for the template. I'm very glad to see any work that's going to encourage and assist standard representations of standard data. But even I'm a little overwhelmed by the number that appears. More specifically, I do have an additional slight quibble:

In general, when I don't see a marriage date on a family, I think the right assumption is that a marriage probably did occur - we just don't know when or where. I created the template for those situations where there is a family - but a marriage is specifically known to NOT have occurred. I wouldn't use it to document that a marriage has yet to be found - because that seems like the default situation of nothing being recorded.

Part of my thinking was that we might one day have software that wandered about the database looking for errors. While bigamy is hardly unknown - I would expect that software looking for errors would generate a warning if it encountered bigamy. The fact assertion would allow a bigamy search to know that certain families are to be overlooked for that purpose.

Thanks again for diving in on this...

--jrm03063 16:50, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Totally unaware of that effect. Please give me a page link so I can see what it did and how it affected the pages. Thanks. --BobC 20:05, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
I would suggest that you go to the template page proper - choose history - then compare your last release with the latest. You'll see the <noinclude> tags I added. --jrm03063 21:46, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
I think I get it. The "nowiki" tags were not enough - I should have included the "noinclude" as well. Thanks much. --BobC 03:08, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
Great! I think we're better off if more people feel comfortable editing those things. While they probably shouldn't change on pure whim - the community appears to have developed a sense that these are somehow not withing their control - and that the folks who worked on those were trying to impose control. Maybe it's true that we were trying to provide (ok, impose!) order - but control remains with the community.
If you're interested - there are some other fact assertions that have additional features you may find interesting.
  • I use "combatant" to describe a military fact of someone participating in a battle. The name provided for the battle is permuted by adding "Battle of" - then that name is used to make the person a member of an appropriate category and to provide a link to the category page. Those categories include from the appropriate WP page (when available, which is usually the case) and themselves - are part of the category for the next larger military event in which they are contained (war, campaign, etc.). I also use this fact assertion in the description of death, when someone is known to have died in battle.
  • Affiliation in houses of nobility is handled similarly to combatant, using the NobleHouse template (adds to category and creates a link) - which I add to the description of birth - unless the person is considered to be the founder of a house of nobility (in which case, the event establishing their status gets the template - their birth might have a different template). I don't flag women who marry into a house as themselves part of that house - since their membership is only a function of their marriage which could change any number of times.
  • Wikidata is something I've become very interested in using lately. I add this description to a reference number fact - when a person has an established Wikidata identifier. As a practical matter, it means that at least one language version of WP has a biography for the person. The template provides an active link to the wikidata page for the person - which can easily be transited to any of the language versions that have a biography for the person.
  • While I can't find the original author right now (and it doesn't appear in the history...weird) - the template that opened my eyes to what could be done was MedalOfHonorCivilWar. That one features a tiny image as well as category membership. My go-to page for demonstrations of that and several other fact thingies is Person:Joshua Chamberlain (1).
--jrm03063 16:46, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Value of AFNs? [23 February 2017]

I noticed that you recently added (or edited) an AFN on a page. I found lots of them when I was corralling the medieval spaces and retained them at that point. But I've never found them to be useful - so I've been dropping them when I encounter a page where I can assign a Wikidata ID as a reference number (this usually means that one or more language versions of Wikipedia, have a biography for the person).

I understood that it was originally intended as a way to help de-duplicate people in collections of GEDCOMs - but that it either fell from favor or never really caught on.

Do you have another perspective? Thanks!

-jrm--jrm03063 16:29, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

It appears that Wikidata does not incorporate AFNs into its database. Not sure if that is because of questions of reliability, degree of conformity, or ease of transferability. But in this specific case, I wanted to retain the AFN as a source because of the data I used from it and for the familial links and further references it contains that I or some other interested researcher could investigate further.
I appreciate you adding the Wikidata ID, which contains many more useful links.
Take care. --BobC 13:15, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for not taking offense at my removal of that AFN. I really appreciate that.
Is there a way to tell a "useful" AFN from a less useful one? Are AFNs from certain GEDCOM sources more to be trusted than others? As I noted, I've been jettisoning a lot of them - and I really don't want to do that if there's value there - at least sometimes. I would be particularly interested if there's a way to roll up a template for AFNs like the one I have for Wikidata IDs (turning the ID into an active link to a corresponding web page).
One of the reasons that wikidata may not include AFNs may be that some individuals might appear in thousands of GEDCOMs, and therefore, thousands of AFNs might be associated with a given Wikidata ID. If a correspondence table were to be created, it might be more appropriate for it to be hosted on the LDS side - rather than by the Wikimedia folks. But that's just my speculation.
I have a lot of confidence that the Wikidata ID will allow for genealogy unification in ways that the AFN never quite delivered. The WikiTree folks have actually added an attribute over on Wikidata, so that pages associated with humans can have a link back to the corresponding page on WikiTree. We could eventually do the same, but I was struck that it's of more immediate importance to get Wikidata numbers into our database so that the Wikidata association would persist in extracted GEDCOMs. I've been working by hand and have over 6200 pages tagged right now - soon I'll have to develop some tools to at least help to grovel over that information, verifying that ids are unique, comparing/contrasting with Wikidata (gender?) to apply sanity checks and such - even if that code doesn't do anything automatic to our database. Code that just warns of problems can be pretty useful without getting folks needlessly excited that bots are "doing genealogy"!
Thanks again! --jrm03063 15:48, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Compiled genealogical collections and data from multiple sources (or even worse, from unknown or undocumented sources) can be difficult to grade and analyze. Many of these large online collections, such as Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Geni, and WikiTree have been pegged with the moniker of "Junk Genealogy," many times deservedly so, other times unfairly so. When I look at these collections I try to find the underlying sources used (if documented) or in comparison of other known original or better sourced records.
Old collections absorbed in Ancestry (such as OneWorldTree, FamilyTreeManager, Rootsweb's WorldConnect Project, and others) and those in the LDS AncestrySearch (such as the IGI, AncestryFile, PedigreeResearchFile, and others) many times had no source references, not because it was bad information, but because the older applications designed for collection and compilation did not either allow for inclusion of sources by the user or did not focus on the importance of source inclusion. The first desktop genealogy program I used that specifically supported source documentation and stressed the importance of it was The Master Genealogist, then Bruce Buzbee's Family Origins which turned into RootsMagic about 15 years ago.
So the AFN itself really is of questionable value to me personally, and only directs the user to a person's FamilySearch record and additional family members and sources linked therein. The AFN entry used for Nancy Ward was included solely to direct a user back to the source of the data and event elements it supported. I think members of the LDS may be more closely tied to this reference number since it connects to doctrinal and sacramental observances within the church, so excluding them or replacing them with Wikidata numbers may cause hurt feelings to those who are invested in those referenced numbers. That's just my personal speculation.
Good luck in your own research. --BobC 17:02, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the education. I think what I'll do going forward, is use the AFN template I just created to make the number into an active link (unless it's supported by a source the way you did w/Nancy Ward - in which case I would place the active link as the subject of the source). So long as the link goes to a reasonable place, I'll keep it. --jrm03063 17:16, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

FSID template [20 April 2017]

I see you recently added Template:FSID. I'm curious as to why you choose to target it to, for example:

https://familysearch.org/tree/find/id?search=1&id=LRTL-XGG

instead of

https://familysearch.org/tree/person/LRTL-XGG

The former goes to a search page; the latter directly to the person page (which the search page would have a link to). I haven't found any documentation that either form is guaranteed to be a "permanent" link, but I think the latter URL syntax has at least as good a chance of being permanent as the search URL syntax. (An aside, but the search URL doesn't get the result when used in the Chrome browser in my tests, although it does in the IE browser.) --robert.shaw 22:52, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Appreciate you pointing that out. I guess that's a sign of me being a hanger-onner to the old AFN days, when a single AFN might produce up to dozens, even hundreds of matches from what I've heard. I think the new FSID counters that, with supposedly one person match per profile number. Once I've been able to experiment further with it and verify that with multiple examples on at least two of the browers, I'll change it to the identified single person URL rather than to the search results URL. Take care. And thanks again for the helpful input. --BobC 02:22, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Sounds good. By the way, the Search URL didn't work in Chrome in an odd way: it went to the Search page, but with an empty ID input box, even though the URL had the ID value. Additionally, a refresh operation at that point caused the search to work(!). I tried without extensions, so probably not that, but maybe I have some odd Chrome setting or something. --robert.shaw 05:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Forgive me for intruding into this discussion. I have seen that AFNs are essentially deprecated by LDS, but wasn't sure how to move to whatever came next (it looked like next came the "Pedigree File", but that it too has been superceded). Is it fair to call the FSID the contemporary incarnation of the AFN "idea" (of course, the id string is new...) --jrm03063 15:32, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Actually, that was my intent in creating the new template. Like you said, although still accessible and usable for seeing static individual records based on submissions of old PAF and PFR records, I agree that AFNs are basically history, and for the most part, the data seems to have been totally incorporated into the moving or "living" FamilySearch Family Tree records, from which a new FSID number was created.
I had an opportunity earlier this month to visit the LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was somewhat surprised to see how much the first floor had changed since my previous visit a few years ago. The banks of research computers that were filling much of the 1st floor back then were moved to the 2nd and 3rd floors, and replaced with a high tech "visitor center" for introducing people to the world of personalized genealogy. All visitors are invited to receive an interactive computer tablet to log in, and then they can carry those tablets to several electronic display stations where they can visualize their family history on huge computer monitors, can see their ancestral journey geographically placed on a world-wide map encompassing hundreds of years of movement, can be placed virtually in historically accurate attire for different eras of time based on their own family history, can record their own abbreviated personal family history stories, and can create or update their family lines on user-friendly interactive touch-screen displays. It's quite impressive, but in my opinion, a somewhat juvenile attempt to impress the novice millennial family historian who is more accomplished with computer graphics and expects instant genealogy then learning the research skills it takes to discover and recreate those genealogical connections.
In any case, on my introductory tour around the display my tablet failed to find or connect with anybody except myself. A little frustrated, I approached one of the volunteers and asked why I wasn't connecting with my old genealogical data and ancestral lines contributed years ago. They couldn't answer my questions, so I was referred down to one of the basement levels to talk with one of the "Escalation Support Team" specialists. After having my questions and concerns screened by a couple more volunteers, I was finally referred to one of the paid staff professionals. She sat with me at one of the computer stations and walked me through the changes that have been made to FamilySearch and connected me to my old data (formerly part of the Acestral File transferred to FS Family Tree).
So that experience gave me some insight on the difference between the AFN and FSID numbers, how they relate, and how they can be used and incorporated here at WeRelate. And yes, I acknowledge that the FamilySearch Family Tree should not be considered a Primary Source any more than Ancestry Family Trees should be, but can be used as an aid for researching parallel lines here at WeRelate, especially those with source links. The positive differences between linking to the old AFNs and the new FSIDs are that FamilySearch Family Tree is now a single, shared family tree, rather than a collection of individual submissions from contributors. It also has the ability to add and incorporate sources for primary fact events, which the old programs didn't have (except as notes).
So that's the background for the new FSID template. --BobC 16:59, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
jrm03063, you might call the FamilySearch Family Tree identifier the "same idea" as the AFN, but more useful in some ways because the underlying database the identifier points into is a dynamic single collaborative tree much like WeRelate's. The FSFT identifier, like LRTL-XGG, is very comparable to a WeRelate identifier like "John Smith (173)". --robert.shaw 17:48, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


Ok, thanks to you both!... Sure - I agree that reference numbers - AFNs, FSIDs, and Wikidata numbers are not sources. It also sounds like an FSID should be able to be found for almost anyone who ever had an AFN assigned - yes?
I've been interested for a while in making the WR database align with other databases. The collection of biographies out on the various versions of Wikipedia are an ongoing focus - but that will naturally leave gaps in the wider tree for people that aren't sufficiently notable by WP standards. Is it fair to think that FSIDs may help fill in such areas? I'm also interested in how LDS manages to avoid massive duplication in the assignment of FSIDs - is the group that works with that database limited? --jrm03063 18:52, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
FS Family Tree is not curated; editing is open to anyone who creates an account. There is a good deal of duplication, especially of entries with little data in them. I think FSFT is based on earlier AF and IGI entries, but as part of establishing the database, they used computer matching to consolidate many duplicates. They did this somewhat conservatively to avoid consolidating distinct people, so many duplicates probably remain. LDS encourages their flock to add to the system, so there are plenty of naive editors as well as some experienced ones. There are definitely lots of errors present, including entries confounding two or more people. I think it's better than AF though. --robert.shaw 17:47, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Idea for a crowdsourcing challenge [9 May 2017]

Hi BobC! I think you are doing a great job with the monthly challenges. They are always interesting and professionally presented. Thank you for staying on top of them. While doing old GEDCOM page cleanup the other week, I came across a series of pages uploaded in 2008 and hardly touched since that might make for an interesting crowdsourcing project. I'm not sure how you would "score" the contributions for the purposes of the contest, but I thought it might be a fun way to work some quality improvement of existing pages into the contest.

Basically, it looks like the contributor has done a fair amount of research for some of his people, but the citations are not in our standard format, so pretty much all pages need attention and sources. One part of the project is particularly interesting, however, and I thought this might be where the contest could come in. For burial entries, he refers to all cemeteries by the index number assigned to them by the Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Commission. (Ex. Person:Caroline Knight (69) is buried in PV005, aka Find A Grave: Grace Church Cemetery, for which a WR page does not yet exist. So the task has several parts:

  1. Create WR cemetery pages for these RI cemeteries. I highly recommend including the full index number in the alternate name field as well to allow them to be found via search or matched, if entered by index number in the future. Also, the RIHCC site has a wealth of historical information on each cemetery that FAG does not, so our pages should include links to both external sites and perhaps some of the historical info as well.
  2. Update all existing cemetery place entries from this user (and maybe others) to link to the correct WR cemetery page. Some of the people pages to fix can be found in Wanted Category:Knight in Historical Cemetery, so fixing them clears out this bad category as well.

I did some of these before it dawned on me that this would be a great crowdsourcing project. Here's an example of a page I've updated, Person:Annie Knight (55). This particular page could use some more sources, vitals, censuses, etc., but it demonstrates how stopping at FAG for her burial info without looking at the cemetery record at RIHCC would have caused you to miss the additional info such as cause of death, lead on birthplace, etc. The historical cemetery pages would make an interesting project on their own, but integrating those with existing Person page cleanup and bad Category cleanup gets us a three-fer plus a contest! :)
What do you think? --cos1776 15:28, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I noticed the same a couple months ago while cleaning-up the "Wanted Category" page, and actually editing a couple of them. So I know exactly what you are talking about. But it seemed pretty convoluted and too "high maintenance" for the time I've had available. I was going to do a few of them at a time, creating corrective links for the various abbreviated cemetery locations to ease the edit process, but just haven't made time for it yet.
Sorry, but I hesitate on adding such a clean-up chore to the Challenge, because that requires a little bit more research and specific, uniform corrective action for each of the cemetery designations currently listed, and I think it important to keep the Challenge interesting and user-friendly for new and old users alike, welcoming user creativity and experimentation, accepting of various edit styles, and offering contributors a place to try differing methods of user input.
I think that such a maintenance chore would be better added to the Data Quality Improvement maintenance page. Next month I could replace the current Brick Walls link on the main page with a link to the maintenance project specifically identifying what needs to be done to the convoluted RI cemetery links. --BobC 19:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)