User talk:Mstewart

Welcome

Welcome to WeRelate, your virtual genealogical community. We're glad you have joined us. At WeRelate you can easily create ancestor web pages, connect with cousins and other genealogists, and find new information. To get started:

1. Take the WeRelate tour to see what you can do.
2. Watch the tutorial videos to learn how to make ancestor web pages.
3. Read the various Help pages to answer any questions you may have.

If you need any help, I will be glad to answer your questions. Just click on my signature link below and then click on the “Leave a message” link under my name in the upper left corner of my profile page. Thanks for participating and see you around!--Beth 09:31, 2 July 2008 (EDT)

[3 July 2008]

Hi, Welcome to WeRelate and thanks for contributing. I redirected your place page for New Kent County, Virginia. That page already exists here Place:New Kent, Virginia, United States. WeRelate does not use the word county in the place title. For more information on formatting place names check the tutorial Help:Places --Beth 08:20, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

HENRYS FAMILY.GED Imported Successfully [3 July 2008]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may view them by launching the Family Tree Explorer and opening the family tree into which this GEDCOM was imported.

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

--WeRelate agent 18:10, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Census sources [3 July 2008]

Hi Mary,

This will show you how to enter your census sources. See WeRelate:Source page titles. We have 2 options. One if you prefer to enter your data on the state level and the second is if you prefer to enter the data on the county level. --Beth 21:25, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Titles for Person and Family pages [4 July 2008]

Hi Mary,

Beth here again. <g> I am an administrative volunteer and just wanted to explain why I edited the title of your Person and Family pages. With the new match/merge function that Dallan is working on, everything that comes after the FIRST word in the TITLE of a person page will be treated as a surname. So it's best to keep the title simple and uncluttered. Prefixes and suffixes can be added on the Person page later, as well as alternate names or various spellings of the name that may differ from that in the title.

For more information on this please refer to: Creating a person page.

Thanks for your contributions to WeRelate!--Beth 10:11, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

Beth,

OK, I see what you are doing but what are the rules for match/merge? One of the biggest problems I have had is with people of the same name being automatically merged into one person making a complete mess. For instance, there were four Gerard Alexanders alive at more or less the same time in more or less the same place -- Col. Gerard, his father Gerard, his grandfather Gerard, and a cousin Gerard. Everything in print confused them. Even my friend, Wes Pippenger, got it wrong.

I will also have the same problem with my Moorman family if I submit them. I'm doing a single surname of the Moormans and they had no imagination when naming their children -- they are all Charles, Thomas, Mary or Elizabeth.

Mary--Mstewart 10:25, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

Hi Mary,

Merging is still under discussion. See WeRelate talk:Merging and downloading trees. --Beth 10:43, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

SARAH'S FAMILY.GED Imported Successfully [4 July 2008]

The pages from your GEDCOM have been generated successfully. You may view them by launching the Family Tree Explorer and opening the family tree into which this GEDCOM was imported.

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

--WeRelate agent 11:45, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

Bowman [4 July 2008]

Hi Mary,

Thanks for the information on the Bowman family. My files are molding away; 4 files here and another 20 not yet entered. I obtained the death certificate tonight; earlier it was not online. After viewing several errors in transcriptions even with 3 people checking; I have a much better understanding of why one really needs to obtain the original; but I can not always afford the cost.

On Family Search we will be allowed to correct transcription errors in the future. I guess I need to keep a log.

Anyway I confirmed that I picked the correct M. and Molly did marry a Fagan. In the index on Family Search she is Molly Queen Fagan. Reviewing the certificate it could be Queen; unless you knew that her given name was Owen.

--Beth 22:32, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

Formatting source titles [6 July 2008]

Hi Mary,

I am renaming your sources for books to conform to the guidlines on WeRelate. See WeRelate:Source page titles for the current guidelines and link to the project talk page. We appreciate your participation in WeRelate. Administrator --Beth 09:01, 6 July 2008 (EDT)

Camp Creek Monthly Meeting [7 July 2008]

Hello Mary!

I am an admin for WeRelate, and it's my job to patrol pages and help people learn the system. I was looking at your Camp Creek Monthly Meeting Place Page. Is this an actual place, or a minutes of meetings? If these are minutes, they should be in the source directory. The place directory is reserved for actual places. Is there a place called Camp Creek? If so, I can rename the page to Place:Camp Creek,Louisa, Virginia, United States and list the Monthly Meeting as a research tip. =)

--Taylor 11:28, 7 July 2008 (EDT)

Taylor,

It is both. There was a physical place probably best called Camp Creek Meeting House, etc. There were other meeting houses as well: Fork Creek, Orange (sometimes called Douglas), and Sugar Loaf Mountain. These four made up Camp Creek Monthly Meeting.

Camp Creek Monthly Meeting was an event probably held at one of these meeting houses or sometimes at an individual's home. Events which concerned members of the Meeting were recorded in the minutes. With the exception of some weddings, it is rare that we know the actual location of any of the events.

The name of the location of the actual Meeting House changed over time. Camp Creek MH and Fork Creek MH started in Hanover County. When Louisa County was formed in 1742, the location of both changed from Hanover to Louisa. Orange/Douglas was located in Orange County. Sugar Loaf started in Louisa until that part of Louisa became Albemarle.

Confusing? You bet!

Camp Creek is a body of water and as such is an unlikely place for an event.

Mary--Mstewart 16:49, 7 July 2008 (EDT)

Lynchburg [8 July 2008]

I noticed that you renamed Lynchburg to put it directly under Virginia. It doesn't look like it's enclosed by any county, so I think that makes sense. If you wanted searches in one of the nearby counties to also pick up events in Lynchburg, you could add that county as an "Also located in" place on the Lynchburg page. I don't know enough of the history of the area to know if that makes sense or not.--Dallan 14:55, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Googlemap template [9 July 2008]

Until we add a real mapping capability to WeRelate, you can create links to google maps using Template:Googlemap. You can see an example of how it is used on Person:Dorothy Arris (1), where it's used to pinpoint her burial plot. If you edit that page you'll see how they inserted the googlemap template in the burial description field, but you could put it anywhere on the page.--Dallan 14:55, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Dallan, Thank you. I tried the template but it does not work correctly for me -- it may be a Google maps issue. Here's what I did and you can see the results on Henry Ashton Alexander's page at Note 3.

The location of the farm is: 37.18432/-79.1119

I entered this in Note 3 (cone set of brackets removed so you can see the contents): {googlemap|37.18432|-79.1119|Flat Creek farm|Henry+Ashton+Alexander+family+homeplace|13|m}

The Lat/Long shows correctly in Google maps search box but for some reason it becomes: +37° 11' 3.55", -79° 6' 42.84" That spot is several miles south and east of the actual location. If you are interested, 105 Watson Drive, Lynchburg, VA in the search box will take you to the exact place.

I tried with some other locations and got similar results.

Now what? Mary--Mstewart 16:17, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

More about Google maps -- and I'm even more confused if that is possible.

On the place page for Flat Creek Farm Place:Flat Creek Farm, Campbell, Virginia, United States I entered the lat/long as 37.1845°N 79.1119°W. Click on the map and it goes to the right place.

Using the googlemap template if I enter 37.1845|-79.1119 I get the wrong place. However, when I entered 37.312325|-79.188466 Google translated it and landed in the right place. The trick seems to be to get the lat/long info from the USGS query site. Now the two links to maps work. See Notes 2 & 3 here: Person:Henry Ashton Alexander (1)

Not exactly consistent behavior.--Mstewart 17:59, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Now I get it -- there are two versions of the same Lat/Long data for each location. DMS (degree/minute/second) and DEC (decimal). The GNIS query service returns both.

The difficulty in WR is that Lat/Long is entered in DMS format on Place pages and in DEC format when using Template:Googlemap.... It would be easier if the same version were used in both places.

Thanks, Mary--Mstewart 23:09, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Hi Mary,

I was adding the following comment at the same time you were editing the page. Here's the comment for what it's worth. Note that you can enter coordinates in Place pages and the googlemap template in either decimal-degrees format or degrees-minutes-seconds.

Here's what's going on. There are two ways to enter coordinates: decimal-degrees or degrees-minutes-seconds. When you enter 37.1845, that's interpreted as a decimal (by Google and WeRelate). Alternatively, if you enter "37 18 43", that's interpreted as degrees-minutes-seconds format (by Google and WeRelate). This website has a calculator to convert between the two formats. Note that "37 18 43" in degrees-minutes-seconds format is equal to 37.311944 in decimal-degrees format.

I just looked at Place:Flat Creek Farm, Campbell, Virginia, United States and it looks like it's going to a different place than the map on the Person:Henry Ashton Alexander (1) page. You'll probably want to edit that page to enter the coordinates in degrees-minutes-seconds format, with the degrees, minutes, and seconds components separated by spaces.

If you want, you can enter the coordinates in the googlemap template in degrees-minutes-seconds format if you separate the degrees, minutes, and seconds by plus signs. I edited the third note on Henry's page to show this. I hope this helps!--Dallan 23:25, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, Dallan. I think it would be helpful to add the information in the second paragraph of your message above to the instructions for using the googlemap template. They are pretty bare bones as they stand now. Mary--Mstewart 07:32, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

Well, I just figured out the plus-sign trick, but I added it to the instructions. Feel free to edit the instructions further if you'd like.--Dallan 00:16, 10 July 2008 (EDT)

response to comment about source [9 October 2009]

Hi, I've left a response on the 'talk' page of the Source record where you left a comment. But after I did that I realized you weren't watching that page, so using this method to alert you. But then I saw you had also posted the comment on the actual source page. Once on either page would have been sufficient. --Janiejac 18:51, 9 October 2009 (EDT)