WeRelate talk:Support/2013

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Renaming related to Québec places [16 August 2013]

1. "Quebec city" should be renamed "Ville de Québec" or "Québec (ville)" since it's a french place.

2. "Québec" (Type=Region) should be renamed "Région de Québec" or "Québec (région)" to distinguish it from the city and the province.

Thanks !

--Dsavard 21:53, 30 December 2012 (EST)

Conventionally, the WeRelate place system does not qualify the same name at different levels of the hierarchy, believing that the level in the hierarchy itself is sufficient disambiguation. (The people who like concise names are pleased by that.) But every case is unique, and if the people working with Québec find the ambiguity confusing, we can make the change. Ville de Québec certainly deserves the accent as its preferred form. Followup to Place talk:Québec, Canada. --Pkeegstra 06:35, 31 December 2012 (EST)
I find this puzzling. How is Quebec a "region" and not a province? Quebec the province is divided into 17 administrative regions, but none of them is called "Quebec", either. (Quebec City is the seat of the Capitale-Nationale region.) I have also always been told that the preferred name of the city -- preferred by Quebecois -- in English is just "Quebec." Calling it "Quebec City" is therefore similar to "New York City, New York," and equally unnecessary. Or is this just an ethnically partisan Anglophone/Francophone issue? --MikeTalk 17:27, 1 January 2013 (EST)
@Pkeegstra : If it's the convention, I drop my proposition. I have been misleaded by the suggestion in the places help pages : Help:Place_pages#How do I create a new place page?.--Dsavard 10:03, 2 January 2013 (EST)
As Mike alluded to, the convention does have room for customization. e.g. because New York City spans 5 boroughs, which are counties, and New York County (i.e. Manhattan) is New York, New York, United States, the entity which spans the 5 boroughs is called New York City, New York, United States. (But subsidiary places are defined in the individual county or borough, not the New York City page.) BTW, can you confirm that before 1979 the Région de Québec functioned as a county for the area containing Ville de Québec?
@Mksmith: When bureaucrats are around, simple things could become complex. To make a long story shorter, in the province of Québec, there is a two-levels structure for municipal institutions: local and supralocal. Local entities are towns, townships, parish, village and municipalities. Supralocal entities are mainly regional county municipality (RCM) and agglomerations. The first one is for rural or semi-rural towns and the latter is mostly for urban cities. However, some mid-size cities (Gatineau, Shawinigan, ...) are both a local and a supralocal administrations. Admistrative regions like "03 Capitale-Nationale" are not municipal institutions, legally speaking. Conclusion: cities around Québec city, should be included in a Québec container, which can be seen since 1979 as the agglomeration or before as the region of Québec. --Dsavard 11:15, 2 January 2013 (EST)
Wow. And a Quebecois acquaintance of mine used to complain that "Anglos make everything too complicated". . . . --MikeTalk 08:15, 4 January 2013 (EST)
The other important point is that the place patrol implements the functionality mentioned in Help:Place_pages#How do I create a new place page?: "Don't worry if you don't get the title exactly right. It can always be fixed later." --Pkeegstra 11:05, 2 January 2013 (EST)
In the WR's list of Contained Places for Quebec Province both Quebec and Capitale-Nationale are listed as "administrative regions" and further down Quebec is listed as a "region". Some duplication here to be corrected. And the date of change from Quebec to Capitale-Nationale ought to be entered. (Wikipedia is using 2000 for this.) --goldenoldie 11:36, 2 January 2013 (EST)

I need help with put in name and taking names of.--Diann2013 10:02, 16 August 2013 (EDT)


Request to change user name [3 January 2013]

Could someone do the magic needed to change my username from Robert.shaw to Robert.Shaw (I assume something special is needed to get all the contributions, watches, etc updated). Thanks. --Robert.shaw 17:52, 3 January 2013 (EST)


Living people question [11 January 2013]

The current contest has brought up this question: I know we are not supposed to add information about living people to WeRelate. What about census data from the 1940s that includes people who may or may not be still living? Of course this information is already all over the Internet including Ancestry.com. If we should not have this on WeRelate who do we contact to have the information taken down and alert the user to the rules? Thanks! --cthrnvl 21:48, 7 January 2013 (EST)

Pages should not be created for children/young people in the 1940 census (or 1930, for that matter) unless death dates are known. Technically the same should apply to transcriptions, but, as you note, the boat has pretty much sailed on that one, so I don't know that we've taken to enforcing policy against it.--Amelia 22:55, 7 January 2013 (EST)
There's been a bit of discussion about this over on the Watercooler. --MikeTalk 09:56, 11 January 2013 (EST)

Unable to access Sandbox for testing purposes [10 February 2013]

I am new to WeRelate so thought I would import my GED file to Sandbox first but unable to access - is testing environment still available to users?--Yapper 11:36, 8 January 2013 (EST)

Receive following error message when attempt to access http://sandbox.werelate.org

tcp_error: A communication error occurred: "No route to host"

The sandbox site does appear to be down, but you can use Help:Sandbox instead. --jrm03063 12:03, 8 January 2013 (EST)
The sandbox is still down. Can anyone fix it? --janiejac 13:06, 19 January 2013 (EST)
The sandbox site is still down, but will be back up and running in a few weeks. --Jennifer (JBS66) 09:19, 10 February 2013 (EST)

Cemetery map [9 January 2013]

I have an actual map of the general layout of a cemetery that I would like to add. However, cemeteries are flagged as places with longitude + latitude so not sure where or how to import my jpeg? Please advise, Laurie--Yapper 11:09, 9 January 2013 (EST)

You have some fantastic opportunities here!
  • First off, if the Cemetery "Place" page doesn't exist, you should go ahead and create it (with the usual long/lat numbers).
  • I presume that the map is a jpeg, so you can simply upload it as an ordinary image. Indicate the place for the image as the place name of the cemetery.
  • Add the image to the narrative for the cemetery place page - see Place:Eastman Cemetery in Bartlett Memorial Forest, Nottingham, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States for examples of images on a place page (those are images of markers, but a plan/map would work the same).
Depending on the size and detail of the image, you could add annotation to the image for particular plot or grave sites.
I'm looking forward to seeing this! --jrm03063 11:29, 9 January 2013 (EST)

So, I added image to existing cemetery (Holy Cross in Colma, CA) but not sure if it worked or if I did it correctly because I don't see it yet?--Yapper 14:18, 9 January 2013 (EST)

Ok, I've found the existing page and reworked it. Look at Place:Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Colma, San Mateo, California, United States, you'll find that:
  • I renamed it from the previous "Holy Cross Cem" name
  • I found that there was a Wikipedia page, so I put in the "source-wikipedia" template so that the WP introductory remarks will appear on this page later this week.
  • I added the cemetery web site as a resource
  • I added the find-a-grave page as a resource
  • I added a reference to your image at the bottom of the page
  • I also modified the image page so that it's "Place" field refers to the name appearing above.
--jrm03063 17:03, 9 January 2013 (EST)

Looks great! thank you :)--Yapper 19:01, 9 January 2013 (EST)

My pleasure.  :) --jrm03063 19:43, 9 January 2013 (EST)

GEDCOM import review problems [18 March 2013]

 I tried importing a GEDCOM, and got a recommendation to delete it and fix problems noted.  So, I deleted it.  Then, after some unsuccessful searching, I entered Help Search and tried putting in the description field for the errors, alerts, and warnings (what I am collectively calling problems) I got back.  Even on the most wide open search criterion (exact, partial, and something else--can't remember), I get no results.  This surprises me, as I now have no concrete idea how to correct the problems.
 I recommend that the folks who programmed the GEDCOM review, add something to the help about how to correct each possible problem message.  Or, if only errors must be corrected to get a GEDCOM import approved, then perhaps the directions for GEDCOM import should be slightly revised to reflect this fact, and then directions on how to correct only errors is needed in help.
 Secondly, I would appreciate help in response to this comment, about how to fix the following problems (my comments in parentheses):
  - Missing gender (I can guess, but would prefer not to; some first names are not that obvious or not present or just an initial or illegible)
  - Child births less than nine months apart (is premature birth not allowed for?)
  - Birth of person occurred before marriage (really?  we're calling this a problem that contributes to rejection of a GEDCOM import?)
  - Missing year for birth (I have the day and month, but not the year, so how do I show that?)
  - Surname has only one letter (the first letter of the surname is all I know)
 If I have missed something in the naming conventions or other sections, please let me know.  I did spend quite some time looking for answers to the above, not just in help, but couldn't find anything.
 BTW, I don't know why this is coming up in Courier; sorry!.  In the edit window, it is a proportional font.

Thx--Bill 09:58, 15 January 2013 (EST)

I havn't done a GEDCOM upload for quite a while, but I'll offer some things.

  • Gender - it should be possible to explicitly indicate "unknown".
  • Births too soon - this is more of a warning - and presumably doesn't even account for multiple-births. You should review the item, and see if one of the two colliding dates is just a bad guess "abt"? - and tune the guess, or move it out of the date field and into the description. Or accept it as it sits - I don't think you are required to fix all of these.
  • Birth before marriage. I know, how quaint? But it's a good flag to check for in uploaded GEDCOMs. Take a peek at the dates involved, see what you think, fix if you think you can, tune an abt. or whatever (as above).
  • Missing year of birth - yes, a date without a year has limited value - and can't really be usefully handled by most software. I suggest moving that information to the description field, and leave the date empty.
  • Surname of only one letter - make it unknown, add a note indicating that the name is believed to start with the indicated letter
  • Things come up in courier when you leave a space at the beginning of the line, instead of using wiki formatting such as ":" to get your indent.

More generally, I would say that we know that the learning curve around here is steep. We've also found it necessary to try to push back on it being too easy to upload a GEDCOM, because of lots of folks who dump weak content and run (I still regularly find things to fix that were uploaded in 2007). If you are persuaded, like we are, that cooperative genealogy is the only way to seriously pursue this hobby, please hang in there. And keep on posting to support! We want you here and we'll try very hard to help! --jrm03063 11:05, 15 January 2013 (EST)


Some miscellaneous thoughts:

  • I don't delete the uploaded gedcom until I have made a pass changing items on my computer and am ready to export a new GEDCOM from my genealogy program to be re-uploaded. This way I can easily refer to the warnings list and other info in the WeRelate review pane.
  • Help text (such as it is) about warnings is available via the "Help" button in the upper right of the review pane. That help text in turn has a link to Help:GEDCOM Warnings. Ideally, the latter page, which lists each possible warning, would give for each alert/warning/error a description and suggestions for fixing. Unfortunately, it only lists the warnings, and the text listed is not always identical to the text which actually appears on the warnings tab of the review pane. (It's a wiki, though; anyone can improve it.)
  • One shouldn't worry about things like "Birth occurred before marriage" if the data is correct. As the initial help page says, "Some warnings are due to unusual but factual situations, such as a child being born before a marriage date. If the information is correct, you can ignore the warning". (Many Gedcoms are in fact quite screwed up in ways like this.)
  • Gender: I hadn't entered gender in a bunch of my entries and had to add it (by presumption from given name) in order to get my warning percentage down to an acceptable level. (Do these changes in a database copy if you don't want the changes in your master database.) Yes, there are cases where one can't reasonably presume a gender, but those can be left unspecified or set to unknown. Very occasionally a presumed gender will be wrong (I have one Ebenezer who was actually female), but that sort of error will be corrected when evidence comes forth showing that it was wrong.
  • Birth separation: "is premature birth not allowed for?" - Warnings are issued for situations that are often wrong, not always wrong. This warning often exposes real problems in the Gedcom. Premature births are very unlikely to be impacted because a pregnancy rarely begins immediately after a preceding birth.

--Robert.shaw 17:05, 15 January 2013 (EST)

I was going to say most of these things myself and now I don't have to. Thanks, Robert. :-) I will add, though, having done quite a few GEDCOMs now, that the issue of insufficient separation between consecutive births is most often a result of having gotten the birth dates from grave markers, or published books, or some other non-contemporary source, and simply not noticing the problem until the GEDCOM import process catches it. "Births before marriage" are most often a result of having estimated the marriage date from a census listing without realizing there were earlier, unknown kids. I try to go back and add a comment explaining such discrepancies, with the implied invitation to anyone with a better source to fix it. --MikeTalk 12:46, 17 January 2013 (EST)

This is great feedback; I've edited the GEDCOM help page, adding suggestions for how to address most of the warnings. Jillaine 13:01, 18 March 2013 (EDT)


Duplicate person problem [1 February 2013]

Help! Can someone please sort this mess I got myself into last week. My eyes were showing their age at the time and I invented someone who wasn't there.

Simon Keffer (3) with name changed to Solomon Keffer and Solomon Keffer (4) are one and the same person. All the vital information so far collected is on the Simon Keffer (3) page and I am putting off entering more.

--goldenoldie 09:41, 16 January 2013 (EST)


Let me try.... --jrm03063 09:50, 16 January 2013 (EST)
Did you succeed? AndrewRT 17:46, 1 February 2013 (EST)

Adding place page for city that is in 2 counties [13 February 2013]

See Place: Longview, Gregg, Texas, United States. Part of this city is in Harrison Co. TX. What is the proper method to add the place Longview, Harrison, Texas? Thanks. --Beth 18:47, 20 January 2013 (EST)

The present preferred way is to pick the primary county, define the city there, and use "also located in" for the other county. Then for events which are known to be in the part of the city in the non-primary county, a place pipe may be used. --Pkeegstra 19:09, 20 January 2013 (EST)
Thanks, but it is not an event. I wish to create a cemetery place page for Memory Park Cemetery which happens to be in Longview, Harrison, Texas. I guess under the present preferred way there is no accurate method to create this cemetery place page.--Beth 19:32, 20 January 2013 (EST)

This is not a simple problem nor is the proposed solution very robust. New York City encompasses all or parts of five counties. Denver Colorado encompasses parts of three counties. There is a church in Denver that is actually in two of the three counties. It is not obvious how this notion of a "primary" county is supposed to apply in these kinds of situations, if indeed it will work at all. Who decides which is the "primary" county? Shouldn't we consider Denver, Adams, Colorado vs Denver, Arapahoe, Colorado vs Denver, Jefferson, Colorado to be three separate places? Jefferson is probably not the "primary" county but how do you choose between Adams and Arapahoe when the county line runs right through the middle of the city? Yes, I know that Denver is now administered as its own county but that was not true in 1900 - it split-off in 1902. Would you call everything for miles around Arapahoe County because the county was not subdivided until 1901? This is but one example of the problem. --Jhamstra 09:34, 13 February 2013 (EST)

This web site [1] shows the problem in Colorado. Among other things one might note that until 2001 Brromfield was in four separate counties. Similar things have happened elsewhere but Colorado is particularly interesting because of the changes happening around 1900 when WeRelate supposedly "froze" its geography. --Jhamstra 10:04, 13 February 2013 (EST)

i can not change my wifes name the name shown is no longer my wife hasnt been for 20 years [31 January 2013]

--Paul d staggs II 19:09, 31 January 2013 (EST)

I deleted the family page and your page. We do not include living people on WeRelate. Is your ex wife still living? If so I need to remove her page also. --Beth 20:06, 31 January 2013 (EST)

adding living persons [11 February 2013]

Why can I not add living persons like myself, sister etc. What better source than 'from the horse's mouth'?--Rockdock 07:38, 11 February 2013 (EST)

This gets talked about a lot (see this page). Long and short of it, this is the only sure-fire way to make sure that we don't invade the privacy of people who have privacy rights (privacy rights expire at death). Last I heard, Dallan's theory was that he expected that most people maintain their own private database, where such information is perfectly safe, and that we would try (someday) to work on ways - or an entire separate system - that would make it easier to interact between the two. My favorite line of speculation is that maybe a version of the WeRelate code could be created that would let you create a private wiki - that more or less automatically dropped through in an orderly way to the global werelate site - when you happened to address a person who had passed. --jrm03063 10:56, 11 February 2013 (EST)
There is a genealogy wiki that allows living people to be added; they solved the problem by adding code that enables making individual profile pages private, only viewable by people (presumably family members) given explicit permission. It's called wikitree.com. Here's a link to my profile page there as an example of a living person on a genie wiki. There are many things about WeRelate that I prefer over WikiTree, but WikiTree has solved the "living" "problem". Jillaine 15:15, 11 February 2013 (EST)

Place on "Wanted Places" does not clear [13 February 2013]

In November and December I spent some time removing a series of red-lined places including Place:Ch. Of The Guardian Angels, Orillia, Ontario. It is still showing up with 62 bad links. I have just done a sample recheck of about 10 and they are all clear. What's happened?

BTW, the reference has been altered to Place:Orillia, Simcoe, Ontario, Canada with Church of the Guardian Angels in the Description field.--goldenoldie 04:20, 13 February 2013 (EST)


Automatic Pipe Substitutions [15 February 2013]

I've noticed that some places which previously would have merited being filled in in red are now being accepted and are being filled in in black. When I switched to Edit Mode I discovered that if there are two places whose name begins the same way, the incorrect one can be given before the pipe, e.g. Place:Ottawa, Carleton, Ontario, Canada is being replaced by the Ottawa in Ohio.

Similarly, if someone has used "ON", the two-letter abbreviation for Ontario, with no reference to Canada, it comes out as Place:Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England.

Should this be happening? --goldenoldie 05:49, 15 February 2013 (EST)

It's been happening essentially forever. In general, the results are pretty accurate, but there have always been outlying cases where the result is silly (from the perspective of a human observer). As the place database changes over time, things get better, but there's also the possibility for new levels of silliness. Bottom line - the best thing for folks to not leave any unresolved names when editing a page - or to make sure that the GEDCOM translations are correct (and/or to review the results of an upload, page-by-page). --jrm03063 11:27, 15 February 2013 (EST)

Accidentally created two accounts [16 February 2013]

I just signed up here, only to realise that I had made an account several years ago that I totally forgot about! They have the same email address, so I'm actually surprised I was able to create the second one. Is there some way of merging them, or deleting my new one? The user names are User:Liannelavoie (the older one, which has contributions) and User:Lianne Lavoie (which I just created today and has no contributions). I do like my new user name better, but obviously keeping the account with the contributions is better. Any help would be appreciated! Liannelavoie 14:28, 16 February 2013 (EST)


Where to add sources? [24 February 2013]

Is there a convention for where to add sources?

Birth and death records would obviously be added to the individual that they refer to, but what about marriage records, or census records, which refer to more than one person? Do you add the source to each person, or to the family that it refers to? -- Jdfoote1 13:06, 24 February 2013 (EST)

I think that the strictly orthodox practice would be that you add the source in each location where it supports a fact - which of course means that a given record could be cited multiple times for different purposes on different pages.
If you're a little more rough-and-ready than that, I would select the location to which it best corresponds. A marrage record to the family. A birth record to the person born. A family census record to the family, and so on.
While somewhat oblique to your question, this is part of why I'm a big fan of transcriptions. If you create a transcription of a record, or set of records, you can have the transcription link back to all the various people and family pages (in the proper and complete context) - while also very easily creating source/mysource entries on all the pages where the evidence is used. Wills are perfect for this sort of treatment, since they're often the best evidence for facts on any number of pages (look here for some examples). --jrm03063 13:45, 24 February 2013 (EST)

Recently I was working with a family in which the "marrying generation" was born before vital registration started for the area in which they lived. As a result the first place to discover the birthplace of either the bride or groom was his/her marriage registration. I entered the details of the marriage registration on the family page, and added the bride and/or groom's birthplace to their page to match the registration. Then, rather than copy the marriage details again, I made a Note "birthplace from marriage registration" on the person page. These Notes work just like a regular source. It saves a lot of cumbersome copy-and-paste.

For census records, I add the family listing to the page of each family member. That means that when a person marries and moves away from the family home, his/her census records from before marriage stay with him. I use Sticky Notes to hold a census transcription while I add it to each family member's record.--goldenoldie 14:35, 24 February 2013 (EST)


Maps and copyrights [3 March 2013]

I traced the outline and divisions from a county map, also the scale, from a map I found on the web which had a notice stating that the maps on the website were copyrighted. The text and the colouring on the completed map which I would like to upload to WeRelate are mine. Am I breaking copyright? (This was a British website, not an American one.) --goldenoldie 14:48, 3 March 2013 (EST)

I am not a lawyer of course but my mother used to work in a publishers who did exactly that in their books and their view was the copyright was their own. This was under UK law. AndrewRT 15:04, 3 March 2013 (EST)

Parents not showing in every view [7 March 2013]

I have a problem for the page Family:Louis Lehrer and Agnes Klein (11), although their parents are connected to them and show on the right hand side on their person pages, the couple in this family do not have their parents show in the blue summary box at the top of the page for the family view.--JeffreyRLehrer 21:43, 5 March 2013 (EST)

That's an unfortunate website glitch. It can usually be fixed if you edit the page for the person, remove the link to the parents, save the page, and reconnect the parents. --Pkeegstra 05:26, 6 March 2013 (EST)
There's a discrepancy between the name of the person used in the article name and that in the name field. I've updated this for the father [2] and this now seems to work. AndrewRT 16:15, 6 March 2013 (EST)
Success! Putting through a false change on the Agnes page has forced through an update that seems to have fixed it for the mother too. Can you confirm this is all working now? AndrewRT 16:24, 6 March 2013 (EST)

All good thank you for that--JeffreyRLehrer 17:07, 6 March 2013 (EST)


County pg needs some help [17 March 2013]

I don't think it looks good that the Table of Contents is below the fold on this page. Is there someway to put it at the top of the page? Place:Calhoun, West Virginia, United States I think we might be importing a bit more from wikipedia than a genealogy site needs. But I can't fix that. And how much interest is there in the population history? --janiejac 17:09, 14 March 2013 (EDT)

Sorry I had a look but couldn't understand the comment. Could you expand? AndrewRT 18:04, 14 March 2013 (EDT)
I'm pretty sure janiejac is talking about how the intro on that page is so long that the TOC is not visible without scrolling down (depending on your monitor, maybe). And in response to the original comment, as someone interested in one-place studies, I find population histories very helpful! Liannelavoie 18:32, 14 March 2013 (EDT)
Yes. The Table of Contents should be seen when you first open the page. It currently is so far down on the page it takes 2 clicks on the scroll bar to get to it. (I have a huge monitor.) If there is not a lot of interest in the population history (on this genealogy site) I'd rather just delete that. In my opinion it just makes the page longer and doesn't add genealogical information. But I don't want to mess with wikipedia imports; I don't understand enough about them. It is interesting that Liannelavoie finds the population history helpful. As an aside, perhaps you could let me know how you use it. But please fix that TOC first if it is possible. --janiejac 18:49, 14 March 2013 (EDT)

How does it look now? AndrewRT 09:50, 15 March 2013 (EDT)

Thanks! It looks great now. Just what it needed. I copied the template so hopefully I can remember to use it in the future. --janiejac 20:11, 17 March 2013 (EDT)
And another pg needs help: [Place:Barr Cemetery, Calhoun, West Virginia, United States] I created this pg but forgot to put the location as Sherman, Calhoun, West Virginia. Also the 2nd link doesn't work. But when I go to edit pg and copy the link, put it in a window and click, the URL works just fine. I was so frustrated by then I wanted to delete the whole page - and I can't do that either. No one else is watching it - why can't I delete it? --janiejac 17:56, 14 March 2013 (EDT)
When dealing with place and category pages, I've noticed that unless you are an administrator, even if no one is watching the page, it cannot be immediately deleted. However, it can be set for Speedy Delete. I have not researched why, I just know that I haven't been able to delete them either. In any case, the first thing that would help your page would be to Rename the page. (I apologize, I did this already, but if you don't know how to do that, it's one of the options at the top left while viewing the page.) Second, Find A Grave links behave differently and should be formatted differently than most other links. See: Find A Grave under Examples. Last but not least, formatting external links are generally different than internal links. This FAQ section for internal and external links should help. Suffice it to say, a pipe was used in the external link for the USGenWeb link, when all it needed was a space between the URL and the name you wanted shown for the URL. I hope this helps!--Khaentlahn 09:36, 15 March 2013 (EDT)

Puzzeling page [15 March 2013]

I couldn't figure out why this Iowa County page was in red. Then I saw in the category list that the page was listed as an article. Is that the problem? Place:Woodbury, Iowa, United States Maybe it's just too late tonight...--janiejac 01:53, 15 March 2013 (EDT)

The category page had not yet been created. Most other county pages that I've scanned, regardless of the their state, behave in the same manner. I hope you got some sleep and my answer isn't confusing. :)--Khaentlahn 09:05, 15 March 2013 (EDT)

Wikipedia sub-sections [27 March 2013]

Wikipedia often has subsections under its History section. Sometimes it would be worthwhile to omit the first section dealing with the Paleolithic Era or the last section discussing news that may not be history in fifty years time. Is it possible to use the template {{Wp-nameofplace-History}} to select one or more of several sections? How do we phrase the template under those circumstances?--goldenoldie 03:51, 16 March 2013 (EDT)

I suspect this won't lend itself very well to an automated bot/template solution - the easiest thing would be to manually edit the section to leave just the parts that are relevant to a WeRelate reader. AndrewRT 16:17, 27 March 2013 (EDT)

Translation help [18 March 2013]

I'm a newby, not sure yet where things go, so if this is out of order, shoot me down. I need someone who reads Dutch script to take a look at the PDF scan

http://www.allefriezen.nl/en/component/genealogie/?task=crop&tenant=frl&format=pdf&print=1&filepath=photo%2Ftopview%2Ffrr%2F00%2FFRR_2232_REP_9357%2FBAR_H_1836%2FBAR_H_1836_005.tjp

and translate the part in the middle that refers to (if I'm guessing right) Sjoukje Lieuwes Bosma. I think is says she died (maybe 19Feb1833?). If so, it make plausible that Jillert Pieters Dijkstra (Abt 1782, son of Pieter Willems Dijkstra and Japke Jelles) who married Trijntje Fokkes in 1836 (this record) is the same person as Jielles Pieters Dijkstra (same b. date, place, and parents) who married Sjouwkje Lieuwes Bosma in 1814.

Any takers?

Many Thanks--JDD1931 19:18, 17 March 2013 (EDT)

Jillert Pieters Dijkstra oud vier en vijftig jaren... geboren te Sexbierum van beroep arbeider wonende te Almenum, weduwenaar van Sjoukje Lieuwes Bosma overleden te Sexbierum den negenden february des jaars een duizend acht honderd en drie en dertig
Jillert Pieters Dijkstra 54 years old... born in Sexbierum occupation laborer living in Almenum, widower of Sjoukje Lieuwes Bosma died in Sexbierum 9th February this year 1833
Here is Sjoukje's death certificate. --Jennifer (JBS66) 19:46, 17 March 2013 (EDT)

Beautiful! Thanks ever so much. I think it makes my case that Jielles and Jillert are the same person. The internet translators and my year of college German only go so far even with a printed transcription, the image script was just too much. Jielles and Sjoukje were my great-great-grandparents. Dave--JDD1931 04:45, 18 March 2013 (EDT)

You are welcome! Yes, this would prove Jielles and Jillert were the same person. If you have questions about Dutch genealogy/text in the future, you are more than welcome to leave a message on my talk page. --Jennifer (JBS66) 06:47, 18 March 2013 (EDT)

Bug ?? in naming place [26 March 2013]

I have tried to create a cemetery page for Clemtown Cemetery, Moatsville, Barbour, West Virginia, United States. The system does a search and finds nothing, so I click on 'Add page'. The resulting title comes up as Clemtown Cemetery, Moats, Barbour, West Virginia, United States. I can't get the name of the community to be Moatsville. I thought that perhaps there was a community by the name of Moats in Barbour but I didn't see it. So what is the problem and how to fix it? --janiejac 18:39, 25 March 2013 (EDT)

Hi Janie, I believe this is happening because Moatsville is an alt name for Place:Moats, Barbour, West Virginia, United States.
From what I can tell, the historical name of this town was Moatsville. I could rename this page and put Moats as the alternate name. Then, you would be able to create a page for Clemtown Cemetery. How does that sound? --Jennifer (JBS66) 18:47, 25 March 2013 (EDT)
Yes, that sounds like it would do the job. Thanks!! I didn't even see Moats as a place in Barbour. Find-a-Grave is using Moatsville as the location and wikipedia says Moatsville is in Barbour, so I assume that name is still in local use. --janiejac 19:38, 25 March 2013 (EDT)
It appears that FindAGrave is actually incorrect when it says it is in Moatsville. Mariah's Church (taken from the photo caption) is located a few miles away from the town. I am guessing that the church is in Moatsville's mail route. For our purposes the cemetery page should actually be Clemtown Cemetery, Barbour, West Virginia, United States. -Moverton 20:37, 25 March 2013 (EDT)
Oh boy, it is taking several of us to get this right. Actually, it is not a cemetery I use, but I was creating a lot of Barbour County cemetery pages and noticed that Clemtown is given as a burial location for several persons - but the place page has type 'unknown'. So I thought I'd jump in and fix that. But, it's best I don't mess with something I'm so unsure about. Someone else want to fix the location of Asceneth Robinson who is buried in Place:Clemtown, Philippi, Barbour, West Virginia, United States-type unknown? I don't know if this place can be renamed to a cemetery page or not and it doesn't appear that it is located in Philippi! There are several persons linked to this page. So fixing this is a bit beyond me. --janiejac 22:12, 25 March 2013 (EDT)

I renamed the Moats place to Place:Moatsville, Barbour, West Virginia, United States. Clemtown is both a cemetery and an unincorporated place in Barbour County. I redirected Place:Clemtown, Philippi, Barbour, West Virginia, United States to Place:Clemtown, Barbour, West Virginia, United States. I also made a page for Place:Clemtown Cemetery, Barbour, West Virginia, United States. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:42, 26 March 2013 (EDT)


why is this category red? [7 April 2013]

On the Source:Harrison, West Virginia, United States. Cemeteries Grant Magisterial Dist page I just added that the location covered was Grant, Harrison, West Virginia, United States. Yesterday I had added Place:Grant, Harrison, West Virginia, United States as a District so I know it is there. So why is the category showing up red? --janiejac 11:07, 28 March 2013 (EDT)

The "category" page is separate from the "place" page - I've added a new category page for this entry. AndrewRT 07:02, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

What went wrong here [6 April 2013]

Gedcom. 27 mrt 2013 Duplicate parents http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Henry_Crismore_%281%29 --Lidewij 14:34, 3 April 2013 (EDT)

I'm not seeing duplicate parents. Everything looks fine to me. What are you seeing that I'm not? Jillaine 12:28, 5 April 2013 (EDT)
The duplicate parents were merged since Lidewij posted. The page used to look like this. Some other examples are Person:James Hartzell (1) and Person:Lula Squires (1). I am surprised by the number of duplicates that came through with this user's GEDCOM. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:17, 6 April 2013 (EDT)

Place title is incorrect. How do I change my mistake? (Danford Lake, Quebec) [7 April 2013]

I finally realized why a number of my birth and death "place" entries were coloured red, lol...and went to create these new places in the wiki. However, after contacting a government administrator from that region (and avid toponymist) about any older versions of the place name, I discovered my original "current" place name is incorrect.

1. I have created a We Relate "place" called "Danford Lake, Pontiac, Outaouais, Québec, Canada" [[3]] and I need to change it to "Danford Lake, Municipalité d'Alleyn-et-Cawood, MRC Pontiac, Québec, Canada". How do I do this? I don't see an option to change it under "Edit". I do not see any way to permanently delete the entry, so I assume that has to be done by someone here with more permissions on the site.

2. Danford Lake is also a "hamlet". Can I expect to find this as an option under "Type"? I originally called it "Municipality" and haven't tried to change it since. So the "Type" is also incorrect. Perhaps "hamlet" is not there but another "Type" is which means the same thing?

3. The toponymy expert and government administrator says that *"Outaouais" is a region and not part of the official name of the place. I'm not sure what I should do about that. I was going to just follow his advice and leave it out, even though you can see in Wikipedia [4] that they list Outaouais as "Region". I'm just not sure what has priority on this site, what might be considered "official" by someone such as himself, or simply that on this wiki we include all such designations whenever possible.

Here is the excellent reply I got from the aforementioned administrator from the Danford Lake area. But wherever you see the word "Outaouais", he had a strikethrough over it...stating it should be omitted. So the first and most current entry would read: "Danford Lake, Municipalité d'Alleyn-et-Cawood, MRC Pontiac, Québec, Canada"

BEGINNING OF REPLY////////////////////////////////// Note: ‘hameau’ is the French version of the word ‘hamlet’. Note: ‘Outaouais’ is a region, not a name with official status.

So your entry should read:

The official name for the hamlet/hameau of Danford Lake from 2004 to today is: Danford Lake, Municipalité d'Alleyn-et-Cawood, MRC Pontiac, *Outaouais, Québec, Canada (aka - Danford Lake, Municipality of Alleyn and Cawood, MRC Pontiac, *Outaouais, Québec, Canada) [5] [6]

From 1877 - 2004 it was: Danford Lake, Municipality of the United Townships of Alleyn and Cawood, Pontiac, *Outaouais, Québec, Canada

From 1868 - 1877 it was: Danford Lake, United Townships of Thorne, Cawood and Alleyn, County of Pontiac, Canada

From 1860 - 1868 it was: Danford Corners, United Townships of Thorne, Cawood and Alleyn, County of Pontiac, Canada

From 1830s - 1860 it was: Danford Corners, Township of Alleyn, County of Ottawa, Canada

A bit confusing, but that is the nature of official toponymy (the name in documents) vs cultural toponymy (what the residents call it). //////////////////////////////////END OF REPLY


I also have to enter two other Quebec towns. Kazabazua [7] and Wakefield. [8]

Kazabazua, La Vallée-de-la-Gatineau, *Outaouais, Québec, Canada A "village"...says Wikipedia. *sigh* lol (on this page they call it a "municipality") [9] Settled in 1835 ...more history: [10]

Wakefield, Municipalité de La Pêche, *Outaouais, Québec, Canada [11] A "village"...says Wikipedia. Founded in 1830


Thanks for any help you can provide.  :)--Jeff1961 20:29, 4 April 2013 (EDT)

Hi Jeff. The way to change this is using the "rename" link in the left hand menu. I would suggest starting with the highest level changes you want to make and maybe discussing them with other users who are familiar with the names before doing too many changes as they may have a different view of the best naming convention. Don't worry about "breaking" anything - any mistakes can easily be "undone". AndrewRT 06:59, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

Changing spelling of New Netherlands [6 April 2013]

I have been informed by a knowledgeable researcher of the early Dutch records in America that the correct spelling for New Netherland should not use a final s. In attempting to change the name of the following page, I learned that the page name needs to be changed by an adminstrator. Can some one please take care of that for me? Thank you. The page is: http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:New_Netherlands--Renee Dauven 19:25, 5 April 2013 (EDT)

All set, Place:New Netherland has been renamed. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:12, 6 April 2013 (EDT)

Searching on person page name content [7 April 2013]

Is there a way to structure a search for items appearing in the name of a page? In particular, a Person page?

In recent years, when I was adding many pages on the basis of Wikipedia biographies, there were practical reasons to name the page as it appeared on Wikipedia. Such names do not follow WR convention, in that they are usually the name by which the person was known at the end of their life, not at birth. Also, they commonly contain noble titles, honors, and year values for DOB/DOD.

In most cases, the initial need for that page name has passed, and a rename will leave the original name around as a redirect anyway. So I would like to be able to perform searches for unconventionally named pages, containing items like "Sir", "Lady", "Earl", etc. What I don't want to get, is pages that are properly named, but where those items appear ON the page. I only want to get pages where those items appear in the actual page name.

In this way, I would hope to start to systematically revisit pages that (usually) I created, and to rename them to follow proper convention.

Thanks.... --jrm03063 14:26, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

You could search for 'sir' in the given name - [12] - not quite what you asked for but many of these seem to have sir in the pagename as well. AndrewRT 15:03, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

Or, from Special Pages/All Articles this one: [13]AndrewRT 15:07, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

Very handy solution Andrew, thank you for suggesting it! --Jennifer (JBS66) 15:20, 7 April 2013 (EDT)
Excellent! Many thanks... --jrm03063 15:28, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

Add a child [19 April 2013]

Hello ! I am a new user and my english ist very bad. I found no help ... in the help pages or help tutorials. I want to make Person:Denis Salbreux (1) as father of Person:Augustin Salbreux (1). The form refuses to save my modifications : Denis as father, but also Augustin as son. Thanks for your explanation ! Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 11:29, 10 April 2013 (EDT)

Bonjour Marc, adding children can be done through the Family Page: Family:Augustin Salbreux and Claire Maillot (1). Click on Add Child > Given name:Denis Surname:Salbreux > Then press the Select button. --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:38, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
Thanks ! I did so many times since yesterday evening ! No result !
An other question ! What means exactly "title" when beginning to add a new person. I read on line 2 this explanation : "Shared research pages -- enter a surname, followed by the word in, followed by a place; e.g., Phillips in Texas.". But the "machine" add automaticly "categories" ... for example : Vacherot surname" and "Vacherot in France".
And ... why Person:Unknown (26144) and not direct the correct name ? Why have I every time to click on "This page can be renamed" ? Merci ! Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL ---Markus3 11:54, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
1. The Title is at the top of the page in black bold. For example
2. I would suggest ignoring the automatic categories for right now. There has been discussion about removing these categories because Search is more useful.
3. Example of "shared research page": Schregardus in Friesland, Netherlands The "title" of the page is in the form Surname in Place. So, you may have Salbreux in France
4. I don't know why this happened Person:Unknown (26144). To add a new person you click on Add>Person and enter information (given name, surname, gender). Click Next. Then, the system will check for possible duplicate pages. If a duplicate does not appear on the top, you can click Add Page.
You can also add pages by clicking on "Add Parents and Siblings" or "Add Spouse and Children"
I know that WeRelate can be difficult to use. Don't hesitate to ask questions - there are volunteers here to help! --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:18, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
I think Jennifer had it turned around in her explanation. You will need to create a family page for the father Denis. Do that by clicking the link "Add Spouse and Children" on Denis's page. Enter the wife's name (or leave blank if not known) and click Next. On the search page choose to Add Page. From the next screen you should be able to either save the new family page before adding Augustin, or add him before saving the family page.
I will also point out that if you are trying to search for a person's page that you have already added to your watch list, you can change the "Watched and unwatched" criteria on the search page to "Watched only". That might make it easier to find the child's page. -Moverton 13:24, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
I certainly did get that backwards. Thank you for spotting my error and providing correct instructions! --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:28, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
Thank you !... It is what I did. I repeated the "process" but it does not work ! Very strange ! Can you try for me, please ? Marc ROUSSEL ---Markus3 15:01, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
And one more time, problem : Person:Unknown (26146) - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 15:29, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
I connected Denis as the father of Augustin. This is what I did:
  • On Person:Denis Salbreux (1) I clicked "Add Spouse and Children"
  • Wife name: I left empty
  • Clicked Next
  • Clicked Add Page
  • Clicked Save Page (button at the bottom of the page)
On this new Family Page: Family:Denis Salbreux and Unknown (1), I clicked Add Child, typed in Augustin Salbreux, and clicked Next.
Regarding Person:Unknown (26146), can you tell us the steps you are doing to create a Person page? What do you click on, what fields do you fill in with data? --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:17, 10 April 2013 (EDT)
I tried to test again ! No solution ! I will describe you soon what and how I "work". Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 13:20, 11 April 2013 (EDT)
User:CTfrog had found ! ... a "simple" problem with the "settings" on french language ! See this !
An an other problem ... see that
Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 03:49, 19 April 2013 (EDT)

Places in France [12 apr 2013]

Many "place pages" have a bad information. It was automatically done by a bot. The "type" is "Unknown" Place:Guesnain, Nord, France, Place:Berlise, Aisne, France, Place:Lirac, Gard, France, Place:Chamboeuf, Côte-d'Or, France or .... "Inhabited place" but they are really "communes". Examples : Place:Brebières, Pas-de-Calais, France, Place:Bligny-sur-Ouche, Côte-d'Or, France, Place:Mâlain, Côte-d'Or, France. Other have also this extra line : "... is an inhabited place.". Examples : Place:Boves, Somme, France, Place:Sin-le-Noble, Nord, France, Place:Bergues, Nord, France, Place:Chauny, Aisne, France, Place:Brémur-et-Vaurois, Côte-d'Or, France, etc, etc. Can a bot modify ? Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 05:06, 11 April 2013 (EDT)

We do not currently have a bot to edit the place pages in this manner. There are a number of users who have undertaken projects to edit Place pages (such as Ontario, Canada; Netherlands; Scotland). According to Place:France, "France was organized into provinces (labeled "former provinces") until 1790, when it was divided into 83 départements. The départments are now located in régions. The standard at WeRelate is to title French place pages according to the départment in which they were located in 1965, with also-located-in links to the former province and other départments in which they have been or are currently located." So, WR would have the historical place information in the title, not the current place location.
Also, I noticed your FR Wikipedia links. We have a template for that. There is more information here, and the template is
==External links==
*{{moreinfo wikipedia|wikipedia page name|language code}}
I edited Place:Eaucourt-sur-Somme, Somme, France so you could see how this works. If you would like to begin a project to reorganized French place pages, can discuss your proposal at WeRelate:Place patrol. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:03, 11 April 2013 (EDT)
Thanks for the template, Jennifer ! It's really better ! Yes, the "French place pages" must be "reorganized" ! They contain so many errors ! Why did the bot import the informations from "Getty" ... and not Wikipedia ? And informations about the structure of France in ... 1965 ? I am sorry ... it's not serious ! I will propose modifications at WeRelate:Place patrol, later, in some weeks. I need first to discover (and understand) more pages and methods of WR. Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 23:09, 11 April 2013 (EDT)
The pages were created from Getty, Wikipedia, and Family History Library Catalog. In my opinion, this caused a mixture of new and historical places and some duplication. Back in 2009, the place hierarchy for France was modified by bot. The pages were renamed from commune, canton, arrondissement, department, region, France to the new style commune/canton, arrondissement, department, France. The régions were removed from the page titles. Whatever scheme we agree on for France, it will need to be an historical approach, rather than copying Wikipedia. Most Place pages use the "1900 rule" - where was a location around the year 1900? --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:42, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
All errors ("inhabited place") come only from Getty ! They are really too many, about 9/10 for example for my department (Somme) ... same case for other departments ! This is a real disaster !
The deletion of the "régions" (per bot or manual) from the "place page titles" is no problem. I don't understand what you mean with "Whatever scheme we agree on for France, it will need to be an historical approach...". If an "old place" (today for example no more "commune" but simple part of a current commune) is given in 1810, we need naturally to note this "old" place ... but it must be found under the current existing commune with the classic methos of subcategories and/or subsections.
What is your very strange (for me never heard) "1900 rule" ?
Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 10:02, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
I find this. It's enough to unterstand what you mean ? Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 10:25, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Hello Mark, I think you're the first wikipediaan France. You are entering an uncharted French Area. I understand your surprise, that I had. But I am now 100% behind the actions as they are done. Wikipedia as the first to use for places in genealogy is not right option. The getty is much better. This has faults, but much less than wikipedia. Ïnhabited place” is the name of the bot, it means for me yet verified.
It is good to restrict you to one region. In this way is werelate understand.
The 1900 rule is that all places are shown as around 1900.
This is not a problem in France. After 1790, the municipalities are not much subject to change. 1965 is unnecessary and confusing, especially in the Alsace-Lorraine.
Places of before 1790, may be a redirect. Similarly the locations of the getty. Real errors are removed. Groet, --Lidewij 11:31, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Sorry, but for "places in France", Wikipedia ist better as Getty. WP-fr made his pages from 2 official administrations : IGN and INSEE. I don't understand how can "work" your "1900 rule" ! I have too much difficulties to read and write english !
"Ïnhabited place” is the name of the bot, it means for me yet verified." What do you mean ?
" After 1790, the municipalities are not much subject to change." Strange, what you wrote ! A lot of changes happens between 1970 and 1980, small municipalities grouped, complete redistribution of the Paris region, new towns where there were only fields, etc. Sorry, this is a big problem with these "WR France pages". Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 12:16, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Marcus, Les questions sont nombreuses. Wikipedia donne 2013. Derrière le nom est généralement un plus, car il ya plusieurs endroits avec le même nom. Les ajouts sont susceptibles de changer violemment.
Allons-nous être ensemble réglementer Somme. --Lidewij 12:45, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Unfortunately this isn't just a problem in France - I've seen it in a few countries (Ireland, Argentina for instance) which aren't used by many WeRelate users. All I can say is - please help! Let me know how I can best get involved. AndrewRT 13:07, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Lidewij, why only the "Somme department" ? All the place pages of France must be inevitably reread, verified and corrected ! Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 14:43, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Marc, one must start somewhere. You example is from Somme. Wikipedia started (2006) on Somme. So I think you know a lot of Somme. --Lidewij 15:51, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Exact ! "Somme" is the department I know best. But I know so 3 or 4 other departments ! And I wished to enter finally, as soon as possible, a small part of my genealogical works concerning some villages from different departments. Very important is to translate/adapt some pages of WR so that other new french (or french speaking) contributors quickly come to WR. Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 16:11, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
"Wikipedia started (2006) on Somme." ... What do you mean ? Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 16:17, 12 April 2013 (EDT)
Marc, I understand your problem. Now you cannot go to work or you think you cannot go to work. Of old / wrong places, we make a redirect. These sites do not fall into a hole. When we a part working together, you understand the system relate. You know Somme and I know Werelate.
You started on Wikipedia on Albert (Somme) and 2e Somme (département)
old questions
"Ïnhabited place” De name "Ïnhabited place” is the name given by the bot, it means for me this place is not yet verified."
Name of place is the situation of 1900. We have no problem with changes between 1970 and 1980. Groet, --Lidewij 16:50, 12 April 2013 (EDT)

Search pages ... 5 stars ... why ? [11 avril 2013]

What is the meaning of the 5 stars, on the right of the pages ? example. I found no explanation on this page. Thanks. Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 09:54, 11 April 2013 (EDT)

The stars are a rank of how well a page matches your search. An explanation can be found here "If Exact matches only isn't checked, then results are ranked by how well they match the search criteria. Each of the search criteria matched is worth (approximately) one point. In addition, search criteria can be "partially matched" (see below). Partially-matched search criteria are worth less than a point. Search results are ranked by the total number of points, and the number of points is represented by the number of lit stars." --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:00, 11 April 2013 (EDT)
Thank you, Jennifer ! Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 13:16, 11 April 2013 (EDT)

"Type" for places [15 April 2013]

moved to WeRelate talk:Place patrol


Wrapping text around an image. [13 April 2013]

I have been adding maps to parish pages in Scotland. None of them fills the width of the page and there are very few cemeteries listed that might take up the right-hand side. By itself the map can often cover the bottom half of the visible screen. Readers may think there is no description other than the map, but I have plenty of Research Tips to add as well (to say nothing of a History out of Wikipedia or elsewhere).

I would like to begin the text description of the parish alongside the map--right or left doesn't matter. If I continue on with text after placing the image, only one line of text gets placed beside the map and the rest is placed below.

Is there a form of direction that would allow text to wrap around an image (as is done in Wikipedia)?

--goldenoldie 10:15, 13 April 2013 (EDT)

I forced the image on this page to the right. Is this what you were picturing? --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:51, 13 April 2013 (EDT)

Yes. Thank you. Now that I have seen how the wording in the direction goes I can arrange the pages better. I take it that forcing an image to the left works the same way? --goldenoldie 17:10, 13 April 2013 (EDT)

Yes, replacing right with left forces the image to the left. There is more information about aligning images here on Wikipedia. --Jennifer (JBS66) 19:00, 13 April 2013 (EDT)

GEDCOM warnings [13 April 2013]

I am trying to upload a tree to do with the North Ronaldshay Tullochs. This set of related families lived on a very small island in the Orkneys, north of Scotland. They made up just under 10% of the population and regularly married distant cousins who also had the same surname. In addition, there are many couples who share both the grooms and brides names - for instance there are three instances where a "Mary Tulloch" married a "Thomas Tulloch" - although when you look at the dates and the specific locations they lived in it is clear that they are three distinct couples.

As a result I've ended up with a 13.1% warning level. I've been through them all and they are all valid (with the exception of some particularly young births which must be due to the under-reporting of age in a census taken when the two people concerned were quite old).

At the moment, the GEDCOM is refusing to allow me to proceed to import due to the number of apparent inconsistencies that have been thrown up. Is it possible for an admin to go in and override this so that I'm able to continue with the import?

Many thanks AndrewRT 18:05, 13 April 2013 (EDT)

I went ahead and imported your GEDCOM. This is certainly an exceptional file :) I would suggest looking at your duplicates list later tomorrow because the families that appeared in GEDCOM review as potential duplicates will probably appear on your list as well. They will just need to be marked as "not a match". --Jennifer (JBS66) 18:56, 13 April 2013 (EDT)


Many thanks - will do! AndrewRT 19:11, 13 April 2013 (EDT)

Wikipedia template [14 April 2013]

Do you know why this page: Template:Wp-John_Clerk,_Lord_Eldin has taken only the first sentence from wikipedia? Has it taken it from this page instead of the current page? AndrewRT 12:37, 14 April 2013 (EDT)


Adoptive name [17 April 2013]

My mother was adopted when she was 3 and thereafter, she used the last name of her adoptive parents until she was married and then she used her married name. How do I record the adoptive and birth name information on her person page. Currently, I have listed her only by her adoptive name, not her birth name.--Gsirwin 20:52, 17 April 2013 (EDT)

The initial/primary name would be the birth name. The married name, if you elect to add it separately (it's common not to bother) can be added as the "married name" (choose from the pulldown). We don't have a specific adoptive name alternative there, but would encourage you to add that as an "Alt Name". In addition, since you know at least the approximate date of adoption, you want to indicate that event for both the child and the adoptive parents. I offer the example of Dorothy Arris, adopted as an adult and after marriage, so no name change. However, that does show creation of an event for the adoption, and template to link in the adoptive parents (and when you look to the adoptive parents, a reciprocal template to designate their status). --jrm03063 23:12, 17 April 2013 (EDT)

Researching on User profile [24 April 2013]

Hi all,

I have looked and can't find it. How do I change the Researching interests in the box on the right hand side of my user profile page.--JeffreyRLehrer 01:24, 19 April 2013 (EDT)

You can change them by clicking on Edit on your Userpage and then editing the surnames and/or places under Surnames and/or places you are researching. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:10, 20 April 2013 (EDT)

Thank you Jennifer,

That helped, but it has now raised further questions.

I can easily see how you could write about projects on each of the relevant pages including the category pages but if we would like to list an article / project without the surname / place reference on our research list, that doesn't seem possible but maybe it is?

What I am thinking is where people create an article page for a procject which doesn't relate to just one surname or specifically to a place. One example I found is a bad one because it relates specifically to a place Old Augusta Project, another one that is a better example would be Genealogy of Enslaved Communities on Drayton Family Plantations: A Research Project Sponsored by the Magnolia Plantation Foundation of Charleston, SC, because it is not specifically to a location, another non-specific location one is the Cherokee Heritage Project, and a fledgling one of my own which starts and ends in specific places but is not focused on those places is Genghis Khan 1853 Voyage to Australia. --JeffreyRLehrer 20:18, 21 April 2013 (EDT)

Research interests have to be listed by surname and/or by place. However, we can also link to specific articles in the main body of your userpage, which may achieve what you are after. AndrewRT 14:50, 23 April 2013 (EDT)

Thanks Andrew, I thought as much but I thought it was worth asking.


help - my grandfather's page only shows his last wife - how can I add his first wife (mother of his children and my mother and her siblings? [23 April 2013]

--Judi1 21:00, 21 April 2013 (EDT)


Please help us - what page are you looking at? --jrm03063 15:58, 22 April 2013 (EDT)
Judi, if you click on his "person" page you should see a link at the bottom right hand side that says "Add another spouse & children". Click here and you can add his first wife. Note if the dates of marriage are given they will be displayed in chronological order. Hope this helps. AndrewRT 14:48, 23 April 2013 (EDT)

Renaming place [30 May 2013]

Somehow the agent has renamed the place "Rural Retreat" in Wythe, Virginia to Place:Retreat, Wythe, Virginia, United States. I saw that the other day when I created a cemetery page for that area. I do believe the proper name for the area is 'Rural Retreat' but I can't rename it because I put the cemetery as a subordinate place there. If an admin agrees with the name change, would you please do it?? I checked google and several of the persons who are linked to that page and they also use the name 'Rural Retreat'. --janiejac 21:28, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

I've corrected it. (Don't know why no one else hadn't done it, but anyway. . . .) --MikeTalk 08:56, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

Rename Adair, Oklahoma, United States [30 May 2013]

I suggest you rename "Adair, Oklahoma, United States" to "Adair (County), Oklahoma, United States" in order to avoid confusion with the town of Adair, Mayes County, OK--RGMoffat 10:07, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

The pattern in place names is CITY, COUNTY, STATE, COUNTRY. "Adair, Oklahoma, United States" is therefore assumed to refer to Adair County. The town in Mayes County (for which there doesn't appear to be a place page yet -- but note the pattern in Place:Adair Cemetery, Adair, Mayes, Oklahoma, United States) would appear as "Adair, Mayes, Oklahoma, United States." The county name is never omitted when you're including a town name, so there shouldn't really be any confusion. --MikeTalk 09:01, 30 May 2013 (EDT)



Bigger advertising [3 June 2013]

I am very disappointed. Why the right column with the advertising became so important since yesterday ? Its display area has tripled. I find it now very ugly and unbearable. Please ! Could we have the size of the display before ? Thank you ! Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 04:36, 17 May 2013 (EDT)

I wanted to gradually convince French genealogists to contribute on WeRelate. But if advertising stays so big and so agressive on the screen, they never want ... even if a translation of the WR-pages is hoped and expected. Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 04:46, 17 May 2013 (EDT)
I don't know but mine hasn't changed - although it does vary from time to time due to the specific adverts. Has anyone else noticed a change or could any admins comment here? AndrewRT 17:33, 30 May 2013 (EDT)
Since this morning, the display is back to "normal", more sober, less aggressive, less high (3 x 6 cm). It's fine ! Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 07:40, 3 June 2013 (EDT)

Advice on cutting up huge tree for import. [30 May 2013]

Hi, I have a 20,000+ person tree on Ancestry.com which I also work on with the Gramps open-source program. Clearly I don't want to upload a single gedcom in one wodge! My inclination is to use Gramps to divvy it up, mark people as uploaded in Gramps so as to keep track, and do chunks over time. I'm descended from Nathaniel Dickinson (-> Nehemiah -> Samuel) and also John Billington of Mayflower infamy, so a great deal of it is colonial Massachusetts and a bit of colonial Connecticut. You don't seem to have any of Samuel's descendents at present, and only his second wife.

However, my mother's family is German-descended folks from Paterson, NJ and vicinity, and I'd like to have them up fairly fast, as she is elderly and I think would also very much enjoy seeing the various ways you folks present ancestry. So that's the starting place, I think.

Thought I'd ask for help and advice, as I expect you folks have seen this before. I have this tendency to research fairly collateral relatives - - step parents' ancestry , say - - so the tree isn't as simple as it might be.

Just for starters, what's a reasonable size of GEDCOM file?--Patriciajh 19:55, 19 May 2013 (EDT)


Hi, I would suggest that up to 1000 is ok if you have been dilligent with your information otherwise about 500 would be a better size.

To begin with try a gedcom of up to 200 and see how the werelate system works and then you will have a better idea of what it would take to import a larger gedcom. Enjoy--JeffreyRLehrer 02:06, 20 May 2013 (EDT)


Thank you! I just spent a little time figuring out how to clean up Ancestry exports a bit in Gramps -- combining citations, in particular -- and a lot of time playing with the new Gramps "verify data" tool. Turns up a great many "dead mothers" and "dead fathers" -- parents who apparently died before their kids were born. Interesting to clear those up -- some are children, for example, a second wife assigned to the first wife; some are plain wrong death dates; some are Gregorian/Julian calendar confusion; some are children with an exact birth date, but parents with a vague one -- including my father's mother, who died two weeks after he was born, and he never asked about the exact date (used to fantasize she had moved to California) -- so he was born Sept 8, and she died "Sept", and shows up as a dead mother. Wouldn't suprise me if that happened a fair amount.

So I wound up playing with my great-aunt Annie's husband's family as a test case, and it's now nice and clean, I hope, so here goes, Uncle Westie, Anna Gimmel, and some interesting colonial New Amsterdam heritage. I did wind up excising the Wolfart Webber scam; Uncle Westie no longer descends from William of Orange. Dear me.--patriciajh 17:22, 27 May 2013 (EDT)

I have a similar problem and would be very interested to hear what you thought of gramps as a way of cutting up the GEDCOM and how you get on? AndrewRT 17:31, 30 May 2013 (EDT)



Naming person pages [30 May 2013]

If a person Alex Bob Smith is usually known by his middle name Bob, should his person page be named Alex Smith or Bob Smith? (A well-known real-life example would be (Williard) Mitt Romney.) -- Ypnypn 20:58, 23 May 2013 (EDT)

Genealogically speaking, it's probably a better idea to have the page title reflect a person's "legal" name, since that's what is more likely to appear on official documents. But remember that you can add as many variants (spelling differences, nicknames, adoptions, or whatever) on the Person page as "alternate names." (Don't add married names for women; those are taken care of automatically.) They will then show up in search results. I do this frequently with surnames that are habitually misspelled by census enumerators, so someone new to the family can find them, and thus discover what the "correct" name is. --MikeTalk 09:10, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

Sources [9 June 2013]

How are we supposed to add sources if we uploaded a tree as a GED file and the sources did not carry over?

All 4 of the trees that I uploaded had sources attached to them but when they uploaded the sources were not carried over then another member went through my trees and made changes without my authorization and stating that I had "no sources" which is not true. Now all of my data that I have spent years collecting, researching and SOURCING has been changed.

I don't really understand how any member can make unauthorized changes to someone else's data without the tree owner's approval. Additionally, some of our families have kept family bible that have extensive records in them that no one else may have access to...--LEnde1018 00:20, 9 June 2013 (EDT)


I'm just another user, so these are not "official" statements, and I may stand to be corrected.

First, WeRelate is about collaborative research, so no one "owns" a person page. If you are registered to "watch" a page (automatic if you created the page), you will be notified whenever someone makes an addition or change. Where there are conflicts in the data, the users can use the talk page to understand each other's sources, and perhaps come to a consensus. You can also include alternate dates, etc. so that other researchers know when sources do not agree.

Second, regarding sources not getting uploaded. I have experienced this myself, and it is not a WeRelate issue, but an issue with the way I exported the data to create a GED file. If you use a text editor to review the GED you created, you should see lines with an SOUR tag. These are your sources. If there are no SOUR tags in the GED, try changing settings from your program until sources are exported. Another way to recognize the problem is once the GED file is uploaded and you are in the review process. If the Sources tab has no data, then none were uploaded. When this happens to me, I delete the file and start over.

When I begin to review a newly uploaded file, I have found it pays to quickly review all of the tabs to ensure they contain data, before working thru each one sequentially. It is a real pain to fix all of the places (match them to existing WeRelate places) only to find I have to delete the file and start over.

It is also worth the effort to match places, sources and families during the review process, so that you do not have as many manual changes to make on each person and family page after you complete the upload. And yes, I do review each page after I upload them because my program does no map data to the fields I think should be used. If I have done the work up front during the review process, then final clean up of each page goes very quickly. My program does allow me to flag records I have selected for export, so that I have a working list for this manual review.

When I have completed the upload, review, import and manual review process, I can then sit back and wait for a fellow researcher to "find" my pages and make their own contributions to them.

Where does this leave you with the "sourceless" pages? You can generate a new GED file that does include the SOUR tags, and upload it. You will then need to merge the new data to the existing person and family pages. Experiment with a small number of these so that you understand the merge process. You can deselect data from either the person page or the new upload so that it is not included in the updated page. This will prevent two of everything being created. For example, where a data element is exactly the same, such as a name of date, keep the new one you upload because it will include your source. You can deselect the original field that had no source. If the original already has a source, play around to understand how to keep both of them. You don't want to delete someone else's source, you just want to add your sources to the documentation for the page.

Sorry this is so long. Don't be discouraged by the learning curve. I have invested a lot of time in uploading thousands of person pages, and would do it again. However, I continue to find ways to make the process go faster. It is worth the effort.--RGMoffat 01:15, 9 June 2013 (EDT)


list of alternate spellings of names [9 October 2013]

Where is Dallan's list of alternate spellings of names? I need to add some alt spellings. I understand if they are added to the that list, the search engine will find the right page even if all the alt spellings aren't on the person's page. --janiejac 12:31, 18 June 2013 (EDT)


http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:Names JeffreyRLehrer 19:09, 18 June 2013 (EDT)


Naming Convention [22 June 2013]

What's preferred -- Abraham van der Meulen OR Abraham Van der Meulen OR Abraham Van Der Meulen? Thanks!--Frank 16:53, 22 June 2013 (EDT)

It can depend on where the person was from. Convention in the Netherlands would be van der Meulen. --Jennifer (JBS66) 17:14, 22 June 2013 (EDT)

Sub-catagories not showing on Category page [6 July 2013]

I have created a number of categories pages for counties in Ontario, Canada, but they do not show up on the "Category:Ontario, Canada" page. My most recent addition was "Category:Renfrew, Ontario, Canada" I have reviewed in edit mode the sub-categories that do show up and cannot see where the problem is.

What am I missing?--RGMoffat 17:43, 5 July 2013 (EDT)

The Renfrew category does appear within the Ontario category, but not on the first page. You need to press the next 200 link a bunch of times to get past the P articles that appear in the category to see the R subcategory link. Here is a quicker link to where Renfrew appears. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:01, 6 July 2013 (EDT)

Go figure! I expected all sub-categories to be listed on the first page, before the Places. There are three of them there. Obviously, they all occur alphabetically before "P." Maybe this can be added to a wish list somewhere along the line.

Thank you for responding. I had left an earlier note (last year) on a different talk page, but it was never answered. I need to remember to use the support page in the future.--RGMoffat 09:52, 6 July 2013 (EDT)


Clean-up of Cemetery Name Variants [15 July 2013]

During my earlier data uploads, I used cemetery names as found in various sources. I have now confirmed that the following are all the same cemetery:

< nowiki >Place:Country Cemetery, Georgetown, Miller, Dearborn, Indiana, United States< nowiki >

< nowiki >Place:Georgetown Cemetery, Georgetown, Miller, Dearborn, Indiana, United States< nowiki >

< nowiki >Place:Georgetown Cemetery, Dearborn, Indiana, United States< nowiki >

I have re-linked person pages to the last entry in the above list.

Please delete the first two place pages so that they do not get used in the future.

In addition, when I created a place page for the historical community of Georgetown, I included the township name (Miller) in the place name. I realize this is non-standard, but I cannot rename the page because of existing links. Can an admin do this?

Sorry to cause extra work.

Rick Moffat--RGMoffat 17:51, 15 July 2013 (EDT)



More than 24 hours has passed and still no GEDCOM review [17 July 2013]

Is there a delay in this process? This is my first import and I have yet 3 more to do. Also is there any reason why you cannot continue to upload multiple GEDCOM rather than wait for the previous import to be reviewed?--Plapic 18:53, 16 July 2013 (EDT)


I noticed the WeRelate server was very slow yesterday. That could be the problem.

Just another WR user. --Goldenoldie 04:55, 17 July 2013 (EDT)


Handling Unwed Mothers [17 July 2013]

My grandfather never knew who his father was, so what's the best way of linking him to his mother. I feel like I shouldn't add a family record since there is no husband/father, but it seems that it's the only way to link him to his mother. (Although, I am new here and haven't quite worked out even all the simple details.)--Artbasement 14:09, 17 July 2013 (EDT)

Adding a family page is correct. When you add the page, keep the husband's name fields blank and enter the mother's name. The page will then be titled Unknown and {mother's name}. An example of this type of setup is Family:Unknown and Aaltje Faber (1). --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:17, 17 July 2013 (EDT)

Request - re-locate Hollywood [21 July 2013]

Hello. I would like to see Place:Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States moved to Place:Hollywood, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States as Hollywood is a district within the city of Los Angeles, rather than just an unknown location type in the county of Los Angeles. Thanks for your help. I found I could not rename as there are subordinate pages. --ceyockey 11:29, 21 July 2013 (EDT)


Project pages - researching an individual [29 July 2013]

I saw the video and it mentioned setting up project pages. I have a research problem of trying to sorting out the identities of two men named James Behan to determine if they are in fact the same man. Another person is working with me on the project and we hope to get other descendants involved. I'd like to upload documents, images, notes, etc that would help us all analyze the problem.

Is a project page the way to do this? If we have death certificates, census records, immigration records and the like, what is the best way to upload those? I'm confused by the choices on the Add dropdown because it seems to relate more to books, etc when asking for description of the object.

Thanks for your help.--karen1 16:06, 21 July 2013 (EDT)

Hi Karen. I would suggest two alternatives: first create a person page with the information on for each of the two (possibly identical) people and add all the information to the pages. Just click on these two links - Person:James_Behan_(3) and Person:James_Behan_(4) (assuming first your person isn't either Person:James_Behan_(1) or Person:James_Behan_(2)!) and then click "Edit" on left. I would use "Add -- Image" personally for death certificates and upload a scanned image. Then either create text in the main box on one of the person pages and set out the case for and against these people being the same person. Alternatively, create an article in Mainspace to discuss the issue (perhaps James Behan question) and set it out there. Hope this helps. AndrewRT 18:26, 29 July 2013 (EDT)

Please delete Dup [1 August 2013]

Can you please the following page. My Stupid Browse keep crashing leading me to think that the source was not add

Source:Prowell, George Reeser. History of York County Pennsylvania (Volume II)


Thanks--Myfamilytree 22:36, 26 July 2013 (EDT)

I haven't got the user rights to delete so I've redirected it to the other page which has the same impact. Hope this helps. AndrewRT 18:17, 29 July 2013 (EDT)
Next time (and for future references everyone else) just add the Speedy Delete tag to it and myself or someone else on the Deletion team will get to it User:DMaxwell 06:57, 1 August 2013 (EDT)

thanks...--Myfamilytree 09:42, 1 August 2013 (EDT)


Help on new pages [1 August 2013]

I am currently working on a set of families that lived on the remote island of North Ronaldshay, in the Orkneys, North Scotland. One of the key "signposts" that has emerged in this research is the role played by the "Houses" on the island. These often held multiple families, were passed down the generations and were often included in the genealogical records. They also became a key way of identifying people, who often shared the same forename and surname - for instance, Thomas Tulloch was called "Tommy Garso", because he lived in a house called "Garso".

I would like to create a page or a set of pages that links together the information about the individual houses so that they can be used to trace the families through time. The first idea I had was to set them up as "Place" pages although I note that the policy seems to discourage this. The alternative seems to be in the general namespace which, unless I'm mistaken, doesn't have any particular rules about what should or shouldn't be created there.

Please could someone advise - where would be the right place to create this page? Thanks AndrewRT 18:13, 29 July 2013 (EDT)


I have the same problem currently in Southwest Scotland--Galloway to be exact. My own family lived in the main farmhouse of a farm named Auchenlosh, but the 1841 census indicates there were 10 other cottages there all housing farm workders. That adds up to a community of a comparible size to what might be called a hamlet in rural parts of the United States and Canada. And yet, I also hesitate to give the farm a placename. I intend to write an Article about this particular farm because (1) people in the cottages are bound to be related as in-laws and cousins, and (2) I own its 18th century rent book.

The parish, and all the parishes around, hold plenty of farms like these. It's an interesting situation, probably based on a need for many hands, leftover from feudal times, and which didn't end until the invention of the tractor. --Goldenoldie 07:26, 1 August 2013 (EDT)


auto suggestions and recently used sources - not working? (reposted from Watercooler) [6 August 2013]

(reposted from WaterCooler)

One very nice thing about this site is the suggestions for place names - to conform to the site to the same standard. This as well as the recently used source, which is nice for when you are using the same source over and over again. I tried 3 different browsers and I still have the same issue. I don't understand how a browser could affect the recently used source option. The auto suggestion feature is working about 25% of the time for me. I'd like to hear from Dallan or one of the admins as to what might be causing this...it's driving me up the wall. I must note that I am a Linux user, which has never been a problem with the site performance or any form until the last week and a half or so. Daniel Maxwell 06:45, 1 August 2013 (EDT)

I cannot use the autocompletion when I browse from behind my squid proxy. I don't know if it's intrinsic to the squid proxy, or just the ancient version I use. Note that it's not intermittent. Do you use different internet setups? Otherwise perhaps upstream of you you are getting different proxies different days. --Pkeegstra 06:40, 6 August 2013 (EDT)

Place page showing map location incorrectly [2 August 2013]

For some reason, the Google map embedded in this place page Place:Grantsville, Calhoun, West Virginia, United States is showing a different location. The coordinates in the place page are correct, but the map is showing coordinates for a different place (a few miles away). I don't see any way that I can fix this by editing the page.--DataAnalyst 19:08, 2 August 2013 (EDT)


It should appear correct now. A cemetery was incorrectly attributed to Grantsville, which caused the map to generate in the wrong location. --Khaentlahn 20:15, 2 August 2013 (EDT)

Table -- varying data between one place and another [15 August 2013]

I have worked out a table that I could use to give specific bits of information about one place. Could I adopt it as a template to use in a series of places for which the same types of information could be provided? The first two columns of the table are permanent, the third column contains the variables.

The table can currently be found at Template:Buckinghamshire unions of parishes.

If it is possible to make a variable table, are these instructions in Help, anywhere? --Goldenoldie 06:47, 12 August 2013 (EDT)

Hoping I've understood correctly, you can introduce parameters into a template by using {{{1}}} on your template page and then passing the parameter through when you use the template - e.g. {{template name|variable1}}. I have an example at Template:DNA-Y12 if this is useful although apologies it's quite a complex template! The wikipedia help page is here although note that some of the more complex bits don't work on WeRelate as we are still on an old version. AndrewRT 15:36, 12 August 2013 (EDT)

I had a good look at the example and, as you expected, I was stymied by the complexity. What I was hoping for was a uniform template in the form of a table in which I could fill in the blanks (=variables/parameters) in the third columns. It would have been an expanded form of the See Also box.

I have now replanned my basic idea for presenting Buckinghamshire and added pages for the county divisions named "hundreds". I didn't know "hundred" was in the WR list of types of places until this afternoon. There are many English counties where this division was commonly used up to the early 19th century and someone is bound to need it sometime. By adding place pages for the "rural districts" and "urban districts" as well, I should be able to put all the information on a parish's membership in administrative areas in the See Also box.

Thanks for your help. --Goldenoldie 14:16, 13 August 2013 (EDT)

I took a crack at creating a template from this, which accepts parameters, and added some basic documentation. I didn't set it up to take parameters for the dates, but that's possible as well. Let me know what you think, and if you have questions -- Jdfoote1 11:38, 15 August 2013 (EDT)

need help with template [1 September 2013]

The template that has been posted on Henry Leonard's page is too wide. It causes all info to fall 'below the fold' and at first glance, the page appears to have nothing on it. Can someone please make the template more narrow so it doesn't fall under the family info?--janiejac 16:36, 31 August 2013 (EDT)

It is strange that this template can not be put in Notes. It is a Note. The Note is now made via ref whatever works.--Lidewij 05:25, 1 September 2013 (EDT)
Yes, the placement confused me because the reader cannot tell which quote is the copyrighted quote. Looking at the history of this page, it appears that a lot of text has already been removed. Perhaps the already removed material was the offending text and the author just didn't remove the template?? Only the person who may have recognized the copyright material would know. There should be some method of monitoring such notices to remove them when appropriate. Of course, it still needs to be made more narrow. --janiejac 10:46, 1 September 2013 (EDT)
I made the original template narrower. I also removed the template from Henry's page since the copyrighted text had been removed. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:58, 1 September 2013 (EDT)
Thank you!! I'm hoping to add descendants of Henry and wasn't sure what to do with this page. --janiejac 12:56, 1 September 2013 (EDT)

Fixing Gotland place names [2 October 2013]

I've noticed that the placenames in Gotland, Sweden all use the format of "Somewhere, Gotlands, Gotland, Sweden". This is incorrect, there is not place called "Gotlands", and "Gotland" and "Gotland" is of course the same place. It should be "Somewhere, Gotland, Sweden". This differs from general Swedish place names because the Municipality, County and Region are all the same thing.

However, fixing this seems complicated, for reasons of consistency. I can for example not rename "Parish, Gotlands, Gotland, Sweden" if it contains places. But I also can't move the places it contains to "Farm, Parish, Gotland, Sweden", because "Paris, Gotland Sweden" does not yet exist.

So I think I would have to first create a new "Parish, Gotland, Sweden", then move the places within, then redirect the old Parish.

This is doable, but I'm wondering if there possibly can be an easier way? Because that will take a *long* time to do.

--Regebro 22:02, 6 September 2013 (EDT)


I saw a mention of a bot that will "Rename sub-places in response to super-place renames", and then I realized that there is a simpler way to do this.
The problem is that when I try to rename for example Place:Bunge, Gotlands, Gotland, Sweden to the correct Place:Bunge, Gotland, Sweden I get the error "This place has subordinate places. Only an administrator can rename a place with subordinate places. Please ask for help at Support."
Since there is a bit to fix that, this means that the easiest way to do this is to have an administrator do the renaming. I therefore request that an administrator does this move so we can get rid of Place:Gotlands, Gotland, Sweden.
Please ask me for more information if anything is unclear. --Lennart 03:02, 8 September 2013 (EDT)
I asked about this over at WeRelate talk:Place patrol because I am unsure about the logistics of this. I'll also ask Dallan about it and will post a response early next week. --Jennifer (JBS66) 08:02, 12 September 2013 (EDT)
All of the places within Gotlands have been renamed to be directly under Gotland.--Dallan 02:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Problem with embedded URLs [2 October 2013]

If I paste [14] into a Text field of a Reference the URL links correctly.

However if I paste the same link into a Title field of a Reference it breaks.

--Jhamstra 09:40, 7 September 2013 (EDT)

URL's work in the Title field when you enclose them in brackets with text like this: [http://www.werelate.org WeRelate]. Otherwise, you could add the URL to the Record Name or Text field. --Jennifer (JBS66) 09:47, 7 September 2013 (EDT)

Thanks Jennifer.

Unfortunately there is still a problem with the display when I do this. Now the URL does not break but the entire URL displays rather than a "numbered square-arrow link icon" as I get elsewhere. Look at the results of Reference 6 (without nowiki brackets but no embedded spaces in URL) vs Reference 7 (with nowiki brackets to avoid beaking URL with embedded spaces) in this family.

You might want to go to the associated Talk page to see why I am updating this Family 8-).

--Jhamstra 08:45, 8 September 2013 (EDT)

I personally don't think URL's really make sense in the title field. It's better to have them in the text, as full URL's, not just "[1]" links. Having just the [1] links will for example mean that you lose the reference if you print it. It's also Wiki-specific syntax. It probably won't break anything if you export as GEDCOM and import somewhere else, but it means it will look different when transferred to other software. --Lennart 09:28, 8 September 2013 (EDT)
When a URL is enclosed in nowiki brackets, it won't be clickable.
Plimoth Plantation - Plimoth & Patuxet Ancestors - Genealogical Profiles [http://www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/read/plimoth-patuxet-ancestors#profiles] displays Plimoth Plantation - Plimoth & Patuxet Ancestors - Genealogical Profiles [15] or
[http://www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/read/plimoth-patuxet-ancestors#profiles Plimoth Plantation - Plimoth & Patuxet Ancestors - Genealogical Profiles] displays Plimoth Plantation - Plimoth & Patuxet Ancestors - Genealogical Profiles.
Note, if you are looking at this message from the edit screen, you will want to omit the nowiki tags. --Jennifer (JBS66) 17:22, 8 September 2013 (EDT)
Well I happen to like the way Reference [6] looks now and I would like to make Reference [7] look the same way but apparently nobody can tell me how to do that. If I bracket the URL with nowiki tags then it does not substitute the icon for the reference. If I replace spaces with %20 and bracket the URL without nowiki tags then it breaks-up the URL anyway. --Jhamstra 00:27, 9 September 2013 (EDT)
Also, note that URLs should not have spaces - they should be replaced with %20 - so, the URL in question should be http://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Family%20Indexes/Bonham%20Index.html, which will allow you to use the MediaWiki bracketed markup, without the nowiki tags. While many browsers can handle URLs with spaces, in general it's just a bad idea to use them. -- Jdfoote1 17:33, 8 September 2013 (EDT)
If you look at my original submission regarding "== Problem with embedded URLs [8 September 2013] ==", I did in fact replace the spaces with %20 but it still did not display the bracketed URL correctly in the title. --Jhamstra 00:27, 9 September 2013 (EDT)
So, I've been looking into this. I see exactly what you are talking about. It looks to me like a WeRelate bug, where the content is decoded, but I'm not positive yet. As a workaround, I put a link in the Volume field, which displays right next to the title. -- Jdfoote1 07:54, 9 September 2013 (EDT)
Thanks for the work-around - it looks good!
I think this bug originates from when the Source=Citation option was added to References. The parser for the Title field for Source=Citation needs to be different from Source=Source or MySource.
--Jhamstra 08:37, 9 September 2013 (EDT)

One of the symptoms of this problem is that the inline editor seems to be replacing each embedded %20 in the Title field with a space before storing it. So it displays as %20 before I click Save but displays as a space if I click Edit again. I have no way of telling whether this is a WeRelate or MediaWiki problem or if it is a Firefox problem. However since Firefox seems to have no problems editing the correct result into text boxes including this one, I suspect the problem lies elsewhere ie something that filters the Title field when it is being saved.

At this point I have tried each of the following (sans nowiki and quotes) without success:

"An American Family History - The Bonham, Fuller and Lothrop Families [http://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Family%20Indexes/Bonham%20Index.html]"

"[An American Family History - The Bonham, Fuller and Lothrop Families http://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Family%20Indexes/Bonham%20Index.html]"

"[http://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Family%20Indexes/Bonham%20Index.html An American Family History - The Bonham, Fuller and Lothrop Families]"

So if this is working correctly for you people who are trying to help me, then could you tell me what browser (name and release level) you are using? And exactly what character string you entered? --Jhamstra 00:47, 9 September 2013 (EDT)

I spent some time trying various work-arounds, but nothing worked better than the solution you came up with. Unfortunately the cite extension that we're using is very finicky. I'm reluctant to touch it because other things will likely break. I think we'll have to wait until we upgrade the software to a more-recent version before this URL problem is fixed.--Dallan 02:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Having trouble adding image to profile page [8 September 2013]

How do I attach the image I uploaded to my profile page?--Tammyhensel 16:05, 8 September 2013 (EDT)

I added the image by using [[Image:Tammy Hensel.jpg|300 px]]. You can adjust the size by editing the px number. --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:10, 8 September 2013 (EDT)

Thank you very much.--Tammyhensel 16:41, 8 September 2013 (EDT)


Need advice on whether I can post a photograph [11 September 2013]

Can I upload a digital copy of the photo found at

http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p267401coll36/id/6489/rec/1279

to werelate.org

if so, how do I fill out the copyright information

My grandfather is in the photo.--Charlie s 14:44, 11 September 2013 (EDT)


Unfortunately the links to the pages with copyright information leads to missing pages. I think the correct page is now http://ww2.ohiohistory.org/resource/audiovis/repro.html .
Looks like you'll have to have to ask the Ohio Historical Society for permission. --Lennart 16:00, 11 September 2013 (EDT)

Live People [12 September 2013]

Is there a reason Live people cant be added to a family if I do a Gedcom upload--Jbtabb 17:47, 11 September 2013 (EDT)

Pages for living people are not permitted on WeRelate due to privacy issues. See the policy here. --Jennifer (JBS66) 08:10, 12 September 2013 (EDT)