User/Quolla6: User Talk to 18 April 2009

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Digital Library

Hi Bill,

The digital library is finally ready to try. Thank-you for offering to test it and give feedback! To see it, go to http://www.werelate.org/dlib . You log in by clicking on "My DSpace" in the lower left-hand corner. Enter your WeRelate user name and password. From "My DSpace" you can submit items: either to the "Sandbox" collection (a collection for testing - items submitted to the sandbox will eventually be deleted), or to your personal collection (items submitted to your personal collection won't be deleted). As can can see, there is still quite a bit to do:

  • The "skin" (look and feel) need to be customized. I haven't spent any time on this.
  • When you submit an item, you're asked to enter the title of a WeRelate Source page. There needs to be a "Search Sources / Add New Source" button that will pop open a window where you can search the Source wiki for your source and add it if it doesn't exist. (Also, see the WeRelate talk:Source Committee for proposed, soon-to-be-implemented changes to the Source wiki.)
  • It needs to be integrated with the wiki. Currently you have to log in separately to the digital library, searching the digital library is separate from searching the wiki, etc.

Any feedback is appreciated. The Search/Add Source button should be added sometime this week, and a new skin sometime next week. I'd like to hold off on integrating with the wiki for a couple of months though while you and others get more experience using it and we can decide what the best integration points should be.

P.S., when you submit an item, the coverage information (places, subject, ethnicity, occupation, and religion) will eventually default to what's on the Source wiki page so that you don't have to re-enter it unless you want to change or add to the defaults).

Thanks again!--Dallan 22:39, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Will of Thomas Scudder [31 March 2008]

You could order the record from Essex County. Link here [1] --Beth 11:45, 21 March 2008 (EDT)


Hi Bill,

I am monitoring your post on the APG mailing list. Just curious as to why you cannot order a copy of the will? --Beth 10:17, 29 March 2008 (EDT)

Hi Beth, yes, I know you very kindly provided a link to ordering the item. I believe I mentioned in the APG email that what I was interested in was their opinion on how this might be cited. It is not a matter of getting the specific item, but more of a generic problem, and I'm interested in seeing how someone on the APG list might respond to that generic problem. The specific instance wasn't the important part. Thanks Q 10:41, 29 March 2008 (EDT)
Bill, I downloaded the images from Ancestry regarding the will of Thomas Scudder mentioned in the APG post. If you do not have ancestry, I will zap the images to you. --Beth 19:48, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Hi Beth. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that, but actually getting a copy of the will wasn't the issue. (Yes, I have ancestry, full up, world deluxe, though I'm dumping the later part....they aren't sufficiently data rich in Europe to justify the added cost, and my needs there are minimal anyway.) It really was a theoretical question I was asking---I just wanted to see how different folks in certain groups reacted to that particular question. (APG list wasn't the only place I asked the same thing.) The answers that came back were reasonable from the perspective of the lists in which the question was asked. Different lists had different perspectives, and that was part of what I was probing---looking for a range of viewpoints. Q 20:02, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Okay Bill, I will watch for more of your theoretical questions. --Beth 20:24, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Google Books and Million Books Project [4 April 2008]

Hi Q, Thanks for the tip about Google Books. I have used it but not often; but great idea; I could actually view the entry for Robert Coker so now I can site the book. I did not know about the Million Books Project, but my ISP is blocking my access. I have requested that they unblock the site. My ISP has filters, but hopefully they will unblock this site. --Beth 10:37, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Daniel Boone [22 April 2008]

Hi, How are you related to Daniel Boone? I am a cousin at least 2 times and a niece 2 times. They intermarried alot. I am directly descended from his sister Mary and brother Samuel. See you around.--sq 14:44, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm not. Boone was active for a short period in SW Virginia, so he comes into play in various ways during the early settlement era of that area, and so will eventually figure into the Southwest Virignia Project. While I'm not related to him, a good many of my ancestors had dealings with him in the 1773-1774 period, and some relation were among those who went to the Siege of Boone's boro. Also, when Boone returned to Castle's Woods in 1773 after the death of his son, the party would have had to have crossed the Clinch at Osborne's Ford, and would presumably have taken the trail that eventually became the "Kentucky Road". That led up Fall Creek and passed the home of Patrick Porter (my ancestor) and that of his fatherinelaw, John Walker III of the Wigton Walker line. Patrick would later serve as Sargeant at Moore's Fort in Castle Wood. During the Point Pleasant Campaign Boone was in charge of the defense of the local area, and the militia at Moore's Fort would have reported to him. Which would make Boone the commanding officer under whome Porter served. Eventually, I'll probably do a mini biography of him similar in scale to others I'm doing for other people who were in the area. To that end I prepared a disambiguation page for Daniel Boone, just to see what had already been done. That, I presume, is what tirggered your comment. Q 15:11, 22 April 2008 (EDT)

James-1 Grover of Gravesend & Monmouth [28 April 2008]

Bill:

Thank you for your thank you :) I am not terribly Wiki-savvy yet but I was impressed by your Gravesend page and wanted to help out. I am a direct descendant of Thomas Spicer through the Lake & Griggs families of Gravesend. Anyway, the reason I noticed your Gravesend page was a Google search hit on your page for James Grover...

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:James_Grover_%281%29

I am currently researching an article for The NYG&B Record which includes a reference to James Grover and I can provide more information via direct correspondence. Are you a direct descendant of James? Do you have any additional information on the first three or four generations of his descendants? Or know someone who would?

Thanks for your help,

Perry (perry@streeter.com)--Streeter 08:35, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

Hi Perry,
Yes, while most of my work on this site is not about my personal ancestry, as it happens I am descended from James, through his daughter Abigail who married Benjamin Borden. The Gravesend article and that for James Grover and his relations were early experiments in using the site, so there's a fair bit of variation in layout and approach. The Gravesend article is probably the most complete. The article on Benjamin Borden's father Richard is probably more comprehensive and points to what I'm trying to do in general. The article on James Grover is not complete, and is something I'll eventually return to. In the meantime, if there are specific questions that you have on the lines of descent from James and Rebecca, I'll be happy to check to see what I have.
While I have additional information on my line of descent, including it into this site isn't likely to happen for sometime. (My major focus lies with the [Virginia Project]---I turn to my personal family history when I'm taking a break from that.)

However, if you have additional data on James' personal history that you'd like to share, I wouldn't mind adding it now. You could, if you wish, place it directly on the Talk page for James Grover. Apart from proof of his parentage, one of the things I'm particularly interested in is information about his wife's family. I haven't seen anything that would suggest that the Cheeseman's were actually in Gravesend---or anywhere else for that matter. Q 08:58, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

Thanks [4 May 2008]

Hi Bill, Thanks for the reply on my Wiki mailing list. My list seems to be dead in the water. --Beth 18:48, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Coker in Georgia [21 May 2008]

Hi Q,

Regarding sources for marriages; I know the person who entered the marriage data. All of the families presently on the Coker in Georgia page will eventually have their family page and the marriages will be sourced there. Did you notice if you click on the families in blue you are taken directly to their family page with the marriage source? Just wondering if you think I need to show the source in both places or will the family page suffice? Thanks for entering the 1820 census data; I like it but not sure about having it on the talk page. Perhaps I should move this to the Coker in Georgia page. Tell me your thoughts; I am still pondering on the best method to encourage participation by other researchers.

My youngest son is graduating from high school on Friday so I have not had much time to consider this topic but am interested. Thanks for your input; look forward to your comments. --Beth 21:38, 21 May 2008 (EDT)


Hi Beth

I put the census data on to the talk page simply because I didn't want to add such a big chunk onto your shared research page. I added it simply to show one approach to organizing this kind of information. If its useful, place it where you need it. If not, its just another experiment among many that I'm trying out.

If the Shared Research page is intended to systematically capture data of this type, I would think you'd want it to be stand-alone, but perhaps that's just a personal preference on my part. The way it was presented, it wasn't obvious what information was coming from what source---it might have come from the marriage records cited at the top---or perhaps it came from another source. I just couldn't tell from what was there.

My main interest on this is not A) Share Research Page, or B) Talk Page, or C) Notebook Page. Its potentially all of those, but its mainly in seeing what works for fostering collaboration. The layout I presented on the Patrick Porter Talk page as mostly an exploration of the kinds of things that might be needful in fostering a collaboration. The problem may be that its too complex for most folks to be comfortable. My experience in attemptng collaborations elsewhere is that

a) only a few people interested in a particular family line are going to be interested in a collaborative effort,
b) of those an even smaller subset are going to have the genealogical skills needed to work collaboratively, and
c) and even small subset will also have the computer skills (read ability to work with HTML, etc), to be able to function in this environment at the level needed for a collaboration to work.

Dallan is doing a great job in making it "drop dead easy" ----far better than any of the other three sites---but its still going to be a challenge for many genealogists. The challenge for us is to figure out how to make collaboration "drop dead easy".

And congratulations on your son's impending graduation! Q 22:32, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

Designing research pages [3 June 2008]

Transferred to Portal:Surname

corrections [12 June 2008]

I figured out that the doubles were there for a reason so I stopped removing them. I have to run to town but intend on re-inserting them when I get home.

I don't mind making editing type corrections. Habit from finishing a book recently. I did change the wording in one sentence that seemed a bit clumsy. From now on, if there is a way to contact you when I find these, I can bring it up so you can decide to re-word.

Great work on getting the stuff on the site.

Mary Ann--Ole crone 12:22, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi Mary Ann
I thought that was you. Please, if you see something that needs a fix, do have at it. This IS a wiki after all, and I appreciate all the help I can get. And since you've known me for a LONG time, you probaby understand that making no typos or spelling errors is NOT my forte. Q 12:48, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Family Exchange pages [4 July 2008]

Hi Bill,

I agree with you regarding an easier format and Lauren has setup just such a page using tips from our page. Perhaps we should focus on her page. See Rumgay Family Exchange. --Beth 20:40, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi Beth. I think I said this before, but that's essential a surname page, with some "Exchange" stuff added on. For me it makes no difference at all which format you use, as its something I would not personally do i my own work. What I've done on this to date is simply to help you, following along with what you said you were looking for. If you wish to go in a different direction, that's fine. No tears here. Q 21:00, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi Bill, I am not planning to go in a different direction. I will use our format for additional exchange pages. There are only 2 other pages similar that I am aware of. Lauren's and Janie's. Lauren's is an article and Janie's is on the Jackson Surname page. You expressed an interest in making it drop dead easy and Lauren's is.

I am referring to the tutorial and how best to convey the information to other interested users. You don't need to spend your time doing banners, etc. for other users. Just trying to make it easier for you. I defer to your decision; it is your time that I am concerned about. Thanks. --Beth 21:22, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

My only objective here was to lend a hand where I thought I could help. If your personal needs have been met on this, and it appears from the above, that they have, then its time for me to drop away from the picture. I've really no interest in coming up with a scheme that will solve everybody's problems. It was an interesting exercize, I'm glad I could have been of some assistance to you, and it led to my learning several new tricks that have other applications. So I'm happy. Please do let me know if you need anything more with this or other problems. Thanks, Q 21:34, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi Bill,

Super job on the help for the family exchange pages. I addded the text for the flying left and centered or whatever it is called. Other than that I made a few minor changes; grammar wise but if I am wrong please correct it. I have added a template section. Thought I would add links to the tables. Looks like you did all of the hard work. Thanks. Check my contributions for the last many days if you wonder what I have been doing. My trees are getting moldy for lack of attention. --Beth 19:03, 4 July 2008 (EDT)

Text tutorials [5 July 2008]

Hi Bill, Are you around? I am attempting to write a new tutorial with screen shots. Look at the text tutorials. I cannot figure out how to get the help removed from the tutorial title--Beth 20:11, 5 July 2008 (EDT).

When you're linking to a page and you don't want the namespace to show up in the text of the link, enter a bar just before the closing brackets; e.g., [[Help:Entering a Family on WeRelate tutorial|]] (note the | after the word tutorial). That generates a link with the namespace removed.--Dallan 20:53, 5 July 2008 (EDT)

Thanks Dallan. --Beth 20:59, 5 July 2008 (EDT)

George / John Teater [11 August 2008]

Hi,

I moved some comments about George that User:Parris had made on my talk page onto George's talk page. Also I noticed that George's name is listed as John. Do you want to make John an alternate name for George and keep George as his primary name? Currently if you do a search for someone with a given name of George and a Surname of Teater you don't get any results because he's indexed only under John.--Dallan 13:11, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for map [14 August 2008]

Thanks for giving me links to the map with Carlock name on it. I have forwarded it on to a Carlock researcher who had contacted me. Also told him where it came from so he would know about WeRelate. --Janiejac 12:53, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for the inspiration [29 December 2008]

Q,

Because of the sample pages you list (the "full-up"? ones), i got inspired to add photos to some of my family pages.

In the meantime, I think you're right: until this gets easier to use, the wiki will be limited to those who are willing to muck around in wiki-land. I still believe there is something good to grow here, otherwise I'd be out of here. it's ironic: what brought me back was the merge feature. go figure. to each his own, I suppose. jillaine 20:43, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Addington, R.M. History of Scott County, Virginia [9 February 2009]

Hello,

I like what you've done with the Source:Addington, R.M. History of Scott County, Virginia page. I like the idea of having the citation and electronic info right up front. I wanted to let you know that I'm going to merge WR's other Sources for this book with yours. If you disagree with anything - feel free to change it!--Jennifer (JBS66) 17:49, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Thanks! Glad you like the layout and approach. Q 18:18, 9 February 2009 (EST)

John Edmiston (5) [10 February 2009]

Hi, I am a little confused. I deleted Person:John Edmiston (5) because it was in the speedy delete category. Then I got a message to restore it. I did. It is still in the speedy delete category. Do you want me to delete it?  :-) --sq 22:14, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Hi Solveig. Sorry for the confusion. Yes, its ultimately intended for speedy delete. I just want to give Dlbradley1 the opportunity to have a say in how it was handled. I've asked him directly about the point, he hasn't responded to that, so go ahead and delete the item. Q 10:05, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain [12 February 2009]

Hello, I see you've done a lot of work on this source! I'm working to merge the sources that are prefaced with Ancestry.com with the already existing FHLC source. I noticed there are three pages for this source:

  1. Source:Ancestry.com - Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain
  2. Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain
  3. Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain: a new history of the Kilgore family

Can you tell me if they are all the same book, just with different reprint dates? I would like to merge them all into one page, most likely Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain. I was also thinking of putting the original publisher, pub date, and pub location in the Source Information field. Let me know what you think.--Jennifer (JBS66) 06:42, 10 February 2009 (EST)


Jennifer...this work is problematic for the way WeRelate organizes and structures references. It was original published in 1935 by Hugh Addington (a cousin of R.M Addington whose Scot County History you've also been working on). About 1980 Rhonda Robertson republished Hugh's original work, keeping the same Title, and adding a substantive addendum. The addendum added additional information, and making the work a bit easier to use. This version is what is known as the "Little Green Book". I believe her "re-do" was published in 1980. However, she kept the original copyright date, and the 1980? edition only gives that original copyight date of 1935. On the title page of the Little Green Book, Addington is given overall authorship, but Robertson designates herself (very properly) as the author of the Addendum. However, the title of the work (both the 1935 version and the Robertson Re-Do) is the same "Charles Kilgore of Kings Mountain; A new history of the Kilgore family."

All of this tends to leave people very confused about authorship and title. When this work is cited, it is usually given as "Addington, 1935" and the title typically truncated to "Charles Kilgoreof Kings' Mountain." I suspect that when they cite this work they are actually referring to The Little Green Book, and not Addington's 1935 original. But still cite it as "Addington 1935."

I think the Little Green Book should be cited as "Addington and Robertson, 1980". However, in the WeRelate Style that comes out to "Addington, Hugh M. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain" (second author elided, along with the works subtitle. Which is exactly the same as the WeRelate version for "Addington 1935". So you can't tell the two works apart.

More complications. I don't know this for sure, since I've not examined subsequent editions of the Little Green Book, but I believe those editions contain substantitive differences from the 198- edition, but have the same title and authorship as the 1980 version.

So, it makes a difference whether you are using Addington 1935, Addington and Robertson, 1980, or say Addington and Robertson, 2007. In any case, the WeRelate style for this gives no useful alternatives to solve the problem.

The style guide does note that "If two sources end up with the same title under these rules, you can add disambiguating information in parentheses to the end of the title." I sort of split the difference with the third version above by adding the subtitle to the Addington and Robertson Little Green Book Version. This at least allows someone to dinstinguish betwen the versions, but no solution seems good. In my own work, the problem goes away as I use the "Addington and Robertson 1980" style for inline citation. But that's contrary to preferred practice on this site, and I doubt that anyone here other than myself would routinely use that workaround.

I'd suggest that you ask Dallan what he would recommend.

In anycase, there's a need to have at least two entries for this work. One referring to the 1935 edition, and the other referring to the 1980 edition. If subsequent editions are substantively different from 1980, then there's a need to have separate entries for those versions as well.

On place of publication, publisher etc. The Addington 1935 has a different publisher and place of publication than Addington and Robertson 1980. They shouldn't be combined.

As for the first entryyou listed "Ancestry.com. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain" That is a style that I think is very very ill-considered. Ancestry has nothing to do with this work. They just made it available online. This is like citing the specific library you got a book from. Q 09:55, 10 February 2009 (EST)


I appreciate your thorough response. It describes well an exception to WeRelate's general naming convention. I will make a note on Dallan's page to see this conversation, and will ask for his suggestions. Here are a couple of my thoughts:

  • Regarding the Ancestry.com pages - these are ill-considered. I found over 17,000 source pages that are prefaced with Ancestry.com - and they only contain a URL. I am currently in the process of moving the Ancestry URL to the correct source page, and then deleting/redirecting the Ancestry page. This is all part of a bigger source review project. So yes, the goal is to have one unique source page, with all of the reprints and repositories listed within.
  • I do agree with needing 2 source pages for this book. If a reprint differs significantly from its original, then I think that calls for a new page. My suggestions would be:
  1. Keep Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain as the 1935 original version.
  2. Move the Ancestry URL and merge the Source:Ancestry.com - Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain version with the 1935 original
  3. Rename the Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain: a new history of the Kilgore family to be the Addington/Robertson reprint.

So, the only things to do, really, is to merge the Ancestry source and then decide how to rename item #3 above.--Jennifer (JBS66) 10:47, 10 February 2009 (EST)


I agree with having two separate source pages in cases where the reprint differs significantly from the original. To distinguish the reprint from the original, how about Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain (1980) or maybe Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain, 1980?

And yes, the source titles are generally terrible. They were created when the website first launched in 2006 and we hadn't really "gotten" how sources should be handled. (Some might believe we still haven't gotten it, but I think we're a lot closer than when we started.) Renaming the old Source page titles is a project for this Summer. Merging duplicate sources is not, so it will be really helpful to have at least some of those merged. Thank-you Jennifer!--Dallan 18:50, 11 February 2009 (EST)


How about
  • Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain (1935), and
  • Source:Addington, Hugh. Charles Kilgore of King's Mountain (1980)?

Q 19:06, 11 February 2009 (EST)


Works for me.--Dallan 22:29, 12 February 2009 (EST)

Would appreciate your guidance [16 February 2009]

Hi Bill,

(I just learned your first name-- didn't take much-- just reading the other posts here.)

The more I meander around WeRelate and get involved with various projects as well as working on my own, the more I stumble across your work and how you use WeRelate.

First thing [16 February 2009]

I notice you do something I haven't seen others do. You create what looks like other types of namespaces; i.e., some word followed by a colon.

Notebook:Dan_Welch_Research is one.

Disambiguation:William_Russell is another.

So I'm curious what leads you to create and use such spaces. What "formula" or strategy are you following for such choices.

Answer: Its an organizational device. While they have the same format as a "Namespace" they aren't. They are just articles with a colon after the first word. Possibly "Disambiguation" should be a namespace (it is in Wikia), but it doesn't really matter. In a formal sense, this site probably does not need additional name space. People get confused enough as it is. "Notebooks" are another matter, and are still evolving. Don't know if the concept has any broad general use or not. Their purpose is definitely different from how most people use this site.

Notebooks are, however, becoming integral with my work here. What I'm doing, and the uses I'm putting the site to, so seem quite different from what others are doing and how they are using the site. Q 22:06, 16 February 2009 (EST)

Second thing [5 March 2009]

How do you decide what goes into User:Quolla6 space and what goes into the "main" article space? This has been particularly vexing for me to figure out for myself. The criteria I reached for myself includes:

  1. pages I don't want others to edit
  2. pages that contain data probably of not interest to anyone but myself-- or so specific to my own research as probably not to be relevant to others
  3. sandbox type of pages where I'm testing something out before "going live"
Answer: Personal preference at the moment of creaqtion. Its mostly a matter of convenience. I use the user space more as a navigation tool than anything else. By the way, I'm not sure about this but I think the only thing that you can protect a page in the way you describe is your immediate user page. I think user subpages are probably editable by others, but I don't know for sure. I've created other alter ego's, logged in, and not been able to edit my main page, but could edit the subpages. (I think that's the way it worked out, but that was early on.) Q 21:56, 16 February 2009 (EST)

But then I periodically see a page you've posted that I would normally think would fall under #2 above (like Notebook:Dan_Welch_Research ) and again, I get curious about what your strategy is. You've clearly been at this longer than I have, and you're quite an active contributor.

Answer: I'm not overly concerned about consistency. If I really really wanted to make things consistent, I'd spend a lot of time undoing things I did yesterday, and then find I had to redo them tomorrow yet again. So I usually only bother when the problem comes to hand again. Eventually, everything gets revisited. Also, I try lots of different approaches to problems. Sometimes they work, and sometimes I realize a different approach is better. For instance, I tried using the talk pages for notebooks (since they were already there), but then found out that the talk page was getting blown out by the amount of stuff that might be placed there. So I went to the independent notebook concept.
However, in the case you are looking at, the Notebook:Dan_Welch_Research is being used to capture information being provided by Dan. He's a very voracious finder of information. Not as much as user Pariss, but its sometimes hard to keep up with Dan. Actually, I can't. I've a backlog of probably several hundred emails from him that I've not transferred. Ditto User: Parriss In anycase, I'm using this particular page as an information capture device. Might be added to by others, might be added to only by me. Consider it "working notes" for a problem both Dan and I am interested in, and are collaborating on. Eventually, I expect I will find others interested in working this same problem, and adding to the information store. At some point the problem (hoepfully) will resolve itself, the information will be inserted into the appropriate articles, and the notebooks directed to Speedy Delete. Or perhaps not. We'll see what works when the time comes. Q 21:56, 16 February 2009 (EST).
As an overall explanation, consider what I'm doing here as "experimental". I'm seeing how the system, or a system like this, can be made to work. HOw it can be made to advance what people do in genealogy. How it can be used to get people to do better genealogy.

Hope you're willing to share your strategies. Thanks.

-- jillaine 21:31, 16 February 2009 (EST)


Thanks. Interesting. I'll keep watching, and certainly will pick up some tips. jillaine 22:02, 16 February 2009 (EST)

In the multitude of counsel [22 February 2009]

In the multitude of counsel there is wisdom.

Nice. What's the source for this? I'd like to use it elsewhere in my life. Thanks!

-- jillaine 17:27, 21 February 2009 (EST)

I believe this comes from Proverbs 11:24 "in the multitude of counsellors there is safety". I've not been able to locate an original source of this particular variant. The specific instance came from user:Dlbradley1, but I've found it in used without attribution in several places, or pointing to Proverbs. I found it very apt for WeRelate, and added it as a header (so-to-speak, on my user page, but also added it to a list of "Good Quotes" at User:Quolla6/Good Quotes. Q 19:08, 21 February 2009 (EST)

It is taken from:

  • Proverbs 11:14 Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
  • Proverbs 15:22 Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they are established.

Word of King Solomon I miss quoted it by saying wisdom instead of safety--Dlbradley1 22:09, 21 February 2009 (EST)

Actually, I like your version best. More focused, and a more memorable turn of phrase. Q 08:31, 22 February 2009 (EST)

David Edmiston info [6 March 2009]

Hi Q, the page looks good:) Wish I was as artistic as you are! I'll have to check the DOD for David, in my earlier years I wasn't quite as careful in adding the source information to dates as I am now.... I'm thinking about entering the TURK family from my database in the next few days (I don't see them on this site), so maybe you can check it out after I enter them.

Are there any other families that you have a particular interest in besides the Edmondsons/Edmistons? in Virginia. I have lots and lots of data compiled on many prominent Southern Families (especially the Augusta County, VA bunch), so perhaps we can compare notes. I also still have other Edmondson/Edmiston families to enter and compare with the information on this site. Have you entered most of the prominent ones already?

Best regards,

Jim--Delijim 11:45, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Hi Jim

Very Good! I appreciate the compliment, though I'm not sure how much "art" there is on that particular page. I'd be happy to take a look at anything you add, Turk or otherwise. I've assumed that David's nickname name "Turk" was a By-name attached to him by genealogists. Presumably it denotes a connection to the "Turk" family, but I've had no real reason to explore that so far.

Yes, there are quite a few families that I'm interested in, but the only ones I'm really concentrating on are those that touch Southwest Virginia---particularly during the early settlement period, through the end of Indian hostilities. Go to Explorers, Settlers, and Militia of Southwest Virginia and you'll see links to various groupings of persons that I'm interested in. The main link is the one labeled "Register", which gives you a listing of early settlers in the area, as they appear in various lists. The idea is that eventually, there will be an article for each of them, similar in scope and scale to the David Edmiston piece. You'll see a number of Edmondsons (and variants) on that list, though the links have not been made "live" just yet. But if you see anyone on that list that's of interest to you, let's talk, and see what we can do with it. Q 12:15, 3 March 2009 (EST)


Sounds good, I'll check it out after you are done. I'll change the "Mary Anderson" to "Mary Unknown". I've also added Charles Kilgore's "unknown father" and probably siblings (based upon what was in my files), so if you'd review it I'd appreciate it. I haven't worked this line for several years, so you might have updated information that I am not aware of.

Best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 17:12, 6 March 2009 (EST)

David Rumsey Collection [4 March 2009]

I came across the Repository:David Rumsey Collection page that you created. I see there is a Source:David Rumsey Historical Map Collection as well. I believe that this is more a repository than a source, so I wanted to combine the two. I think the source would be the actual map, and the repository would be where the map was found (David Rumsey). I was also thinking of renaming the repository page to David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, since that is the title of the website. Thoughts?--Jennifer (JBS66) 10:36, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Umm, while I did create the Repository page, I don't think I had anything to do with Source:David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, other than making a link to it on my user's page. Certainly I'm not listed as an editor in the pages history, and that history lists the Werelate Agent as the creator of that page. I agree that its a repository. There are only a couple of links to either one, but since they are in different name spaces, you won't be able to simply rename the one to the other, or do a redirect---you can't redirect between different name spaces. I notice there's a slight bit of additional information in the side bar for Source:David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, which probably should be transferred to the repository page. Then mark the Source:David Rumsey Historical Map Collection page for speedy delete. I'll fix my own link on my user's page. If you change the title of the Repository:David Rumsey Collection please do that as a redirect, so that the current title can still be used. I believe people who discuss this site (elsewhere than WeRelate) commonly refer to it as the David Rumsey Collection as the shorthand version of the name---analogous to the Draper Manuscript Collection. Q 11:00, 4 March 2009 (EST)
Well, shut my mouth. Apparently you CAN direct across namespace. I've tried that before in other instances and it wouldn't work. Apparently "repository" and "Source" is handled differently. Q


Darn - we were trying to save the page at the same time - editing conflict - gotta love it! No, you didn't create the Source page, but since you did create the Repository page, I wanted to check with you first before I proceeded. I did change the titles via redirects, so your preferred title will work. One small note, you can redirect from a source to a repository (true, that doesn't work for other namespaces). I believe that was put into place for the Source Review project. BTW, I wanted to clean this up because I was looking for repositories to feature on the new Portal:Repository page, and I wanted to feature this one. Thank you for your assistance. --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:25, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Since you want to feature this page, I've made some changes to improve appearance. Image selected was what came first to hand. There are probably better choices. Be sure to click the "Click for Presentation" link in the thumbnail. Q 12:11, 4 March 2009 (EST)


Very nice job - thank you for your additions. The repository is now featured on our new Repository Portal page.--Jennifer (JBS66) 12:23, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Walker line [5 March 2009]

Q, if you don't mind, I'd like to put the Walker family thru John Walker IV in on the links you have established for them on the SWV listings. I have the family pretty-well documented down to that point. If that's OK, please let me know. I've preliminarily tied the pages together through John I, II, III and IV, and will add my file information pending your approval in the next few days.

Best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 17:29, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Ah, so you're a Wigton Walker? Or maybe your just lending a helping hand? In anycase, I'm always glad to receive help. Be careful about who you have as John IV. Lots of people think that John IV is John Walker of Greene County TN aka Meadow Creek John Walker. YDNA has pretty much disproven that connection. The most likely candidate for John IV is the man known locally as "Indian Killer", who lived in Blount County. There's some decent documentation for that conclusion, but its not proven. MCJW, however, is now well documented from many different lines of YDNA. Q 18:43, 4 March 2009 (EST)


Crap! JohnIV (John Walker and Mary Anderson) is my ancestor......! I descend through Daniel Walker and Martha Kilgore to John.... Based on your information, I think the sound I'm hearing is a "branch that just fell off my tree".... :( I'd like to compare notes with you, once I get to my computer at home in the next day or two. Do you have anything past John "Meadow Creek John" for his parents?

Jim--Delijim 18:50, 4 March 2009 (EST)

What I think you just heard the sound of brand new roots taking hold! There's a whole 'nother line out their waiting to be discovered and attached. MCJW's roots don't go back as far as John IV (no nice Rutherford connection, for instance) but then there's an awful lot of stuff in the John IV line that is highly suspect---including the bit about being related to Rev. Samuel Rutherford). We do know MCJW is closely related to the Joseph Walker who witnessed his will. In fact that was one of the first cues that all was not right with the identification of him as John IV. No one could find a suitable Joseph Walker in the White Descendancy to match up with a Joseph closely related to John IV.

There's also an Isaiah Walker who appears in Washington County after the end of the Revolution, and soon moves down to Blount County---along with the person we think is his father---Joseph Walker who witnessed the will. Both match YDNA for MCJW. In anycase, you may want to join the WalkerShortList, a private mailing list concerned with the Walkers in NW NC, SW VA, and NE TN. There's perhaps a half dozen + separate lines being looked at by members of that list. One way or another, you'll find lots of cousins. Q 19:07, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Always good to know how the connection is made. Since you descend through Martha, daughter of Charles Kilgore, that makes us cousin's anyway---I descend through Charles brother, Robert Kilgore who was killed by Indians at the mouth of the Pound. Robert's son, the Rev. Robin Robert Kilgore married Jane Porter Green, daughter of Patrick Porter. Patrick married Susannah Walker, daughter of John III of the Wigton line. its that coincidence of Charles Kilgore living in close proximity with MCJW that fooled us for many years into thing MCJW was MCJW. But alas, it appears to be just coincidence.

I'm not actually the most knowledgable person concerning MCJW. There are a number of folks on the ShortList who've looked at his history in detail. However, I don't believe any of them have been able to find a connection for MCJW other than for the person we presume is a brother, Joseph. We're sort of hoping that eventually YDNA results will tumble some other earlier line to his, and we'll make the connection that way. We know Isaiah was in Washington County for a while, but beyond that I don't think we have much. Q 19:28, 4 March 2009 (EST)


Q, I've added a page for "Meadow Creek" John Walker citing the site that you referenced:

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:John_Walker_%28193%29

I'll be adding additional information from my files later in the week (can't access by genealogy files from work), and also I'll add my Charles Kilgore information, since I don't see that family either. Thanks for the information on the two different John Walker's....  :) I've also made a couple of revisions to "Indian Killer" John Walker's page (also referencing the , and added a warning on BOTH John Walker pages advising of the confusion between the two, which will hopefully prevent other researchers from making revisions without knowing about the discrepancy.

Best regards,

Jim--Delijim 14:18, 5 March 2009 (EST)

Excellent. I'll be adding some of the narrative, as well as the personal data table in the narrative section. That's somewhat duplicative of the information that goes into the text boxes, but I like to do it this way because usually my explanation for what the personal data is based on requires more space than the text boxes---If I used the text boxes for this, the side bar would get pretty much blown out. Q 15:41, 5 March 2009 (EST)

Hi Jim

Actually, what's needed is a detailed presentation of what is known about MCJW, how we know it, and what we don't know. An analysis of the YDNA results is also needed. That kind of detail wasn't attempted in the Genealogy article, (put off to another day, as it were). Its a complicated enough problem; not only is MCJW confused with John IV of the Wigton line, but also with his alter ego (I think) "Indian Killer". I should probably lay out the whole nine yards on all three. Its only by understanding what the conclusions are based on that someone can accept or reject a particular interpretation. As an example, we know MCJW's wife was "Mary", because we have her will, and her will and his will cross correlate with the children. What we don't know is that her maiden name was "Anderson". People say that probably because they named a child "Anderson", but he might or might not be named such after her side of the family. There's no evidence that "Mary" was an Anderson. But its only when you look for the evidence for conclusions, and fail to find it, that you realize there's no good basis for identifying her as an "Anderson".

While this is a bit out of place in the SW VA project, MCJW's various confusions are things that need to be addressed. I'll work to add the additional information I have as time allows. Q 15:07, 5 March 2009 (EST)

Elizabeth and Thomas Kilgore [7 March 2009]

Q, can you look at the Elizabeth Kilgore, below. I think she MAY be a sister of our Charles Kilgore, but there is much conflicting information. Do you have any info on her? It appears that the Yates and Kilgore families may have intermarried twice.

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:John_Yates_and_Elizabeth_Kilgore_%281%29

Thanks,

Jim--Delijim 10:56, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Benjamin Borden family [8 March 2009]

If you see any discrepancies on info. just let me know. I'm slowly in the process of adding the key Augusta County, VA families, many of which married into my Augusta County families. Funny how many pages with incorrect info. I've already merged into mine, unfortunately a sign of the times with all of the flawed info on familysearch, rootsweb and ancestry.

Enjoy your Sunday,

Jim:)----Delijim 16:07, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

Page for Germanna Colony [11 March 2009]

Hi Q, could you check this page out that I created today for the Germanna Colony? I'm not quite sure where to place it, so maybe you can advise. I tried to create a "place page" for Germanna, but for some reason it wouldn't let me.

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Template:Germanna_Colony%2C_Culpeper%2C_Faquier%2C_Madison_and_Rappahannock_Counties%2C_Virginia

I'm in the process of beginning to link the Germanna families on WeRelate to that page, to help future researchers.

Thanks and best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 18:56, 11 March 2009 (EDT)

Germanna Page [12 March 2009]

Q said "Recommend either placing this in Portal namespace, or just in article namespace."

Either is fine with me, since this is the first page I've "created", I'm not familiar with all of the nuances of the different type of pages. If you would be so kind to copy the information over to the other page (Portal or Article) and let me know where it is, that would be fine.

Thanks and best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 15:57, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

Go to Germanna Colony Q 16:29, 12 March 2009 (EDT)


Thanks Q, looks great! I appreciate the assistance:)

Check out another page I've started working on today:)

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Early_Settlers_of_Augusta_County%2C_Virginia

I plan to link the families listed to their WeRelate links in the next several weeks, I'm sure some of the families are familiar. I still have to get the early landowners and add them.--Delijim 19:53, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

You're welcome. Glad to help. Yes, I noticed you were working on Settlers of Augusta County. I have a smaller size chunk of that in the form of Borden's Grant Settlers. That's currently a stub, but I'm in the process of converting the entries on the Hildebrandt map to a list of settlers. There are lots of settlers. Hildebrandt's map only gives those that obtained land from Borden Sr ---which is to say between 1739 and 1743. A similar list could probably be developed for Beverly's Grant. Those two areas probably cover less than a 40% of all of the early settlers.---say those predating Borden's death in 1743. Lots of work to get them all, and if you go later than 1743.... Q 20:02, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

Deed: John Edmondson of Cecil Co. [16 March 2009]

Here it is - The misspelled words are true to the original! I am hoping to get some time between quarters (on spring break) to look closer at what documents you have and if I can fill in some more that I have collected along the way. If I can get the time I WILL learn to use the digital archives but we will see how it goes.

Anne


Cecil Co. Maryland Deed Book 7 p. 8 This Indenture made this Sixth day of August One Thousand Seven hundred and forty Eight between John Edmondson & Issabella his Wife of the province of Maryland & County of Cecil of the one part & Michael Wallace of the same place of the other part.

WITNESSETH that the said John Edmondson for and in Consideration of the Sum of Seventy Eight pounds Currant money of Pennsylvania by him in hand Rec'd of & from the afs'd Michael Wallace the Receipt whereof he the said John doth hereby acknowledge and himself therewith fully Satisfied & paid hath givin Granted Bargained & Sold unto the afors'd Michael Wallace his heirs Exors. Admrs. and Assigns for ever To have and to hold part of Two tracts or parcels of Land situate in the said County of Cecil being part of a tract of Land called Lidias Jointure And also part of another Tract Called the good Will which Tract called the Good Will was Pattened to a Certain Martin Cartmell in the Year Seventeen and Sixteen as will appear by the Records of the Land Office of the Province of Maryland and the above said Lidias Jointure was confirmed unto the said Martin Cartmell by a Deed of Sale bearing Date the Twentieth day of May Seventeen hundred and Twenty Seven as will appear by the Records of the Land Office of Cecil County & the afs'd Martin Cartmell by his Deed of Sale bearing Date of the Sixteenth Day of November Seventeen 1738 as will appear by the Records of Cecile County in Lib. WK No. 2 fol. 398 & 399 did Convey unto John Edmondson all the Two Tracts as they are Butted & Bounded both together & laying on the North Side of the said John Edmondson's Plantation that he now lives on (Viz)

Beginning at the North West Corner of Lidia's Jointure at a Marked Black Oak & Bounded on the North with a line drawn East two hundred and forty six ps thence by a Line drawn South Sixty five ps untill it Intersects a Line Drawn West being the North side of John McCullach Plantation Thence West Two hundred and fifty six ps & bounded on ye West by part of the said Tract belonging to Joseph Thompson & by Line drawn North Sixty five perches to the first bounded Black Oak tree Clossing in one one hundred Acres of Land being Sixty Nine Acres of Land & thirty Six perches of that Tract called Lidias Jointure & Thirty Acres of one hundred and twenty four acres of that Tract called ye Good Will more or less & the said John Edmondson with Issabella his Wife doth hereby for themselves their heirs Executors & admrs. or Assigns doth bargain Covenant and agree to and with the said Michael Wallace his heirs Executors Admrs. and Assigs to have hold & possess ye abovesaid Hundred Acres together with all the appurtenances profitts and Emulloments (?) whatsover Therein... (unreadable) unidisturbed Indefeasable Estate of Inheritence in fee Simple forever free and Clear & freely and Clearly acquitted Exonerated and DIscharged of and from all former Rents or Arrears of Rents Gifts Grants Sales and Mortgages or Conveyances whatsoever had made suffered or done before the date of these presents the Quit Rents becoming due only excepted & the said John Edmondson with Issabella his (wife) their heirs Exrs. and Admrs. shall and will at all times when thereunto Required by the said Michael Wallace his heirs Exrs. Admrs. or Assigns his their Counsel Learned in the Law Sign Seal any further Actor Acts Deed or Deeds Conveyance or Conveyances for the more sure having holding of the above said Land & Premises in Witness of the Truth of what is above written according to the true intent and meaning thereof the abovesaid John Edmondson & Issabella his Wife have hereunto Sett Their hands & Affixed their Seals the Day and Year above written.

(signed)

John Edmondson Issabella (O) (her mark) Edmondson

Signed sealed and delivered in Presence of A. Barry, James (his mark) Baxter of Cecil County. Then Came John Edmondson and Issabella his Wife the within Grantors before us the Subscribers two of his Lordships Justices of the Peace in & for said County & acknowledge the within Deed to be their Act and Deed & the Land & Premises Therein & there by Granted To be the Real Estate of Michael Wallace and his Heirs & assigns forever & the afs'd Isabella being Examined as the Law Directs acknowledge She did the same freely and willingly without any fear Threats or Ill usage of her said Husband

As Witness our hands the Sixth Day of Augst 1748. A. Barry James Baxter

Received 10th August 1748 the sum of four shillings Stirling the Alienation fine on the within one hundred acres of land. Recorded 10 Aug 1748 - Francis Lee [Clerk].--MizLiv 16:23, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

I've added this item to the digital Library. You can see it at This location. I use an HTML format for most things I place in the digital library, but other formats can be used as well (pdf, Word, txt, images, etc.) I use HTML layout because a) its universally accessible (not everyone has Word), and b) I can format it so that the key information (such as original and intermediate sources) can be highlighted more readily.

This is a very useful item to have available. Since its dated to 1748 we KNOW this person is not one of the Edmiston's who show up in Augusta County c 1740. I suspect this is also related to the early deed to William and John Edmonstone, that's already in the Notebook:Edmondson Family of Cecil County Maryland. Now, do we have TWO separate Edmondson families in this area, or is it one with several lines doing different things?.. Q 18:42, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

John & Isabella Edmondson [17 March 2009]

Thank you for giving it a home! I think I may have some more interesting bits and pieces so I appreciate your finding a place to put them till I can figure out how it is done.

I think the use of Isabella is interesting too. The Logans that I work on marry with at Robinson family out of Washington Co. VA that is tight with the Edmondsons and they all use Isabella. You are right - it is not that common a name and I think it has to be a bit of a bread crumb for these families with their long term ties and their little girls they keep naming Isabella.

I will try to figure out what else I have from Cecil Co. MD. The possibility of that migration really interests me. Anne--MizLiv 22:53, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Hildebrand Map dates [17 March 2009]

Hi Jim

Just a bit of info, FYI: The dates on the Hildebrand map are the dates title was transferred to the landowner. ALL of the parcels shown on Hildebrand were acquired by them prior to Borden's death in 1743. Q 21:30, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

(Retrieved from "http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Talk:Early_Settlers_of_Augusta_County%2C_Virginia")


Q, would I be better off (more accurate) by changing the heading from "Landowners" to "Titleholders" to correspond with the title transfer date? let me know, thanks:)

Jim--Delijim 14:16, 17 March 2009 (EDT)

Doubt that it makes much difference. They hold the title, they own the land. The point is that the only thing the dates tell you on Hildebrand's map is when the paperwork was finalized.---in some cases that's as much as 30 years after they cut a deal with Borden Sr. Borden Sr. was not so good at paperwork, and his death in 1743, coupled with the death of his heir and administrator son in 1753, pretty much destroyed any traces of the corporate memory. So something didn't happen very fast. If its important to you when the title transfer was made official, than that's a useful date. Q 17:51, 17 March 2009 (EDT)

John Edmiston and Mary Buchanan [19 March 2009]

Hi Q, could you check out the two pages below:

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:John_Edmiston_and_Mary_Buchanan_%282%29

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:John_Edmiston_and_Mary_Buchanan_%281%29

I don't believe the first page has correct information. The Andrew Edmiston listed does seem to agree with my files of John Edmiston and Mary Buchanan. I'm inclined to correct it, but not sure where to place the children on the first page.....

Your thoughts?

Jim:)--Delijim 11:58, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

Hi Jim
I haven't focused on John Edmondson just yet. I've fiddled with his person page, but haven't really done the ground work on him. Confusions ("I don't believe the first page has correct information") are a fact of life in genealogy. In case you hadn't noticed it, everybody thinks THEIR answer is right, and the other guy's answer is wrong----and I do mean EVERYBODY, myself included. Almost always, the first gut reaction is "I'm right, you're wrong, end of story". When someone tells you that you haven't gotten something right, it takes a great deal of objectivity to evaluate that statement at face value, checking to see what the other guy's basing their position on, etc. Its "What you say doesn't agree with what I believe, so you're obviously wrong" That usually ends up in an impass, with neither party accepting the other's point of view. What I find to be the best way around that is for both parties to explain what their thinking is based on. Then it becomes a matter of whose data best supports their position....and by data I mean original source information. Not someone's GedCom, and not someone's family history writeup---but the data that ultimately underlies those things. If you've got a period record that says the name of John's wife was "Ephiphania", that's pretty strong evidence that her name was "Epiphania". If someone comes in and says her name was "Margaret" then its a matter of asking them what they base it on. Perhaps they just have "Her name was Margaret, I'm right you're wrong", in which case you can't really change their mind, but at least you have an objective reason for saying "Epiphania", and they don't. In that case, the weight of the evidence goes to you, for those that care about such things. More interestingly, if they actually DO have a document to show her name was "Margaret" then there's a need to compare sources, and figure out why there are two original sources that conflict. (Could be lots of reasons, but usually its a matter of a confusion over who the record represents---ie, there were two separate John's, one with a wife named "Ephiphania", and one with a wife named "Margaret".) Then you have some hope of resolving the conflict.
In this particular case I'd like to suggest letting this ride until I've had a chance to work more on John. When I finish the Edmondson's, which is proably a week or more away, I'll probably turn to the the Buchanan's which may shed some light on the point of your interest. I should point out that there is some reason to believe that in many cases among the Edmondson's of SW VA there's reason to believe that wives names have been interchanged---people find a record that says John's wife was Margaret, and ignore (never notice) the record that says John's name was Mary. In this case, its simply a matter of there being two John Edmondsons, one with wife Margaret, one with wife Mary. Sometimes you end up with two separate lineages for the same person, based on which record is used to identify the wife. Sometimes people notice the discrepancy, and splice the names together to get "Mary Margaret"---a person who never existed.

at anyrate, my advise on this is "sit tight for the moment, I'll probably have more to say on this shortly." Q 12:59, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

E-mail list [19 March 2009]

Hi Q, my e-mail address is: Delijim@aol.com (it's also listed on my profile page).

Best regards,

Jim--Delijim 19:56, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

New Pages for Early Augusta County, VA settlers [25 March 2009]

Bill, I've decided to revise the format of my "Early Augusta County, VA Settlers" endeavor. Due to the many errors on the Hildebrand Map (wrong dates, acreage versus Chalkley's) and other lists put together by others, I've decided to re-format this into alphabetical order, but since the number of entries is so volumunous (too many on one page), I have to break it down into separate pages (see below), that I'll move them into in the next couple of weeks. Since I don't know how to create templates, I've "borrowed" yours (hope you don't mind). Let me know if you think this approach might work better and easier to manage. This is turning out to be quite a project.....

Jim:)

[[2]]

[[3]]

[[4]]

[[5]]

[[6]]--Delijim 19:45, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

JIm

You're entirely welcome to use any of the templates I've created. However, creating a template is not at all difficult. All you need to do is create a page in the "template" namespace. Then whatever you put on that page can be brought up and displayed by using the double curly braces around the article name.

I'm not sure why you think Hildebrand's data is inaccurate. Can you point to a specific instance?

And yes, that's going to be quite a project. The only thing that makes the SWVP at all do-able is that the focus has been kept deliberately tight. Very narrow timeframe being worked, and I primarily focus even there on people who appear on specific lists of folks (like the Ebbing springs Call of 1773---even so, I've probably got close to 1000 people and their families to do. Even if you keep the timeframe narrow for Old Augusta, the number of folks flooding in there was huge. You might want to consider focusing on just Beverly's Manor, or perhaps Borden's Grant. That will eliminate at least two thirds of the folks to deal with---at least initially. But do-ability will probably improve if you narrow the focus. Q 19:52, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

Matthew Edmiston [29 March 2009]

Hi Bill, I checked your Edmiston page and didn't see one of the Augusta County Edmiston's listed there. I've added Matthew Edmiston, maybe you could review it and see if it matches your information. I have him listed as a possible son of James Edmiston and Jane Thompson, but I'm not totally confident of that source.

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:Matthew_Edmiston_and_Margaret_Patterson_%281%29

I have an old Edmondson Family Assoc. post in my notes on Matthew:

From: Joan Wheeler La Grone <met2000@frii.com> Subject: [EDM] Matthew Edmiston Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 09:01:56 -0700


Hello! I'm delighted to be a scbscriber to the Edmondson group. I am a descendant of Matthew Edmiston of Augusta Co., VA and interested in find more infromation on his descendants and his father James Edmiston/Edmonstone and wife Jane Thompson from Ireland. My grandmother was Lydia Jordon Edmiston who married Roy Minter. Her father was Abraham (Abram) Edmiston from Pocahantus, Co. WV. He was the son of George who was the son of Andrew, the son of James, the son of Matthew. I would appreciate hearing from anyone with information. I will be very happy to share information. Descendants: Matthew was born 1715 in Ireland, his father was James and mother was Jane Thompson from Ireland (came over in 1720)his wife was Margaret Patterson, married in 1745 his son - James, wife Jane Smith from Ireland (in Revolution) his son - Andrew, wife Mary (Polly) Gilliland His son - George, wife Nancy Jordon Collison (father John Jordon) his sons- Abraham married Jennie Teaford. (Also brother Andrew married Julia Teaford, both from Lexinton VA.) Both in Civil War. Abraham's daughter and youngest child was Lydia Jordon Edmiston (middle name after John Jordon, her grandfather) married Roy Minter Her daughter, Ruth Minter, my mother (married Harry Wheeler)

I look forward to hearing from you. Joan Wheeler La Grone



Regards,

Jim

Also, let me know what you think about the Augusta County Settlers pages, it's coming along.....--Delijim 09:17, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

I suppose the cheap way to answer your question about Mathew is "He's not a person of interest". That is, he doesn't tie into any confusion that I know of related to the Edmiston's of SW VA, so he doesn't come up very much. Perhaps the more honest thing to say is "I don't really know what to do with him", as I don't see him tying in anywhere. He's include in some of the notebooks as where he's mentioned in data record extracts, but I've not seen anything substantive to do with him. If I were doing an "Old Augusta Project" I'd probably want to do more, but right now I've not much motivation to explore him.

Also, on the your Early Settlers Project, Yes, that's coming along nicely. I appreciate getting the link to the listing of Beverly's Manor settlers. The early settlement in Old Augusta occurred in the northern end, above what became Beverly's Manor. Beverly's Manor and Borden's grants are pretty much set pieces, but that northern third does not seem to be described very well in anything that I've had occassion to look at---a discussion of that area would be most welcome. Creating an overall map of the area, showing the location of the various settlement areas, as well as the future county boundaries would be in order as well, though the mechanics of doing that might be something of a challenge. An article on early exploration of the entire area would also be useful. Q 09:29, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

my tree David Jackson and Jane Carlock [26 April 2009]

Thanks for working on my Virginia Jackson page. But what was I thinking? I saw the d/o/d and birth date I posted for her and realized I've got some folks in that tree that may be living! After all your work, I see that Virginia and her two brothers should be deleted. So I went back to my data base and see that I put 'unknown' date of death that I shouldn't have. So I've made a list of several persons and will see if I can mark them for speedy delete.

I rather suspected that. Couldn't tell for sure, but thought it likely they were living. Not particular a big concern for me one way or the other. However, that wasn't a lot of hard work. Just a fairly simple documentation of the information. You already had the documentation there, so it was easy to insert into the right spot in the Werelate text box system. Personally, that's not the approach I take in my own work, as my documentation tends to be more than can be worked comfortably with those text boxes. Still, it was an interesting test experience, and I learned something from it. Q 17:46, 26 April 2009 (EDT)

But I see another problem in that I use a different cutoff date than WeRelate. I use 100 year, that is if a person is born 1908 or earlier, I assume they are deceased. I think I remember WeRelate uses a different cutoff date, but right now, I can't find that info on the site. If you'll confirm to me what the date is, I'll go put it in the Help section where I tried to find it (because that seemed to me to be the logical place for it)!

I've no idea what the cutoff date is. There's been some discussion of it on the water cooler. Realize that this is almost never an issue for me, since the people I work with are pretty much guaranteed dead....or very extraordinary! Q 17:46, 26 April 2009 (EDT)

That tree was one of the first I uploaded just for the experience. I see that it probably needs some more review! Thanks for bringing it my attention and any clean up you do is very welcome! --Janiejac 14:26, 26 April 2009 (EDT)

There's an implication of the merging process that seems to have escaped people. I know Dallan recognizes this, though he doesn't push this idea. But if the idea is that we are creating one-big-tree then we should expect EVERYONE to be working on these cards. There's really no choice for that since theoretically there's only one card per person. So what happens when there's a conflict in view---say "I say Jane Doe is John Smith's mother" and someone else says his mother's Sally Brown? The answer to that lies in the documentation that can be brought to bear. Usually, when you have conflicts like this there's a basis for both views somewhere. The solution to that is to find the evidence that supports the two competing views. That means people can't just say "this is the answer" they have to say "this is the answer because of these facts". Then the facts associated with the two views can be examined. Chances are, one set of "facts" is a misinterpretaton. Sometimes there's a plausible explanation and both sets are correct, just from different perspectives. In the case of Jane Doe and Sally Brown, perhaps John Smith's father had two wives. John is the son of one of those wives, but we may not know which one, because we don't have a DOM for either. Usually confusions arise from conflicts like this. Conflicts are usually resolved when we look at the underlying data. That's why sourcing is important.
Second thoughts and questions: Would an alternative to deleting these folks born in the 1920s without a d/o/d be to redirect them to Living Jackson and then remove the 'unknown' date of death. Or should I just grit my teeth and delete them? I see you've removed the census transcription on Virginia's page and left the census as a source. Is that because the census listed folks that might be living? Should I remove all 1910 census transcriptions if they may contain names of living persons? That would be a major job! --Janiejac 15:12, 26 April 2009 (EDT)
I moved it to a mysource, because that allowed me to cite the data convenient in the text boxes. You need to point to something, and it needs to be something very specific, and a MySource works well for discrete items like this. Can't just point to the census, as you really need to be more specific than that---in this case, the mysource was the household data from the 1930 census. The data can't be placed into a "Source" because that's reserved for identifying documents, not the underlying information. MySource becomes something of a catchall. Another way to do it would be to place it in the digital library, but that seems a bit extreme for a household census record.
As for deleting or not deleting, including the 1910 census data---I'm sympathetic to the idea about not including living persons. And I wouldn't/don't do that myself (in the few instances where the people I'm looking at COULD be living.) Even if the card contains only the information about who the parents were, that could be problematic for security reasons. Keep in mind, though, that there's not much you can put out there about a living person that a clever person can't get to anyway. The 1910 census data, for example, is readily available.
I guess if I were pushed to answer, I'd say leave the card, but change the identity to "Living Person" or some such. I suspect that Dallan will eventually have to make a policy decision on this. You might specifically ask him (I'd probably do it by email rather than water cooler). Ask him what the policy is or what he thinks it should be. This is such a huge job he's cut out for himself. I don't think he's even scratched the surface of the difficult problems that have to be resolved. But he's working on it. Q 17:46, 26 April 2009 (EDT)
You need a death date for people on WeRelate if they were born 110 years ago or less.--Beth 22:19, 26 April 2009 (EDT)
Yes, I found out that I couldn't redirect to 'Living Jackson'. Big red letters wouldn't let me save it since the birthdate was within that 110 year range. So I deleted Virginia and put a speedy delete thingy on all the ones I knew about. Apparently that notice was not active when I first uploaded this tree. --Janiejac 22:54, 26 April 2009 (EDT)

Hi Janie, okay, but don't stress over it. --Beth 00:33, 27 April 2009 (EDT)

Deleting pages [27 April 2009]

Hi, Did you know you can delete any page for which you are the only contributor? The delete function is under the more menu. If the page has more than one contributor, you still need to put it in the Speedy delete category.  :)--sq 09:30, 27 April 2009 (EDT)

Opps, my mistake. This only works for person and family pages where you are the only one watching in the page. :)--sq 10:32, 27 April 2009 (EDT)
I did, but I'd forgotten about that. I'll keep it in mind as many of the pages I'll mark for delete are only being watched by me. Thanks! Q 11:42, 27 April 2009 (EDT)

Re: Andrew Buchanan [29 April 2009]

You wrote: Elizabeth Duncan [29 April 2009] Jim, re person:Andrew Buchanan (21), Court Records show that Andrews wife at the time of his death was Joanna. also spelled Johanna. Most genealogists identify her as Johannah Hays/Hayes. cf. person:Andrew Buchanan (20). What is the supporting evidence for Andrew's wife being Elizabeth Duncan. Q 16:00, 29 April 2009 (EDT)

Retrieved from "http://www.werelate.org/wiki/User_talk:Delijim"

Hi Bill, I do not have a wife listed for Andrew Buchanan (21). Elizabeth Duncan was his MOTHER, according to what I looked at. Let me know if you see something else.

Thanks and best regards,

Jim

Also, thanks again for the assistance on the Augusta County Settlers project. I'm still "plugging away" on getting it going. I keep finding more information that I can keep up with.... :)--Delijim 16:33, 29 April 2009 (EDT)

Email [4 May 2009]

Thanks Bill, I will return on Thursday. The list is not active presently, but never can tell what will happen when you leave one unattended. Wonder why the email bounced. Try and send me another one. --Beth 20:01, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

Actually, I sent two. Both bounced. Q 20:07, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

Now or yesterday. --Beth 20:15, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

I sent one that was unrelated, oneday, and the other related to the list, the next. Q 20:16, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

Bill, I just sent you another email. Try and respond, if it bounces would you forward the bounce message to apidts001@yahoo.com subject-Ticket #196267. Thanks, Beth.

Message [13 May 2009]

Bill, I just responded on my page to keep the flow. Where one responds on talk page messages is still a confusing issue; with new users I usually go back and forth. --Beth 20:36, 13 May 2009 (EDT)

Sources [15 May 2009]

Thanks for pointing out my deficiencies in sourcing and helping me know what it is I have to do. Unfortunately, for James Latta Rowan, I have nothing other than LDS information and Boltwood. I have later census, and possibly some land records. I'll try to add everything i have and then would appreciate it if you would look at it and tell me if I succeeded. Also, I got Boltwood from Heritage Quest. Just downloaded it bit by bit. Thanks again. Ellen Rowan Taylor--Ellen 21:29, 14 May 2009 (EDT)

Hi Ellen. I don't think of things like that as "deficiencies"---yes, there's always things that can be done to improve an article, but in fact, I was complementing you on the article, acknowledging a well written article. If it was otherwise, it wouldn't have been singled out as a "featured article". I'll check to see if I've access to anything that would help you out in the way of primary sources. Simple items that would confirm what you've learned from Boltwood---for example DOB's and POB's which you can often get from the census data, would also benefit the article. Q 11:53, 15 May 2009 (EDT)

I was not insulted at all. I have a real problem with sourcing, and have been looking at my database, and the front page article today. I realize that I have lots and lots of information that I have not documented in the database. Fortunately, it is all either on my computer or in my file cabinet. I guess you can never have too much!

I'll try to add some to James, and write more about some of my other people, as well as add sources. Thanks. I really appreciate your comments. They are very helpful, but they don't keep me from being really lazy.....:-)

As long as we are making suggestions: I have a hard time with wiki-I am a Mac user, which might be part of the problem, but i have no intention of ever using anything else, thank you very much. I think we need a page to understand what some of the terms used by the more literate people. For instance, what are "skins"?

Ellen--Ellen 12:12, 15 May 2009 (EDT)

Ellen, here is a definition for skin on the internet: A skin is an element of a graphical user interface that can be changed to alter the look of the interface without affecting its functionality. Skins can give an interface an entirely different look than what it originally came with. I am sure Dallan will add the capability when he has time. Basically it would allow a user to select a different background for their pages, similar to your selection of wallpaper for your desktop.--Beth 07:54, 17 May 2009 (EDT)


As for narrative, I found that pretty easy. It was my lazy sourcing that threw me off. Ellen Rowan Taylor--Ellen 21:03, 16 May 2009 (EDT)

Leonard Coker page [18 May 2009]

Hi Bill, Thank you for acknowledging my page; it is a mess but it is sourced. As I have agreed to work on merging the duplicate pages and am only on the letter B, it may be 2 years before I ever return to improve my pages. I have been mulling over page design. Leonard Coker definitely needs a proof article as there is no direct evidence proving that Leonard Coker was a son of Robert Coker. I would like to write a narrative lineage but not certain about how on WeRelate. I assume one would use the NGSQ system for the oldest known ancestor and create hyperlinks with the descendants' narratives on their person page. Also I think we need a method to link to the images from the person/family page and place the source images on another page. Pictures etc. could be incorporated within the narrative. Also skins are supposed to be available but they are not available yet that I can find. --Beth 20:53, 16 May 2009 (EDT)

Hi Beth. Your Welcome. I was just taking a different approach to the problem we'd been discussing. Trying some things out. As you may have noticed, I'm always experimenting to see what works, and what doesn't. In the case of the "acknowledgements", I thought that perhaps one way to go would be to highlight the featured articles since they are likely to be better done than most. Then you have something you can point to to say "this is the way to do it". It also gives the opportunity to point out how even somthing well done could be better done.

As for adding narrative---I believe I saw where you were interested in improving your writing skills. Haven't noticed any deficiencies there, but its always good to try to get better. I've always found that the best way to get improvement in something (writing or anything else for that matter) is to actually do it. So I would think that if you wanted to try and improve your writing, writing a Narrative for the leonard Coker article, would be of great benefit. Usually a linear article works best when talking about an individual. "He was born very young, grew up, married and died very old, leaving many children" usually works best---filled out, of course, with the details of his life. You usually want to put in some of the family history, but only very sketchy---as you can get bogged down with the minutiae of ancestoral detail, and obscure the story you are trying to tell. As of late I've been writing companion articles about the family as a whole in a given area. That way I can put a lot of the information about the family history in a separate article where the interested reader can see it, if that's what they are interested in. Q 13:05, 18 May 2009 (EDT)

First draft of article on Mary Fitch and William Bradford [20 May 2009]

Hi Bill,

How about editing my article on above family in the sandbox. I can't get my italics to go where they should in the will; and feel free to edit and/or express opinions. This is the first article; the second will address the widow Wiswall versus Griswold. Thanks. --Beth 21:59, 20 May 2009 (EDT)

Happy to. Probably not til tomorrow, but I'll check it out. Q 22:13, 20 May 2009 (EDT)

I did a quick look, and will pay this more attention tomorrow. The problem with the italics is being caused by embedded line breaks. You can't see these on WeRelate, but if you expand the width of the window, and the text does not realign, (and it didn't) its probably because of these line breaks. For all practical purposes they force the line to end where-ever they have been inserted. They were probably embedded in your original source. A side effect f these breaks is that they are effectively "end of paragraph" marks---which kills any formating like italics.

I got rid of these using a combination of text editor, and manual fiddling. (I use something for a Mac called "Text Wrangler" which is either free, or perhaps cheap shareware. Meets most of my needs for things like this).

I think you were also trying to bold some passages---you should now be able to go back in and insert three ' marks on either side of the passage, and it will work fine---in combination with the italics at the beginning of each paragraph, that will give you bold italics.

Note that each paragraph has to start off with the italics command, or it will show as plain text.

Q 22:41, 20 May 2009 (EDT)

Thanks so much Bill and I am not afraid of the red ink so feel free to express opinions. --Beth 22:51, 20 May 2009 (EDT)

Questionable banner [26 May 2009]

Hi Bill, How about adjusting the width to fix it so it doesn't push your ads off the page; it works fine on mine so I don't know what the adjustment needs to be. It took me a while to find how to adjust the width; but I finally found it. --Beth 20:20, 26 May 2009 (EDT)

Sure, I can take a whack at it. For future reference, as a rule of thumb, 1150px is going to be a problem for at least some people. I usually try to keep things down to under 800px, and even then things sometimes scrunch up, depending on the set up. Q 20:27, 26 May 2009 (EDT)
Thanks Bill and thanks for your support.--Beth 20:46, 26 May 2009 (EDT)

William King of Saltville [25 June 2009]

I see you are starting a page on William King of Saltville. Because of a persistent but ultimately incorrect family legend that an ancestor named William King was from Virginia, I have looked into him a little. You are not interested in William King of Stewart County, TN, but there is a section of the following posting that gives some info on the salt magnate in the process of differentiating my ancestor from him: genforum posting. If you happen to read it, and see anything that is wrong, could you let me know? The summary of the Supreme Court case involving William King of Virginia's will, that is linked to in this posting, is interesting, if you haven't seen it. --Jrich 16:40, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

One of the things that I try to do wherever possible is to sort out confusions of the type mentioned. Understanding why a commonly accepted connection is not valid helps to keep from making the same mistake twice. Since this is a resolved issue for you, putting something here explicitly would be a good thing. Q 14:08, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
I think this is a one-way error, in that somebody starting in Stewart Co., TN, searching for the origins of the William King that lived there, will find a deed mentioning William King of VA and so think the William King of Stewart Co. is related somehow to the William King of Abington, VA. I have put extensive notes of my research into his actual origins in North Carolina on William King of Stewart County, TN, so somebody visiting that page is no longer likely to think there is a connection to William King of Saltville, unless they simply refuse to give up on the old family legends despite several pieces of evidence to the contrary. I do not think that a person starting in Virginia is likely to do the opposite, and follow the link to Stewart County, TN, in the first place, but one of the reasons for putting the Supreme Court source there was to make it clear, based on his death in 1808 in Virginia with no children. --Jrich 14:44, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
What I find is that in an environment where few people explain the basis for anything, (online genealogy in general), errors of this sort take on a life of their own. Someone without the slightlest interest in William King of Stewart County, will have picked up on this error, and inserted data for WK of Stewart County into their family history of William King of Saltville. Its not logical, it wouldn't happen with "best practices" (or even "Good practices", but it happens all the same---regularly. Once a confusion has been sewn "contamination" is not just possible, but likely. So best seal it off at both ends! I'll at least insert a warning into WC of Saltville. The warning will probably need more explanation than I can give, but at least there'll be a flag there noting the confusion. Q 16:01, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
Jrich, Thanks for the tip and warning. Right now I'm just gathering information. Probably wouldn't have started the article at all, except I needed someplace to put the Sonoma Library information. That's a nicely done bit, and I assume the person working on that is kin to William King. One of the points of interest here was the connection to Connally Findlay, an early merchant in the area who flourished somewhat later than my Pre-Revolution target period. But I don't usually find that much concerning early merchants, so I'll probably do Connally Findlay---and William King is something of a come-along. Check Summers 1903:457-458 Thanks Q 16:50, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

Hi,

I wanted to request that you put the excerpts from the Supreme Court case back on the page, until such time as the genealogy described has been instantiated in sourced pages. The reasons are:

  1. The source is good. How can you argue when the highest court in the land judges on the genealogy of a person?
  2. The page is useful to any person that might happen to be looking for William King before that time you populate the rest of the page, which you have indicated is not a high priority, and the information was meant to describe the William King on the page better than an basically empty page.
Perhaps the answer for you here is that we need to expand the William King article now. Its not that its of low priority, its more that there's only so many things I can do at once, and I'm currently up to my eyeballs in Walkers and Porters.Q 14:05, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
  1. I suspect most people look at a source and unless the transcription is supplied, ignore it, so I think the value of the source is greatly diminished having the text on a separate page. As far as anyone could tell, it lists his birthday, and there is no clue of how much genealogical information there is. Most MySources do not have transcriptions and they would probably not expect to find anything by clicking on the MySource link.
I agree that MySource is more abused than anything. Defintely a split personality issue, that will remain with us until Dallan chooses to fix same. In the meantime, there's no place that you can place transcriptions, images, etc of specific documents (except perhaps the digital library, which I concluded was too cumbersome to use.)

However, until that fix is made, and there's a legitimate area for items like this, MySource is a good choice. While it has its own share of relatively worthless "MySources" where folks have basically cited themselves, the SWVP is making use of this to house transcriptions and the like. Here I'm taking a cue from Dallan, who is using it for similar things (e.g., images of bible records, etc.). While I'll restore the original note. (Its really too long and unwieldly for the space, particular when the article gets fleshed out), I'll keep the MySource link, as its what I need to document the information.Q 14:05, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

  1. William King is a very hard name to search for, and most people stumbling across this listing in a search would ignore it on the assumption that a William King mentioned in the Supreme Court is probably not the one they are looking for. After all, the Abingdon, VA is one of the chief ways of identifying him, and if you know he d. 1808, why would you necessarily think a case in 1830, decided in 1834, would be pertinent.
Quite true. I've come across this myself, and ignored it for just the reasons you state. So I was especially glad to see you a) find it, and b) point out its significance. Q 14:05, 25 June 2009 (EDT)
  1. The link you cited on the page you created does not go to the right volume of the book, nor name the right author who wrote the volume in question. I believe there was a link to the actual page in the original citation.
Yes, I noticed a disconnect when working the bibliogrpahic entry. However, I believe the link you originally gave ended up with this particular book (which did indeed contain the information. The problem is that the work is issued in many volumes and editions. Sometimes bibliographic entries taken from WorldCat, don't necessarily go to the right volume/edition. I'll check that to see where the confusion is coming from. Authorship of multi volume series, particular those spaning a long period of time, are also problematic. I believe there's a fundamental issue here in the style adopted by WeRelate, that makes citing such works awkward. Q 14:05, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

Thanks,--Jrich 13:02, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

Sure, if that's the way you prefer it. Hwwever, it pretty much blows out the narrative area; would seem to do no harm as a "MySource". I'll keep the Mysorce, because it will be useful for other articles. By the way, I'm glad you found this source. Its an interesting item, and probably has more utility than just for William King. Q 13:50, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

Under construction image [2 June 2009]

Hi Bill, Thanks for fixing the image; I removed the image from the Image section so now there are not 2 images on the page. I thought about adding the under construction as a template but too hard to figure out how and this works for me. I also added 2 new categories, but not sure if other users would be interested. Perhaps one could add newly added categories to the home page or one of the portals. Gone to Texas is worthy of a site on Wikipedia. [7] --Beth 19:59, 2 June 2009 (EDT)

Ancestry group [15 June 2009]

Hi Bill,in Memphis please accept the new member application on the Ancestry group if it is a reasonable request. Will return Wednesday evening. Thanks, --Beth 08:20, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

Merge William Edmondsons? [16 June 2009]

Hi Bill, since you're the resident Edmiston expert, I thought I'd check with you...

Are William Edmiston (6) ( http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:William_Edmiston_%286%29 ) and Willaim Edmiston (16) ( http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:William_Edmiston_%2816%29 ) the same person? In reading through some of the Edmiston information, it seems to indicate that the William Edmiston that married Elizabeth Stuart was a son of Col. William Edmiston ( http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:William_Edmiston_%285%29 ) If they are the same person, someone should probably merge them.... Let me know. Thanks:) Jim--Delijim 18:43, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

I'd probably call Don the resident expert. He's the one with the immediate family connection and personal knowledge base. There's not enough data on the William 16 page to do much with the question. I probably can't resolve it myself, so leave this as an issue that will be resolved in the future, when needed data is available. Ultimately, I think problems like this can not be resolved by looking at what other genealogists have in their personal listings---rather, its something that you have to use original sources to resolve. Until you have the right original sources, you can't make much progress. Q 08:29, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

Category intersection [24 June 2009]

There are a few MediaWiki extensions that provide the ability to generate information based on category overlap or lack thereof. Sadly, they all have similar names and it can be confusing as to which one is which. — MrDolomite • Talk 11:50, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

Maps for Beverley Patent and Borden Tract pages [26 June 2009]

Bill, I went down and had the Beverley Patent and Borden Tract maps scanned, for the pages you're working on:

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Image:BordenSmall.JPG

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Image:BeverleyFullMapsm1.GIF

I sized them to about what I felt would be useful, but feel free to adjust them if needed.

thanks and best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 18:02, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

This is terrific! We can use these very effecitvely as locator maps (the "gradicule" I once referred to. I'll work on this a bit and show you what I'm thinking. Somewhat flooded at the moment on Walkers and Porters. I'm getting a lot of good information at the moment on both lines, more than I can deal with quickly I'm afraid.

However, I did play with t he visual menu for Old Augusta---the part that would appear on each page as a standard navigation aid. As Old Augusta grows, getting around will become a chore. Learned that from SWVP, but its a major chore to retrofit that. With Old Augusta just getting started I can set the seen better for future development. 18:14, 24 June 2009 (EDT)


Sounds good, I'll also e-mail you the larger full-sized maps, in case you want to re-size them...


Thanks:)--Delijim 19:35, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

Duplicate? [25 June 2009]

Hi Bill, I think I found a duplicate family:

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:John_McSpadden_and_Esther_Thompson_%281%29

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:John_McShadden_and_Esther_Thompson_%281%29

I was looking at the article you are working on, and thought these could be the same family..... I'm sure "McShadden" was mis-spelled for McSpadden, what do you think?--Delijim 15:02, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

Southwest VA Project [26 June 2009]

Hi,

I have two questions. First,do you know how I can add a Methodist circuit rider to the page?

That's easy enough to do, depending on which page you want to add it to. But in general, its just like any other page in Werelate---you can open it and edit, inserting the Rev. Isaac Quinn where you think its most appropriate. However, I suspect that the page of interest is a listing of religious leaders in SW VA, and is probably done as an HTML table. If you aren't fluent in HTML, then inserting something may be a bit of a learning experience. Alternatively, if you have a page for the Rev Quinn, give me a pointer to it and I can insert same. If you have documentation for him (like his marriage registery, we can find a place to add that as well. Probably not on his page, but as a separate article. Q 18:37, 26 June 2009 (EDT)

My 3rd great granduncle,Rev.Isaac Quinn,was a circuit riding Methodist minister who lived in Tazewell,VA between 1816-1828.I have documentation for many marriages he performed there including that of my 3rd great grandfather William M.P.Quinn and Cynthia Witten.

Also,you cleaned up my information for Susannah (Porter) Quinn.Thank you. She was the stepmother of Isaac Quinn and the mother of William.I have court records from Ohio Co.,VA showing that she was rather troublesome, but I'm not certain that Susan Quinn was Susan Porter since I have no census or marriage record for her marriage to John Quinn. Do you have any information about Susannah Porter?

I'll check. However, as an overall question, why do you think this family was in Southwest Virginia? In anycase, in looking over the article on Person:Susannah Porter (3) I note no obvious connection to Isaac Quinn....and a lot of unusual locational connections. Born in Pittsylvania Co VA, died in Nottoway Co, Va, but passing though Tazewell County? and then to Ohio? I strongly suspect that these locations reflect data for a Susannah Porter/Quinn---but are for different people by the same name. What I would recommend is that you insert your sources for everything that you know about here. In doing that you'll provide a basis for sorting out any confusion, assuming there is one! Q 18:37, 26 June 2009 (EDT)

Thanks,

Sue Geiger sueaew@sbcglobal.net--Sgeiger 17:13, 26 June 2009 (EDT)

Sue:

While your period of interest (post 1800) is a little late for my own studies, I would probably have encountered Susannah Porter (3) if there was mention of her in my primary sources (e.g., Summers, 1903, 1929, and the Kegleys "Western Waters" series. I've nothing on her in those sources. Nor any mention of Isaac Quinn. I'd be happy to insert any information you have on this couple, whereever appropriate, Q 19:03, 26 June 2009 (EDT)

Digital Library [27 June 2009]

Bill, maybe I could send you the image and you may use it to create a tutorial for adding images connected to WeRelate pages; or I can just hold the image until Dallan activates whatever you said he would eventually activate. --Beth 22:57, 26 June 2009 (EDT)

Probably best to send me the image and I'll insert. I think Dallan has far more pressing things to deal with at the moment than the DL, The DL needs a fair bit of tweaking to get it to the point of being user friendly. While its functional, I suspect that there will be some substantive changes to its basic operation. Its not likely to come fully online anytime soon. Also, while its about the only place that you can currently put something like this (other than MySource), I think Dallan's intent is to use this as an organizational repository. Once "document" space has been created, the DL will probably serve very different purposes. No one but me (and the Africana project people) have made much use of the DL anyway. Also, not much point in writing a tutorial for something that will change drastically sometime in the future. Q 08:06, 27 June 2009 (EDT)

Thanks Bill, I managed to insert the image with your tutorial on the watercooler. I am saving your instructions on one of my pages. I have decided to make a reminder page for my use. On the Wiki, if I don't perform an action regularly, I forget how to do it. --Beth 08:12, 27 June 2009 (EDT)

Tazewell County,Virginia Church Records Methodist Churches [27 June 2009]

Here's a link to a page of Rootsweb.com that lists Methodist pastors who served in Tazewell co,VA between 1815-1826 including Rev.Isaac Quinn.Also listed is a James Porter. Any relation to aforementioned Susannah Porter? The Abraham Still mentioned was a medical doctor also and the father of A.T.Still,founder of osteopathic medicine.There are other pages to different denominations as well.I haven't yet learned to use this site,so I'd appreciate it if you'd post the link where appropriate.

Thanks,Sue

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vatazewe/MethodistChurches.htm--Sgeiger 10:22, 27 June 2009 (EDT)

Hi Sue, Thanks for the link. I've added it to Belief, Folkway, and Ritual within the Southwest Virginia Project. As I think I indicated, this is a bit outsideof the timeframe where I do research, though I'm happy to add most anything in if it relates to Southwest Virginia. As to the relationship between Susannah Porter and Isaac Quinn, I've really nothing about either person. I've looked briefly at the Porters in the New River and Upper Holston/Clinch, (ie, includes portions of Tazewell). These particular porters came to the area after the Revolution, as I recall, from Prince Edward County in VA. Prior to that they are said to have been in Old Chester Co. PA (e.g., Chester County, Lancaster Co, Cecil MD, County, etc. in SE corner of PA and norther MD/Del.)

As it happens I'm currently working on various articles related to the Porters of SW VA. I've a notebook where I've captured a few points about the Porters in the Upper Clinch/Holston area: Notebook:Misc. Porters in Upper Southwest Virginia. You can look at what's been said about them there. Also, there are various links to Porters in other areas of interest for the SW VA project. There may eventually be more about the Porters of the Upper Southwest, and about their line in Prince Edward Co., but it will be sometime before any significant work is done on them. In the meantime, you may find something of interest in the above pages. Q 11:35, 27 June 2009 (EDT)

Hatfield family in SW Virginia [31 October 2009]

Quolla, I finally took the time to browse in depth through the SW Virginia Project (been meaning to do that), and I note your list of families includes "George Hatfield." Or, rather, a George Hatfield. There were several of them around there in the mid & late 18th century. You might want to take a look at the page I did on Joseph Hatfield, who is one of my more interesting ancestors and the son of (probably) one of the Georges. He's also presently the earliest Virginia Hatfield from whom an unbroken, unquestionable descent can be demonstrated. Leslie Collier has been making most of the important discoveries in this lineage for the past decade, and I've included a link to a collection of the emails she irregularly sends out to all her correspondents. Jerry Hatfield's website is the unofficial clearinghouse and there are lots of documents noted there. (Unfortunately, I just discovered that he's had to close the site temporarily because his host site folded. . . .) Between the Hatfields, the Kentons, the Ashcrafts, and the Carrs (and a couple of Boones-by-marriage), I have an awful lot of ancestral history in early southwest Virginia, early Kentucky, and very early southwest Pennsylvania (which, of course, was claimed by Virginia). As I get farther into what you've been doing, I expect I'll begin to get an idea of what kind of materials you're looking for, and what I might have in my own files.

Almost forgot: I know there are a great many biographies of Daniel Boone (beginning even before his own death), but there's a new one out that I found to be well above average -- Meredith Mason Brown, Frontiersman: Daniel Boone and the Making of America (Louisiana State University Press, 2008). The bibliography is especially good because it's so current. --Mike (mksmith) 02:42, 29 June 2009 (EDT)

Hi Mike. Thanks for the background on George Hatfield. What I'll probably do is transfer your comments over to a newly created page for George. It will probably be sometime before I actually get to him seriously.
Whoops, I see that you've already started a page for him at Person:George Hatfield (10). Mind if I format it for the Southwest Virginia Project?
Part of what I'm doing is providing an historical and cultural framework within which the family history of individuals on the register will fit. There's a lot of individuals to be covered, even with the very restricted focus of the SWVP, and getting it done will, as they say, take a village. So in that regard, I'd be really happy to have your input on these and other Southwest Virginia families.
The philosophy underlying the register is that those on the list are primarily drawn for "one source lists", such as the Ebbing Springs Call, that give a discrete set of folks known to be in the area during the time period of interest. But there's also a "Miscellaneous" category for folks who don't appear on the mail lists, but can be documented as being present, and periodically I add folks in this category, more or less one at a time. So if you've got someone that you think should be on the list, feel free to add them.
And thanks for the Meredith Mason Brown item. I've added it to the regional bibliography (an item that needs a lot of work). I've also updated the starter page for Dainel Boone, including the beginning of a small bibliography....lots and lots to do there. Q 09:31, 29 June 2009 (EDT)
Uh, no. That George (#10) is the son of Joseph Hatfield -- presumably named after his presumed grandfather. (Presumably.) As I said, there are a number of Georges, but this particular one is accounted for. (And I need to flesh it out.) Since Joseph was born c.1740, his father will have been born probably 1700-1720, and probably not in Virginia. These guys weren't a Tidewater family. There are a couple of candidates in Pennsylvania at the right time, neighbors of the Ashcrafts and the Carrs (both of whom came to SW VA from Connecticut, by way of Pennsylvania), but the records are extremely thin. The Father George we've been trying to identify seems to disappear entirely from the Virginia records shortly before the Rev War, so he probably died there c.1770-75. Since the Hatfield Family page is temporarily down, I'll have to go back through my files and notes and construct a "theory" page for the early Hatfields in SW VA. --Mike (mksmith) 10:49, 29 June 2009 (EDT)
OK, then will make a new page for the "other" George Hatfield. Many people probably dissappear from the SW VA records about this time either because they fled the area during Dunmore's War, or because they died, and their passing left no court action (single individuals with no family, or an otherwise unrecorded KBI event). An interesting question is how complete is the KBI register. I've no doubt that many died unrecorded during this period. Q 10:55, 29 June 2009 (EDT)
You might want to format or otherwise add in Person:Joseph Hatfield (9), though. --Mike (mksmith) 10:59, 29 June 2009 (EDT)

By the way, it took me awhile to find your definition of "Southwest Virginia," via the table of maps of the various counties. It's buried several layers down under "Places." You might want to push it higher in the stack, or at least feature a link to it on the top SWVA project page. Also, here's a link to a series of maps showing the creation of counties in SWVA, which you may not have seen. Not pretty, but informative. --Mike (mksmith) 11:20, 29 June 2009 (EDT)


Q, just FYI -- I got a note from Jerry Hatfield that he found a new host and his site is back up. The top page is here and the beginning of the Hatfield genealogy section is here. Note that he makes a careful distinction between the SW VA family and all those others. There's been a tendency among some of the wishful thinkers in the family -- and those who take WFT as gospel -- to descend the family in Russell & Washington Counties from the line in Massachusetts that married into the Mellyns of Staten Island. (Which would qualify them as "Lords of the Manor.") --Mike 09:00, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

Thanks. I'll check that out. Wishful thinking is, I'm afraid, about par for the course in most extended genealogies. Q 10:35, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

Migration bibliography [4 July 2009]

Q, you might wish to take a look at an extensive bibliography I did a few years ago (well, 15 years ago, but updated regularly) on the subject of internal migration in the U.S. The Trans-Appalachian section in particular might suggest some sources that would be useful in SWVA. A couple of friends/colleagues on the faculties at UT and Univ of Houston have used it in their "History of the Frontier" courses. --Mike (mksmith) 11:14, 4 July 2009 (EDT)

Ericus Smith [7 July 2009]

Hi--- FYI: I've added a number of items to the Person:Ericus Smith (1) page and linked the page to the listing in the SWVA register. There's his father and several brothers to be expanded, too. These were close associates of the Hatfields, and Ericus's sister, Rachel, was Joseph Hatfield's 2nd wife. --Mike (mksmith) 15:40, 6 July 2009 (EDT)

That's great. I'll take a look. Q 15:41, 6 July 2009 (EDT)
Got to find real sources for him, but this is a start. My correspondent is pretty dependable, so I'm pretty sure the sources are out there -- just not where I am. --Mike (mksmith) 15:44, 6 July 2009 (EDT)
Looks good. I see that this line is pointing back to having "New Sweden" roots (Bridget Andersdotter's surname being a dead give away. Though that could be New Netherlands as well, most instances of this patronymic that I've come across has been in the New Sweden context. I've seen a few other New Sweden connections here in SW VA, mostly in the Holston watershed. Q 15:41, 6 July 2009 (EDT)
Yep, this family is all from Wilmington. I don't descend from them (Rachel Smith was Joseph Hatfield's 2nd wife while I descend from his 1st wife, Elizabeth Vance), but they're an interesting crowd so I've been researching them "on the side" for quite some time. Plus, by the time they were in SW VA, the Smidt/Smith family had become closely involved with the Hatfields socially and politically. Euricus's father, Hans Jurgen Smidt, was a hatter back in Wilmington, and he appears frequently in court records, trying to collect one hat-related debt or another. . . . --Mike (mksmith) 13:13, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

"New River Notes" [7 July 2009]

I came across the following while looking for something else entirely (David Musick, actually). The Historical Society of Southwest Virginia, as I'm sure you're aware, published a series of annual volumes (80-150pp. each) between 1964 & 1989. Many of these are now available at this site. They cover up through the 19th century, of course, but there are quite a few articles for the period you're interested in. --Mike (mksmith) 14:01, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

Yes, New River Notes is one of the really helpful sites for Southwest Virginia. I'll check the specific link to see exactly what caught our attention here. In truth, New River Notes and the Russell County GenWeb site run by Jeff Dye contributed a lot to my thinking on the Southwest Virginia Project.
David Musick, eh! I'm not directly descended but his descendants married into my Willis family in a number of instances.

Q 14:37, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

Great Philadelphia Wagon Road [19 July 2009]

Hi Bill, got your note on the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road... great idea. I found another pic of it that can probably be downsized to fit on the page (doesn't seem to have any copywright issues)

http://www.ncgenweb.us/guilford/greatwagonroad.html

Also, we should add some "history" to the article, to explain how important it was in helping settlers to migrate into the ares.... There are several good articles I "googled" that would be candidates:

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/wagon_road.htm (good info and history).

If you'd like to include it in the "history" tab of the Early Augusta Settlers Project, I have no problem, it would be a nice addition....

Take care and best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 14:18, 10 July 2009 (EDT)

The link is to a nice map of the Great Road. Its interesting that they display it even though they don't know who created the image. And that alone means there's a copyright issue of some description. Even if they had the right to display the image (which they apparently have NOT receives) we'd have to go through the process of identifying the originator, and who held the copyright. Its probably someone who'd be happy for us to use the image, but we don't know that up front. that's why I try to stick with antique images as the base, and then doctor them up to show what's needed.

But the one you pointed to IS a lot cleaner, and shows the extension of the Great Road into South Carolina. Be nice to have, but there's clearly a copyright issue to be resolved (even if the web site you pointed to doesn't see it that way---for them, all they seem concerned about is plagerism. ("Will someone please tell us who did this so we can credit them?") No hint in their description that they are even aware that they might be infringing on copyright.

And I agree that a good history add would be very very good. There are probably some things out of copyright which could be added whole cloth. Otherwise you have to spend a great deal of time rewiting and "unique-ifying" text so as to avoid infringement.

Its my hope that one day we'll have a whole system of these "local projects", all tied together in some way, sharing common reseources, each tended by its own set of folks interested in that particular area. That's one of the reasons I was really pleased to see you take up both Old Augusta and Germanna. I think others will eventually come to realize the significance of these projects, and take one up in an area of interest. Recently Ajcrow has started one up, though he's focused on a military unit, rather than a specific place. Same concept. Identify the people, link them together, add history, culture, and background.

Note that I'm working on a template to cross link these projects. (under links!). That way people can get from Old Chester to SWVP, to Old Augusta relatively easily. Q 17:40, 10 July 2009 (EDT)

By the way, did you know there are actually portions of the Great Road that survive and haven't been paved over? There's one spot north of Danville where the Great Road passed down into a small swell. When it came time to make "a real road" the highway was diverted out of the swell to pass higher on the bank of a hill. The original portion of the great Road still survives as a farm road, still diving down into the swell as it probably did 250 years ago. At least that's what I think I was seeing when I passed through the area about 15 years ago. Q 17:40, 10 July 2009 (EDT)

Link to a map of the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. You may be able to obtain permission to use this one.

[8]

--Beth 18:25, 10 July 2009 (EDT)
Hi Beth. That's a great map too. Somewhat out of the focus of interest, but it displays the early roads through the Carolina's well. Clean and neat as the one DeliJim pointed to. The Fry Jefferson map has the advantage of showing the entire road as it existed in 1753, but its got so much detail as to make it difficult to see some of the patterns. But this points out to me that there's a need for someone to systematically collect road way information and present it here. So many interesting things one can do with this site. Q 18:31, 10 July 2009 (EDT)

Link to a modern map. [9] --Beth 22:51, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

Kerr's Creek Massacres [12 July 2009]

Try it now, it opens for me...

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/The_Kerr%27s_Creek_Massacres_%281759-1763%29

Nominate pages [13 July 2009]

Hi,

If you run across some really nice pages that have multiple authors, or some well documented pages (not word connect or ancestry), would you please nominate them under the first subheading. Thanks, --sq 09:56, 13 July 2009 (EDT)

Mary Jones [14 July 2009]

Take a look at that page again, not only did it have the long list of numbers, whatever they were but the data is irrelevant and/or impossible.--Scot 14:54, 14 July 2009 (EDT)

Joshua Wynne [16 July 2009]

Bill, I happened on the Mary Jones page because it was proposed as a match for Person:Mary Jones (57). My Virginia data is quite sketchy as I find it difficult to research there from Californis. If you can enhance this line from Col. Robert Wynne I woud love to see it.--Scot 15:04, 16 July 2009 (EDT)

Be happy to. I don't plan on a full court press on this line, but there is a LOT of information on them on Ancestry. Its usually possible to sketch in a good picture of a line using the ancestry data, and, if you go through the information there, its often possible to find the verifying sources---though with 109 entries for this couple that have notes, I'm not seriously going to go through them all. So far, in a cursory overview, I found fewer verifying sources than usual. About 1% of the entries is typical. Q 15:18, 16 July 2009 (EDT)

John Davidson of Borden Tract [4 August 2009]

Hi Bill, I noticed you were working in John Davidson of the Borden Tract, so I added his information and map:

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:John_Davidson_%2896%29

Best regards, also I like the format of the Borden Settlers page, looks much better and cleaner!

Jim:)--Delijim 13:56, 31 July 2009 (EDT)

Good show. But now we have John Davidson 95, AND 96. Do we need to merge them.
Also glad that you approve of the tabular layout. Lets me know I'm on the right track. This may be just a personal thing, but I think this kind of arrangement is easier to use. Q 18:43, 31 July 2009 (EDT)

Hi Bill, just a reminder that we need to merge these at your earliest convenience... Thanks:) I'll do it if you want, and then you can clean it up later, just let me know. J.--Delijim 11:50, 4 August 2009 (EDT)


COLONAL HENRY WILLIS [4 August 2009]

Henry willis was my # 6 great-grandfather. His second wife mildred howell brown and Henry Willis had a son john willis born 1728 in Fredericksburg,Virginia. I am in this line.

Col. Henry willis born 14 sep 1691 in richmond,virginia and died 14 Sep 1740 in fredericksburg,virginia is my # 6 great-grandfather. His secondth wife Mildred Howell Brown and he were the parents of my # 5 great-grandfather John Willis. I have lots of family names - dates - information - any help you can share will be appreciated.--connie roper 23:21, 1 august 2009 (edt)

Hi Connie, I'd be happy to help---if I knew what you were looking for. My guess is you probably have more information on the family than I've explored Col. Henry a bit, but haven't seriously looked at him for some time. I notice that you have specific DOB's and DOD's. Can you tell me your source for them? Also, you indicate his second wife was Mildred Howell Brown. Others give her name as Mildred Lewis. As I recall there are many different identifications of Henry's various wives, some well documented, some not. Some of them are probably right, but obviously not all are right. What basis do you have for identifying his second wife as MHB? Q 08:07, 2 August 2009 (EDT)


Hello! I have been searching my roots since i was a child. I can actually recall at ten years of age taking notes when my parents, aunts & uncles, grandparents and great-aunts & great-uncles were talking. I have talked to "living" people from all over the usa. I have had people call me out of the blue because they heard i had information they need. The willis' family is complicated because they all named their children the same names - they would be in the same areas - so confusing!!!

now on mildred howell brown willis - alot of my info came from other researchers [i like to call them "cousins"] - alot of researching and hair pulling! As a matter of fact, all 3 wives of henry willis' were first cousins! To actually straighten out these wives - i had to do research into their families. Ann alexander smith willis [henry willis' 1st wife] was first married to john smith's grandson[we all know the story of john smith & pocahontas - which never happened according to the american natives]. The 2nd wife of henry willis - my #6g-gm - mildred howell brown willis was first married to john brown[a doctor]. The 3rd wife of henry willis - mildred washington gregory willis was first married to roger gregory[this mildred was also aunt to george washington and she was "godmother" to george washington]. To make matters even more complicated - henry willis was also "cousin" to all 3 of his wives! This relation is from henry willis' mother - sarah lewis willis[who married francis willis].

now you get to all the francis willis' and henry willis' - that was a real hair puller - ha! I have them all the way back to the 1400's.--connie roper 12:14, 2 august 2009 (edt) Hi Connie

Why do you think Mildred Howell Brown Willis was Henry second wife? Q 19:58, 2 August 2009 (EDT)


OH, I AM SO SORRY - HENRY WILLIS' 2ND WIFE WAS MILDRED LEWIS - SHE HAD BEEN MARRIED TWICE BEFORE MARRYING MY#6G-GF - SO HER NAME WAS MILDRED LEWIS HOWELL BROWN WILLIS. HER FIRST HUSBAND WAS JOHN HOWELL - HER SECOND HUSBAND WAS JOHN BROWN AND HER THIRD HUSBAND WAS HENRY WILLIS. I STAND CORRECRED!--CONNIE ROPER 04:56, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Hi, Connie

Henry apparently married at least three times, often it seems, to widows. So there is lots of confusion as to the surnames of his wives; Sometimes people identify them with their maiden name (the convention on WeRelate is to use their maiden name), and sometimes they identify them by the first or second husbands surname. So that leads to a lot of confusion. A way that can be sorted through is to be fairly explicit about the underlying sources that are being used to identify the wife in question. For example, if the marriage record says she's "Mildred Brown" then that might be the reason to give her the name "Mildred Brown"---but if another record shows her to be the widow of someone named Howell, then you can cite that to show that Brown was her married name. Where there are multiple wives on each side, then there's a need to be very careful with the documentation. The way Werelate is set up, there's an emphasis on recording that documentation, so that problems like this can be sorted out.

I've not worked that much on Henry Willis, so the documentaiton for him is fairly limited. So, when I asked "how do you know that his wife was....", what I was asking for was the underlying documentation that supports your statements. If that documentation is simply "I got this from someone", then your documentation is in about the same state as mine---that is, at this point, neither you nor I know the supporting documentation. Q 11:12, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Th

Looney's Mill [4 August 2009]

Hi Bill, I have another Mill to add to your "Mills of Southwest Virginia" page, Looney's Mill, built abt. 1739-1740: info on link below, also ties in with the settlers on Looney's Creek page I just added to the Augusta project.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rebalee/Looney/index.htm

Best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 10:29, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Interesting! I check that out. Thanks for the lead on that. Q 11:14, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Salvage operation [4 August 2009]

We have several gedcoms that are scheduled for delete tomorrow. Are you still interested in loading any of them? List is here--Judy (jlanoux) 20:41, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Disambiguation [7 August 2009]

Hi Bill, Need help once again; this time I will post your answer on my tips and reminders. Can't find the page where you explained all this to me. I need to find all pages for Samuel Canterbury. In particular interested in #1; is that one being used? --Beth 19:27, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

Hi Beth. Glad to help. Here's the way I do it. I create a table that includes the link for the person using each index number. 1,2,3...n. It would look something like this

<Table border=1> <tr><td>[[Person:Samuel Canterbury (1)]] <tr><td>[[Person:Samuel Canterbury (2)]] <tr><td> [[person:Samuel Canterbury (3)]] <tr><td> [[person:Samuel Canterbury (4)]] <tr><td> [[person:Samuel Canterbury (5)]] <tr><td> [[person:Samuel Canterbury (6)]] <tr><td> [[person:Samuel Canterbury (7)]] <tr><td> [[person:Samuel Canterbury (8)]] </table> (looks crummy because the nowiki thingy messes up the display something fierce.

When its not surround by it comes out looking like this:

Person:Samuel Canterbury (1)
Person:Samuel Canterbury (2)
person:Samuel Canterbury (3)
person:Samuel Canterbury (4)
person:Samuel Canterbury (5)
person:Samuel Canterbury (6)
person:Samuel Canterbury (7)
person:Samuel Canterbury (8)


As you can tell, only index number 2 is currently "occupied" However, index number 1 is still taken by a card that's been deleted. Dallan seems to want to preserve these, so its not available (in theory) Which leaves you with index number 3 as the card next available for use. Q 19:42, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

Thanks, but I still don't know how you determine how many index numbers to enter for the person. Do you manually type all of these numbers? Probably not, sorry to be so dumb.--Beth 20:03, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

This is where its handy to have a text editor other than a word processor. You can do this with a combination of Excell and Microsoft word, but you have to understand a fair bit about their "language" to make them work for you. The easy way for you to do this is for me to send you a template in Word, that has all the numbers in place. Then you can use the search and replace function to simply change the name. Q 20:24, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

Article Naming [9 August 2009]

Hi Bill,

I am sorting out my Canterbury data on WeRelate as opposed to sorting it all out before placing any data on WeRelate. See Sorting the Bibb County Canterbury family. I am thinking that I probably should come up with a better name for the article; one that perhaps others could use for their surnames and locations. Any suggestions; maybe Canterbury Worksheet/Bibb AL.

Also after I finish entering my data; maybe we could write a template for the article, including some of your fantastic charts. Of course, I don't know if any of this is worth the trouble. Perhaps I should just continue entering the data in my present article and not concern myself with general matters. --Beth 10:44, 9 August 2009 (EDT)


HI Beth. Looks like you are looking for something like a "Register" table for your Bibb County Canturbury's. I'll be happy to lend a hand. I can help you build a basic table that you can fill in, or I can show you how to make the table in HTML, which ever your preference. Q 11:46, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Hi Bill, I don't know what I am looking for. My plan is to type my data in this worksheet; at the same time I am placing documents from my loose file folder into a binder by families. I haven't researched this family since 2000, and then I just dumped it all into a file folder. I got lucky yesterday and a descendant of Shadrack Canterbury (who became interested in genealogy 2001 and transcribed Shadrack's family Bible in 2001) sent me a transcribed copy of the Bible's family pages. So now I can probably sort out most of the families which is what I am using this worksheet for. I still have to add land records, pension files, etc. so I figured I would just continue using my method until it is finished and maybe then I can best figure what kind of general table or template may work for me and others in the future. The citations will actually be on the person pages when I finish. I actually have census data from microfilm. I am sure that most of the younger researchers never have sat for hours at a microfilm reader straining to read the census data.--Beth 12:09, 9 August 2009 (EDT)
I'll be very interested also in the best way to do something like this. In studying the Jacksons in early Prince William, Virginia I have found 5 different Samuels and determining which ones were active in which court records has been a challenge. I am working on a timeline to help separate these men. In all the process I have learned about the families of these men and could link names in any article to the person pages. --Janiejac 13:59, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Beth, Janiejac

What you are both looking to do is, I think, another way that WeRelate can be pressed into service. We all collect huge amounts of information, and there's a need to be able to "capture" that data in a way that it becomes available for use in our analysis. Sometimes the same data supports many different person articles. Sometimes when its collected we have no idea how it can be used, just sense that its "important" and may contribute once we have enough stuff to go with it. Keeping all this stuff organized is the hard part. I've tried several different approaches on WeRelate, Sometimes I just dump it into the person article under some heading such as "Notes". I've also tried capturing the data on an articles talk pages. Both of these approaches have some advantages, but if you get more than a little information, the pretty much overwhealm the main purposes of the page. My current approach is to create "notebook" pages putting them into the form "Notebook:Some Subject". There I record whatever comes to hand on that subject. Sometimes I use a fairly systematic organization. When I'm working a family line in Southwest Virginia I often use a fairly standard format ---see Notebook:Porter Family in Southwest Virginia as an example. In these cases I systmatically capture data from some of the standard sources I make use of (e.g. Source:Summers, 1929, and record them in a table format. That way I can quickly tell what I've captured, and what I've not captured. But sometimes I don't really have a standard source, or not enough data to make it worthwhile to be quite so systematic. In those cases I use other formats---whatever works at the moment. Here's a current example Notebook:Walker Family of Goochland County, VA.

A problem with this kind of approach is that its certainly possible to lose track of what you've done. For that reason I usually create breadcrumb trails back and forth between the notebooks and articles where the information is used, or where it might be used. The notebooks then become a ready reference for when I'm working a problem on a person page. If I get enough notebooks going I sometimes create a notebook just to keep the other notebooks sorted out. Here's an example. (See Notebooks:Porter). One thing that I've found works well is to create a "Source materials section near the top of the page. Here's an example (probably not the best, as it needs to be recast a bit), where you can see this approach at work well enough. (See Notebooks:Porter For some examples).

This exact approach is probably more than either of you want to get into, as it requires a fair bit of time and effort to maintain a system like this. However, once in place, it works fairly cleanly, and you might want to try some of these concepts out for yourself. I'd be happy to help anyway I can. Q 14:44, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Currently I'm working on a problem in Walker Family genealogy, trying to see if there's a connection between the so-called "Natural Bridge branch" of the Wigton Walkers, and the Walkers in Goochland County. I've started a notebook at Notebook:Walker Family of Goochland County, VA in which to collect information. Currentlly, I've recorded data provided by various collaborators, plus I'm in the process of adding data from something known as the Wallace Register, which records a specific ministers marriages, death services, births, etc. in Goochland County. The goal is to pull all of the Walker records in the Wallace Register. Various data sets (e.g., marriage data) are being placed in MySource documents, with links on the Notebook page. There's a corresponding link back to the notebook page on each of the MySource documents. If there's enough need, I might create a template "index" to these mysource documents that would list all of the ones in this set, place it at the top of each MySource, and in that way have a way to go from one MySource to another. I do something like this only when there's a fair bit of related data to justify the extra effort. Q 16:35, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Thanks for your offer to help Bill. I am going to just continue entering my information and when I complete the article, I will then consider possible formats for future articles of this type.--Beth 18:03, 9 August 2009 (EDT)
Anytime. Let me know if there's something I can do for you. Q 18:08, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Thanks Bill, for all the good suggestions and examples. I'm still uncertain of the difference between an article and a page labeled 'Notebook'. I think I'll probably start out with something simple enough just to capture the info and sources. My timeline spreadsheet may be necessary for my needs but once I get these five Samuels sorted out, may not be necessary to show on WeRelate.--Janiejac 19:16, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Hi Janiejac. A "notebook" is simply an article with the "notebook: appended as a prefix. That's simply a device to let me know that the page is intended to collect things, rather than become a formal article on some subject. Sometimes notebooks get converted into articles, but usually they are just catching places for information I collect. Let me know if there's anything I can help you with. Q 20:02, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

Fairfax Grant in Virginia [25 August 2009]

Bill, Do you know of anyone doing work on the Fairfax Grant in Virginia? I've just run onto a couple of fascinating histories of it that I'd pass on to somebody. Also this map http://www.novahistory.org/Fairfax.html. I saved the map and enlarged it to 125% and the text is more readable. I don't think it is under copyright; but I don't know how to store it in images and even put it in a page for Fairfax Grant if I started such a page. That grant was so huge it covered quite a few modern counties.--Janiejac 14:58, 25 August 2009 (EDT)

That's a good one, alright. Don't know anyone specifically researching it on WeRelate, but DeliJim would come close to it. Its definitely worth getting into WeRelate. however, the notation on the map says "Library of Congress", so its probably available in a more detailed format than shows up on this web site. If its LoC, then you don't have to worry about copyright or license issues, if you take it from their site. Others, such as the site you pointed to, can't copyright it, but they might claim a license for their image. So better to get it from the LoC Q 15:52, 25 August 2009 (EDT)

Source page in speedy delete [26 August 2009]

Hi Bill,

Source: Robertson, undated is scheduled for speedy delete. Says it is a duplicate card. 2 of your Russell's link to this page. Check it out before I delete it. One of my gr. gr. grandfather's was a Russell.--Beth 12:42, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

Thanks Beth. I'd marked it for speedy delete myself when I realized it was a duplicate. I just forgot to check for links to the deleted pages. All fixed. Q 12:56, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

Merging pages [3 September 2009]

Hi Bill,

Do you plan to add info to Family:John Walker and Unknown Unknown (1) or do you want me to merge it with Family:John Walker and Unknown Unknown (2)? --Beth 21:27, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

Hi Beth. That's probably a duplication of cards. Now sure how best to eliminate the duplication. Q 21:53, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

Bill, I fixed it. It is under the #(1) family now. Thanks. --Beth 23:27, 2 September 2009 (EDT)
Wow! thanks. That was a lot of work movnig all of those children to the number 1 couple. This is a good solution, but I know it took quite a bit of effort to do it. So thanks! Q 12:48, 3 September 2009 (EDT)
Bill, glad to do it but it was no effort at all. Dallan's merge tool makes it very easy. All of the children were moved automatically when I merged the two pages.--Beth 13:12, 3 September 2009 (EDT)

Gradicule?? [13 September 2009]

What is this? Something to do with cartography designed in squares perhaps?--Beth 22:13, 11 September 2009 (EDT)

Sort of. Its probably a bit of a mis-naming. During my previous life I had a continuing need for graphic artists to prepare maps, etc. The department head used the term "gradicule" to refer to the small maps inset into a larger map to show its location. So that's the term I used. Never saw it in writing, and he may have been saying "graticule". If so, he probably mispoke as the latter term does indeed refer to a mapping device by which the map is broken up into squares (ie, not to inset maps). I've never come across a better name than "gradicule" to refer to these inset maps, so I continue to use it.

How's your special project coming along? If you met schedule I suppose you're done with it by now. Q 09:18, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

I did meet my schedule and it is finished. Taking a break and working on my Canterbury information. Interested in the new page design when Dallan has time to get back to that one. Also going to test the gedcom export to see how well the information is transferred via gedcom to my genie program. First SEC game today for Auburn. My son is in the AU band and the entire band is coming to the Auburn - Tenn Game. --Beth 09:40, 12 September 2009 (EDT)
Hopefully it will be another great TN-Auburn game. Hopefully TN will do a bit better this year than last, but I'm not confident of much more than a winning season (hopefully.)

Not sure that they didn't let Fulmer go to soon, but then if they hadn't, there wouldn't have been much confidence in the team this year---at least to start. A few wins at the right time and place would change that of course. Q 10:11, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

Oops! Sorry about the loss.--Beth 22:01, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

Category notebook [14 September 2009]

Hi Bill, I have been examining your pages for ideas on organizing my mishmash of Canterbury family data. I plan to enter most of the data here and throw the paper copies in the trash. Most of it is copies of old research by my cousins, copies of letters, emails etc.

I named an article Misc. Notes; but after perusing through your pages; I believe that I can copy your examples and better organize the mess. I have a question however about the notebook category. Janie and I both will probably be using your outline and I am sure that subsequent users will find it very useful. So before we have too many users with the category notebook I just wanted to discuss the name of the category with you. I prefer worksheet; it is the more prevalent term used by genealogists. But the worksheet encompasses many different types of genealogy worksheets, so I am not entirely satisfied with that choice either. In general a notebook in genealogy usually is an index. Is this the context in which you chose the name? Just want to have a discussion before I use the category. Your pages and organizational skills are fantastic. --Beth 21:59, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

Hi Beth
I almost never bother with categories. The idea has value on wiki's that do not have a decent search engine, as things can get lost in a hurry. WeRelate's search engine is actually superior to what's on the Wikipedia, for instance, so I don't find the need for categorization so important. Besides, I take considerable pain to make sure that new articles are linked logically to my overall scheme. That makes it easier to keep track of things. As far as "notebook" versus say "worksheet" is concerned, I don't think it makes much difference. It depends on what you are comfortable with, and what you are accustomed to. I keep most of my "in library" information in a bound record book, actually a series of such bound books---ie, its a notebook where I keep notes: so that's what I call the equivalent on WeRelate. If Workbook makes sense to you, use that.
There's no real significance to the use of "Notebook" in front of the title for these pages, other than that gave me a convenient way of saying "What's contained here are notes, not polished articles. The use of the "colon" after "Notebook" ---viz "Notebook:" makes it look like a type of namespace, but its not. You might call it "pseudo namespace", but there's no real significance to the term other than to identify the page as a place where I'm keeping notes.

Bill

Okay, but you are using the Category:Notebook so I assumed you created it. --Beth 23:04, 13 September 2009 (EDT)
Its probably embedded in one of the templates that I use for consistency. I don't conciously add the category each time I create a notebook, and its probably an unneeded formalism. Q 08:10, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

Featured page [24 October 2009]

Hi, I would like to feature Person:John Walker (81) this week. I tried to fix the red links, don't know if I did it right. Would you please go over the page and make sure the red links have been fixed and are fixed properly. Thanks, --sq 22:56, 13 October 2009 (EDT)

Hi Solveig. The links you adjusted were, I think, mostly in the sidebar data. Didn't notice anything our of line when I checked. There are a couple of nuances though that are worth mentioning. The modern community of "Castleswood" is not exactly the same place as colonial "Castles Woods". The later is the location of the original settlement in the area, while the former is the location of the modern community. They are about five miles apart. I use the two spellings to distinguish which one I'm talking about. Most folks would not know the difference, so your change does no harm. I'll think about it a bit, and see if I want to create a "Castles Woods" article to support that particular spelling.

"Wigton, Scotland" is similar. In 1700 the spelling in use was indeed "Wigton". In the 19th century the spelling was changed to prevent confusion with "Wigton, England". Seems that mail for the two similarly spelled locations was getting mixed up, so a decision was made and the Scots lost. Perhaps that's because the decision makers were English. At anyrate, from about 1850 on, Wigton, Scotland, was known as "Wigtown, Scotland". I tend to use the "Wigton" spelling because that was the spelling in use when my ancestors were there, and that's the spelling used in the major genealogy of the family line. The fix is probably an article about the name change, and creating a redirect to "Wigtown, Scotland" from "Wigton, Scotland". In the meantime, there's no real harm with the change made. Q 08:16, 14 October 2009 (EDT)


Question of your editorial change [23 October 2009]

I am curious to know why you changed the words "The Northern Neck must not be confused with the Northern Neck Proprietary" to "...should not...." The word "should" is subjective, and there is nothing subjective about not confusing the two terms.--Persisto 21:53, 23 October 2009 (EDT)

There are somethings that one Must Not do, and other things that one Should Not do. "Must not" is normally reserved for something for which there is imperative not to do something...thou shalt not. As in "thou shall not kill"---on the otherhand, you should not confuse the Northern NEck Proprietary with..." Its a good idea NOT to confuse these terms, but there's no imperative being violated if you do. Nice article by the way. Language needs a bit of tightening, but makes a nice addition to WeRelate. Q 22:06, 23 October 2009 (EDT)

Hello, and oops, sorry about that. [17 December 2009]

I uploaded a GEDCOM file this morning but it had some issues so I just deleted it. I'm uploading a new.

Let me know how that goes, the gedCom upload. Since I don't personally make use of genealogy programs per se, I've not explored using GedCom's---DeliJim uses them quite a bit, and seems to have an effective approach for incorporating new lines. If you run into tech problems with the GedCom upload, he'd be a good contact. I know the GedCom importation routine was recently revised to trim out "duplicates" of things aleady here. Not sure how that's working out in practice, but WeRelate's "Pando" approach of "one-person, one card" makes this necessary, and on the whole this is a great way to do it. Forces folks to document why they believe whatever it is they believe about their ancestors---otherwise you have no way to sort out different "alternative realities". Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)

I removed the GEDCOM and I am not using one at all now. The data was collected from different people and not consistently formatted. I may clean itup and use it in the future. I've got a better handle entering data now (thanks for your patience dealing with the newbie}, most of the data I'll add from now on is far enough down the tree there will be few matches now.


You asked about our documentation for the claim that our James Edmiston married Sarah Hays.

I think that one is generally accepted, and I don't dispute it. I'm just looking for the supporting documentation. Why is it that people think this? What's the underlying source upon which this is based? The question has some importance for reasons that go beyond the simple family history. The Hays family is associated in one way or another with many different lines, with pointers back into the Path Valley in PA (aka Cumberland Valley, Old Chester). They appear in close proximity in the northwest Borden's Grant area to certain family lines like the Buchanan's and the Walkers, and also in the Path Valley. Yet I see few family connections. Possibly coincidence, possibly pointing to something else. Documenting an Edmiston-Hays marriage would be helpful for that particular problem. Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)


Please excuse my awkward intro. I slipped in through the back door, as it were. I was actually searching the internet for info on my family and had enough hits to locate the person:john_edmiston_(1) page directly. I had no idea of the scope of the projects. Now that I understand the open architecture here, and am beginning to get a feel for the protocol I'm truly impressed. Please allow me to start afresh.

All things are new once. WeRelate operates differently than most genealogy websites, and the Tapestry is somewhat different from the rest of WeRelate. (Most folks are still caught up in using the usual approaches taken in genealogy, rather than taking advantage of the new ideas WeRelate makes workable.) Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)

At one time our oldest "Proven" ancestors were Robert and Mary Haris Edmondson , Robert (Edmiston) Edmondson in GEDCOM file, from Buncombe Co, NC, who migrated to Georgia. Original records were plentiful in Georgia, “Proving” them wasn't too difficult. I think new documentation has surfaced but I may have have been incorect that the entire line I posted was proven. The original report that I have a copy of was from genealogy compiled by Max Edmondson, grandfather's cousin (I'll defer to the experts on how to state that). The William Edmiston listed as Robert (Edmiston) Edmondson's father was our "missing link" and closely matches person:William_Edmiston_(15). This "William the missing link" was added as a probable match when Max consulted William Edmundson of the Edmondson Family Association Bulletin EFAB over 25 years ago. Research has been done by family members since that time, but they wern't using computes. I am going to have to retrace thier steps here and ferrot out the work they've already done. The youngest person who worked on this is now 75, so it's a challenge.

Now that you're getting your GedCom uploaded, you may want to turn to documenting these links between people, pointing to the underlying sources. This is the hard part in genealogy. hard both because finding the needed sources is sometimes difficult, but also hard because its a fairly tedious task. Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)

The following is to link people in the GEDCOM file to personalities defined on this site, and only to establish links. I will make no claims to accuracy for the lineage Robert (Edmiston) Edmondson. Copies of the documents they found are in three different states. I'm in a fourth. I have reports and copies of documents, but I'll haveto back through them.

It was already believed that Robert (Edmiston) Edmondson's father's name was William by relatives that have lived in the same area in Georgia since 1843. I'm not sure if a copy was acquired but "William the missing link" made an application for pension for revolutionary war service dated Aug. 2, 1844, stating that he is 84 and that he enlisted in august 1780 in Amherst County, Va. He list's service of his brother Robert (may have used Edmondson or Edmundson spelling for brother). He states that he returned to the house of his father James Edmiston's on the Pedlar in Amherst Co, Va after several tours in the Malitia, in one of which he was shot. He signed William Edmiston. The application was denied because he listed only Malitia, not regular service. When searching for the James listed as "William the missing links's" father, person:James_Edmiston_(1) was found, or possibly William of EFAB new of "the missing link's" possible asscociation with person:James_Edmiston_(1) from reasearchg the will of person:robert_edmiston_(2) down, anyway we've suspected this lineage for 25 years. Concerning the will of person:Robert_Edmiston_(6), we new his wife's name was Jean, but maiden name was not given. I was unaware that name might be person:jean_thompson_(6) until I found the info for person:james_edmiston_(1) on this site.

I double check my post and remove info where needed and move other data my home page. Since family:robert_edmiston_and_jean_thompson_(1), with a son of person:James_Edmiston_(1) defined I'll start there.

There's not actually much need to do that, at least on talk pages. Discussions are fairly open, but not critical. And its not a bad idea to document false starts and leads. That way we know we've been down that way before, and found it a dead end, or perhaps just "blocked". Sometimes, though, we do go back in clean things up a bit, as I did with the Edmiston talk page, where I neglected to insert my own User name on comments. Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)

You asked for YDNA data in response to my rant about person:william_Edmiston_(6), I'll try to contact the person who was tested with the known common ancestor and check to see what data can be shared and provide that in another message and may be tested myself, which does take time. I'm not sure of the issues of releasing someone else YDNA typing and so forth. Some data is public on the internet, but I'm not sure of the issues posting data here from that site.

Sometimes that's a bit tricky. Some folks still have issues with having "their" YDNA posted publically, and also have issues with posting their lineage. However, to be useful, both the YDNA data and the lineage need to be publically available. That's because we need to be able to see just exactly "how close a match" we are dealing with, and also there's a need to be able to vet someone's lineage. Sometimes test subjects don't match up when their lineages say they should, but that can be because one or the other subject has their lineage wrong. We need to be able to see the lineage, see what its based on, so that we can get independent evaluation of what makes sense---that is "is this person likely to be descended from whom he says he is descended? Sometimes we can avoid the vetting process when we get numerous independent test results, all pointing to the same common ancestor. Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Thanks.--Dave E 20:22, 11 December 2009 (EST)

By the way, I and several other folks worked heavily on the Edmiston lines for a few months. the lineage go to the point you now see it, which is fairly decent overview of the key lines in the Tapestry. But there are lots of holes that need to be filled---the YDNA data being one of them. Another is proving the connection to the Edmondsons in Cecil County. Then there's the "dispersion" problem---some of these lines, such as yours, we pretty much loose track of after they leave Southwest Virginia or Old Augusta. Threading the various needles on some of them is needed, establishing where they went, and proving their connections. Lots of work to be done there. Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)





Sorry. I added some users. I think the logic of my actions was good, my fingers were not. I have extra time for stuff like this, because I have a form of Narcolepsy, and sleep very little. On the other hand my fingers get a litlle goofy sometimes. I'll be mor carefull. The issues are with what was meant to be created as person:James_Edmiston_(5). Since you'll ask anway, though I think it's well known. There are records of James Edmiston's purchase of 70 acres on the pedlar River in Amherst Co, VA in 1772. The same James moves to Wilkes Co, VA between 1785 and 1787. His will gives the land in Amherst Co, to his oldest son Robert. My ancestor gets a cow as I remember. I agree with you that nothing in the article for James_Edmoston_(1) proves relationship to Robert_Edmonson_(2). Though I thought it had been established before, I'm checking on that, it may not be true.

This does appesr to be the same William who applied for pension, and died in 1848. I've got more records to check, but I think the relationship between William and James can be established.--Dave E 01:22, 12 December 2009 (EST)

When you get the data in order, it would be very good to incorporate that in the articles. Often, just getting a good rationale for a conclusion is the most important thing that can be done. A conclusion with no rationale is not all that useful, as there will always be two or three "alternative realities" that some will think are correct---but also lack reasonable rationales. Q 09:23, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Thanks. There is also an is also an issue the person:william_edmiston_(18) which is a duplicate to the person:william_edmiston_(17) I created, the duplicate was created by my GEDCOM file. I have removed my GEDCOM and will not load another at this time. I'll manually add more personalities later. Right now I only plan to work with person:william_edmiston_(17) and person:james_emiston_(5). I'll be more careful editing and creating, sorry for the inconvenience. I may create person for those listed in the person:james_emiston_(5) will, but the definition will be just that, persons listed in the will unless the identities can be resolved. I did create a source for the William Edmundson book referenced on the person:william_edmiston_(8) page. It will have a ridiculously long tag, I don't know if it will cause you problems. I couldn't figure out haw to split that tittle up for subtitle unless I used a “...” in there somewhere. I would have preferred to create a source for authors without defining the book, so the tittle would be just text on page.Dave E 20:22, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Edmiston YDNA [17 December 2009]

Thanks. There's some other issues here I won't go into at this time. I'm not trying to prove anything as yet. I'll probably order a test and share the results. Maybe it will help maybe it won't. For now I'd rather remove the info I posted, now that I no you've read it.

Thanks

Regarding the use of MySource for my article without the user name [6 January 2010]

Hi Bill,

I have moved this topic here. I searched the WeRelate:ToDo List to see if batch upload of images was on the to do list. While searching I found the following on the To Do List: Don't allow creating a MySource not prefixed by your name? and Don't allow others to edit your MySource pages? If this is implemented then your solution will not provide the intended results. I wish to have an article linked to the person and/or family pages that any user may edit. --Beth 23:23, 5 January 2010 (EST)

Interesting, but not entirely surprising. Dallan's problem here is that he has not come to grips with the need to store source material items, such as a will. If he wishes to use the MySource as a strictly personal item truely of interest to only a few people (say a half dozen), fine. But then he needs to create a storage space to house similar things that would be of interest to a broader community. For example, if you wanted to place your grandfathers will into a mysource document, that would seem to fit the current definition. Would fit the definition of being of interest to only a few---your grandfather probably has fewer than 20 descendants (probably). But how about a will of someone ten generations back. They've probably got hundreds of descendants. So apparently a MySource document would not be the place to store it. So where should it be stored?

Dallan needs to think this through. Unfortunately, some of the advice he gets from the watercooler is not, I think, very good.

What is needed is a systematic approach to sources---in the sense of documents that may be transcribed, not in the sense of bibliographic references. Q 16:29, 6 January 2010 (EST)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [20 April 2010]

You're not done yet!

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

Now that you have uploaded Descendants of John Walker & Jane McKnight.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing.

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 16:13, 20 April 2010 (EDT)