User/Quolla6: User Talk to Nov 2009

This is an archive of past comments on my talk page, from 23 April 2010 through NOv 2013.

Current comments are at User talk:Quolla6

Categories/Facts.... [18 November 2013]

I've been doing a bunch of work making use of templates to associate categories and facts. I wrote a blurb on it for Delijim, and he sort of suggested that those were mostly a matter of your interest. So may I request that you review "Early Settlers and Categories as facts on his talk page? Thanks! --jrm03063 15:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

On Documentation [23 April 2010]

Hi, back. Got your message. Yes, I do share some of your views about documentation, which is why I was so happy to see your article. Would love to see it more prominently displayed where more people could see it.--GayelKnott 00:39, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Thanks Gayle. The page was transferred out of my personal userspace to its current location when it was featured. WeRelate doesn't really have a "place" for this kind of article that would give it more prominence. From comments that I get from time to time, I believe there are others who share your views, both about the article and about the need for good documentation. One of the reasons I like WeRelate is because I firmly believe that the basic "One-person One Card" will indeed force better genealogy upon us. Sort of an evolutionary thing. In an environment such as Ancestry, where anyone can put down what ever they want (reasonable or not), there's nothing to force out ill done genealogy. Here, at least in theory, its built in. Eventually, people will encounter conflicts over this bit of data or that. People will have to start justifying why they think John was born in 1782, etc. That will force better genealogy on the system, people willing or no.

That's a long term view. Something that won't happen over night. But I'm very patient, confident that eventually things will be forced in this direction. You might also find Criteria for Genealogy Well Done to be of interest. Q 08:13, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Thanks. I need to update my user page, and will probably add links to some of your pages. I just recently uploaded a very small gedcom to Ancestry -- the extensive cloning of misinformation was driving me crazy -- and discovered that adding non-Ancestry source information is even more work than adding it to WeRelate! I also discovered that part of the extensive cloning is actually strongly encouraged by Ancestry's "hints". So now I have to decide how much information to put up there -- as well as here.--GayelKnott 15:09, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Can you tell me what it is that you find difficult in WeRelate's Sourcing system? I personally find the Source page titles fairly cumbersome to use, and so for my own work I create redirects using Author date notation rather than Author title notation e.g., Source:White, 1902 which is just a heck of a lot easier than Source:White, Emma Siggins. Descendants of John Walker of Wigton Scotland. MySources, is, I think, a mess, filled with contradictory guidance and content. In its original intent it was a great idea---a place to sequester all those "sources" that were at their core, not good---things like "Bob's Big Gedcom", and personal web pages that won't be there next time you go looking to verify what you found. But then folks started using MySource for things like family bibles (difficult to retrieve), and other things that have a legitimate reason to be. But I understand this is an area for future improvement, and hope one day it will all be sorted out.

But other than MySource, and my preferences about source titles, WeRelate's system does work well. Most things that you run across DO have an entry. When I use them I usually add things like "Bibliographic Citation", "Inline Citation", and "Electronic Source". Lately I've stopped bothering with Bibliographic Citation, as there's a plan to generate that automatically from the sidebar data. But the other elements I always try to add, as they have considerable utility. But I'd appreciate hearing what you find difficult to use. Q 16:12, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Part of what I need to update is comments about the difficulty of Sources. I think Sources were still being reviewed at the time I wrote, and there were duplications and contradictions, plus it was something new to learn. A lot of those duplications etc. seem to have been cleared up and I'm more comfortable with the system, so my only remaining "complaint" is that I have to type out the entire title rather than just clicking on the correct title when it appears. Copying from a previous citation, either on the same page or on a different page opened on a different tab, helps. Having also used NewFamilySearch on a trial basis, along with (now) Ancestry, I have to say that I find WeRelate the easiest, and that is part of what I will want to say on my User page (some day soon).

But I think the bottom line for a lot of people is still going to be -- it's work. Just go with what "Aunt Susie" or "Cousin Bob" said. And even if those are their only sources, I think it's better that they cite them than not doing so. If nothing else, it's an honest statement of who (maybe) did the actual work.

Having started doing genealogy before anything was on line, I have relied on "cousins" for help and information, and still do. Where they are my own direct line or family (all siblings, at least), I try to document what I get, but am not always that careful about people I consider peripheral. So as much as they may be something of a mess, I think the MySource pages are useful -- although I still haven't quite figured out how to organize mine.

There are a lot of other things I need to figure out how to do, and will probably do rather poorly the first time or two. I'd like, for instance, to put together something on early Baptists in Kentucky and Indiana, and maybe something about the anti-slavery movement in Indiana Territory, but those are projects way down the line.

Just a related comment -- I do find the Featured Pages useful, particularly when they suggest ways to use pages/do thinks that I hadn't thought of.--GayelKnott 17:09, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Thanks! I always enjoy getting other perspectives on problems I'm interested in. As an FYI, the reason I use "Source:Author, Date]] is because its a heck of a lot easier to remember---not to mention less typing. Using the popup source when you type part of a source is OK---if you get the beginning of the title EXACTLY right---including the authors full name, etc. Less to mess up using Author Date redirects. Q 18:42, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [23 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 GED.B, 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 16:28, 23 April 2010 (EDT)

GED.B Imported Successfully [24 April 2010]

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

• launch the Family Tree Explorer to navigate your tree
• view your network -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out to which other WeRelate users you are related.
• view related pages not in your tree -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out which people you are now related to that you can add to your tree (takes awhile to display for large trees).
• view a searchable list of the pages in your tree -- The searchable list will be available about an hour after your tree has been imported.

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

--WeRelate agent 23:28, 24 April 2010 (EDT)

Andrew Cowan - his whereabouts in 1775 [10 June 2010]

I hope you find this useful:

Deposition of Charles Cocke in the Case of McKenney vs. Preston, O. S. 308; N. S. 110 (1811); taken in Wayne County, KY; original on file at Augusta County Courthouse: "The Deposition of Charles Cocke of the age of 60 years and Jacob Hooser of the age of Sixty one years taken at the house of Roger Oats in Wayne County and State of Kentucky on the Eighth day of June Eighteen Hundred and Eleven . . . The Deponent Cocke after being duly sworn Deposeth and Saith that Sometime in the year 1775 he was on Blackwater it being a North Branch of Clinch River at Thomas Ausborn's [Osborne's] improvement and he saw Andrew Cowan there at work at Sd Ausborn and the Sd Cowan told him that his improvement was Joining that Sd Ausborn's improvement rather below and on the East fork of Blackwater . . ."--Pecrowther 17:43, 9 June 2010 (EDT)

Yes! thank you. I've added this at Document:Deposition of Charles Cocke in the Case of McKenney vs. Preston, 1811 That's definitely something I've not seen before, and clearly fixes Samuel as being alive in 1775. lacing him on the Blackwater is something I've not seen before. Castle's Woods, yes, Sinking Creek maybe, but Blackwater is way to the south. Something is going on here that I've not seen even hinted at. Q 18:45, 9 June 2010 (EDT)

Charles Cocke and Andrew Cowan appeared together in many documents. For example, both were appointed Justices in Russell County in 1781. Here are a few more documents that might be useful:

1. This list includes both Andrew Cowan and Thomas Osborne

Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, Publication 4 - 1968: List of Troops at Moore's Fort - June 30, 1777 (Draper Mss 1 XX 20 and 1 XX 24) Patrick Porter, Sergeant, Lewis Green, Jr., Robert Kilgore, James Alley, Charles Kilgore, Samuel Alley, John Montgomery, Samuel Porter, Zachariah Green, John Alley, Alexander Montgomery, Sr., Alexander Montgomery, Jr., Andrew Cowan, Frederick Friley, John Kinkead, John Barksdale, James Ozburn (Osborne), Thomas Osborne, Nehemiah Noe.

2. This shows that Andrew Cowan was still living in Russell County, VA in 1797 (Charles Cocke has settled in Lee County)

Russell County, VA- November 20, 1797, Calender of State Papers (p. 453) : Pursuant to a direction of the worshipful Court of Russell county, I do hereby certify that the following Gentlemen are in Commission of the peace in and for the county of Russell. Those that now act are as follows, to wit: Henry Smith, David Ward, Andrew Cowan, Samuel Ritchie, Thomas Carter, John Thompson, Charles Brickley, Richard Price, John Tate, James Gibson, Samuel Robinson, John Smith, Samuel Ewing, and James Dickinson, Gentlemen. Those that have removed are: Alexander Barnett, John Frazer, Charles Cocke, Joshua Ewing, and Christopher Cooper, Gentleman. James Wharton, Gentleman, is dead. James Scott refuses to qualify. Given under my hand his 20th day of November, 1797. Henry Dickinson, C.R.C.

Let me know if there is a better way to pass on these comments.--Pecrowther 03:57, 10 June 2010 (EDT)

This is probably as good as any. There's also the Tapestry mailing list that's useful for this. With respect to Andrew Cowan, I'd have to go back and look over the data that I've posted, here and elsewhere, and can't do that at the moment, but we have decent enough records for him up to a certain point, in the form of when he appears in Russell County records as a Justice. Unfortunately, most of the records we have are based on Summers 1903 and 1929, and stop somewhere in the 1790's. Knowing where he was after 1800 is a matter of some importance. SOme think he's the Andrew Cowan who appears in Jeffersons CO TN after about this date. And there are reasons to think that might be true. Unfortunately, there's no really good evidence to prove its true. Personally, I don't think that was him. Finding evidence of that, one way or another, is something that's needed to help complete his story....and if its not him in Jeffersons County, that would help a lot of folks move along with their family history. Q 07:53, 10 June 2010 (EDT)

WeRelate versus SWVP [3 September 2010]

I noticed your changes to Joseph Kilgore's page. I don't know why it isn't sufficient to work within the WeRelate framework, why you have to layer a whole new system of stuff on pages you touch so they don't work like other WeRelate pages, like a big banner that interferes with the family info boxes, or putting source information about parents on a separate page in a pseudo namespace that linked to from one son's page, but not in the normal places where other WeRelate users put it and expect to find such information? It is not really fair to expect other people to maintain your additions. Nor do I understand why you need to place the stamp of your SWVP project all over a guy from Maine? Not a single thing on his page or your Notebook page present any connection of him to Southwest Virginia, except possibly that he is your 7th great grandfather, which isn't really appropriate information for WeRelate anyway, and is the type of things which several people besides myself have been removing from pages when we find it. I would also point out that your Southwest Virginia doesn't seem to match with what wikipedia defines as Southwest Virginia making the whole thing seem a little too arbitrary and personal for a wiki environment. --Jrich 23:12, 1 September 2010 (EDT)

Hi Jrich

Sorry you do not approve of the Tapestry approach, but then you don't seem to understand what that's about. Please note that the inserted banner didn't relate to southwest virginia, but to the Tapestry Project. As far as a connection is concerned, between James and Penelope and the Tapestry project, the fact is that they are related to Kilgore's in, among other places, Old Chester, (specifically Cumberland County, and Cecil County Maryland, the Carolina Cradle, and, not to ignore it, Southwest Virginia. James came to Maine quite a bit earlier (well maybe not that much earlier) than the immigrant Kilgores in the other areas, but there's no hint of a family connection between them, at least as far as traditional genealogical records are concerned. Yet there is. The YDNA signatures of all of these Kilgores, match closely. That means that they all share a relatively recent common ancestor sometime before 1720. That ancestor might be in Ireland, as some think, or in Scotland, as others think. But its relatively recent, probably in the 1600's, and probably recoverable. But to do that there's a need to explore all of those lines. The approach used in the tapestry facilitates this. Had you chosen to use the links to explore the Kilgore Tapestry, you would have discoved some of these connections. True, work on this particular Tapestry is just getting underway, and so some of the presentations are incomplete, but the core information is there, had you chosen to explore.

By the way, the purpose of the notebooks is to capture information about a particular subject. Mostly, notebooks are temporary holding areas to store that information. I usually try to scrub out the personalized information that I find, but that hasn't been done with the notebook created last night for James and Penelope. Q 08:12, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

You need to look at your project the way an uninterested person would see it. All I see is a big banner with some medieval looking picture with links to a bunch of things connected with Virginia including SWVP and Virgina county names. I am not interested in reading a bunch of pages on your pet research project to find out what the Tapestry is in order to work on a person in Maine, especially when I suspect it will all boil down to your family tree, or some superset of it. You are grouping Joseph Kilgore in your project on the basis of some probable shared ancestor with other people in your project. It is not clear what makes that shared ancestor so universally important that all his descendants need to be flagged in a system used by people from all over the world? This is a great thing to do on your home genealogy system, but not in a shared wiki. Your notebook pages appear to contain some good sources that would be useful to others. Why does it need to go on a different page when it would fit on Joseph and Penelope's page, to which it applies, and which is where such information is normally found in WeRelate? The format makes it look like a way of dumping your personal research log into WeRelate without taking the time to reformat the sources to fit WeRelate source conventions or to cull out meaningless references to Ancestry trees that were presumably obsoleted when you found the higher quality sources in your list.

I am interested in accumulating the best sources telling us the best approximation of the truth we can arrive at, about people of the past, all people. That can not be done by any one person, but can only be done by lots of people cooperating in a shared framework. Everything you do to pages you touch seem to be designed to install some personal preference for how the page should appear without regard for the fact that you are making those pages appear and update differently than the great mass of pages in WeRelate. This, to me, seems somewhat contrary to cooperating in a shared environment because it makes it more difficult for others to interact with these pages. All this extra superstructure you add to pages, including the infoboxes of SWVP, the Notebook pseudo-namespace, etc., could easily intimidate potential collaborators, either by the apparent complexity, or by the implied ownership your banner signals (whether you mean to or not). It requires them to choose to spend extra time learning how to work within your system, or to ignore if possible (or remove if not) your clutter so they can work on the page in the normal manner. --Jrich 09:48, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

Oh, my goodness! Thank you for taking the time to explain to me what you don't like about the way I'm using WeRelate. Now, after you've taken the time to figure out what I'm actually doing, as opposed to what you think I'm doing, get back to me. Q 10:15, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

On my goodness! That explains so much. This isn't a question about your project so I don't need to know what you are doing in regards to your project. (Though I've read some pages and it seems like an arbitrary project. If a guy in Maine qualifies, the criteria are obviously not well defined, since the explanation page talks about a migration from Pennsylvania to Virginia without nary a mention of Maine. But everybody needs a goal to drive their research. Just for completeness, the appropriate way in WeRelate to build collections of pages that are of personal interest is trees.) My complaint is the mechanics you are using to display your information, about which I only need to look at the pages you have changed to know what you are doing. Which means I do know what you doing. So feel free to explain how your doing things which are perfectly doable in a standard way, in your own way, leads to ease of cooperation with others. --Jrich 11:09, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

Take the time to figure out what's going on, and we can talk. Otherwise, there's no need to continue the conversation. You might want to start with figuring out why a guy in Maine is relevant. I've already eplained why, though you seem so intent on other things, that you didn't notice. If you expect me to pay attention to you ideas, please have the courtesty of paying attention to mine. Q 11:44, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

"The YDNA signatures of all of these Kilgores, match closely. That means that they all share a relatively recent common ancestor sometime before 1720." DNA evidence is dependent on manual genealogy, and even then it is based on probabilities, meaning there is always a finite chance of the improbable. Even if true, and he shared a common ancestor only a few generations before, he is not an ancestor of those people of Chester County, nor did he live in Chester County, nor Virginia, nor did he take part in, nor motivate the migration. He seems to fit none of the criteria on your Tapestry Explanation page, vague as they are. So his inclusion in your group is whimiscal, based on your personal notion that he should be included. Why not his siblings? His parents?

But that is not my complaint, as you might realize if you would have the courtesy of understanding my ideas. My comments probably apply to virtually any of the pages in your SWVP or Tapestry projects. It is your taking possession of these pages with an obnoxious banner that does not fit, using a category when trees would be the appropriate method, adding sources in a different location where it cannot be seen from the pertinent page, using a technique to create a fake namespace that would confuse most users when there is already a provision for user and system articles, using colorful infoboxes that required duplicate input to maintain. The pages are shared resources and we should be trying to keep the display of personal style to a minimum, not a maximum. --Jrich 12:34, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

Good, glad to see that you took the time to figure that out. Now, if you can tone down your language, and avoid hotbutton words, perhaps we can have a conversation. Q 13:33, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

Glad we're all kumbaya. And it is better that the banner now fits. Of course it could better if the banner was at the bottom the way Amelia's ship banners are, or best if it wasn't there at all, since I don't think your groups really have universal significance. Her categories are pretty clear-cut. I can decide who was on a particular ship, or who was a Secretary of State of the US, without her help. It might be possible to enhance your definition so that inclusion in the group can be decided by someone other than you (e.g., lived in Chester County PA prior to yearA, moved to one of a proscribed list of Virginia counties prior to yearB, and also their children and their grandchildren). But it is still not clear why this is an interesting group to anybody but you. Is your group defined by some published study?

Which one are you thinking of? Are you concerned with the surname tapestries, or the ones with a geographic orientation. Most of the former are of couse defined by the surname. Most of the latter are effctively "by-names" that are in common use to describe various lines. The "Seven Brothers" for example, has been used for many years to describe this particular group. If you are a Cowan researcher you know who the Seven Brothers are. Most of the other group names have similar feet in common usage.

For example, Savage's Dictionary was covers all settlers with "an absolute limit, like 1692 (the era of arrival of the new charter), for admission of any family stocks". Are there intuitive, natural boundaries to your group, so people are not asking "Why is yearA so important?" or "Why is this county in Virginia included and not the one next to it?" Perhaps you have answers to this, but the description on your Tapestry Explanation page don't seem very detailed. It seems like an arbitrary group of people.

I didn't realize you had 150+ Tapestry Templates. They all look the same to an uninitiated user. You may want to do more to emphasize which tapestry each banner applies to, because I can confirm that as a user looking at the banner, my eyes kept gravitating to the top center title that simply says "The Tapestry" without realizing that there were 150 variations of the banner. Please excuse some of the confusion in our earlier discussion because it was partially caused by this. Not that I think that makes the Kilgore Tapestry a valid category that deserves a banner, but given that you do, things are clearer.

Also, you may want to review the Surname namespace. I believe the pages in this namespace were designed to hold exactly the type of material you have placed on the Kilgore Tapestry template, and it is probably where a user would go to read an overview on the Kilgore name, etc. I.e., making it unnecessary to have a Kilgore Tapestry. Same for many of the other surname Tapestries you have.

Yes, I've gone back and forth on that. Sometimes I've placed information on the surname page, sometimes not. Currently, I'm working it into to tapestry surnames pages to see how well it works in the over all scheme of things. Generally, it works better. And I suspect you would not approve of placing the tapestry surname template on the general surname page, and the use of the template is essential for the navigation scheme. That, of course, is something that would require understanding what the tapestry is about, which is something you say you do not want to do.

Finally, you may also want to look at WeRelate talk:Watercooler#Category:User-gam3-Direct_.5B8_April_2010.5D where Dallan gives an outline of guidelines for the proper use of categories as opposed to trees. Ancestor/descendant collections, and personal research projects are the type of things that trees should be used for. I think the various issues raised in the first paragraph of this post are the type of criteria for deciding if a group is of "community interest" and therefore deserves a category.

And how would you know if the categorization is or is not of "community interest"? While the categorization may not be of much interest to you personally, there is a subset of folks both registered on Werelate, and not registered, which make use of that information. Not every user of this site is a registered user of WeRelate---quite the contrary. Most users are not registered. Some choose to register just so they can set the "watch page". Not many, perhaps, but enough to know that there's interest here beyond the dozen or so active editors on this site. --Jrich 00:05, 3 September 2010 (EDT)

Well it seems to me that I proposed some criteria for defining a group of community interest in my post, based on less controversial categories used in WeRelate and examples given by Dallan in the cited posting (where paradoxically, on the surface anyway, a single researcher is not incompatible with a grouping of "community interest"). To summarize, clear objective definition, and natural boundaries creating a coherent group. Your SWVP may have been close to being such a group, though I can't find a definition of what it is exactly, and living on the west coast it is not obvious to me that the people included form an identifiable group of any historical significance. The fact that your Southwest Virginia does not seem to align with external definitions of Southwest Virginia makes it seem a little arbitrary. But I suspect this wouldn't be hard to fix. So, while I will probably always think your banner is an inappropriate branding of community pages with overtones of ownership and control (particularly by putting it at the top of the page), I probably would never have quibbled with SWVP as a category.

The Tapestry project, on the other hand, seems to have no coherency, no boundaries. As you spread your research wider, you create a new sub-Tapestry and add it into "The Tapestry". The Kilgore Tapestry specifically appears to only be a collection of descendants of some unknown ancestor of your Virginia Kilgore family, which Dallan has said is not really appropriate for categories. There are already a series of facilities for grouping pages pertaining to a common surname, namely, Surname pages (including the ability to link to articles on related topics), a hierarchy of Surname in Place categories, and the Surname Portal guiding users to the various One Name Studies. I think it would be far more useful to the community (of all WeRelate users, current and future) to try and work within the established framework. I suspect the Hoge Tapestry, the Gillespie Tapestry, the Elliot Tapestry, etc., would present similar issues.

Some folks like to have everything in neat compartments. Some folks aren't bothered by that. You are probably most comfortable when there's a place for everything and everything is in its place. On the other hand, our ancestors didn't settle areas like that. Lots of overlap, lots of fuzzy boundaries. In some cases, they probably didn't even have a good idea of where they settled, much less the arbitrary political boundaries that others imposed. The approach taken on the Tapestry does seem to work, for those willing to spend the time and effort to understand it.

Besides the obvious unfair imposition on a researcher in Maine and Massachusetts in having to understand the Tapestry to find or deal with data connected to what are supposed to be community pages, it also ignores the issue that on various WeRelate pages, other people are being asked not to practice elements of this "approach", or do things differently, as I understand it.

Specifically to your point, I am sure there is overlap of interest between your project and that of other users, but overlap does not define a "group of community interest". The question is whether there is anybody besides you that finds this behemoth Tapestry project to be a coherent group. --Jrich 14:18, 3 September 2010 (EDT)

At last count, the various mailing lists related to the Tapestry numbered about 200 people. That's Probably more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of people editing pages on WeRelate at anyone time. I guess there are in fact others who find some value in the approach. Q 15:05, 3 September 2010 (EDT)

One of the operative words being "related to", i.e, not identical to, and therefore again no more than overlap of interest, not proving any kind of "grouping of community interest". In fact, your remark above about not fitting into "arbitrary" boundaries seems sufficient to me to prove it not such. However, this discussion has exposed issues sufficiently for the ultimate arbitrators of what should be done on WeRelate (not you or me) to decide what they think best for WeRelate, and I have to return to more productive pursuits. Regards, --Jrich 16:47, 3 September 2010 (EDT)

As far as the Tapestry mailing lists, most are specific to the Tapestry, and have no other function other than to discuss matters brought forward on the Tapestry.

Overall, there's no need for you to understand the Tapestry concept. If it doesn't work for you, thats fine. However, it was you who complained about the Tapestry, and you would told us that you couldn't be bothered about figuring out what it was about. Q 18:23, 3 September 2010 (EDT)

Tapestry Edits [15 okt 2010]

Hi

I notice that you have made a number of redirects for pages in the Tapestry project. The Tapestry is definitely a work in progress, and any and all help is greatly appreciated.

The Tapestry is being crafted with considerable thought given to the interconnectedness of the articles. Since the concept is evolving there are indeed places (perhaps too many) where the linkages shown are not the most appropriate under current thinking. Currently, for want of appropriate namespaces, we've been using "pseudo namespaces for certain data types, such as "Data: " and "Analysis: ". It is my understanding that some of these pseudo namespaces will eventually be formalized ("Data: "). Others will be left alone, but will be converted to the form "Analysis. XYZ". That will be accomplished globally by Dallan.

Note that the remaining "pseudo name spaces" will take the form "Analysis. XYZ", not "Analysis.XYZ".

The existing pseudo name spaces have been carefully crafted to meet certain specific needs. Arbitrarily redirecting something from one pseudo name space to another, does not help meet those needs. While there are undoubtedly instances where information pages have been entitled using the wrong pseudoname space, that's primarily a function of working out the mechanics of the concept. Things evolve, and when new ideas and approaches are adopted, not all of the old ideas and approaches are immediately retrofited. Thus, there are probably cases where somethings that belong under "Analysis. " are entitled "Notebook. ", etc. Those will eventually be caught and corrected. Your help here would be appreciated, but you need to familiarize yourself more with the intent of the Tapestry and of the pseudo namespaces in use.

Q 12:49, 15 October 2010 (EDT)

Sorry Quolla6, I repaired double redirections which I saw at the special page and I didn't see that it wasn't necessary. Sorry for the trouble !--Fred Bergman 12:57, 15 October 2010 (EDT)--Fred Bergman 03:46, 17 October 2010 (EDT)

Source pg question [9 November 2010]

I'm curious about the title for the source page for Chalkley: Source:Chalkely, Lyman. Chalkley, Lyman. Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia Why is the author's name there twice? I figured there was some reason so I was hesitant to change it. --Janiejac 11:38, 8 November 2010 (EST)

Undoubtedly a mess up on someone's part. The Someone is undoubtedly me. I'll fix. Q 09:28, 9 November 2010 (EST)

There must be a second source page for Chalkley somewhere also, as I remember reading on a talk pg about the deficiencies of the work, so the two source pages may need merging. --Janiejac 09:44, 9 November 2010 (EST)

I suspect that you are think of the discussion on the Talk page for this article. Q 12:35, 9 November 2010 (EST)

Merging sources [30 January 2011]

Hi - a new user User:Murphynw has added a source that duplicates Source:Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century; see Source:Ramsey, James Gettys McGready. Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Do you have any objections to consolidating these pages? My plan is to combine the page content, and use the second page title, as it includes the author. However, the original source has more extensive links/usage, so my plan is to add the content of the new page (available throu Family history centers) and update the bibliographic info and repositories on the original source, and then remove the duplicate, and rename your original source.

Sound ok? Because you have an extensive project that this source is a part of, I wanted to be sure to clarify with you that the changes would work correctly for you.

Plus, you two should "meet" (in a virtual sense). Nathan User:Murphynw works on Tennessee and Virginia county pages at the Family Search Wiki.... --Brenda (kennebec1) 13:57, 22 January 2011 (EST).

The easiest way to handle this would be to retitle Source:Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century to fit current conventions. That would give an automatic redirect from any page that cites this item. The only reason the page doesn't currently conform is because it was created before the current convention was adopted.

A more complicated way to handle this would be to redirect the Source:Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century to the new page, but this would also require transferring the additional information that's been added to the former. As I said renameing the first version would be easier, but then you'd have to delete the new version first. Or use slightly different names for one or the other. Not difficult to do since under current rules, the "true" name is not really predictable. Q 14:10, 22 January 2011 (EST) Ok, will do so... thanks--Brenda (kennebec1) 11:35, 30 January 2011 (EST)

I've fixed several redirects and removed some duplicate pages, but have left the Source:Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century as a redirect so that a drop-down box result will show this source without the author if that is what is entered by the user; this seems like one of those titles that is generally well known and might well be searched for by title alone. I think your inline citations now redirect to the current page... Thanks. --Brenda (kennebec1) 12:00, 30 January 2011 (EST)

Test page [16 February 2011]

Hi Quolla6, I ran across this page today: Person:Test TestSubject (1). Do you still need it for any reason, or should I delete it? Thanks, --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:20, 16 February 2011 (EST)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [19 March 2011]

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

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 11:44, 19 March 2011 (EDT)

‎SmithWillis.ged [20 March 2011]

Hi Q, I was just looking over some of the edits from your most recent gedcom. I'm wondering, did you mean to delete quite a bit of birth, marriage, and death data on your merged individuals? For example: this edit removed a birth, death, and burial location. This edit changed the birth event from Washington Country, Virginia to Washington County, Iowa. --Jennifer (JBS66) 18:54, 19 March 2011 (EDT)

Hmm. I don't do this much, so probably misunderstood something in the process. Lets abandon that one, and I'll try again.Q 08:40, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

It seems that when you processed your family matches, you unchecked the boxes next to the existing data. Unchecked boxes means the data either won't be imported (if it's from your gedcom) or will be deleted (if it's existing on the page).

What I'll need to do first is revert your edits from the gedcom import from yesterday, then I can delete the gedcom, then you can import another. Does that work for you? --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:53, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

That will work fine. Thanks

I reverted the changes and deleted your ged - you should be all set to upload another. --Jennifer (JBS66) 15:58, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

Great. Thanks for your help. I'll try to avoid the same errors.Q 16:09, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [21 March 2011]

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

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 16:11, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

Just jumping in ahead of the game---the corrections noted were in fact intentional. Usually more complete information was given in the imported file. The three warnings that popped up are indeed indications of something unusual, but in this case flag "facts" accepted by family historians--folks that have been researching this family with due diligence. That doesn't mean they are right, but it probably means they are more likely to be right than not. Q 16:25, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

I see that you have one more Family Match to finish updating. When you are all set with the file, just press Ready to Import. Thanks, --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:05, 21 March 2011 (EDT)

SmithWillis.ged Imported Successfully [21 March 2011]

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

• launch the Family Tree Explorer to navigate your tree
• view your network -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out to which other WeRelate users you are related.
• view related pages not in your tree -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out which people you are now related to that you can add to your tree (takes awhile to display for large trees).
• view a searchable list of the pages in your tree -- The searchable list will be available about an hour after your tree has been imported.

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

--WeRelate agent 08:07, 21 March 2011 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [5 April 2011]

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

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 10:32, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [5 April 2011]

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 Abner WIllisGed2.ged, your next step is to review what your pages will look like, review any potential warnings, and combine (merge) people in your GEDCOM with matching people already on WeRelate. You need to review your GEDCOM before it can finish importing. We will keep your GEDCOM in the queue for two weeks to give you time to review it.

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 11:16, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

Abner WIllisGed2.ged Imported Successfully [5 April 2011]

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

• launch the Family Tree Explorer to navigate your tree
• view your network -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out to which other WeRelate users you are related.
• view related pages not in your tree -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out which people you are now related to that you can add to your tree (takes awhile to display for large trees).
• view a searchable list of the pages in your tree -- The searchable list will be available about an hour after your tree has been imported.

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

--WeRelate agent 12:12, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

Smith Willis Pension Application [12 April 2011]

Found the pension app on Footnote.

I sent it to your personal E-Mail because I don't have this E-Mail. I get to this page via links.

At any rate, if you could let me know what Email I need to send it to you through WeRelate, I'm sure you would prefer that.

I don't know if you can use this image on this site or that would be a violation. Another reason I'm sending it to you personally. If you can't use the image, you can always copy it and have it for yourself.

Peace, T--Ruthnevada 23:40, 11 April 2011 (EDT)

Hi T. If you look on the left hand sidebar, and click "more", you'll get the "email this user link". Its the same address as I use for everything else. Whether you can use the image or not depends largely on its copyright status, and the site policy of your source. Its presumably an older court record, before 1923, so not protected by copyright. Footnote may or may not have any restrictions on the use of images obtained on their site. Have you looked at the terms and conditions? Q 07:40, 12 April 2011 (EDT)

Cowans [16 April 2011]

Hi Bill, got your message on the Cowan's. You are surely right that they are exceptionally confusing, many, many different "versions" across the internet. I do think that a few of the Cowan's we have on WeRelate may be duplicated, but I'll let you work most of them out.

I believe I did manage to figure out that the Samuel Cowan that married Margaret Keith was not Samuel Cowan, Sheriff of Blount County, TN, that married Esther "Hettie" Houston; obviously overlapping dates, marriages and children. Let me know if you disagree on this.

Anyway, what I'll try to do from this point forward is put additional records on the person pages to (hopefully) assist you in helping to sort them out.

Best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 10:27, 16 April 2011 (EDT)

Somebody is getting the hang of it.... [17 April 2011]

Bill, I have been wondering why A. Joseph Guffey hasn't had DNA testing done. I remember back 10 years ago when he was writing his book, he was everywhere. Just doesn't make sense he wouldn't pursue the DNA. I did some digging around and found an archived post from him on the Guffey genforum dated 2004 and he mentioned he had colon cancer. He was going through another round of Chemo and apologized for not being able to answer the posts. I couldn't find anymore posts from him nor did I find anything mentioned. I think he may have died. Just thought I would pass that along. You may already know - I didn't. T--Ruthnevada 00:45, 17 April 2011 (EDT)

yes, he does seem to have left the stage. At some point we all find that there are other priorities that are more pressing than genealogy. Let's hope for the best. Q 08:15, 17 April 2011 (EDT)

Cases heard before the Supreme Court for the District of Kentucky 1785-1792 [21 April 2011]

lawsuit between John Isaacs and William Willis

If you can get to this link, it is pretty interesting. It involves a lawsuit between John Isaacs and William Willis of Lincoln County. There is a plat map showing Willis settled below Dicks River adjoining Thomas Wilson's land. Names Wilson's run, Teator, etc. This particular case Willis lost. Seems both parties had claimed the same land; one by a military warrant and the other by a pre-emption warrant.

William Willis settled with a military warrant #248 dated 1780. This case was 1786. Other court info mentions Willis withdrawing an entry for 400 acres. It may had been near or adjoined land that he lost. Possibly he settled with his warrant somewhere else?--Ruthnevada 23:28, 20 April 2011 (EDT)

[23 August 2011]

Below is a link to Supreme Court rulings in the District of Kentucky 1785-92

This involves William Willis being sued by John Issacs over a land dispute. Willis had a military warrant and Issac's had a premption warrant and Issacs won. This case went down in the law books as far as what trumped what back then. This info was found on Google Books and it looks as though it can be downloaded for free.

What it does show is a plat map. The map indicates property lines, Dix River, Wilson's Run, etc. giving an idea where this land was. I think it may be in what is now Garrard County. If you get access to the info in this book through this link, I think you will make more sense of it all than I. Another entry in the book has Willis withdrawing his entry for 400 acres. If this date is AFTER the date that he lost in court, it may be that he moved to another location

Supreme Court rulings--ruthnevada 00:39, 21 April 2011 (EDT)

I've taken a quick look at this. Note that the land entry in question was takenout by William in 1780 This seems to be a different William than the father of McKinsey, as Person:William Willis (55) was not born until 1776 per what we have for his DOB at the moment. That DOB might be wrong, but its consistent with the DOB of his son McKinsey (1799) thought to be his eldest child. The William of the Lawsuit was probably not born after 1760. Also, a 1760 DOB would not be consistent with his DOD of 1866. Most likely this is a different William, but may still be kin to McKinsey. I can't do much with this at the moment, but may be able to get back to it middle of next week. Q 08:16, 21 April 2011 (EDT)

McKenzie was not thought to be the eldest child. A William Willis signed for Rachel Willis to marry Christopher Durbin in 1814.

 In 1816 a Nancy Willis was summoned to answer to the court why her minor son had not be bound out due to the father absconding from the country. (Of course we know that "country" usually meant out of state back then).

In 1820 Nancy Willis signed for her son McKenzie Willis to marry indicating the absence of a father. In 1820 census of Madison Co. Ky.; McKenzie is living next door to Christopher Durbin alone.

Assuming Rachel and McKinzie were siblings, there is a 6 year difference in marriages, not a 6 year AGE difference but both were minors when they were married. So if McKenzie was 20 when he needed a signature in 1820 and Rachel was 15, 16 or 17 in 1814; she would be older than McKenzie.

I started a process of elimination of Willises in Madison Co. Ky. that were known to be children of Drury but was side-tracked. Hoping to see if there may have been other children who could be a sibling to McKinzie. Need to get back to that. ruthnevada 14:49, 22 April 2011 (EDT)

I just posted info on my Dad's relation to Mack in a thread below(I had him do the DNA test). His relation is Clyde/Abner Bond/Merrill/McKinsie.

Our McKinsie line (DNA showed) is related to an Abner Willis of Washington Co, VA (this Abner is a different one then Abner Bond, who is my G Grandfather), which I am sure is in this thread somewhere. But Mack is NOT related to the William Willis everyone thinks he is related to, that I see on Ancestry.com, and not Nancy Smith but as you said, his mom's name was Nancy. It's very possible Mack is related to a William Willis, but he isn't related to the one everyone posts at Ancestry.com. This family of ours is VERY mysterious lol.

I would love to hear what your line is if you don't mind sharing? Please feel free to contact me if you are interested or anyone who shares the McKinsie line.

We sure need more Male Willis' to do the DNA test so that maybe we can figure out who Mack's father and mother were, and it would be great if we could connect McKinsie to Abner Willis of Washington Co, VA as we don't know where our trees meet.

--WILLISdescendant1 13:22, 23 August 2011 (EDT)

Help [22 April 2011]

Bill , Two questions:

When I bag something from the internet and I want to send you the page or link, and I want to send it to you through WeRelate, what is THAT email address? Knowing that, will keep my correspondence in reference to genealogy in one place.

There's a couple of ways you can handle it.

place it in a new article on WeRelate, with appropriate links to the relevant persons.

Add it to a "tapestry page"---for example, create a Notebook page with the title along the lines of "Notebook. Notes for William Willis (55)".  ::Alternatively create a Document page with a title like "Document. Marriange record for XYZ, Some County, KY, 1788""

Just email it to me trhough my usual address

send it as an email on the abnerandeve mailing list. (or, if you want, join one of the other lists, such as TheTapestry list.

Keep in mind that there's no direct connection between these mailing lists, and WeRelate per se. I've created most of them to directly support what's going on within the WeRelate on Tapestry, but there's no formal connection involved.

I see William Willis has a 55 behind him. I guess somewhere along the line I've missed the numbering. I don't quite know the reason for the numbers other than separating people with the same first names? So now I'm a little miffed on what William Willis I would be talking about.

WeRelate uses an indexing system to keep track of the different people. This particular person is at Person:William Willis (55). A shorthand way to refer to him is William Willis (55), or more simply William (55). When you "add" a new person article, it automatically gets the next highest index number for that name. This way, even though there are a good many different "William Willis" in the WeRelate data base (55 and counting), you can still pin point which one you are talking about by citing their index number. It gets rather interesting when you hit a name that's quite common. I don't know how many "John Walkers" there are in this system, but I wouldn't be surprized to see the index numbers for persons by this name having reached well into triple digits. Certain names that are listed as "Unknown Unknown" (where you don't know the name of someone but still need an article for them) reach into 4 digits. Eventually, this could get cumbersome, but for the moment its not a problem.

I think because this site is so big now (thanks to you and thank you again with hugs)

Well thank you, but you realize that there a lot of folks adding to this system, and I am NOT the most prolific person using Werelate. DeliJim far outstrips me, as do several others. I think my contribution to WeRelate is the creation, and application of the Tapestry concept.

But there should be some way to search an individual and everything pertaining to that person will pull up. Remember back in the nineties before County GenWeb Pages had a search button? Things were listed under catergoies? That is what I am experiencing here. Hopefully time will allow that to happen. T--ruthnevada 13:09, 22 April 2011 (EDT)

There is a fairly functional search capability. Check the top menu bar. Dallan is working to improve that, though for my purposes, its sufficient as it is. Categories CAN be used effectively to find things, though I usually find that the search function is sufficient. One of the reasons I insert the various banners on the tapestry pages is so that I can include a "Category" on the page. Some categories are created automatically (Surname and place categories for example. But others need a bit of a nudge---and that happens when you put a tapestry banner on a page. Thus, if you want of list of articles associated with The Willis Tapestry, you can just check Category:Willis Tapestry, and you get a list of everything that has that banner. Eventually, I'll create a banner specific to Kentucky Willis Tapestry, and then you can focus more precisely on that specific subset. There is, as an example, a Category:Southwest Virginia Cowan Tapestry, which, if you are interested in the Cowan's, allows you to focus more specifically on the Cowan's of SW VA. Since little has been done with the Willis', we don't yet have that kind of precision in the "Willis Tapestry". Q 14:47, 22 April 2011 (EDT)

Susan Willis--change of birth place [25 April 2011]

Hi there, I was reviewing an edit you made on Person:Susan Willis (7) last month and am curious as to why you changed her place of birth from Washington County, Virginia to Washington, Iowa. I'm curious to your source for this as Iowa didn't have much settlement until the 1830s, nor does this information seem to coincide with other information about the family.

Thanks, Kim--Kim Ostermyer 19:40, 25 April 2011 (EDT)

This particular Susan Willis is currently identified as the daughter of Smith Willis and Mary Mullins. Smith and Mary were living in Washington County VA in the early to mid/late 1790's, where they married about 1793 per Source:Brown, 1999. Tax records confirm Smith's presence there during this period. Some question about when he left the area, but in anycase he moved from SWVA to Kentucky by 1800 or so, and died in TN. Possibly there is a Susan Willis in Washington County, Iowa, and that's the one you originally entered data for, but in that case, her parents probably wouldn't be Smith and Mary. Perhaps we need two separate Susan Willis'.

The POB is listed with "...by Rev. Nic". I guess this is intended to indicate that its a baptism, and that the minister was Rev. Nic.....", but the last name is elided. Maybe Nicholas Regan was intended? Q 19:46, 25 April 2011 (EDT)

When you click the link for her birth place, it goes to Washington, Iowa. Most likely, the place matcher matched it to Washington, Iowa because the birth place of Washington Co., Va - By Rev. Nic was not standard and it matched it to the first Washington it came to. If you change the birth place to Washington, Virgina, United States it will fix the problem. --Jennifer (JBS66) 20:09, 25 April 2011 (EDT)

Thanks Jennifer. I completely missed that! Q 20:36, 25 April 2011 (EDT)

I'll change the info on FTDNA [14 May 2011]

Yes, I am the kit owner of that record. I'll change it at the source--Ceez 15:38, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

Hi, thought it might be you. And good, updating that record would be helpful. Personally, I think that origin field is fairly unuseful to begin with; most of what goes in there seems to be what people "think", as opposed to what they know. I've not figured out a way to edit those fields myself, and I think its held as a strict prerogative of the kit owner. You might want to consider adding a link to the appropriate page on WeRelate in the family history section.

I'm not totally sure what you mean by adding a link to the Family History section. WIll look around, and see if I can figure it out. Maybe I'm being dense ;)--Ceez 13:13, 14 May 2011 (EDT)

I'm being a bit creative here, and may be making an impossible suggestion.

What I'm thinking about is getting around the limitation on the amount of family history information can be provided for public view on the Family history text box for your kit. A link to the appropriate WeRelate page would do the trick. I know such links can work, because I've been able to add them to the "group notes"---unfortunately, most folks can't see the group notes, as they're sort of working notes about the group to be used for site Administration. Don't think kit owners can see them.

If you wanted to give it a try, the easiest way to do it would be to insert something like

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Samuel_Cowan_%2817%29

That would work, but the link wouldn't be "live". More coding would be needed to make it live. Unfortunately, the obvious "href" coding results in a "fatal error" message. Probably can't be done, so the simple URL above will have to do, and folks would have to cut and paste to get to the site.

Q 17:13, 14 May 2011 (EDT)

McKinsie Willis DNA Results [25 August 2011]

Hi,

My Father is a descendant of Clyde/Abner Bond/Merrill/McKinsie Willis.

EDITED: His McKinzie's father may have been a William, but there is no concrete proof, I know though that people feel it adds up what they do know. Hoping to find more descendants of Mack (McKinsie) that match the DNA test results, that is the only way we may find out who is real father was. I do have some documents I would be happy to share if interested. Would like to find proof of Mack's sister being Rachel Willis too, and other siblings. --WILLISdescendant1 12:58, 23 August 2011 (EDT)

Hi Sal. I'll Guess that you and Teressa have already shared most of the information that you hold in common....In which case I've probably already seen it. Terssa and I have been working to gether for a fair bit of time. Finding another lineage Whose YDNA matched up with Abner Willis of SW VA, was certainly an interested discovery. I spent a bit of time looking at McKensie's lineage, but soon realized that it dead ended at about the same about the same moment in time as Abner's. I still believe that Abner is the son of Henry Willis of Saltville, but others who claim descent from that Henry, do not match in terms of YDNA. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get a good sense that they have their lineage correct. I suspect that they descend from the Henry Willis who appeared in Greene County TN after the Revolution, but their linkage to Henry of Saltville is, I think, largely unsupported. They say its so, but when asked why, they seem unable to provide direct evidence. Currently, I'm not focused on this lineage, and while I'm always interested in new data as it comes in, my suspicion is that finding the connecting link between McKensie and Abner, is going to be a very hard slog. Not impossible, but quite difficult. YDNA studies remain the best hope of solving this problem.

By the way, I believe Abner had a brother Amos, who appears about the same time Abner does (about 1795) in the tax records of SW VA. living in close proximity of each other. I believe this Amos went to western Kentucky, near the TN border, or perhaps just over the border, sometime after 1810. One of the things I hope to see one day is a YDNA record for this particular line. Q 10:26, 25 August 2011 (EDT)

Hi (Bill?)!

Thanks much for your message. I don't know that I have all info that Teressa does, as she has a record of where McKinzie is buried and the people I am in contact with, have not been able to find where he was buried. Though there is speculation that he was buried on the farm where Merrill and Merrill's daughter Rosa are buried, about 2 acres from there, as the farm was the last place that McKinzie lived before he died ( He also owned some of that land but I believe he sold it). He was broke I think when he died, and so back then they would have buried a person in that situation in the nearest burial plot. The owners of that farm had found an abandoned burial plot ( 2 acres from where Merrill is buried) and it would make sense that he might be buried there. But, like i said, Teressa has a record stating where he was buried, so I am interested in knowing where she got it and if there is other information. I am trying to contact a researcher who came across records on William Willis and Nancy Smith a while back, when I was under the impression we WEREN'T related to them ( though we have no proof, even though a few things match up). Also, she did send me William Willis and Nancy Smith's Marriage certificate, but it got moved back to the bottom of my pile of documents until today.

I had the researcher send me Mack and Mary Logsdon's marriage certificate, and court records on Mack needing to do an apprenticeship, and other items, back in March or April and I have shared those on my Ancestry.com family tree and with Teressa and others. I hope that the gal that did the research for me before, can get those documents I didn't have her get me on william and nancy smith.

It is all sooo confusing. I have a distant cousin (she is related through William Sidney Willis, Merrill Willis's son from his 1st marriage. I am related to her through Merrill's son Abner Bond Willis, from his 3rd marriage) who I suggested that her Father have the DNA test done, and she is having him do it, I believe she has sent it in. Not sure it will prove anything but I am glad he is doing it and we'll find out this fall for sure!

I usually recommend to people I contact at times, about info on their family tree that is related to ours, that they have a Male Willis do the test but so far, I don't think anyone has lol. So you aren't researching Abner of VA and Mack Willis anymore? I can't recall right now if you said you feel we are related to Henry of Rhode Island or Henry of VA? This WErelate is all new to me so I hope to get better at navigating it. Hope to talk to you in the future!--WILLISdescendant1 10:48, 25 August 2011 (EDT)

While I remain interested in Abner Willis' lineage, these days my focus is with other lines in SW VA. When your lines data came in on the YDNA front I spent a few days looking at the information for Mackensie Willis, concluding some connections that others had made were unlikely, but not finding any useful leads immediately. I've not searched Abner and Eve for some years, and have pretty much exhausted the obvious sources. Hence, I await YDNA leads. Q 15:27, 25 August 2011 (EDT)

McKinzie Willis [18 September 2011]

Hi Bill, When you have a chance will you take a look at the McKinzie Willis page? He is listed as having several siblings born 50 years after him. Thanks, Teressa--ruthnevada 14:10, 18 September 2011 (EDT)

Re McKinsey's sibling's shown at Person:McKinsey Willis (1): Yes, that's so, McKinsey is shown as born in 1799, and his next dated sibling is shown as being born in 1844. Not impossible, but suspicious. There are several alternatives:

A) his parents had an unusual set of births for their children

B) his father was married multiple times, and we don't have most of the children for the first marriage.

C) his father is not the William shown here, but a different William

D) William is not his father.

I believe Sal is of the view that William is not the father, but has not marshalled proof to support that. Until we have a solid reason to believe that the data we have is not right its probably best to leave the data as is, rather than leap to a conclusion. The best approach, I think, would be to make use of WeRelates documentation fields to show a) the DOB's for the individuals shown are correct or not, and b) that William and Mary Logsdon are their parents. Eventually, something will clearly break, and that may give insight as to whether William and Mary are indeed the parents of McKinsey. Q 19:08, 18 September 2011 (EDT)

McKinzie Willis [19 October 2011]

There is an error for the McKinzie Willis tree. There are two trees listed. The first shows Mckinzies parents having children in their seventies and eighties. The second one seems correct.

Even if the tree submitted that way, it is highly improbable. Are the trees that are submitted identified by who sent them?--ruthnevada 13:29, 19 October 2011 (EDT)

You can check the page history to see when certain information was added. Usually that means going back and forth between different dates, to see when information appears and dissappears. As different pieces of information accumulate, it sometimes becomes apparent that older additions do not jive with the newer data. Its not always obvious which one is correct. If you accept the DOB of the mother, then the children born very late in life are obviously not hers. They might be a child by second marriage to a younger woman (who we may or may not know the identity of). ON the other hand, if you accept the identity of the children perhaps their DOB's are in error. Without looking at that in detail I don't know which if either view might be correct.

If the children were added through a GEDCOM upload, then sometimes information can be incorporated unknowingly. Q 13:42, 19 October 2011 (EDT)

question and thanks [29 February 2012]

Thanks for fixing my citation error yesterday, I'm starting to get the hang of this. Now I have one question, why are individuals born in the 1600 and earlier in my gedcom files flagged as early and not imported?--Projectmc 19:32, 29 February 2012 (EST)

HI, Projectmc. I didn't actually do the fix, that was done by one of the admin's. I just noticed the change (since I created the page its on my watch list). I also noticed that whoever made the change didn't make an explicit explanation, and I thought it might be useful to you to understand why the change was made. I don't know why pre 1600 entries are being flagged. I don't, as a rule, use GedComs, and my interest is pretty much between 1700 and 1800 anyway, so those few times I've imported a GedCom, its not likely to have come up. I can guess that it might be flagging something as inconsistent with other information (e.g., dates don't make sense to the machine). I don't think they'd systematically toss pre-1600 dates unless there's a conflict in the data. You might try asking this of User:Delijim. He's an Admin, and quite familiar with the GedCom import process. Q 19:46, 29 February 2012 (EST)

New ribbons [6 March 2012]

I made some new ribbons for Well Written Narrative, Genealogy Well Done, and Featured Article. The following are scalable SVG images, rather than bitmap files.

• — Well Written Narrative
• — Genealogy Well Done
• — Featured page of the week.

The current ribbons, red and green, only seem to be used on a few older articles. Many featured articles, have green star ribbons, and only the older (circa 2007) articles have the ribbons on the Featured Articles page. Perhaps all the former featured articles need to be checked, given red Featured Article ribbons, and also either a Well Written Narrative ribbon or a Genealogy Well Done ribbon. — Parsa 02:25, 6 March 2012 (EST)

Hi Parsa---Those look really nice, and their use will be a welcome addition. The use of the ribbons was something I started mostly so that we could acknowledge well done articles, etc. Something that would highlight an article that you came across that had been a featured article, or something someone thought was well done. DeliJim picked up on that, and has been adding ribbons to featured articles etc. Since he's the one now identifying featured articles I'll pass this on to him. Q 08:58, 6 March 2012 (EST)

I didn't want to step on any toes, but I thought it might not be a bad idea to go back and retroactively change all the featured articles to the red ribbon, and then add one of the two green ribbons to those featured pages. As I understand from the Watercooler discussion in 2009, awarding the Well Done ribbons is unofficial, and anyone can add them to a page they like... kind of like barnstars and other awards on Wikipedia. Do I have that correct? My only issue is that for some of the featured articles, such as User or Talk pages, there really isn't going to be a lot of source citations. However, the work, whatever it is, would still qualify as good genealogical research. It also seems we would need a template for Well Written Narrative articles like we do for the other two awards. — Parsa 10:31, 6 March 2012 (EST)

Sure, I think what you'd thinking of makes sense. I was more interested at the time that there should be something to acknowledge work well done. The ribbon with a star seemed like a good approach, and as you put it, very similar in concept to barnstars. I think the only one actually using these is DeliJim, but he's using them in a very appropriate, high visibility, way. I think there's room for elaboration on the concept. I think the two of you should discuss this. I can put my oar in the water if you want. Q 11:31, 6 March 2012 (EST)

OK, I'll post on his talk page and discuss it with him. The criteria for each can be stressed, with a link to some of your articles. A brief criteria list may need to be made for the well written narratives as well. — Parsa 12:07, 6 March 2012 (EST)

William Porter Sr. [12 March 2012]

--RBH 21:26, 11 March 2012 (EDT)

Wm. Porter Sr. of Rockbridge County, VA [12 March 2012]

Hi,

Received your message about not changing Jane (Jean Gean). I have looked through the various Rootsweb Familly tree pages aznd

they all name her as Jane or Jane Rebecca and some as Jean.

I believe that it is something that the Scoth-Irish did very frequently was to spell Jane as Jean. It was used interchangeably and is enough to amke a person crazy not to mention the overuse of the same names down through the whole family. So much of the early trees are seen as cast in cement that a lot of the information is passed on without verification.

Any ideas on trying to find proof of Gean Mackey in Chauley's Chronicles ? I have spent hours going through the volumes. One would think there would be an easier way. I am pretty much a novice when it comes to research. I have gleaned my information by looking at many many family trees plus my own and if something does not look right to me I start digging.--RBH 21:38, 11 March 2012 (EDT)

I left you a message? OK, Old age is creeping up on me faster than I thought (G). I did work on the article in response to your comments, and i think I have the core of the problem resolved. And thank you for the link to the will! That was a big help.

Let me think about this, and I'll get back to you tomorrow re searching for Gene in Source:Chalkley's Chronicles. Chalkleys can be intimidating, and has its limitations, but its the best thing going that's easily accessible, at least for this period and location. Q 22:10, 11 March 2012 (EDT)

One of the reasons you may have had difficulty finding references in Chalkley's is because of the "Mc" at the begining of the name. Entries for "McKay" are listed at the beginning of the "M's" entries, but deeper down in alphabetical order if the name was spelled "MacKay", as was more usually the case. You also have to be aware of likely alternative spellings such as McKey vs McKay vs Mackey etc.

Chalkley gives an item in volume 2 for Jane McKay

ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/augusta/court/2court30.txt

Thomas Berry vs. Rebecca Berry--O. S. 414; N. S. 150--Bill by Rebecca Berry of Rockingham, daughter of Henry Berry, who bought 212 acres from 213 acres from George Homrickhizer. Oratrix had brother John and brother Henry and brother Thomas. Deed was made to Thomas. In 1818 Thos. sold 20 acres to Thos. Gilmore. Henry, Sr., died 1810, intestate, leaving wife, since dead, and children, viz: Thos., Henry, Sarah McCloud; Jane, who married Jno. Gladen; John; Margaret Smith, deceased; Elizabeth McClure, deceased, leaving son Joseph McClure McKey (McChee?); oratrix. Oratrix has lived on the land 24 years. In 1827 John H. Campbell received deed from Thos. Berry. Geo. Berry deposes in Harrisonburg, June, 1828, Henry Berry was his apprentice and Henry Berry and Charles Spracher about 12 years ago. Geo. is 63 years old and Thos. Berry is five years younger. Rebecca was 20 years old when the land was bought from Humbrickhouser. At that time she had a bastard child. Witness knew Thos. Berry before he came to Virginia. George came with Henry's family. They came 10-11 years before purchase from Humbrickhouser from the Jerseys. Thos. Berry married daughter of Jno. Gordon, who deposes, Gordon with Thos. Berry is about to move to Western Country. Gordon McWilliams deposes, he was a waggoner to Fredericksburg. George Gordon had lived on the Humbrickhouser place. John Berry, son of Henry, Sr., deposes, Henry came from New Jersey, about 10 miles from Monmouth Court House; they moved to Virginia when the troops were ordered to the Whiskey Rebellion. Thomas was then about 23 years old. Jane married John McKay about 1797, and afterwards John Gladwell. Sallie McCloud moved to the West Fork of Potomac. At age 13 John Berry was put to learn blacksmith trade and went to Kentucky and was gone 6 months. Henry, Sr., died 16 years ago last April. Thomas Gordon lived in Muddy Creek in 1812.

There's also an entry for Jane McKey in volume 3

ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/augusta/court/3court13.txt

Page 200--22d November, 1773.-- John Macky's will--To wife, Mary; to son, Henry, a plantation in Forks of James River in Botetourt County, 170 acres; to son, William, 360 acres the testator lives on; to daughter, Jane; to daughter, Mary: to daughter, Esther; to daughter, Betsy. "Until my children come to full age." Executors, wife Mary, brother-in-law Wm Porter, Henry McClung. Teste: Archibald Alexander, Joseph Reed, John Peoples. Proved, 15th March. 1774, by the witnesses. Executors qualify (Mary __ her mark) with Saml. McDowell. John Porter.

There may be additional entries. I'd recommend that you use the Rootsweb treatment of Chalkley's, rather than say the Ancestry version, with rootsweb, you can look at the index, and quickly spot different spellings of the same name. On Ancestry you have to plug each variant into the search field. If you don't think of a likely variant you might miss it entirely.

However, I'm not sure what you meant by "proof of Jane McKay". Did you mean proving that Gean was Jane or Jean? or proof that she was John McKay's wife or daughter, or something else altogether. As far as maintaining the spelling of the given name as Gean, I don't know what that was in reference to, but perhaps it was related to a transcription of a document. Yes, most of us understand that "Gean" is "Jean" is "Jane". But if you are transcribing a specific source, and they spell the name "Gean" that spelling should be used in the transcription. Its OK, I think, when you write aobut the person to make the equivocation and use the "Jane" spelling. But when quoting the original one should not change the spelling to the more modernized form. There are, of course, exceptions to everything. It depends on the circumstances. Q 09:21, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

Wm. Porter Sr. Rockbridge County [12 March 2012]

--RBH 14:32, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

Porter [12 March 2012]

As I look back on my last message, I can see why you were confused.

I was referring to both Jane, Jean, Gean *mother and daughter.

Mother Gean is listed as being a Black on many website family trees. This is what I meant by misreading the will and interpreting both Geans as being one person. I believe she(mother was not a Black but a Mackey.

Her daughter Jane, Jean, Gean married Samuel Black. She is listed as a Mackey b. 1711 in several Family Tree sites. Wm. Sr. is said to have been born in Goshen, Rockbridge county. He couldn't have been because it was then Orange County which is where his first land purchase was recorded from.He died in Rockbridge Co. and his son is listed as being born in Rockbridge, Goshen but a 1735 birthdate would have made it still in Orange. He also, died in Goshen, Rockbridge in 1804. His son John, his first born (1730) is listed as born in Botetourt. No wonder I can't find records...I don't know where to look! Strangely, there is no death date listed for Gean (wife) but she is still mentioned in his will which was written in 1780. Probated in 1782. Records for him are found in Orange, Augusta and Rockbridge. Have another inquiry as to land that will address at a later date. Thanks so much for your help. RBH--RBH 14:56, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

New database on Ancestry [1 May 2012]

Hi Bill,

Noticed this new database on Ancestry which may be helpful with your Pennsylvania research; Pennsylvania, Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801. Have a great weekend. --Beth 08:33, 27 April 2012 (EDT)

Thanks Beth! I'll check it out.Q 06:34, 1 May 2012 (EDT)

Germanna colonies [17 May 2012]

Hi Bill,

Never heard of these until recently. Husband probably a descendant of the Broyles family from the Second Colony.--Beth 00:40, 18 May 2012 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [12 July 2012]

You're not done yet!

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

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

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 14:36, 12 July 2012 (EDT)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [12 July 2012]

You're not done yet!

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

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

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

Click here to review your GEDCOM

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

--WeRelate agent 15:38, 12 July 2012 (EDT)

Willis Family Tree.ged Imported Successfully [12 July 2012]

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

• launch the Family Tree Explorer to navigate your tree
• view your network -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out to which other WeRelate users you are related.
• view related pages not in your tree -- If you matched families in your GEDCOM to existing families, find out which people you are now related to that you can add to your tree (takes awhile to display for large trees).
• view a searchable list of the pages in your tree -- The searchable list will be available about an hour after your tree has been imported.

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

--WeRelate agent 21:34, 12 July 2012 (EDT)

[1 January 2013]

Thank you for separating the erroneous Cowan merge. I will attempt to correct my original pages, which were not the same family members of Person:Samuel Cowan (17) and make a note of same.--Khaentlahn 09:24, 1 January 2013 (EST)

You're Welcome. I presume that the Samuel Cowan of Franklin County TN that you are interested in is related to the Cowan's of Cowan TN. Their residence in that area is a bit outside my geographical and time focus, but its clear that they are part of the very widespread Seven Brothers Group of Cowans. So I presume your Samuel is 7B also. Samuel (17) is in the Cowan's Gap Group, and his descendants have a distinctively different YDNA signature from those descended from the Seven Brothers. Q 11:19, 1 January 2013 (EST)

Thank-you [30 January 2013]

Thank-you for all of your hard work you have put into WeRelate over the years. I am finding it easier to navigate and I am finding data much easier. I'm not sure what it is that makes it easier but I certainly appreciate it! T--ruthnevada 16:16, 30 January 2013 (EST)

You're certainly welcome. Would the navigation devices, eg., things like

be what's helping you find things? That's what they were designed to do, at any rate. The links shown help take you to different portions of the Tapestry, but also give you access to specific sets of articles related to the surname. ONe of the big problems with workoingon a wiki is how easy it is to forget what you've done. This set up at least partially makes that easier. I don't have to remember, and others can easily discover what's been done that might be of interest to them. Also, in recent months I've taken to inserting near the top of the page Links to sources used, and pointing out related articles.---As when there's an obituary transcript related to a particular person the onbituary is placed on a "Transcript" page, and a link back to the person is added. That way you can move back and forth easily betweenthe person page, and the transcript page---an any other relevant pages that have been added to the "Related" section. Ultimately, the idea is to make the user's experience as easy as possible. Q 17:55, 30 January 2013 (EST)

Augusta and Kanawha [14 March 2013]

Hi Bill, got your note, the changes look good, thanks:) I also noticed another page that you had added a map and additional info the other day, thanks also for adding that, too:)

Have a great week,

Jim:)--Delijim 17:11, 14 March 2013 (EDT)

Christopher Gist [27 April 2013]

You may want to move the issue you raised with the spouse of Christopher Gist to the talk page.

Having said that I have to disagree with your statement that Darlington identifies her as Zipporah Murray, he quite clearly says she is the wife of Richard Gist, Christophers father, and by inference his mother. He also states that Christopher's wife was Sarah Howard. Whilst I have yet to confirm her surname, I do have three of the named children as being baptized to Christopher and Sarah Gist in Baltimore.--Btomp 13:55, 27 April 2013 (EDT)

If you like, please document your information on the page. Thanks, Q 14:07, 27 April 2013 (EDT)

Willis familiy in Isle of Wight Va [4 May 2013]

Hi Bill, How are you? Been working on husband's Gay family that were in the Isle of Wight Va. The Gay family lived on the line that adjoined Nansemond Co. Some of the Gay family lived in Nansemond but unfortunately the records no longer exist. His and other Gay families use the given name Willis. The first known Willis Gay was b. in the late 1700's. William and Willis are used as different given names as some families named children William and Willis. Just wondering if you have found any docs that have both the Gay and Willis surname. Thanks. --Beth 22:16, 3 May 2013 (EDT)

Hi Beth

I've had occasion to briefly glance at the Willis lines in the SE VA area, but never went very far with it. My impression is that they were spreading westward from Norfolk, but moving back and forth across the VA/NC border. Some of the many WIllis lines in NC have their origin with Willis' in SE VA. But to answer your specific question, no, don't recall anything like that. Didn't mean I didn't come across it. But its the kind of thing that I'd only remember if it lead somewhere for the problem I was working on at the time. Willis as a given name, however, might not necessarily mean there's a Willis surname in the background. I see it frequently enough in early records that I suspect it became a legitimate given name in its own right. Q 01:08, 4 May 2013 (EDT)

Samuel Givens [5 May 2013]

I do not know how this URL changed but it has. Here is the correct one for the ref fo Sam Givens. Brenda in Memphis (Comtutors)

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=brendablack&id=I20557

Hi Brenda

Thank you for the feedback. Glad you're watching the page.

This particular link was placed (appropriately enough) in "MySource" namespace. The intent of that namespace has changed a bit over the past several years, but I tend to think of it as a space to capture links that have limited recovery potential---as for example things like personal web pages. Those pages (and their links) will persist only so long as the owner of the pages chooses to let them persist. They might last a lifetime, or they may disappear tomorrow. Moreover, what they say today may be quite different from what they say tomorrow. Pages like this come and go. Linking to them for long term purposes, has correspondingly limited merit. Yet while they last we do make use of them---realizing that they may be gone tomorrow, or perhaps no longer say what we were trying to capture. The web page that you pointed to should have reasonable persistence, but it is really the reference to "Agnatic List" that's important, as this was the item being cited on WeRelate to support the idea that Samuel's son George was a "Captain" (presumably a military captain).

Unfortuanately, the Web page for the Agnatic list only provided limited additional information, not enough to confirm George's status as a Captain. What was need was an Original Source to establish this fact. So I spent a bit of time looking for that information, and following hints on the website, and other pointers, I came up with information from a Journal of one of the officers in the battle of Point Pleasant. That confirmed that there was a brevet Captain Givens at the Battle, but didn't provide his given name. However, I also found a record for a Rev War pension application that showed the person applying for the pension served under Captain George Givens during the Point Pleasant Campaign. Assuming this is the same George Givens son of Samuel, that's evidence that he really was a "Captain". Of course, this could be a different "George Givens", but George son of Samuel would have been about the right age to have been a lieutenant brevetted to Captain during the Point Pleasant Campaign. It would take more information to show that this is the same person as George son of Samuel, but we're now a bit further down the path for this confirmation.

Again, thanks for your help with this.

Q 09:20, 5 May 2013 (EDT)

Wigtown, Wigtownshire, Scotland [16 May 2013]

The map that you added from Wikipedia in April 2013 has been moved to the page [[Place:Wigtown (town), Wigtownshire, Scotland|the town of Wigtown]].

The present parish map is one that is now part of all the Wigtownshire parish pages and I wanted to retain the format throughout the county. --goldenoldie 10:58, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

Meadow Creek John Walker [18 May 2013]

Hello -- I have been using Ancestry.com for my genealogical search. However, I found the article on Meadow Creek John Walker, from whom I am descended; so I thought I would write to you to ask you if you have any further details on my ancestor I have been trying to sort out fact from what I believe is legend. Many sources claim that MCJW was a veteran soldier of the Am. Rev and received bounty lands in Tennessee for his service. Based on "Connections in East Tennessee" by Edwards and Frizzel, land grants were registered to him; however, I cannot find a good source that demonstrates these grants were issued based on military service. DAR has a "patriot" ancestor listed as John Walker form SW Virginia. I think this might be MCJW; because his wife was named Mary and his son, Thomas, was married to my 5x great grandmother, Elizabeth Magill (McGill). But this John Walker served as a juror not as a soldier, and that service, while valuable is not so valiant. Do you have any information that would shed light on this issue? Taffy Walker--Yumataffy 21:10, 18 May 2013 (EDT)

In a nutshell. We do not know who MCJW's parents were, though there are a few clues that suggest he passed through Southwest Virginia. MCJW died in Greene Co. TN, and NEVER settled in Blount County. One of his son's, Tom Walker, settled there about 1805, and several kinsmen (Joseph Walker and his son) moved there briefly, but later moved to the Kingston area. (Joseph, by the way, is the Joseph who witnessed MCJW's will. He lived a bit further north on Horse Creek.) There was a John Walker who lived at the mouth of Eljoy Creek, but there's convincing evidence that he is unrelated to MCJW, even though descendants of Tom Walker referred to him as "grandfather John". Rather, the best evidence we have suggests that this particular John Walker, also known as "Indian Killer" was the son of John Walker III of the Wigton Walker line. YDNA evidence shows that MCJW is unrelated to the Wigton Walkers. I don't recall seeing that Indian Killers wife was named "Mary" though he did have a daughter Mary. IN anycase, if you're lineage goes through Tom Walker, MCJW is your ancestor. Q 22:10, 18 May 2013 (EDT)

Help please [22 October 2013]

Hello,

I have often wondered about your user name Quoll with and "a" for Koala, both of which are native Australian animals and your researched pages appear to all be in the USA. Is there a story to this?

Anyway that is not the reason for contacting you. I like the Tapestry idea and I would like to create one for the First Fleet in Australia but in looking at the pages and even going to edit and looking at the layout of the background I get some idea but I am not certain how to create a Tapestry like banner. Is there one specific template page that I could copy and then modify?

Thank you Jeffrey--Jeffrey Lehrer 02:36, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

HI Jeffery

No, initially the handle Quolla was a random choice, more or less being playful, then came Q, then the image of the Koala. I've no personal connection with that part of the world that I know of, though I do have a few colleagues living in those area.

I'm glad you like the idea underlying the Tapestry. Some get it some do not. The navigation templates have a long developmental history. There close to what's needed, but I continue to tinker with them. Basically, they are laid out so that certain parts can be reused and recombined in different ways, without creating the whole thing everytime, and also trying to keep a tight grip on consistency. The main ideas are that you can organize articles in such a way that

a) what's been written is recoverable (not so easy as it might seem) b) you can move from one area of the Tapestry and back without too much effort---or reliance on memory.

I presume that what you are trying to do is create lineages for persons in the First Fleet, and couple them in someway with other sets of articles---say about specific unit histories, places, events, etc.

There are several template's that could be used to style something else from, but saying which one's would work best for your purposes would require knowing more about your purposes.

Usually, the banner includes three or four elements, framed in an html table. I prefer HTML style rather than the wiki table style, but that's a personal preference

The four elements are:

1. TOC along the left hand edge 2. Banner image in the top middle 3. A navigation pane to major parts of the Tapestry at the bottom middle 4. A menu along the right hand edge, specific to the portion of the tapestry that's being worked on.

The TOC element is easiest to do, because you just use the _TOC_ command to insert the pages TOC The Banner image is also easy, as you just need an appropriate image for the part of the tapestry being worked. The navigation pane simply includes links to whatever part of the Tapestry you want folks to be able to get to quickly. In my case that's things like "Old Augusta", "Old Chester" etc. The menu pane provides links to specific subsets of information that are more or less standardized to that part of the Tapestry.

Here's an example

which looks something like

TOC disabled		Cowan Tapestry Register Data Notebooks Analysis Bibliography Graphics YDNA Cowan Links Index
	……………………..The Tapestry Families Old Chester OldAugusta Germanna New River SWVP Cumberland Carolina Cradle The Smokies Old Kentucky

Thanks for that,

I tried to contact privately but you either have that disabled or an incorrect email address.

Anyway, there were 11 ships, so the 11 ship names would be one type of category, I was imagining where you have the "Old Augusta", etc under the image. Then the first fleeters are usually divided into three main categories. Convicts, male, female and children of. Marines, officials and their families. Sailors. I imagine these categories and sub categories could go on the side panel.

Best Regards Jeffrey--JeffreyRLehrer 12:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Curious that. I checked my permissions, and yes that had been disabled. Not sure how when or why. Also disabled was when someone posts on my talk page---yet I am getting those messages. Irrespecitve, I reset the permissions so that the email capability is restored. Thanks!

There are always many ways that you can slice a layer cake. Some work better for different purposes than others. From what you describe, your suggested approach sounds reasonable. The way The tapestry works is to have two main sets of groups: Surname Tapestries, and Place Name Tapestries. Sort of like Genealogy forums, some of which are location specific, and others are surname specific. If you're pursuing someone named "Cowan" who was living in Chester County PA in 1760, you might first search the Cowan message board, and see what turned up. But it might also be useful to query the Chester Message board, as there might be folks on that board who might not be particularly interested in Jones, but have lots of information about Chester County---and Jones data might be in their information set.

In the Tapestry the two ideas are combined, at least where the approach has been most rigorously applied. So you have an "Old Chester Cowan Tapestry" where information about Cowans in Old Chester is being collected.

Let me know if I can help further.

Q 14:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Template on Page of Robert Allen (71) [26 October 2013]

Hi Bill, Janie Jackson Kimball (janiejac) sent me a note on my Talk Page that the template on the page of Robert Allen didn't look right. I don't see anything on my browser, maybe you can check it out.

Thanks and best regards,

Jim:)--Delijim 02:10, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I took a look at it this morning. I don't see anything in particular that's a problem, but I can point to two things that might have seem out of place, one related to a change in the template, and the other to its implementation on this page.

• In the case of the template itself, it now includes links to Beverley Manor, Borden's Grant and Early Settlers in the menu sidebar. I don't recall doing that myself, but perhaps I did, or perhaps you did. Seems reasonable from the perspective of the purposes of the Old Augusta Project.

• In the case of the implementation on the page, I usually try to keep section titles short so that the navigation box doesn't look "stretched out". Long section titles tend to do that. This is more an aesthetic problem, than a functional problem. I think the pages look better with the shorter titles. I shortened some of these, and that may make the box look "right" to Janijac. I think you prefer the longer more informative section titles. If you would rather use them, I'll undo the shortened titles. Q 12:10, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I tried to tell Jim what I was seeing. I checked it now again to see if your edits had made a difference. The problem is still there. The template is not dropping down below the family col. On the right side, the col containing his parents and siblings is on top of the right col of the template but the text on both is showing, meshed together. I'm using Mozilla Firefox; my monitor I think is set for 1024 pixels wide and 768 high. Ah, using Chrome, the page is just fine with the template dropping below the family col so they don't mesh with each other. Also, with IE, there is no problem. In fact you would not have had to narrow the right col of the template. So the only time the problem occurs is when using Mozilla Firefox. Could it be something in my settings? Or just with Mozilla? --janiejac 14:10, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, that's good. Browser related issue. Almost impossible to optimize for every browser. I've very little experience with Foxfire. I would guess its Foxfire in general, and not your specific settings, but I'm just guessing. Q 15:04, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I use Firefox. It works fine if the page is wide enough. My normal viewing is full screen and it was OK when I first looked at it. But I switched to non-full screen, and in the smaller window, the template overlapped on top of the infobox. --Jrich 15:08, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

you're adding the childlist to the wrong family. [9 November 2013]

Please read the page you are editing. --Jrich 23:36, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thankyou. I didn't note that you had changed the name of the wife to Sarah. I appreciate the catch. Q 23:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Person:John Cowing (1) [11 November 2013]

I am not sure what you are trying to do but what you are doing is not right.

So there are two families with husband John Cowing. If you want to make the husband unknown remove the husband from the family page.

Do not remove John from his parents. The parents and the birth in Scitate go togther. You can't take one without the other. He belongs on the family page of the parents where he was. Where he perhaps doesn't belong is on the Family page with Sarah Mitchell. --Jrich 16:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you do not understand what's going on here. YDNA tests for the descendants of the the John Cowen who married Sarah MItchell in 1718 in Rhode Island do not match the that of descendants of John (1) and Rebecca Short. The break can be shown to have occurred at the level of John and Sarah. That's the problem that we've been working for some time, though you did not apparently realize it. The John who married Sarah Mitch is not the same John as the son of John Cowing (2). Q 16:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand exactly. The nature of the problem was pretty obvious as soon as the marriage to Rachel Crowell is compared to that of Sarah Mitchell. But the 1692 birth date does NOT go with the John Cowing who married Sarah Mitchell. That is what I am saying. Basically, you know nothing about the John Cowing who married Sarah Mitchell prior to his marriage. There needs to be a John Cowing put back into the family of John Cowing and Sarah --- of Scituate who was born in 1692. And by the way, I wouldn't get too attached to the surname Short. The proof that it was Rebecca Short requires a marriage in 1637 which doesn't fit well with a lady who had children in 1766. It's at the remote edges of likelihood and it is far more likely she is a different person. --Jrich 17:31, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm in the process of updating and revising as needed. What was moved was the couple John Cowen=Sarah Mitchell. That probably left a gap in John (2)'s children, which may need to be refilled. The DOB for the John who married Sarah Mitchell is most likely in error, though its approximately correct, if unsupported by original source documentation. I'll review and change as needed. However, the John Cowing who married Sarah Mitchel still can not be the son of John (2), given current information. There are other possible explanations for the data at hand. If you can show this is not the best interpretation. I would be pleased to see a reasoned argument. As to Rebecca, there's a reasonable trace to her marriage to Richard Mann in Norwich England in the 1630's. Her date of birth has not been substantiated, though its consistent with the marriage date. There's a reasonable demonstration that this couple left England the following year for the Netherlands. Given their location in England, and a Netherlands destination, there's a reasonable view that they were Puritans, and eventually made their way Boston where Richard appears in 1644. Whether or not this is the same couple is a reasonable question, and I'd like to see further evidence to show that. However, currently, it seems to be the best explanation. As to Rebecca's age when she gave birth that may or may not be a problem. Q 18:22, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I added a new John in the Scituate couple and removed the 1692 birth from Sarah Mitchell's husband. A couple of days ago I posted an abstract of an article from 1995 issue of American Genealogist on Richard and Rebecca's page. It seemed highly skeptical that this is the same couple who were married in England in 1637, which is the only evidence that Richard Man's wife's maiden name was Short. You may want to read the whole thing given your interest in this family. --Jrich 18:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I read your note previously. I'm cognizant of the issues pointed to with regard to Rebecca wife of Richard Mann and later wife of John Cowen in Scituate. It may be that further information will resolve those issues, or force a conclusion that this is not the same couple. Among other things, I'm not totally convinced that the children listed as children of John and Rebecca are necessarily the children of John, or were born at the dates given. There are other possible interpretations. While I don't know that this is relevant, Rebecca is sometimes identified as Rebecca Brewster. Why she's so Identified I don't know, but many do so. Presumably that's based on something, even if its wrong. It would be good to know what that was based on if for no other reason than to allow it to be raised and presumably dismissed. Q 18:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

WHile I consider what is being shown now for these two families to be the best supported interpretation of both the YDNA evidence and the documentary evidence, the situation, like most family histories, is rather complicated. There maybe other factors involved here than is immediately obvious. More YDNA evidence from other male lines of descent would From both Scituate A and B, would help with that, but are not likely to be immediately forth coming. A resolution of the identity of John (1)'s wife as Rebecca Mann would also help, as would be additional insight into the DOB's of the children attributed to John and Rebecca. If, for instance, these turned out to be baptismal dates, than they may have actually been Richards children, though they took the Cowen surname. Q 18:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

More issues with Deane's History of Scituate: "Richard Man (planter) was a youth in Elder Brewster's family and came to Plymouth in the 'Mayflower', 1620." I believe this is pretty well debunked and it is now accepted that it was Richard More. But given that fiction, it is not a far stretch to Ezra Stearn saying in Genealogical and Family History of New Hampshire that "There is no record of his marriage in Scituate, but he is said to have married Rebecca, daughter of Elder William Brewster, one of the Mayflower Pilgrims." Well, this is pretty well shown to be wrong by inspecting the page of Elder William Brewster, who being born in 1566 is not likely to father a daughter who married anywhere near 1640, not that he is even known to have a daughter Rebecca. In fact, Bradford in 1650 said all Brewster's daughters were dead. Just another example of people's guesses and hypotheses getting carelessly copied without their qualifiers and thus being turned into "facts" and being propagated by careless researchers. --Jrich 20:46, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I was aware of that line of reasoning, and its why I discount the Rebecca Brewster identification as the wife of John Cowen. But the question is where did this come from in the first place. Was there, for instance, an original record that identified a Rebecca Brewster during this time period? Usually, people have a reason for what they put down. That reason might be wrong, but there's a reason nonetheless. People don't ordinarily make things up whole cloth, though there's some of that in genealogy too. (Anjou, for instance.) If this identification can be linked to one of his works, it could be completely discounted. But baring the discovery of some original source document identifying a Rebecca Brewster, we may never have a clean resolution. The above item you quoted may be the best that can be done. Q 21:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Nancy Rutledge [13 November 2013]

Everything I have read which I think includes a county history, says the Rutledge family moved to White Top Mountain (across from the present day Bristol Race Course) The Grayson location doesn't seem right nor Montgomery County from any research I have seen.

Donna Atkinson--DAtkinson 23:12, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Donna. Where are you reading that. I don't recall making a change like that, and Robert's person page still says White Top. Q 23:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

sources for Nancy Rutledge [13 November 2013]

Per article in The Lookout Notable Southern Families THE RUTLEDGE FAMILY by Robert Thomas Case a great great great grandson of General George Rutledge, Elinor or Eleanor migrated to the Americas about 1763. They emigrated and landed at Charleston South Carolina and then removed to Augusta County, Virginia, where they settled in the neighborhood known as Tinkling Spring. William remained there until 1777 when he and his family removed to Sullivan County, Tennessee, settling on a small creek known as White Top where he produced grants for his land.

Letter from George G., grandson of William George per letter in Mara Harris collection, states that the family came into America through Baltimore, Maryland and immediately emigrated to Augusta County, Va where they remained about a year, then they emigrated to Sullivan County, Tn. (then North Carolina). He also notes that Annis Armstrong Rutledge, his grandmother informed him many times that George Rutledge of Ireland remained in Ireland in possession of his large estate in Tyrone County, Ireland, as well as his wife's interest. His wife was a daughter of one of the leaders of the Clans in the Highlands of Scotland and her name was Mary (Nellie) Gamble. He states that due to the bitterness of the war of 1775 and the causes that brought on the War of 1812, there was never any correspondence between the Old Country and America with the family and friends. Annis stated that she understood the estate was confiscated for 99years and he believed the descendants of George Rutledge in Ireland and many others who were kindred would eventually receive the amount of their friend's estates there. Another letter follows William George Rutledge's letter from Ann Rutledge to a cousin Billie more information about her line of the Rutledge's who came to the Winchester and Stanton Virginia area which proved that nephews also came there long enough to acquire land and then came to "Carliny". Her ancestor was a George with wife Jean? who lived in Augusta County, Va, Tennessee and then came to South Carolina. She had an old Armstrong Grant covering the "parcel of land" on the south side of Catawba River at the mouth of Kuykendall the Dutchman's Creed dated about 1754 on which she was living. This letter is signed Love, Auntie Pat, Ann Rutledge Rollins.

I understand that Sullivan was in North Carolina until about 1779 but the area is always stated as White Top in Sullivan. This needs to be clarified somehow.

da--DAtkinson 23:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Currently, the article for Robert says he probably died at White Top. What I'd suggest is that you add the above information to the article. It can go where-ever you think it fits best. Once its in place, if you like, I can look it over to see if it needs fine tuning.Q 23:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)