This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archived Messages for 2016

Renaming.... [11 January 2016]

Thanks for finding badly named family page names that arose out of my WP addition effort. I tried to get back to as many as I could to make them standard - but it's a big domain. I probably should have written a program to seek them out...

--jrm03063 15:32, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

No worries. :) I remember your project, & I also remember that you did a pretty good job of cleaning up most of the affected titles after the final decision had been made to standardize in the way that we still do. It is only occasionally that I bump into one of these old pages, so I just try to fix the them when I run across them. Best wishes! --Cos1776 15:51, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Abiel ___ Corbit Bugbee [9 February 2016]

FYI, just found a Birth Record for an Abiel Twitchell, needs more investigation, of course.

Medfield Vital Records, p.99

TWICHELL, Abiell, d. Benjamin and Marie, [born] Nov. 1, 1663.--SkippyG 22:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes. I see the changes on her page and those surrounding it, and I am fine with all of it. I am going to add a couple more sources to her page to round it all out. Thanks. --Cos1776

sakers genealogy [15 March 2016]

i dont know if you remember me or not but i am brenda sakers ober and i aslo doing a search for my saker(sakers) family, i have reached out to the zion church in baltimore maryland to find the marriage record for william saker and catharine scott married on july 31 1793 to find out who the parents of william are. I contacted maryland historical society and they had no info on william, they gave me the church's number and contacted them today (march15) and talked to a Nicole Cochrane and she said they have the records for that year and to email this a Ms. Arnold and I am waiting for her response as soon as i get a response i will contact you with the information. i was wondering if by chance you contacted the church at all about the marriage records for william. here is my personal email if you would like to have it so is might be easier to contact me ober24(at)aol.com. thanks brenda sakers ober--Ober24 16:13, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

William Saker is one of my brick walls as well. Let's discuss this research on his Talk Page. Thanks, --cos1776 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

obituary of user [18 September 2016]

I'm not sure of the protocal on this so thought I'd ask you. Here is a link to the obituary of prior User:Persisto. I thought about putting it on his user page but was too hesitant. What do you think? Should it even be on his user page? Is the obit under copyright? |http://www.obitsforlife.com/obituary/1273429/Kilby-Craig.php I may not get back to this. Would you do whatever you think is proper with it? --janiejac 14:35, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Very good question. I'm not sure, but I agree that some type of note is appropriate. I will work on this. Thanks, --cos1776 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I just got around to reading my WeRelate msgs and see you fixed Persisto's user and person pages. You did a good job. Thank you. --janiejac 17:27, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

james beasley [7 April 2016]

hi costco . i noticed the comment you had made on research on james beasley civil war records duryea zouves 5th volunteer ny. i have his cw papers and pension papers also the guardship papers for his kids. maybe to help you help me i can give you his id# could that help. his wife emily soon after childbirth of his last child Iretus b.1862/63. on letters of testament my thomas pollock and a mary bragdon (nee Craft) wifeof isaiah bragdon,signed the testament letter to release iames children to a john w ledyard of philadelphia pa. after emily died. that was signed in 1874. JWL was emilys sistersellen pollock. james and emily had 3 ch. mary,thomas and iretus(oretus) mary beasley married a thomas rushforth. the bragdons both came from maine. they lived close by pollocks in yonkers ny - craft family also lived in maine and yonkers . cant figure oout if the pollocks were related to them in any way. i have found a thomas pollock in approx same area but cant connect them. york and i think kennebunk me. can you help. your so great in my search. tku for helping.
joan pollock gass
gassjoan7@gmail.com--Pearlharbor777 11:53, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I think I have responded to this already. Best Wishes. --cos1776 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Henry Lampton and Susanna Holmes [13 May 2016]

I was just looking at your list of children for Henry Lampton and Susanna Holmes and was wondering if there could perhaps have been one more child. Or maybe you know something about this person.

I have a record of an Elizabeth Lampton as a child of Henry Lampton and Susanna Homes. She would have been born about 1770-1779 and married Freeborn Jupin. Tbe record I have are records from a family history and Ancestry. I actually found a number of children that you don't have listed on Ancestry.com.

Have any thoughts?--Tom.s.010101 02:33, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

I take that back. The only additional child Ancestry shows is Elizabeth Lampton Jupin.--Tom.s.010101 02:36, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

OC [31 May 2016]

Did you miss the email for joining the discussiion page, let me know I can resend it if needed.--Rhian 13:30, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I have responded to you privately. Thanks. --cos1776 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Ordering census sources [22 June 2016]

I saw your comment in answer to janiejac's suggestion about ordering census sources. I completely agree that census-type sources (which should always include the transcription of the census for the family) should be listed in chronological order. Also, it is only necessary to quote a census once for a person. Some early WR users used three sources for one census: one for the address, one for the occupation, and one for the age of the person!

Dallan and I exchanged emails on this topic last weekend. We are working on rewriting the titles for the boxes in the Source template so that they are more explanatory, particularly when being used for census details, since this is the commonest use of sources for most people. We are also thinking about mentor discussions with new WR users as they present their gedcoms. After all, this is the easiest place for changes to be made.

I haven't seen any changes to the OC-Committee Google Group page since 12 June. Is anything happening "off-stage"? --Goldenoldie 21:17, 22 June 2016 (UTC) (Pat)

I am going to respond to you privately. Thanks. --cos1776 21:28, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Lincoln, Lincolnshire. [25 June 2016]

Hi Cos

Whatever made you delete the image galleries on Lincoln today of all days? This morning I wrote to Cynthia asking her to explain why a similar group was on the Southampton page. Just checked. They are gone, too.

Both sets had no purpose where they were (just like the wheelbarrow full of weeds I just took out of my garden). Thanks. Pat. --Goldenoldie 14:38, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Good Morning (almost afternoon here). I gave an explanation at User talk:Cynthia. I apologize that I didn't notice that you were not watching that page. If you come across the same situation again, please feel free to let me know, and I can fix those as well. Regards, --cos1776 16:01, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Re: Adding templates [4 July 2016]

Thanks for the alert, and my apologies for the mistake. Hopefully, I can clean it up. Gayel--GayelKnott 17:24, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Greetje AEdes [9 July 2016]

Please note that "AEdes" is consistent with Dutch spelling conventions. The ligatures "AE" and "OE", like the more common one "IJ", are capitalized as units. --pkeegstra 20:17, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I will respond over at Person:Greetje AEdes (2) in a few moments. Thanks.--cos1776 12:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Sources Needed 1 [17 July 2016]

Not many people are as gung ho about sources as I am. However, I noticed certain changes you made to this page, diff, where you deleted several source citations and then added a sources-needed template. Noticing by the dates that this page should allow for at least some use of easily available census source, I was going to try and actually improve the page, and one of the first things I noticed was that one of the deleted sources had enough information to link to this website. While worldconnect is not always a good source, this particular one contains an obituary and is a very useful link, that probably shouldn't have been deleted. I appreciate marking pages that need improvement, but feel it should be done only after exhausting obvious attempts at improvement. Formulaic cleanup obviously adds no information, so ultimately in terms of quality, leaves the page no better off, so by itself, represents no progress. --Jrich 19:52, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I was alerted to that page because of the incorrect page title, so that was the extent of my interest in it. What was there before was a married name where an unknown maiden name should have been. I fixed that and while I was at it, removed the 3 repeated references to 2 MySources for other people's online trees which had no links and added a banner calling for reliable sources. You came along, took an interest in the page from a different angle, did a little digging and now you have meatier sources to add. Seems like the system is working just fine. --cos1776 20:39, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

The information I added came largely from one of the sources you deleted, which identifies a worldconnect page thatgives a transcription of the Alton Telegraph obituary and mentions both the 1850 and 1860 census, of which I only cited the first because it was sufficient to show why the birth information was given. The worldconnect Mysource had a database number which is the same thing as link, and the index found there allows you to look up an individual page in that database by name. So it is very comparable to a memorial number for Find A Grave is essentially equivalent to a link. I just investigated it to make sure useful information wasn't being thrown away, which it was. Just because it is a MySource is not grounds for deleting it. I have created several for example, that contain transcriptions of unique documents in my possession. --Jrich 22:09, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect. I didn't remove them because they were MySources. I removed them because they were simply citing someone else's tree vs. the actual source. As you said, a simple search turned up the actual sources and that is what should have been cited in the first place. You say you have now done that, so mission accomplished. --cos1776 22:26, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

More fool me for doing work you should done. Congratulations on accomplishing your mission. --Jrich 23:11, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Neither you nor I should have to do the work the original poster should have done themselves. We do what we do because we are trying to make this site better. I am not working against you, but I am done with this exchange, because I do not like your tone. --cos1776 23:48, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

First of all, that's not very practical as the page was entered in 2008 and the original poster is probably not active and further, probably didn't get your memo about sources needed. So they learned nothing.

Second to the extent the page had value, it did because it said where it took its data and the family tree it identified did give sources. In other words, it was a useful posting, and you deleted that value, and then complained that it had no sources.

Third it is not just citing someone's tree that are bad, it is citing unsourced trees, which, since they have no sources, is ultimately the same as citing no sources. Some sourced trees are excellent and offer information that is hard to find anywhere else. Yes a good thing to do with a sourced tree is to bring forward the sources, but if one doesn't have access to them to verify them, or isn't a good typer and there's a lot of data, or is worried about copyright infringement in doing so, or want to make sure the site gets credit for their hard work, it may not be as straightforward as that. Further, many people will not understand or expect this as desirable because almost no other website on the Internet would expect them to do that. This page at least said where the information came from and this is a lot more than some current postings I have been fixing do. --Jrich 00:20, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Bexleyheath Revisions [18 July 2016]

Hi

Why did you take out references to Greater London in the write-up of Bexleyheath? Greater London is the official name for the complete area of London since 1965.

Greater London is made up of boroughs and Bexleyheath is a large part of the London Borough of Bexley. Granted Bexleyheath was in Kent until 1965, but it has been in London for 50 years--potentially a lot of BMDs to be accounted for in that period.

If Greater London is removed from Bexleyheath, it should be removed for every other section of London, both "Inner" and "Outer". Please read the Greater London page in WR. It contains a lot of information that I could not see how to replicate throughout the individual pages covering the parts of London. --Goldenoldie 04:42, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Good Morning. I am packing my children for camp today, so I cannot respond right away, but I will do so over on Place talk:Bexleyheath, Kent, England as soon as I get a few minutes. Regards, --cos1776 12:51, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

OC-Committee [22 July 2016]

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

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

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

Thanks. Pat --Goldenoldie 06:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)--Goldenoldie 06:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Have responded privately. Thanks. --cos1776 10:50, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Barton Manor [24 July 2016]

Where did it go? Did you delete it? I'm sorry, but I close down my computer around 9pm our time every night and it's not usual for me to start again before 6:30am. It's only just past that now. I was going to inspect Barton Manor, but you didn't give me a chance.

How did you remove it? I usually redirect insignificant places to the parish in which they are located.

--Goldenoldie 05:46, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

It's still there (here). It's in the Article space and not the Place space.--pkeegstra 10:31, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

This looks like one of those automatically produced categories that were discussed on Watercooler a few weeks ago. I haven't a clue as to what stage in the process brings them into existence. Possibly it occurs when a place is redirected to another place.

Barton Manor is a manor in the parish of Whippingham on the Isle of Wight. The Family History Library Catalog has filed it separately and the half dozen or so filenames have been copied into our Source database. I have been redirecting most places below the level of parish into the parish in which they are located although I make exceptions for larger places which I usually denote as "areas" (see London, England where the reorganization is incomplete). Sources are automatically refiled along with the place when the place is redirected (provided there are no typos).

I have now expanded the description for Whippingham to include a mention of all its manors. A Vision of Britain through Time lists a number of manors in each parish on the Isle of Wight and in a number of Hampshire parishes too. I considered listing them for each parish, but decided I had better things to do.

If nothing happens to the "Place" part of the database when you delete the "Article", by all means delete the Article.

--Goldenoldie 13:30, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

No worries, but I think there might be a misunderstanding taking place due to terminology. Please forgive me if I revert to simplistic terms or rehash information that you already know in an effort to try to clear it up. The page in question was not of the type "Place" or "Category", but rather "Article". It was created on the same day and at the same time that you were working on the page Place:Whippingham, Isle of Wight, England, so I am guessing that it may have been accidentally created. This is not a problem at all and is easy to fix. I will do so shortly, and since it does not link to anything, it will have no effect on any other pages.

re: the "automatically produced categories" - they are simple to explain but can be confusing to anticipate. They are not created when a page is redirected, as far as I know. They are created when text is entered in certain data fields, depending on the page type. The original purpose was to auto-generate and auto-populate WR Category pages that would group and list WR pages that had something in common.

For Place pages, it would appear that the decision was made to group them in the category hierarchy at the county level, so that is why Place pages such as Place:Dublin, Wayne, Indiana, United States and Place:Wayne, Indiana, United States both appear in Category:Wayne, Indiana, United States.

But, here is where it can get confusing - if you look at Category:Wayne, Indiana, United States, you can see that there is also a sub-category called "Category:Dublin, Wayne, Indiana, United States". If you look at this sub-category page, you can see that Dublin's Place page is not listed there. Some think that it should be, so they edit Dublin's Place page to manually link it to the Dublin Category as well. This causes some problems, because that is not the way that a wiki category hierarchy is supposed to be structured. Generally speaking, a page should rarely be linked to both a parent Category and its child (sub) Category.

Now, it is quite understandable why folks are doing this. Not only does it seem intuitive that a Place page should be linked to the matching Category, but it is also best practice to categorize a wiki page as low down in the hierarchy as possible. Unfortunately, I think this is part of what has made the Category structure so confusing and inconsistent.

But back to auto-generated category pages... the sub-Category above, Category:Dublin, Wayne, Indiana, United States, is also an auto-generated Category, but this time, it lists pages of the type "MySource", "Source", "Transcript", "User" or "Image". They are there because they were either manually or automatically linked to that Category. How were they automatically linked? By virtue of their having the text string "Dublin, Wayne, Indiana, United States" (or a WR acceptable alternate) entered into their Place fields. If any one of those pages had anything else entered into the Place field - something that WR didn't recognize as being the same Dublin - the page would not be included there. It would instead be auto-linked to another Category page matching whatever had been entered. These variations can include misspellings, quirky nicknames, incomplete names, etc. This is why we have so many incorrect, quirky Place Category pages being auto-generated. It is all based upon how well the data is entered and how many alternates are recognized.

This process is the same for auto-generated Surname Categories, based on what is entered in the Surname fields, and then compounded by auto-generated "Surname in Place" Categories, based on both fields... so you can imagine how large this issue is. To fix it, absent a bot, each page must be manually edited to fix the relevant text string, so that the page will be linked to the correct Category page.

I hope this explanation about how Category pages are being created and linked to "automatically" is helpful.

Now, I am curious about something related to this... We haven't really discussed this yet, so I am unaware of the reasoning behind it, but it looks like you (and maybe others) made a decision to structure the Category hierarchy differently for English Place pages by linking them both to the county (auto) Category and a series of additional Categories - one for the Place itself and others based on the "See also" Places. (For example, Place:Whippingham, Isle of Wight, England)

Can you fill me in on the reasoning behind those decisions?

Likewise, I am also curious about why the "See also" field is being used instead of the "Also located in" field to list all of the Places in which the English Places were also located? I'm worried that you might be creating a lot more work for yourself by manually doing all of these entries and then building your own tables, etc. instead of letting the software create the pages and tables the way it was designed to do. Or perhaps there are some changes that need to be made to the Place pages to help them function more efficiently? I did think your suggestion about allowing place type to be different based on location and/or time to be an excellent one.

I welcome your thoughts on these matters. Regards, --cos1776 12:34, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Restore my rights [25 July 2016]

I wish you would have spoken to me before you removed my admin rights. I am only deleting work of mine that is more recent. I wasn't going to leave this site, I only intended to remove my more recent work, but now that you have done so without a word to me I don't think I will edit on this site ever again.--Daniel Maxwell 18:34, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Dallan said he would email you privately. --cos1776 15:03, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Rename vs. recreate/delete [25 July 2016]

I've noticed that you are recreating and deleting pages recently. I'm wondering why you're not using the Rename feature? By recreating and deleting, you lose the original watchers on the page, and the user isn't notified of your actions. If you rename the page instead, the watchers are carried over. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:34, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate your noticing that something unusual was happening and investigating. It is a good safeguard. Yes. I am aware of the difference. This is a very specific situation in which an error has been introduced into the URL of the Person page and this is having an effect on the way these pages are recognized by the database. Rename propagates the same error. It only applies to a few pages, all created a while ago with no sources and no further updates. In all cases, there was only one User watching each page (the original creator). They will be notified today (your message came in before I had a chance to do so). --cos1776 14:59, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Surnames in Noble and Medieval Spaces.... [5 August 2016]

Be careful - I tried to open discussions on surname practices for people who didn't have surnames in the modern sense. Years of effort and willingness to follow community standards not withstanding - when I suggested that folks w/o modern surnames be given a surname of unknown - the reaction was so vehement that I was nearly chased off the site.

In any event - there is a huge space of names involved - so I don't think any orderly process could be followed working by hand in ones and twos anyway.

I suggest confining name changes to people for whom modern naming conventions really exist, or at least can be argued to be meaningful. For people of greater antiquity - staying with the page name offered by Wikipedia or another source more be the better way to go.

I'll try to find the documents I wrote - so you have a chance of avoiding whatever crimes I may have committed....

--jrm03063 16:47, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I believe what you say is true about the uproar in the past. Witnessed some of it myself :). I like to think that as our Users have learned about working with the database over the years, some of those initial misunderstandings about the differences between page titles and data entry in name fields has sorted itself out. Please rest assured that I have not added any surnames to these Medieval pages. However, I am standardizing page titles and data entry as I come across any errors that have caused other areas of our database to behave incorrectly. I am not actively researching these folks, simply completing maintenance tasks. For what it's worth, it doesn't look like anyone else is actively researching them either. Other than some occasional merging and your Wikipedia entries, most of these pages haven't been touched since the initial GEDCOM dumps of 2006-2009. Hopefully I have answered your concern.

btw - any luck with the testing of your bot? Regards, --cos1776 22:58, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind your choices - just didn't think anyone else needed the frustration that I encountered...

I haven't heard from anyone w/bot knowledge yet - but that isn't preventing me from working on things that will feed into that process. --jrm03063 03:05, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Some Info on my current/general/past practices... [12 August 2016]

I don't mean to offer my practices as preferential to yours. I only wanted to offer you information on things I've done so you can better decide what you want to do yourself...

As I've worked on WR over the years, I found some kinds of information that I wanted to objectively nail down. I wanted to be freed from trying to write something intelligent in those cases - as well as to express the information in a structured way that might some day be used by analysis software. The result of all that was a collection of assertion templates. Documentation being found here. Using these, I could objectively nail down things like speculative or refuted family relationships. The relationship templates are also meant to be used in pairs (so you can see starting at either end).

I took the liberty of amending a couple of your edits to use the templates - not as a rejection of your approach but as a demonstration. While I hope you will find my offering helpful, please feel free to proceed as you think best.

I also observed that you've added "source needed templates" to some relatively ancient folks (living in the 1000s and similarly ancient times). I couldn't agree more that such pages would benefit from added sources. However - as a practical matter - such pages are often so vapid that it would be no harder to create them anew if/when source material is available - instead of nursing them along now. This is a choice I often made in the past - and acted on too as I was formerly an administrator - when I found a contiguous section of genealogy that was:

• Relatively ancient - say - before 1400 or 1300
• Generally inactive since being uploaded
• Not a fragment that connected one supported bit of genealogy with another supported bit
• Not easily supported using one of WP (of any language), Cawley (Medieval Lands) or Lundy (the peerage).

I guess what I'm saying then - is when you've taken the time to discover a really unhelpful section that doesn't lead anywhere - then I would encourage you to be decisive. If you have delete authority, use it. If you don't - or that's too brazen for you - then maybe you should label all the pages in that area for speedy delete.

Thanks for working in the areas you're working. It can only help. Good Luck! --jrm03063 16:06, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Glad for the input. Since you have spent a lot of time working in these spaces, I was actually going to ask you what your thoughts were on deleting these ca 2006-2009 GEDCOM Medieval pages for which there are no sources and relatively no action since initial upload or subsequent merge. I like your use of the word "vapid" - that pretty much sums it up. I have no problem with pages of this era when they include helpful citations, but I completely agree that there is little value when they are just names with no supporting evidence or date/place info. I am not really interested in spending too much time on them right now, but sometimes I can't resist trying to clean up or source some things when I bump into their pages while doing something else. They usually have multiple watchers, so you are correct that I have been hesitant to delete them entirely. And you are also correct that they can be easily re-created, hopefully with supporting documentation next time. I will proceed with a bolder attitude where deletion is concerned. :)

re: Assertion templates. I am aware of their existence and have occasionally used them in the past. I don't use them that often, simply because I prefer to see that type of info in the Main Text Box where theories and corrections can be discussed and kept visually together. I re-read the info page for your templates to re-familiarize myself and noticed that you suggest that there might be a software benefit to using them. Perhaps I am missing the bigger picture where they are concerned. I thought it was still a User-preference option. Did you have future plans for them? --cos1776 17:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I think the immediate benefit of the assertion templates is that different people can enter the same type of information, with some assurance that it will have a similar appearance. Also, when information is expressed as a fact, the ordinary GEDCOM source/note structure naturally comes into play to support the fact - and in a structural way that will persist across GEDCOM export operations.

Potential benefits also include a better display of Facts and Events - where we bake knowledge of GEDCOM fact types and assertion templates into the process for sorting information under "Facts and Events". I don't have specific analysis in mind - but don't want to preclude the opportunity. For example - a speculative family association could be automatically checked to see if the association is at odds with the time that a family was having children, whether the birth of other children would tend to preclude the association, etc.

--jrm03063 20:12, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Changes to Person:Joel Hill (1)

Re: Changes made in page for Joel Hill and Sarah Mims: Lamar County wasn't formed as a county until 1904, which is why date of birth is listed as being in Marion County. I'm woefully ignorant of correct practices but believed this to be correct procedure.--Maggie 17:34, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I moved this comment down here to keep the sequential order going on the page. Please forgive my delay in responding. I have been traveling. Thank you for catching the county issue. In doing maintenance on the page to standardize the Place name and fix the red link, I entered "Okahola", and the current location in Lamar county came up. In a case like this, as long as the underlying link is to the actual location on the map today (i.e. Okahola in Lamar County), you can use a "pipe" to enter a different text description if you want the page to render something else. I will demonstrate this on Joel's page in a few minutes using text I use in cases like this, but feel free to alter it if you prefer something else. Best Wishes, --cos1776 20:07, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Isaac Hill of Newton, Mississippi [13 August 2016]

Thank you for your editing on this page.--Maggie 17:44, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Seeking your opinion... [19 August 2016]

I've been working on an approach to adding source material that has the potential to scale pretty effectively (at least I think so...).

It's been an interest of mine for several years - and I'm reaching a point where I should be able to entertain a small handful of opinions.

I have a woefully inadequate overview on this page. You will find that it refers to our transcription of Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England. It also refers to a sample of an extract I've been able to create here.

Best Regards...

--jrm03063 17:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Excellent! I will comment on the appropriate pages. --cos1776 18:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Children of Jacob & Jemima Perkins [1 September 2016]

Why in heaven's name did you disconnect all 14 children of Jacob and Jemima that I added last night ? And if you wanted the secondary kept on the family page, why not a quote from the article ? --SkippyG 18:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Neal - This is very strange... the only editing I did to that page after you was to add an "S1" to link to your cited source and to re-enter the citation to the secondary source as an S2. I did not actively remove the children, and I am truly sorry that you had to re-do your work. It was certainly not my intention, and I have no explanation for how they disappeared (?). Had I realized what had happened to that page, I would have been happy to restore them for you. -C. --cos1776 22:02, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

From edit summary: "Please do not remove secondary sources. They add value as well, and some may wish to examine them further.". I tend to agree with Neal. The family page is about the marriage of Jacob and Jemima, and the source does not give the date or location of marriage, and was replaced by a source that does, so this source no longer appears to have anything to add. All it says that is pertinent to this family is that Hezekiah is the son of Jacob Perkins and Jemima Leonard, and so it could be cited on Hezekiah's page, perhaps, and some stuff about Jacob's parents which probably belongs on Jacob's page. But it doesn't seem especially relevant to this page any longer. I will also note that if the content of the source that was believed to be pertinent to this page was abstracted or quoted, instead of simply giving the page number, the value you perceived and/or its lack of hard information would be more obvious making its citation less misleading. Leaving it on the page now that a date has been added gives the impression it provides information like the date and location of the marriage, and it does not. Speaking from personal experience, these are the type of citations I have often found the Internet, that on tracking them down, have left me extremely frustrated. This is not only because they don't discuss the marriage in depth (no date, no location, no list of children), but because their interest in Hezekiah is only in his role as the spouse of someone they do cover, so they probably aren't even particularly authoritative about what they do say about Jacob and his family (especially in 1861, before more academic presentations came into being). --Jrich 19:20, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Jrich - I agree with you that the citation belongs on the pages of those who are mentioned in the text of the Source. This is precisely the type of situation that could benefit from the ability to attach the same citation to multiple pages. The tedious manual process we now endure is prone to omission, if you enter children from the Family Page, for example, or parents from the child page, etc. But that is a different topic.

Regarding the inclusion of secondary sources - I think it has been well-established that you and I disagree when it comes to the value of secondary sources. I view Person and Family pages as "files" or "research logs", if you will, to which any relevant Sources can be added (within reason, of course). I think it is helpful to future researchers to include any Sources where the subject or their family is mentioned and to include corrections or analysis of those Sources when applicable, if you are in a position to do so. I'd be willing to bet that someone else will come along and re-enter that same citation for Jacob & Jemima later anyway, because the Family is mentioned there. You do not need to keep trying to convince us that these older texts are not reliable. I don't think anyone is arguing that with you. But rather than try to keep pretending that they don't exist or that future researchers aren't going to discover them, I think it serves the community better to show them what has already been written about these families in addition to the all important vital records. --cos1776 22:02, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

As I indicated, if you abstract what the source says, to show how pertinent, or weak it may be, then that is at least somewhat different. To just cite it by title and page may cause a certain type of thorough researcher to waste a lot of time looking it up and finding out it says nothing. I have traveled hundred of miles to look up citations like this one, because they seem to include information I did not have, when it turns out they only say so-and-so was son of such-and-such a family, which was a well-known fact, and if it wasn't, some secondary source asserting it without proof wouldn't convince me anyway. (The missing information that I never did find the origins of, came from who knows where, probably One World Tree.) Also, as the page changes due to subsequent edits, the appearance of what the citation indicates, changes. Thus indicating exactly what information that source was used for, makes sure to convey an accurate representation to the reader.

The other thing is of course, you can cite hundreds of sources saying the wrong thing, but that doesn't make it right. Why do you think it is useful to a reader to have to plow through this? How about giving them information, and not just throwing data at them, lumping in good and bad all together, and treating them all the same (the Ancestry way)? Presumably you keep your own personal research log on your own computer. I don't think WeRelate is meant to serve that purpose. --Jrich 22:51, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I see you've kept the NEHGS citation on Jacob Perkins' family page. I quoted the article excerpt entirely on Hezekiah Perkins' family page. I still don't think it belongs on the former; it adds little or no value. And I've not heard from you as to why you disconnected the 13 cited children of Jacob - accidental ? or was this intentional ? --SkippyG 04:36, 1 September 2016 (UTC) Sorry, just saw your reply after my initial communication. There are still blank citations for the same article on many of the children of Hezekiah Perkins. Can I suggest that you use the excerpt on family pages only ? --SkippyG 05:15, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Barbour Collection [4 September 2016]

Kudos on the revamp for the Barbour Collection ! Looks as though even I could add a link to the list (if I find one, that is).--SkippyG 00:59, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Neal. I did feel bad about the spontaneous combustion of the Perkins children from that previous page edit. Still can't figure out what exactly happened there. Hope the fixed links will help to keep your research going smoothly. Best Wishes. --cos1776 18:36, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Editing places [4 September 2016]

Hi I've found that the easiest and safest way to delete a place is to redirect it to the one that covers the same area. This way, no matter which name a user chooses to employ, the person-entries end up where they really ought to be. This works equally well for variations in spelling or for merging tiny places into the parishes which have birth, marriage and death registers. A few months ago Dallan did some extra work on this problem so that now if there are sources for the redirected place, they also link automatically. Redirected places always get listed in the Alt Names box; places that are renamed have to be put there manually (i.e., find them in "what links here", open as an edit, and go down to the bottom of the page without making any changes and click Save.)
Regards, Pat. --Goldenoldie 18:24, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Pat. Not to worry. I am familiar with the Redirect function. The recent deletions of Place pages were following your initial request for Speedy Deletion of a Place page you had created and then, in order to complete the job, I also deleted the previous page titles in the string of redirects you created to that final page title, so that it would be a clean deletion. Does that make sense? --cos1776 18:33, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Waterloo local provision [12 September 2016]

(from User talk:Goldenoldie)
Hi Pat - I'm chipping away at the Wanted pages list. Regarding the nonexistent Template:Waterloo local provision, it looks like perhaps you intended to eventually create it in 2012 when you added it to these 47 Place pages, but never did. Can you advise me if you still plan to create it (i.e. I should leave it alone) or should it be removed from the affected Place pages?
Thank you, --cos1776 15:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi

I think I better add it to my personal "todo" list. You are right. It was something I meant to do at the time when I was doing the county, but it got omitted by error. Waterloo is a pretty important county in Ontario, family history-wise. Its university has a department devoted to local history, and it has numerous inhabitants who trace to Scottish ancestors and others to Mennonite groups. The Ontario Genealogy Society had its start in Waterloo. Even at this late stage I think that kind of audience might appreciate a mention.

/cheers, --Goldenoldie 15:29, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

No problem at all. I will open and close it (null edit), just to get it off of the Wanted pages list, and then you can work on it at your leisure. Regards, --cos1776 15:40, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

oops - spoke too soon ... had to actually add text to the page to have it recognized as existing. I added a brief "template pending" sentence which now appears on those pages. Please just remove it when you create the template. Thanks again, --cos1776 15:49, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm very sorry! [28 September 2016]

I'm so very sorry - Please forgive me.

Of course I'll stay out of your way out there - it's always a bit of a shock to me when I see someone actually making the attempt that you are!

The Wikidata number is easy to get - you go to the corresponding Wikipedia page - then look for the "Wikidata Item" in the column on the left hand side. I'm hoping to eventually make use of that number to do things that keep the WR database conveniently aligned with the international WP biography set.

Thanks again for your work - and I'm sorry - really...

--jrm03063 17:57, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate it. I just entered one of your wikidata numbers and will continue to do so from now on when there is a Wikipedia citation on the page. I understand the thinking behind it and agree with your use of the identifier. Thanks again. --cos1776 18:08, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Cool! As you look at more of the Wikidata pages - you'll start to find pages with properties assigned for parents, brothers, sisters, children, etc. Backing in through there - you'll sometimes find Wikidata identifiers for people that don't yet appear in the English version of WP.

Eventually, I'm going to write some code that will compare and contrast our relationship links with those in Wikidata - for those people that have Wikidata identifiers. I should be able to write code to help find unattached Wiki people - by looking at the Wikidata relationships to see if we our database contains the same relationship as Wikidata. I will also be able to determine relationships that we have, which haven't yet made it into wikidata by looking at it the other way. After all that - if it looks worth it - I may see about adding WR Person identifiers to corresponding Wikidata pages (they already have findagrave - so we would have to qualify...). --jrm03063 18:33, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

You're putting a lot of effort into the naming/indexing effort. I definitely think it's valuable - and I'm glad to see someone trying after I gave up.

As I've been looking at and into Wikidata though, I'm wondering if doing it implicitly on WeRelate is really the best way to go about it.

In looking at the Person-oriented properties on Wikidata, I find some interesting specific properties:

• birth name
• name in native language
• native language
• family name
• given name
• pseudonym
• noble family
• Further, label information seems to be fundamental to Wikidata pages. That information is a table of (Language, Label, Description, Also Known As) strings.

???

--jrm03063 17:58, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Ha! After I started messing with these pages, I figured someone was going to complain about why we were retaining pages for mythological persons and family relationships, but I kept plodding away if they were common to many watchers and had wikipedia id numbers. I see the value in a universal identifier across multiple languages, so I am on board with that idea. I am not sure I understand your latest concern, but I did wonder why the id number did not appear on the Wikipedia page itself. Can you explain the concern a little further? Thanks, --cos1776 19:30, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

It's not a concern about what you're doing at all. It's a thought that there might be a faster/simpler way to go about some of this. Let me take another crack at an explanation...

- Many of the pages out there have Wikidata IDs.

- Some of them will have property values for given name, family name and/or noble family.

Maybe, instead of trying to figure out good names for pages ON our pages - we should figure out the key collection of wikidata properties. Then, use the values of those properties to go back and (by semi-automatic means) update page names and names on the page.  ??? --jrm03063 22:58, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Re: Committee Roll Call & Update [17 October 2016]

Hi

Count me in as willing to be on the committee, but circumstances do not permit me to chair it.

regards, --Goldenoldie 18:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. I will log your response on the committee's talk page, WeRelate talk:Place patrol. If that is not the committee to which you are referring, please just let me know. Regards --cos1776 18:17, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Re: Categories overhaul [25 October 2016]

Immediate thought: the expression TOC may not be part of every user's vocabulary. The mention of a "table of contents" at least once in this part of the instructions would be worthwhile. I hadn't realized there was an automatic way to give a category an index (or is it giving a category an index?)

As you probably know, I have built up a hierarchy of categories in the UK. Source references for a place are automatically listed under the place's category. In the description area I add "Further source references for the 19th century and before may be found under ---." replacing the blanks with the ancient parish into which the smaller place fell. This allows a user to check the next possible place which might yield a baptism or marriage, or legal document of some sort.

For each place I also list a number of categories which indicate the higher-level administrations which operated in the area in different eras. These are only as complete as my survey of the specific county--and some counties I worked on first are not categorized at all. Northamptonshire is complete and is therefore the best example.

Just thoughts. --Goldenoldie 13:10, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Please forgive me, but I am currently juggling a lot of different projects in many different corners of the site, so I am not immediately sure to which discussion you are referring. In order to keep this comment in context, could I ask you to point me back to the original comment? It is hard to follow a conversation thread when the responses are not together on the original page. Thank you. --cos1776 13:23, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Former village and village (former) [12 November 2016]

To me, the description "village" is more important than the era in which it was a village. By putting "village" first, all types of villages fall together in our list of place types. Second, in 1900 a place that is now a former village may well have been a village.

Regards, --Goldenoldie 21:46, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure how to interpret it. In April of 2013 you posted a request to replace place type "Village (former)" with place type "Former village" (discussed here). That request was completed for you at that time with the notification that all Places with the old type would need to be updated to the new type. Since there are still Place pages with the old type in existence, it is one of the many old outstanding maintenance tasks that I have been trying to get completed. Place type "Village (former)" is no longer available. If you wish to change the place type or to select more than one type, that is still an available option for you. --cos1776 23:59, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank You [18 November 2016]

Just want to say Thank you again for all the work you are putting into trying to keep WeRelate floating. --GayelKnott 19:08, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing Gayel. I do appreciate the note. --cos1776 16:53, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Place patrol page [3 December 2016]

I hope you don't mind my adding a bit under the Instructions heading. I am aware this is pretty well repeated in the FAQ, but you never know what a reader may see first. The last point is made as a bit of a smile, but this type of correction comes up all the time. Our automatic place finder can make some peculiar guesses.

My personal circumstances have eased as my husband is now in hospital.

Regards, Pat. --Goldenoldie 09:01, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind at all. That page is for the Patrol. Please make any changes there that you think will be helpful to them. The good news is that the current members are all quite experienced here, so they are all pretty familiar with the organization of the Place namespace. We still have a lot more organizing work to do in non-US/Canadian/English countries, but we should take some pride in the progress made so far. For certain regions, the Place database is quite good. I want to thank you for your continued focus on providing genealogy-specific content to the Place pages.

I will be keeping you and your husband in my thoughts and prayers. I hope that you can find some comfort during this time. Wishing you peace, --cos1776 13:05, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

And since I'm in that group already, I'm willing to be the liason. --pkeegstra 13:43, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Nathan Rice [18 December 2016]

Thanks for any help you can offer. My research sources have been spotty and I want to stop being frustrated. I have matched with the Rice family with Ancestry's DNA. Also matched with Decosta and Snow. Bob Andrews--Bandrusa 22:38, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Will respond on your talk page in a few minutes. --cos1776 20:24, 18 December 2016 (UTC)