User talk:Karen1

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Next step: Review your GEDCOM [24 April 2015]

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 SM file no living people 4-24-15.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 17:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Next step: Review your GEDCOM [24 April 2015]

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 SM Gedcom no living people 4-24-15.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 04:46, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Places you have been adding [28 April 2015]

Hi Karen Welcome to WeRelate from a human being.

Since I don't have a very large family, but love genealogy, I spend most of my time sorting out the WeRelate place database. I was automatically notified of your additions for Hurds Bay in Ontario, Greenholm in Ayrshire, and some places in Quebec.

Have you read through the sections [1] Place Pages Help and the [2] Place Pages FAQ?

One important thing is that in Ontario and Quebec, just like in the 50 United States, places are described under the county in which they are located. You have entered Hurds Lake directly under Ontario. I have a feeling it is in Muskoka or Haliburton, but I haven't had a chance to look at my favourite Ontario online gazetteer yet. Was there a community by the lake itself that had a different name? Was the lake Hurds Lake, Hurd Lake or Hurd's Lake?

Similarly, Greenholm should be linked to Newmilns across the river (see the Wikipedia article entitled Newmilns). However, the two reorganizations of municipalities in Scotland have lowered the place of Newmilns and Greenholm in the pecking order (or place on the totem pole) and it's really hard to figure out just where Greenholm should fit in on its own. My favourite Scottish gazetteer (The Gazetteer for Scotland) doesn't even describe it, although it recognizes it exists.

Remember that some places that are important to you were not the names of places where people had births, marriages and deaths registered and it is these places that ought to show up when providing source information in our genealogies. Each line for an event in WeRelate has three parts: one for the date, one for the place, and one called description. The one for the Place should tie in with our database. The one for description can give a street address or the name of a farm or a very small community. Do read the section on "redirect" in Place pages help or in the FAQ. After discovering a couple of months back that places mentioned in the box "Alt names" on a place page did not automatically tie to the name of the page, I have been adding a lot of them. (But I am working on England now and haven't gone back to make amendments in Ontario and Scotland.)

I'll try and work on Hurds Lake later in the day if I can. Greenholm is going to take quite a bit of sorting out because East Ayrshire isn't complete. Unfortunately today is a day full of non-genealogy happenings and so is tomorrow.

If I can be of any help in setting up your GEDCOM for WeRelate, please send me a note. (Pat) --Goldenoldie 07:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

[Your message--inserted here as a reminder to me what questions I have to answer]

Thanks for your information. I'm new to We Relate and am starting with this "smaller" hehe database. It is interesting working with the places list. Somewhat tedious, but interesting. I'm actually finding places that were misspelled in my database because of poor handwriting, bad gedcoms, and typos, etc.

I know how you feel. When I started out looking for Hurds Lake this morning I naturally went for Muskoka (wrong!) where I found Gravenhusrt. Oops! And probably my mistake, too. Learning to "redirect" is important for all of us.

Hurds Lake (proper spelling) is in Ontario, just 15 miles from Renfrew. I wasn't sure what category to use for it. I don't believe there is a town/village there, but people have build all around the lake. My husband's family have more than a dozen homes around there, many of which can only be accessed by the water. It is a beautiful spot. I wish we lived closer so we could visit more often. Many events in the family history have occurred there as the families generally lived in Renfrew or other nearby towns.

Remember that the only people you can put in WeRelate are those who have passed away. You may wonder about this, but it is a good policy. Dead people cannot personally complain about what has been written about them. Their family still can, but they can't. I take the stage a generation further and my parents (both deceased) are only mentioned in the text part of the pages on my grandparents.

I have been trying to be very careful about linking pages if I can - I look everything up online first and have been able to link most places. I have made some new pages only when I can't find anything that seems to fit. Some of my places were called other things in the past, or were in different counties at the time of the event than where they are currently. This is particularly true for states. If something occurred before a state existed, then at the time the town was either in another state or in a territory. How do you handle that?

There is a bit of discussion in the place pages instructions about how to name a colony or a territory. It is tricky.

Look at any place page in "edit mode" and you will see following "Located in" two boxes labelled "Also located in" and "See also". "Also located in" is where you can enter the previous title of a state or a province. It really helps if you can add the dates at which changes occurred. Take a look at [[Place:Frontenac, Ontario, Canada|Frontenac County, Ontario]] and see how Upper Canada and Canada West were catered for. There should be similar notes at county level throughout the western States, even Michigan (which was a territory until late in the nineteenth century). But it only works properly at the county level. It doesn't work for places within counties (e.g. cities, towns, villages, townships, etc.)

Incorporating this into work with people. Provided the "Also located in" box has been filled in on the appropriate place page, you can then use the old title in a bmd or census entry or whatever. My great-great grandfather, Robert Arnold, was born in Upper Canada and I have used Upper Canada or Canada West in the appropriate event entries on his WeRelate page. There are no red-inked lines. When you look at him in "edit mode" you will see that the entries to the right of the pipe "|" are appropriate to the time, but the database has converted them to "Ontario" to the left of the pipe. (I just put this into practice with Robert Arnold as I was writing to you, now it looks like I have to go back and do the rest of the family--and 6 of his wife's siblings had traceable families!)

Feel free to keep asking questions. Fixing up English places goes on and on. The monotony needs a break--so long as I don't forget to go back and finish the task in hand. --Goldenoldie 18:43, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Linking Sources and Places [4 May 2015]

Most of my sources for this file were created long ago, before "source wizard" in RootsMagic. So they may be death certificates for individual people, separate dates for articles in the same paper, etc. What happens to the sources if they are not linked? If I linked to the current source created by someone else (say for Renfrew Mercury) what happens to the information about the particular issue and page?

Similarly in places - what happens if I link a church where someone is married to the town in which the church is. Is the church information attached somewhere or lost?

Hi Karen First, have you looked at any finished pages for people on the WeRelate website? Have you inspected what happens when you click "Edit"? Not that I am expecting you to edit someone else's work--this is just to see the boxes that a webpage is made up of.

The webpage can be broken down into four sections: the name, the places and dates (this timeline can be expanded to include census entries, or any other happenings in the life of the person concerned), the sources which back up the timeline events, and the Personal History text box at the bottom where you can add anything you like. One extra thing, here. The marriage goes on the family page which also lists the children. Forget about that for the moment--and forgive me if you've got that far and I'm going over old ground.

Sources. I decided to search for "Renfrew Mercury" in our Source Pages. The entry doesn't say much. But I also clicked "What links here?" on the left and found a long list of names of persons already in our database. I also noticed that RGMoffatt is watching the "Renfrew Mercury" page. Ron has a huge list of ancestors in Renfrew County and he is a very good conscientious family historian. Take a look at any one of the persons listed in the "What links here?" list (I happened to pick [[Person:Matthew Noack (2)|Matthew Noack]]), and you will see a Source titled "Renfew Mercury". In this case it is down at the bottom of the page. Now, click Edit and see how the entry for the newspaper clipping is entered. The date of the clipping and its page reference is not a part of the source, just the name of the newspaper. Your infomation about the particular issue and page will go on your webpage in the same way that Ron put the info about Matthew Noack on Matthew's webpage.

Places. Churches aren't considered places, just the community where they are located. Once again, look at the Edit part of someone else's webpage. The church name should go in the Description box next to the date and place of the event. Cemeteries are allowed to be places, but churches really shouldn't be. (This is trickier in Europe where more people tend to be buried within churches, but let's not go into that.) The church information you give comes up immediately below the place on the finished webpage. This will show up for marriages on Family: pages. Similarly, if you are using a census and have taken the street address, this will also be put in the Description box and will print below the place on the completed webpage.

If you see anything printed in red on a finished webpage, that is an indication that that place or that source is not in our database. Quite often this is because of typos, or because someone has not expressed the information in the same way as it is in the database. Of course, sometimes it's because the item is not in the database (such as your hamlet of Vallentyne of yesterday).

Now I must stop. I have other things on my must-do list this evening.

/cheers, Pat --Goldenoldie 19:09, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

SM Gedcom no living people 4-24-15.ged Imported Successfully [11 May 2015]

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 04:05, 12 May 2015 (UTC)