User talk:Khaentlahn

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GenWeb [28 February 2015]

Hey there - so, why on the GenWeb sources? I notice they are linked to the relevant place pages, but I can't think of any reason to make them separate Source pages when they should never actually be cited...? --Amelia 17:49, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Why should they never be cited? Many contain very good data not available online elsewise: transcriptions of primary records made by concerned or otherwise thoughtful people, sharing their own access to the data that may require traveling far distances for other people to view. Just as valid as many of the family search sources that indexed films: transcriptions of a primary source by a volunteer. I have cited them in the past, and recently reviewed a few cases, and the data appears good based on fitting what is known by other sources, and I couldn't find it on any other site giving that information, even with all the records recently appearing on familysearch.org. Unless an alternate approach is being suggested, I strongly reject the statement "they should never actually be cited". --Jrich 18:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

So, not wanting to get into a debate with Jrich, I will withdraw the "never" in that statement and say "very rarely". The vast majority contain either transcriptions of other sources (which should be so cited separately, just like the individual collections at Ancestry or FS) or just research tips, queries, and the like. In other words, they're usually repositories, if anything, and encouraging people to cite them instead of the actual information used doesn't seem helpful. The ones being created that I saw today aren't linked to anything but the county page as "resources", which means they're just adding an extra step vs. adding the link to the county page, which could also house any comments about the usefulness or lack thereof. I'm just wondering why?--Amelia 05:22, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Simply put, uniformity and ease of maintenance.
Debating whether GenWeb pages are Sources or Repositories is, quite frankly, irrelevant, because regardless of how GenWeb pages are characterized, they are used by individuals in genealogy research. On WeRelate, GenWebs are installed as Sources. Should they need to be converted to Repositories, then they will be converted, but the GenWeb pages are not uniform. Their current lack of uniformity would make mass conversion by a computer difficult, should that be a necessary step. Also, a single uniform page system could, in theory, have a computer script run through the pages to find broken GenWeb links and create a simple report for attention, which would lessen individual hands-on attention toward finding and fixing broken links. This same task would be nearly impossible were the links put on county pages (and individual person pages for that matter) as the resulting report would be too cumbersome to navigate or maintain effectively. Therefore, the attention to GenWeb pages is simply for uniformity and ease of maintenance from a computer perspective, completely ignoring the genealogical debate over Repositories vs. Sources.--khaentlahn 13:32, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
I don't understand, and this discussion doesn't give, any justification for the position that genweb should never, or rarely, or seldom, or with any reservation, be cited as sources. All I can find is a discussion that goes back and forth, from which, if anything, I think one would actually find more support for using them as sources. For example, Dallan saying "But I think I'd generally want to see GenWeb sites because they're generally good quality and because most of the pages they link to are probably not large enough to warrant their own source pages.", and "Yes, I'd keep the RootsWeb county pages (the GenWeb pages) as Source's", and "I'd like to restrict repositories to describe physical buildings and organizations".
I sure don't understand calling Genweb a Repository. They aren't a physical location. They aren't a monolithic major institution with a long lifetime. They are basically websites run by volunteer individuals who occasionally drop-out, that vary greatly from county to county, and run the full gamut from fluff to serious research. Far more than the census, it would seem that each county genweb is a different beast, and needs its own source page. Making a Genweb a repository would mean that each webpage within a county would be cited as a separate source? This means the citation may break every time the county genweb gets a new administrator who wants to re-organize it. Further, given that "genweb" is the title users may well use in searching for a source, having it as a repository makes it unavailable and unseen, since repositories are only named on the source page, and do not show up as search criteria for sources, or in the citation.
Further I think genweb pages should be cited when that is where one's information comes from. We cite a book of inscriptions, even though a gravestone presumably exists, because all we know is what the book of inscriptions says, the gravestone has never been seen. We are taking the author's word for it, and as it turns out, published inscriptions do with some regularity, contain errors. Transcriptions are not as faithful as scanned images of actual records. It is not like genweb is a microfilm of local record books. It is an amateur transcription, or worse, an abstraction, of what is hopefully a real record. It is not the real record or a photographic copy of the real record. Besides potentially mis-representing the real record, it may be difficult to determine what the real record is, which may well be an off-line source that is hard to access, may not even have a source page describing it, and may not be fully identified on the genweb site.
Recently a user was citing ma-vitalrecords.org. This is clearly "an index" with every entry containing a link to the scanned images of the underlying source. So it should not be cited, right? But the Watertown entries in ma-vitalrecords.org have been enhanced with additional information (in red), such as the mother's maiden name in birth records, even though that information is not given in the published Watertown records. So if you use the maiden name, you cannot cite the underlying vital records, since the mother's maiden name is something that it does not say. If you cite ma-vitalrecords.org, you are citing an index, but at least you have accurately indicated what you based your data entry on. Now when people disagree with the mother's maiden name, they know they are only refuting the contributor to ma-vitalrecords.org, not that they are refuting a contemporary record.
The reason the Source system is the most misused and least understood part of WeRelate is because it imposes an organization on sources that is not based, in any way, on how things look to a single researcher who only knows the one source in front of them as they enter their information, without being aware of all the other sources they don't have, and how those others may happen to relate to the one they do. In this case, it is pretty obvious to even a casual user that a county genweb has an administrator, much like an editor of a book, and provides a bunch of webpages with information, and so the intuitively analogous approach to typical sources, is that the county genweb should be cited like a book, and the link to the specific webpage used goes in the page number field, possibly if you like, with the title of the specific webpage as the record name. Possibly even with this intuitive approach, and certainly with any non-intuitive variation, the source system would be greatly helped if data entry had a wizard that guided users through source specification, until they learn enough, that they can activate and use various shortcuts and still build a citation of their source of information in the desired form. --Jrich 17:03, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Khaentlahn - got it, thanks. That makes some sense. Jrich, we'll have to agree to disagree (again ;-))--Amelia 19:39, 28 February 2015 (UTC)


Child born after parent's marriage or before? [4 March 2015]

http://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=Family:James_Russell_and_Maude_Elder_%282%29&diff=0&oldid=21647916 Regarding the above family. There is a comment that the child was born two years before the parent's marriage. Is this correct?--Stoney7path 14:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

To be frank, this comment was placed before anything I edited and I am uncertain to what it is supposed to be referring. I have yet to find a child born for this couple before marriage.--khaentlahn 14:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Also, doing a little further research, the 1910 census on which this family appears indicates that Maude was the mother of 1 child and Mildred is on the record with James and Maude as parents. The goofy thing about this record is that James is listed as a widower and Maude is listed as his wife and married. I believe this was a census taker error, but I will have a link to this record on all their pages shortly if you wish to go over it yourself.--khaentlahn 15:13, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Last addendum (hopefully), James was listed as a widower, because his wife had died 4 days before the census was taken. She was listed, because she was still living in that house as of the 15th of April 1910, which is what the census record required.--khaentlahn 15:19, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm. This page http://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=Family:James_Russell_and_Maude_Elder_%282%29&diff=next&oldid=21647916 shows when it was added. Was this not your addition? Is the website hacked?--Stoney7path 20:33, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The website wasn't hacked. Tracing it back further, the addition came from the merging of duplicate families, Family:James Russell and Unknown (4) & Family:James Russell and Maude Elder (2). The James Russell and Unknown (4) page contained the warning notification. The notification was in reference to Cecil William Morphew born 1906, who was erroneously linked as that families' son. Cecil was the husband of Mildred, that families' actual child. In any case, the warning flag is not needed from what I can tell, so it can be removed if you wish to do so, or I can if you would rather.--khaentlahn 20:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to complete the merge. You probably have more info than I do.--Stoney7path 21:37, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


Am I being too hasty? [11 March 2015]

I noticed you went back and undeleted and then corrected a few of the Livings I deleted from 'Jonjay's tree. That's fine, though I wonder if you believe I am being too quick to delete. After a little digging, I found that JonJay's tree has more livings than anyone else's (about 10% of the livings actually) so I try to work quickly. I don't usually look it up unless it is borderline cases, such as one dead and one living spouse.--Daniel Maxwell 18:32, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

No, not at all. Regardless of who deletes them, I like to go over some of the recently deleted livings to do a little more in depth research just in case they are deceased and not living. I don't do many and I only find that I restore maybe 1 in 10 that I view. Call it a personal quirk, nothing more.--khaentlahn 18:42, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
If you want to stab at cleaning up his tree, be my guest. I think it is probably the biggest tree on here (nearly 70K people in it) and most of it is low quality; very few places, many missing dates, more livings than any other tree, etc. Daniel Maxwell 18:44, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
I have cleaned up some of Jonjay's pages in the past, but I haven't made an effort to only clean up one person's tree. Can't say I ever really considered it, actually, but I can take a look at least. :) --khaentlahn 18:48, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
DataAnalyst spent several months if I remember correctly cleaning up 'JustAlf's tree, which was around 5000 people. Something like JonJay's is probably way too big for that kind of cleanup but now it's one of those situations where the tree is so large we CAN'T delete it. These dump and run trees would have killed the site eventually, and I am glad they are now limited. Daniel Maxwell 18:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Now this is interesting, though I'm sure somewhat irrelevant, Jonjay's tree shows 70324 people, but if you actually look at the listing of people in the tree, it only shows 52884. So there has either been quite a bit of culling already, or somehow the information isn't in sync. I'm going to assume the tree showing on his page is from the original upload...? In any case, there are still a lot of people to sift through.--khaentlahn 19:01, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it may possibly be counting families and 'sources' in the userpage total. Daniel Maxwell 19:02, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

‎Project Warner.ged [16 March 2015]

Cos1776 left a message on my talk page about their recent GEDCOM upload. I see you've already claimed the file, so I didn't want to jump ahead and import it. Based on Cos' message, do you have any concerns about importing it at this stage? --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:04, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

No, it will be able to be imported, but I would like to make sure more items (sources and places) are matched before importation. I am willing to do this type of work beforehand without concerning the user any further.--khaentlahn 14:09, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for offering to work on the source/place matches. I'll follow up with Cos1776 on my talk page to let them know the status. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Categories for speedy delete? [13 March 2017]

Khaentlahn, are the (surname) in (place) categories now considered obsolete? I noticed you've deleted a bunch like this, some yours, some other people's. I had never considered that categories need cleanup. Is there a backlog of many of these, or other problematic categories that are speedy delete material?--Daniel Maxwell 11:03, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

With the change to how categories were displayed on person pages back in 2013, Surname in Place pages were made obsolete as Categories. They no longer collect, as they once did, all of the Person, Family, Source or Place pages which may reference a particular surname and are, therefore, empty, or slowly becoming empty as the Person and Sources pages are edited. The only Surname in Place pages that still have Persons and/or Surname pages connected to them are pages which haven't been edited in the past 2 years. Also, if a category page has data (information pertaining to a particular surname, origin and what not), it gets left alone in case aspects to the Surname Portal are being utilized.
In theory, fewer junk pages that a website has to sort through, the faster and more efficient it will run. There are a LOT of Surname in Place pages which are or will become empty as the other pages are edited and since I recall creating a bunch of these Surname pages originally, I am willing to go back and remove them by hand, though if an automated system will do that without deleting the useful Category pages, I'm okay with that too. As to other Categories which need cleanup, there are some Place Categories which were created for places which were redirected and are no longer being used as well, but those are much fewer and far between than Surname pages.
In any case, does this long-winded response answer your question? :D--khaentlahn 13:32, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I understand there was discussion a few years ago about the "Surname in Place" category as well as utilization of categories versus the search function, but I don't remember hearing that a firm decision was made on either to make them obsolete. What I do remember was that the Surname in Place category would no longer have autobot creation of new subcategories because of the population size with multiple categories of potentially only one listing for each category. I also remember Dallan indicated that existing surname and Surname in Place categories that were utilized (blue-linked) would remain active and supported.

Related to this positing, I noticed you removed multiple Surname categories from this place page, indicating that you did so to "remove categories which are no longer being utilized." Granted, there were a few surname categories which were red-linked (i.e. not created), but why also remove the ones that were actively linked to categories with multiple potentially utilized cross-references? (See surname categories for Daniel, Davis, Powell, and Thompson as a few examples of category pages with multiple subcategory and article listings related to those surnames.). I noticed that you also removed all the surnames and surname category links from this page as well.

Other than that I appreciate your other constructive edits, but I just want to make sure we're all on the same track here and that work performed years ago is not deleted or removed arbitrarily or without community support, involvement and agreement. --BobC 13:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

This raises a question for me. What I remember about the discussion about categories: there was an announcement that categories were no longer going to be automatically added to person pages. And that a LOT of folks were upset. I don't remember anything about categories no longer working or no longer being relevant; just that they were no longer automatic. So I have continued to add them on some of my pages. And now they are being removed?? As long as they still function in the system and folks bothered to manually add them, why would someone come along and delete them? I do 'utilize' them - not only for searching but they are good for navigating back & forth. Please don't delete my categories. Possibly this discussion needs to be moved to the watercooler?? --janiejac 15:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
In answer to both, the Surname categories used as examples, as well as many others, do still have plenty of people linked to them. While these pages still appear useful, the change to how the automated Surname category system works makes these Surname pages only an illusion. Any Person page linked to those Surname pages will drop from the Surname page after the original Person page is edited and saved. The majority of users won't manually add a Surname link to their Person, Family, or Source pages, therefore, eventually, only the pages with manually created links on them will actually appear in these many Surname category pages. This doesn't ultimately sound as useful as these Surname categories once were. I remember creating more of these Surname pages than I care to admit, so part of me still cringes at their current status, but if the system has changed, it's changed.
So take Daniel as an example, this page currently contains about 951 links, whether Person pages, Sources or otherwise. If you do a search on the Daniel surname with "Exact match only" as an option (or click on the Daniel surname under the Browse option on the left side of the screen while on a Daniel page), you get 1218 results, so already there are 267 Daniel pages not on the Surname page. Then let's say someone chooses to go through the Daniel surname for Data Quality Improvement purposes and effectively edits and saves most, if not all, of those pages. This will effectively remove the majority of names from the original Surname category page for Daniel leaving a handful at best, or only manually created links. The more pages which are edited, the less effective the Surname pages become over time. Since obviously the point of a Wiki is to edit and update as many pages as possible over time, this will, at least in theory, eventually happen. It seems like a wasted effort to continue to use the Surname pages if they aren't going to be as effective as they once were.
I once advocated for those Surname pages and was very against them disappearing, but I've chosen not to fight against what has happened with them. Hopefully, this answer clarifies the situation...?--khaentlahn 16:32, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Removing "also located in" links on all cemetery pages [27 May 2017]

We've touched base on this before, so I have already stated that I disagreed with removing the county links, but since I was not that intimately involved with the geographic area of the other cemetery pages that you edited in this way, I haven't pressed it too much. I also chose to ignore it as you changed every Find A Grave link that I have entered to your preferred text (even though there was nothing wrong with it the first way). But Wayne County, Indiana is a different story. I have spent countless hours on the cemetery pages in this county, providing history and dates, and organizing them correctly in their proper towns and townships, etc., and now you are systematically undoing those connections and erasing those dates. This is supposed to be a collaborative environment, so before you go any further, can you please provide the proof that it has been collectively agreed upon that cemetery pages should not link to county pages and only your Category method should be used? I am not objecting to your desire to create Cemetery Categories - that is your preference. But I am objecting to undoing all of the county links that others have established and losing the researched dates that were there, simply because you don't like to see a long list of cemeteries on a county page. Are you planning on removing all of the towns and townships on each county page as well? Why are they any different than Cemetery links? WR designates all of these as geographic Places that can be contained within each other. Respectfully, --Cos1776 18:37, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

If research dates or links to town/city and townships have been removed, they were removed unintentionally and I apologize for those possible mistakes. I cannot bring to mind when town/city or township links were removed, but perhaps we are discussing different things and I am lacking understanding of your meaning. It is not intended for any town/city or township links to be removed at all.
According to Cemeteries as Place, each cemetery should be linked to their respective Category "Cemetery of [County], [State], United States". The secondary category modifier simply sorts cemeteries on the county's Category page. It isn't necessary, nor does it make a difference to the main cemetery pages, it was simply for organization.
The FindAGrave cemetery template allows for one cohesive form of linking to Find A Grave cemeteries. It gives WeRelate an easy method for correcting redirects in the future should FindAGrave change their website file structure, which has happened in the past. A simple copy and paste of individual Find A Grave cemetery website pages is difficult to maintain on a large scale, should Find A Grave's structure change. Perhaps it was not this aspect that was your concern when you stated "your preferred text" and I'm misunderstanding your meaning here as well.
The overall changes are not intended for any information to be lost, but to give all cemetery pages a more cohesive, organized appearance. They should all have at least basic elements in common with a basic appearance order so the pages are more professional to the public at large.
Would you be kind eno--Cos1776 18:11, 9 April 2015 (UTC)ugh to direct me to the policy which indicates that adding redundant "Also Located in" County links was decided and agreed upon collectively? I haven't found one, but would be happy to change my method should there be one and I've missed it. I will also go over all cemetery pages I've edited to correct this should that be the case.
If I have overlooked one of your concerns and have not addressed it, by all means, let me know. Does this help?--khaentlahn 19:30, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
FWIW when I started working on counties in West Michigan, I attempted to gather a consensus on whether cemeteries should have "also located in" links to counties or not, and the closest I could come to such a consensus was that any objections to the practice applied only to urban counties with lots of cemeteries, and it was fine for rural counties. As I recall, the only county in West Michigan I construed as an urban county for application of that principle was Kent County. --pkeegstra 19:49, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
To your knowledge, was there a policy developed from it? I would like to see the discussion in any case if you have a link to it.--khaentlahn 19:54, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Since I did not sense the existence of a consensus I did not push for the development of a policy. And I can no longer recall where any discussion may have taken place. --pkeegstra 20:10, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate the pause in the editing. I wanted to get a comment out, before all the cemeteries in Wayne County had been affected, but then had to leave before I could answer your response. I will work on digging up the conversations I recall about linking to counties tomorrow and get back to you. 'Til then - --Cos1776 00:35, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey Khaentlahn - I am afraid that I grossly overestimated what I could get done while rushing around and preparing to go out of town last week. I am still out of town and will be for another week with only intermittent connectivity. I apologize for the timing, but this trip was planned long ago. I'll have to take it up again when I return. Hope you are enjoying this Spring Break time. Regards, --Cos1776 18:11, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I too would be interested if a consensus re: cemetery pages has been established. I routinely include County under 'Also Located In', and have had these removed (absolutely 'No offense' Khaentlahn). I realize that inclusion can create a massive list of cemeteries on some county pages, and a relatively short list on others. A rule of thumb would be handy, since the "Cemeteries of [Blank] County" is equally accesible as a County page listing, and if inclusion of Township or Town in "Also located in" remains. I suggest a consensus, and a policy (with exceptions if necessary) created. My .05 (inflation) Neal--SkippyG 18:25, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


how to handle a patronym? [14 July 2015]

I submitted a ged-file with no surnames, because I considered the patronym not as aproper surname. Is it correct to assume that the patronym however should beconsidered as a surname in een ged-file? examle: not "Jan Geerts", but Jan with surname Geerts--Radrexhage 20:55, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

To be frank, I am not completely certain as to how patronyms should be handled. It may be a question better suited to the Watercooler to get a more comprehensive answer, though this has nothing to do with why the gedcom was rejected. The gedcom was rejected due to the check marks next to each of the individuals, which excludes them from inclusion into the system. If you did not check each of them to exclude them from the importation process, then the automated upload system did so most likely based on the ages of the people in your file. Basically, all of the individuals have the "Early" box checked, which means that they are too early for the gedcom upload process. --khaentlahn 21:07, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Wife of James Wilson 1715-1809 [14 July 2015]

For several years of working on the Wilson Family tree, I have been convinced that James Wilson was married to Elisabeth Hepler Hempenstall per the county records. Recently I began going back over each generation of Wilsons in my line (James, Josiah, John M., Wahington Lee, Charles, Walter, and my Father Walter Woodrow Wilson)...only to discover that some of previous "facts" were guesses made by others. While I was a NSDAR Registrar, I learned quite a few ways of proving ancestral lines for the society which eventually taught me to do the hard work of getting the real documentation!

Fortunately for us, there is more of that documentation available online today. And I am still looking for more.

One of the recent factoids that I picked up was that there were at least three James Wilsons in early Augusta County area. Obviously since the family was so beloved each generation of Wilsons liked to name one of their boys after their distinguished ancestors. Gee thanks to this wonderful Scottish custom! As I got into James Wilson's ancestors, I found several more of the familiar Wilson given names. On one attempt, I was able to get back to the 13th Century, in search for the source on this tribe.

Too late for an abbreviated response, just wanted to introduce myself first.

From some of the recent evidence turned up, I discovered these things:

1. Thomas Wilson immigrated to Virginia from Ulster, Ireland about 1723 . After a few months in Philadelphia, he moved to the Valley of Virginia and settled on a portion of Borden's Grant near present Fairfield , Augusta County. Thomas Wilson wrote his will 5 April, 1773, "being a farmer of Augusta County, Virginia". The will was probated May 18 , 1773 in Augusta County Court. All his children are named in the will. Abstract of his will is found in "Augusta Records" by Judge Lyman Chalkley, Vol. iii, page 129. The following account speaks to the character of Thomas Wilson: Mathew Wilson was the brother of the 3 immigrant ancestors of the Wilsons of Botetourt County. He was from Ulster in Northern Ireland and most likely, a Scotsman descended from the families that immigrated to the Ulster Plantation in 1610 and later. During the reign of James, I Britian encouraged plantations to Ireland and Virginia, 1607. The ship on which Mathew, his wife and three young children and a maid sailed in 1720, was apparently damaged by storms. It floundered and sank near Stull, off the coast of France. He was drowned and lost . His wife, the maid and 3 children were rescued by another ship. The maid, infant baby girl and the mother died. The mother lived long enough to tell the story. The two boys, Moses, age 7 and James, age 3, were brought to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and cared for by strangers. Three uncles of the children came to Pennsylvania in 1723 (some accounts say 1727) and took James to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley which was being rapidly settled by the Scotch Irish Ulstermen. Moses Wilson was adopted by the family who had cared for him and he grew up in Pennsylvania, married and had children. The 3 brothers all went to Augusta County. Two of them, John Wilson and Robert Wilson, served as Burgesses from Augusta County. The third brother, THOMAS Wilson, adopted the orphaned James Wilson. James Wilson married his first cousin, Rebecca, daughter of his adopted father, Thomas. They settled in a portion of Augusta that later became Rockbridge County. This story came by oral history from Alex Waldrop , a cousin of George St. John and a Wilson descendant. The history had been researched for his aunt, Mrs. Carper. Chalkley's History of The Shenandoah Valley, Vol. 3 pp 129 is Thomas Wilson's will reciting names of his children. John Lewis is called the Founder of Augusta County, settling one of the first grants there in 1732. He is ancestor of General Andrew Lewi s and of Preston Woodville.

2.

This information came from my Wilson Family book called History of Wilson's Springs and the Wilson Family of Virginia, published on Family Tree Maker and located at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/g/a/u/Catherine-L-Gauldin/BOOK-0001/0012-0001.htm l.

The question to be researched is: Is this Robert Wilson, d. 1745 the same person as Robert Thomas Wilson, father of Colonel John "Burgess" Wilson?

1. ROBERT1 WILSON 1 was born in Ireland, and died Abt. 1745 in Ireland?.

Notes for ROBERT WILSON:(From "Old Oxford and her Families" by George Wilson Diehl) There are at least six Wilson families in Rockbridge County. The branch from which the Wilson's of Wilson's Springs are descended begin with ROBERT WILSON, who was born in Ireland and died in 1745. John was one of his surviving sons.

Ch ild of ROBERT WILSON is:

2.i. JOHN2 W ILSON, b. Bef. 1745, Ireland?; d. 1754, Ireland or Scotland?.

_____

IS ROBERT WILSON of Ireland the same person as ROBERT WILSON, married Jane Lee?

The DEFINITIVE and documented tree of the ancestry of the Wilson Family of Wilson's Springs ends with ROBERT WILSON of Ireland, but I am linking the two people as the same person for the following reasons:

1. The death dates match.

2. The place location matches, namely Rockbridge, Virginia, USA.


Note: The tree is SPECULATIVE beyond this point and none of the information beyond Robert Wilson of Ireland should be taken as fact.

_____

The factors that are very much in opposition to making this assumption are:

There is no John Wilson associated with this marriage. Thomas Wilson is listed as a son and also John "Burgess" Wilson, but he was born in 1701 and he and John "Cordwainer" are obviously not the same person because John "Burgess" was a member of the House of Burgesses and is very well documented.

3. I cannot locate the document right now, but recently I read that James and his wife/cousin Rebekah had something like 18 children. Good Grief! Logically, even living long lives, there just wasn't enough time to have that many babies and marry another woman along the way. Everything that I have read so far about this specific James mentions ONLY Rebekah as his wife.

If you are interested in acquiring photos, maps, lineage etc. write me at genealgurl@yahoo.com and I will add you to my guest list on my Ancestry.com database. Sherry L. Wilson Ottmann--Genealgurl 20:56, 14 July 2015 (UTC)


Why hello, you've done a lot of work on the Wilsons. I commend you.
Just to get this one portion of the line sorted out on WeRelate... James Wilson (1715-1809) you believe was married to Elizabeth Hepler Hempenstall (?-?), but not the Elizabeth Hepler (b.~1807). Since this particular James died when Elizabeth (1807) was 2 years old, this connection should be severed and a new family should be created. As to how to sort out the James Wilson / Elizabeth Hepler Hempenstall issue, that's another kettle of fish to which I will leave to the more knowledgeable. I will remove James (1715) from this marriage, put in a new Elizabeth Hepler Hempenstall marriage with James (1715) and create a new family for Elizabeth (1807) to the James Wilson (1797) that is more appropriate. Unless there are some objections to this solution, of course.
Thank you for the information!--khaentlahn 21:29, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Henry McWherter (1862 - 1950) [1 March 2017]

Is there a reason you removed all my locations that had township in the location name. Without township in the name, you have to bring up the actual page for the location to see if it's a township or not. Many locations have a town named the same as township. This leads to inaccurate data being viewed.--Qctrader 16:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Titles for place pages - This help section indicates that a place page needs to have a parenthetical "only if needed to distinguish the place from an existing place". In the case of Elkhart township and Clear Creek township, Elkhart and Clear Creek are only the names of townships, not cities or towns, whether unincorporated or not, therefore, neither of them need the (township) designation. As to Union Center and Collins, I will correct these as they were my mistake. I missed Union Center as an unincorporated area and Collins as a city. I hope this clarifies this issue.----khaentlahn 16:32, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I humbly stand corrected. But it would be nice (especially in this case) it would be nice to have added it in the reason field or notified the watchers (in this case only me). I've encountered some people that "I want it this way and I don't care what proof you have", so when people just change something that I've added and no notice or explanations, you tend to get defensive. Especially if you feel it's going from a very specific identification to a more general/less specific identification.

I'm far from perfect and will admit when I'm wrong and willing to learn. Most people just need to be given a chance. I looked at the history and there was nothing about changing the locations to follow standards.

So maybe we can both walk away from this learning something. thanks for calling it to my attention.--Qctrader 17:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Just a friendly tip... remember that this doesn't have to be all or nothing. The Place page can be set up to allow for the entry of "Elkhart Township", as well, to help future users in cases just like this. Simply enter "Elkhart Township" as an alternate name. It is a win-win, because Qctrader can then have "Elkhart Township" show up on the Person and Family pages, if he wishes, by selecting "Elkhart Township" from the dropdown menu. The same goes for other such townships. Best Wishes, --cos1776 19:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

your helpful edit [5 March 2017]

Wow! My George Jackson looks so much better! That was a lot of work that I would never had got around to! I'm certain I have a lot more that need it, but I'm just unable to do it. Thanks for the cleanup!! --janiejac 23:50, 5 March 2017 (UTC)


You're most certainly welcome.--khaentlahn 23:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Fgravecem Template [22 March 2017]

Not a big deal, but I'm curious why you're carefully changing instances of the Fgravecem macro to fgravecem when the defining instance on the system uses the former? --pkeegstra 20:19, 18 March 2017 (UTC)


For no other reason than that's how I entered it into my cemetery macro. I didn't really pay much attention otherwise. I'll change it for future updates.--khaentlahn 22:07, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I believe matching of template names capitalizes the first letter for you:

Find A Grave: Fgravecem
Find A Grave: fgravecem
It probably uses the same software that capitalizes names for Person and Place pages. There should no reason to change any invocation if it is working correctly. --Jrich 22:42, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

It's actually a real simple one-time change in the program I use, so it's a non-issue really, and the end result follows the template examples. Win-Win with little effort. I like those. :D--khaentlahn 22:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Even though it is irrelevant now, I thought I would rewind this conversation and explain my process on cemetery pages. My macro program, Perfect Keyboard allows me to, with a couple of keystrokes, add the formatting to a cemetery page that I normally add without having to type everything by hand every time I edit a cemetery page. Then I simply copy/paste already existing data into the spaces I organized in the macro. It makes the pages pretty easy to alter and modify without my brain imploding from monotony. I use a LOT of macros, but in any case. In my main cemetery macro, the Find A Grave cemetery template was entered as fgravecem, not Fgravecem (same with BillionGraves). It wasn't a conscious decision to change how either of the templates were formatted, but the macros have since been changed to how the original templates appear on their respective example page. Basically, capitalizing the first letter of both.--khaentlahn 17:19, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


Helpful edit. [22 March 2017]

Thanks, you know what I mean. As a bit of a duffer I was unaware of templates. Sorry. But when I went to the Home Page to find how to connect to them, I could find no link. What am I missing?--Loughner 13:44, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Try these if you haven't found them already... Templates Help File & a list of Templates. You may want to just go through the templates to familiarize yourself with what's currently available. Many of the template pages have examples and explanations for how to use them. I hope this helps. --khaentlahn 15:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

You missed my point. I will bookmark these links. Why can't I get to them from the WeRelate homepage. If I could have, I might have found them myself a long time ago.--Loughner 15:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I apologize. I didn't understand what you were asking. From the Home page (or any page for that matter), on the right-hand side of the screen, click on Help and choose Contents from the drop-down menu. Scroll down to the bottom of the Help:Contents page to Advanced Features and you'll see Templates. There's even a better list of the templates available (than the one I originally posted) within the first two lines of the Help page under What are Templates?. Is that more helpful?--khaentlahn 15:43, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Stark Co. Cemeteries [25 May 2017]

Thanks for the work on the cemeteries of Stark Co., Ohio. I've been working on place names & locations in Stark; I and various members of my family, including parents lived there 20-30 years, where I was a genealogical librarian in Canton. Neal--SkippyG 15:09, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Of the Stark county cemeteries that are currently on WeRelate, they should now be mostly current and uniform. An attempt was made to include all of the townships on the respective cemeteries pages also (I believe I caught them all).
There is one cemetery (West Bethesda Presbyterian Churchyard) which no longer exists on FindAGrave and I have been unable to find another reference for it. The only memorial that was originally linked to it is now listed as Unknown Burial on FindAGrave. It may be an erroneous cemetery, but further research needs to be done before it can be removed. After having lived there for so long, perhaps you know something about it?--khaentlahn 15:26, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I have hard copies of some of the Stark histories, and I'm still in contact with my old Genealogy Dept in Canton. Let me do some digging. I'll still be adding cemeteries (for a friend's Stark Co. family), so I'll look at the template you mentioned for adding cemetery resources. Regards..Neal --SkippyG 16:34, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

If it would be easier and faster, you are more than welcome to continue adding the Stark cemeteries as you have been. I don't mind going over them a few days later to make them uniform.--khaentlahn 17:06, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Before a lot of work is undertaken to add blank, unused cemetery pages here at WR, I just wanted to add my recollection that on various discussions relating to cemetery place pages, discussion eventually turned into consensus that new cemetery pages would only be added if a particular user had individual person pages that included a burial event that referenced that cemetery. It was agreed that no wholesale effort would be undertaken to add blank cemetery pages as places just for the sake of including them as separate place pages here at WR. Or they might be created if there was value added and content included that was not available on another site (such as the example used above where the cemetery was no longer referenced on Find-a-Grave).

One such discussion was held at WeRelate:Cemeteries as Places. --BobC 11:51, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

While that was an interesting page to read, it doesn't speak to the point which you just made. Basing this statement on simply my understanding of what you've written, not adding a Place page to a genealogy wiki simply because a person page isn't immediately linked to it is counter-intuitive.--khaentlahn 13:12, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Any cemeteries that I add, are as Khaentlahn says, intended for use of a person or persons that I know are buried there. Some of these persons need the burial place on their pages corrected/amended to fit the updated cemetery name & location, which I will do shortly.--SkippyG 16:42, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


West Bethesda Presb. Churchyard [27 May 2017]

Hi Khaentlahn,

I received a reply from Stark Co. Dist. Library Gen. Dept. re: West Bethesda. The staff there searched all the histories I don't have, and their 12-volume set of inscriptions read between the 1930s & 1950s. No West Bethesda Cem. found.

Additionally, they found a Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Millport, Columbiana Co., Ohio from the "Journal of the House of Representatives, Vol. 65". I have a link, if interested.

Also, from "Ohio Cemeteries", publ. Ohio Genealogical Society; a listing for Bethesda Cemetery, in Franklin Twp, Columbiana Co., Ohio on Willard Rd. I believe the church & cemetery are related, and in the same area. Haven't checked Find-A-Grave yet. Neal--SkippyG 16:56, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Just clicked into FAG using Joseph Gaskill link; his wife is buried in West Bethesda Cemetery, West Jefferson, Williams Co., Ohio.--SkippyG 17:05, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Then I would say it is a fairly safe bet that he is buried there also and not in Stark County. Thanx for the research help on that cemetery!--khaentlahn 12:49, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

FYI, I converted the erroneous W. Bethesda Presb Chyd. in Stark to the correct one in Williams Co., Ohio. As a Finda contributor I alerted the person who created "Joseph Gaskill" w/o cemetery to the Joseph Gaskill page interred in Williams Co.

While perusing Williams Co., I found that Werelate has 2 cemetery pages for "Riverside Cemetery", one more accurate than the other. I tried redirecting one to the other, but find I don't quite understand the redirect process as layed out in Help.
1. Riverside Cemetery, Williams, Ohio, United States (less complete)
2. Riverside Cemetery, Montpelier, Williams, Ohio, United States

Both link to the same Find A Grave cemetery. Hate to ask, but would you redirect #1. to #2. ? Perhaps I'll catch on to the process that way. --SkippyG 15:52, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Sure, it's done. Basically I entered the following in the text box at the bottom of the screen on the less complete page:
#redirect [[Place:Riverside Cemetery, Montpelier, Williams, Ohio, United States]]
To see how this looks, go to the "What Links Here" of the more complete page and bring up the link for the less complete page. Edit it and you will see the redirect as it should appear on a page that needs to be redirected. Does this help?--khaentlahn 02:07, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
The bracketed part is just the way you would link to a WeRelate page [[Namespace:title]], and you put #redirect in front of the link. I usually add it as the very first thing in the narrative section without deleting any text that is there, as in some cases (perhaps not all?) that makes it easier to undo. So basically, it is #redirect[[standard intra-WeRelate link]]. --Jrich 02:27, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all ! The Help explanation just didn't register with me.--SkippyG 02:58, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


Cemeteries in Essex County, Ontario, Canada [15 September 2017]

I note you have made a couple of additions or edits to some cemeteries in the above county and the only resource given for these cemeteries is Find A Grave. May I suggest adding OntarioGenWeb's Cemetery Project. This is organized on a more local basis and contains photographs and transcriptions of individual gravestones. The indexing is good and may lead users to other cemeteries in the area if they should be hunting for family burial sites. The provincial organizer is very co-operative if errors or omissions are found and conveyed to her.

Regards, --Goldenoldie 06:45, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. I was unaware of that site, but it looks to be rather extensive and worth utilizing. I will include it in future Ontario cemetery modification or additions. --khaentlahn 06:51, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I have used it for years and have always been impressed by it. They have also recently taken on another Ontario cemetery website where the organizer has retired, so it is apt to be even bigger than it was. --Goldenoldie 11:27, 15 September 2017 (UTC)


The status of Ancestral File as a Source? [20 September 2017]

Hello,

I have a really hard time considering Ancestral File the only source cited for a person's name, when there is a baptismal record from the church records which cites the child's name at baptism. To me Ancestral File is only a secondary source. Am I wrong in that?--RWMeyer 02:13, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't know the case you are referring to, but I think you are right. In fact, the Mormon Church appears to be trying to consolidate AFNs on individuals (potentially a good thing, eventually, but a mess right now), with the result that searching for a cited AF number often yields multiple records and you can't tell exactly which one supplied the information somebody copied. An AFN source almost always indicates the poster merely copied the research of a person completely unknown to them without doing any confirmation, although I find that some AFNs are actually accurate, just not up to modern academic standards in terms of documenting their sources. Further, the problem is that the good ones that do exist are hidden amongst a forest of bad ones. Many pages in the early days of WeRelate have been posted entirely based on AFNs and it remains for serious collaborators to add the primary, or at least, underlying, sources that support the data posted, and obviate the AFN. So yes, it is shameful that an AFN is the only source cited, but if you are familiar with the baptism record, please cite it. This is the benefit of collaboration. --Jrich 02:38, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
As an occasional user of AFNs myself, I had a brief online discussion with User:jrm03063 at my Talk Page relating to this subject earlier this year, and I think that AFNs are appropriate as a source (using the designation lightly) if it is the only one referenced (and thereby used more as Finding Aid rather than a literal primary or secondary source) rather than nothing at all, even more so if only used for the name itself rather than associated life fact events. Obviously the goal would be to replace the cited AFNs with legitimate sources for the fact events noted.
Unfortunately, the "Quality" designation in the Source Citations block has been eliminated here at WeRelate, so all "Sources" are now shown and cited with equal merit. --BobC 13:00, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Is there a particular person to whom you're referring? If it's in reference to most individuals I've been working on the past few days, most of those are simply clean-up of information already provided. I generally don't add AFNs, but if someone else has already posted information on them, I will add the link to it to help make finding the AFN information easier. In any case, I agree that AFNs are only secondary at best.--khaentlahn 12:38, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

This is where I saw it last: William H. Katterheinrich b. 1839 (https://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=Person:William_Katterheinrich_%281%29&diff=0&oldid=22356520) and Fredericka Meckstroth b. 1844 (https://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=Person:Fredericka_Meckstroth_%281%29&diff=0&oldid=22356546). There were several pages I have contributed to that you have edited and reduced 2 or 3 sources to just one source - Ancestral File. My opinion of Ancestral File mirrors that of Jrich above. I can understand it when there is no other source at all, but in these cases there were other more credible sources. I don't understand why you would even edit the source for the name of the person when there are several sources for the name. I also regret the loss of the Quality designation for sources on WeRelate.org.

The sources removed were GEDCOM references [not a source], not Ancestral File references. The Ancestral File reference was changed from "MySource:Bevbh/Ancestral File (R) (2)" [MySource] to a "Source:Ancestral File" [Source as reflected on WeRelate] only. Whether the Ancestral File reference is needed or not [for the edit that I did] is irrelevant. I was simply cleaning up some aspects of the page. If someone else believes that the Ancestral File reference is not necessary, then by all means, remove it, but I didn't add the source. I modified the link from a MySource to a Source. Does this make things more clear?--khaentlahn 23:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Category: Cemeteries of Hampshire, Massachusetts, USA [21 September 2017]

Hi, Would you take a look at this category ? East Street Cemetery and one other are sorting under the letter "P", and I can't figure out why. I think this is a result of a GedCom upload, which Cos either edited or changed. Not placing blame, but I can't get them to sort correctly. Thanks. Neal--SkippyG 22:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Not a problem. The pipe was missing from the Category link. "Category:Cemeteries of Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States" should have read "Category:Cemeteries of Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States|East Street Cemetery" or "Category:Cemeteries of Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States|East Street". I always put the entire cemetery title after the pipe, but not everyone does and it isn't especially necessary, just easier to read by other people later.--khaentlahn 23:04, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Khaentlahn, I corrected the Find A Grave link, but late last night forgot to check the other categories. I like to use the full cemetery name, too; never know when it's actually "Burying Ground", "Memorial Park", etc. --SkippyG 23:18, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


Can you restore this? [15 June 2018]

I assume it was an inadvertent deletion.

[[1]]

Deletion log

08:00, 1 October 2017 Khaentlahn (Talk | contribs) deleted "Transcript:Savage, James. Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England/v2p216" (deleting tree) --Jrich 05:40, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

--

I apologize. I don't recall deleting a tree. In any case, completely inadvertent and has been restored.


Edith Dill Taber [27 January 2023]

Hello,

  Do not know if you had written me several years ago regarding a post I made. I am hoping it was on Edith Dill Taber, in that I have a picture of her. When the person wrote I could not find it. But since then I came across another one of my grandmother's (Ruth Elizabeth McClane) photo albums.
  I have a photo of Edith Dill Taber dated 1917. It appears to be graduation picute of some sort, possibly.
  Do you have pictures of Edith.

Regardsm Mary Wessmann-Pearson--Many a McClain 01:50, 27 January 2023 (UTC)