WeRelate talk:Support/2016

Problem linking downloaded images to required pages [1 January 2016]

I have just downloaded a series of images (maps) to use with a group of placepages. The first one I used linked perfectly (see Odsey Hundred), but the rest of the series (see [[Category:Hundreds of Hertfordshire]]) results in a red description of the image instead of the image itself. I have worked by copying and pasting, and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the title, but I do notice that on the image page the link box is in a different position and a notice at the bottom states "Links: There are no pages that link to this file."

What have I done wrong? By the way, Happy New Year, everyone. --Goldenoldie 11:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I may be wrong but it seems some image names have an underscore in them and others do not, like Image:Hitchin_Hundred,_Hertfordshire.svg.png . It seems the ones with the underscore are the ones not displaying.Rmg 12:07, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Hurray. I have now got all of them working except Hitchin and Pirton. I have changed all the image filenames so as to remove the .svg part. I wondered about the underscores, too, but the image files all have underscores. Since I am using copy and paste in all entries I can't see why this would be significant. I shall have another go with Hitchin later. BTW, there is no reason why the change from Hitchin to Hitchin and Pirton should matter. I named Edwinstree Hundred as Edwintree in the image upload name (a typo) and it came through. --Goldenoldie 12:32, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Hitchin and Pirton now re-downloaded, uploaded, and in its proper spot. Problem over for now. But I wish someone would rewrite the Image Upload screens with simpler vocabulary for those of us not exactly familiar with the process. --Goldenoldie 13:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

XML tags visible [6 January 2016]

I have noticed some XML tags on certain pages. Suspect they shouldn't be visible?

Clicked add link for nonexistent person: the message at the top reads

You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box below (see the help page for more info). If you are here by mistake, just click your browser's back button. <edithelptext>

I thought there has been another one as well that I encountered a couple of time, but cannot recreate it. I though it might have had a tag "addpage...", but take that with a grain of salt. If I run across it again, I will add it to this posting. --Jrich 17:04, 26 November 2015

This happens occasionally when the server is under high load. I'm trying to figure out why this happens occasionally.--Dallan 06:33, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

addpersonpageend is the tag I was trying to recall. The other thing that happens is that the add page adds a page but never jumps to it. This has happened a couple of times. I press the "add page" button, get the black text that says Please Wait, and then the Please Wait goes away, as if I never pushed the add page button. I never get a chance to edit the page I added. As a specific instance, today I created Sarah Loring (7) who died as an infant, then created her sister Sarah who was born later. I had this problem when I added the second Sarah. So I selected add page again, and I was given page Sarah Loring (9). Out of curiosity, I visited Sarah Loring (8). It is a non-existent page apparently skipped. I can't tell if it is high load but maybe the logs can help you determine when these events happened and see if the load was high when this happened too? --Jrich 22:04, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I get these HML tags too. And sometimes I have to save a Place page a second time because the type of place hasn't registered. (That is, I've typed the place type in, no typos, and the standard error message re omitting a place type comes up.)

These quirks have all happened since the software update at the beginning of November (end of October?). --Goldenoldie 19:03, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm still monitoring this but haven't been able to identify any problems yet.--Dallan 06:17, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

It's still happening on about one in five place saves. --Goldenoldie 07:24, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Change Account Name [10 January 2016]

I'd like to change my account name from FranklySpeaking to Frank Hawkins. Appreciate anything you can do to facilitate the change...

"Your user page needs to have the same name as your account name. If you want to rename your account, please leave a message on Support"--Frank 16:44, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

GEDCOM issue? [15 January 2016]

I know there is occasionally an issue with the information on a Family page being out of sync with a person page. This one seems pretty specific, with little activity, so didn't know if it might shed any light on the more general issue.

Person:Ebenezer Wilson (1) existed, added by "gedcom upload" 2007 with no parents or birthdate, name spelled Ebenezer Wilson (one L).

In 2012, a GEDCOM update that touched this page was performed. There are two changes listed in the history on that date. The one marked "Add data from gedcom" appears to have only resorted the order of the HTML tags, but made no change to data. The second change marked "Propagate changes to Family:James Willson and Molly Rich (1)" added parents, but no birthdate or other changes I assume both those changes were part of the GEDCOM process.

The family page did not exist prior to the GEDCOM upload, but was created by it. Currently, the family page for the parents, Family:James Willson and Molly Rich (1), links to this page described above, but the displayed data on the Family page shows the name spelled Ebenezer Willson, born 21 Oct 1793 in ", Shoreham, Vt" (this is the piped name, which is blue, and it links to Place:Shoreham, Addison, Vermont, United States). This is different than what is shown on the Person page.

The history of Ebenezer's page seems to indicate that his page never contained those values, so one would assume, the discrepant data on the Family page is not left over from an old version of the Person page. So I assume the family page got them from a staged page for Ebenezer Willson that was in the 2012 GEDCOM. Was the upload abandoned after the Family page was updated but before the Person page was updated? Does/did the system get confused trying to merge an existing person while creating the family page (e.g., assumes the family page is all new and bypasses some consistency checks that would have ensured the data got propagate one way or the other)? Did the user mishandle the merge step which compares the existing data to the new data? --Jrich 21:39, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

There's another thing out of sync as well. Ebenezer's parentage does not show on his own family page. The fix for that is well-known, to disconnect him from that page and reconnect him. I wonder if that would resolve both issues. --pkeegstra 11:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I assumed editing would fix the page, but haven't because the relatively simple history of the page seemed to focus on a possible cause more than some of the other cases I've seen and I wanted to leave it so it could be analyzed by people who know the software and maybe have access to logs I am unaware of. I am not sure it is the same as other cases or not, it could be the user simply abandoned their upload for all I know. --Jrich 14:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Auto complete, etc. [22 January 2016]

Auto complete for places and sources not working for me. Also, on the top tool bar, 'Home' works, not much else besides 'Support'.--SkippyG 18:18, 21 January 2016 (UTC) After 3 restarts, problem went away.

It might be a browser cache problem, but if it is working now there is not a lot to do. If it happens again clearing the cache might help, if not report back and let us know what browser and version you have. If it is anything windows based then I cannot help further but someone else can. -Rmg 08:58, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

St. John, Oxfordshire, England [22 January 2016]

This morning I renamed Place:St. John-Barford, Oxfordshire, England to Place:Barford St. John, Oxfordshire, England. Later I discovered that Person:Henry Milton (1) (1504-1558) and some other members of his family had been born and died in "St. John, Oxfordshire, England" (contributor gave no sources) and this place has now been linked in our database to Place:Barford St. John, Oxfordshire, England.

There are quite a few places with St. John in the title in Oxfordshire and there is no entry in the History for "St. John, Oxfordshire, England" to be renamed Place:St. John-Barford, Oxfordshire, England. How come "St. John, Oxfordshire, England" didn't get entered in red?--Goldenoldie 14:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

User Name... how do I adjust it? [23 January 2016]

New user... my user name did not come out as I typed it and would like to adjust it before I attach a tree to your site.

I don't want to build a whole tree here to a user name that is not what I want.

How do I do this or do I have to delete it and create a new user name?

Thanks for your help.--Patricia ann 14:55, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I made a guess that you wanted it to be Patricia Ann, if this is not correct than let me know what name you would like. - Rhian 15:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Vermont Vital Records [3 February 2016]

Hi All, I've discovered Vital Records for Vermont, county by county, town by town here [1] I don't see anything in WR that takes me to this site. This is part of Family Search, titled "Vermont, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1732 - 2005" I've not created a source and am hesitant to "screw it up". Could someone take a look and guide me through it, or start the creation process ? The vitals have great indexes, and include the original pages for all the towns in Vermont. Thanks for any advise/assistance..--SkippyG 21:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

It's an artificial heading to group together filmed records of towns in Vermont. Every town is different, in terms of how it was organized, who created it, etc. The sources are already created in most cases as a government record type of source for the individual towns. If the film in the collection being viewed has a film number on one of the images you can probably use that to find the WR source that refers to the same film number under usage tips. [e.g., image 1 of the film linked to above is 29205, which is found on Source:Wardsboro, Windham, Vermont, United States. Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1782-1883.] Some have indexes some don't. Some have only town meetings, some have meetings and vitals in the same book, etc. The same thing is true for Massachusetts vitals, and probably more records are coming on line as time passes since the Family History Library seems to making more and more of its film collection available online. --Jrich 23:05, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

[2] (from Job Ramsdell) is not from the same source given above. It belongs to Source:Vermont, United States. Vital Records, 1760-1954 describing the index cards Vermont town clerks were required to fill out by law in early 1900s based on town records and gravestones. This is much like the old genealogies that use to publish the certified letters from town clerks giving birth records. But it is inherently not the original record, so while easier to find since indexed by familysearch, slightly less desirable as a source. The source named above describes the film of the actual book of Wardsboro town records. It is specific to Wardsboro whereas the index cards cover all of Vermont. The Wardsboro book should have been the original information that the index card was made from (presumably, source provenance on these films is not always clear, sometimes only copies of records are filmed, the originals being too brittle). In this case, the original for the death of Job Ramsdell, from the Wardsboro Records of Births, etc., is here.

The image number is not real useful since you have to be able to figure out how to get to the film before image number is much help. This is especially so if the film it corresponds to is identified wrong, as may happen since the source system at WeRelate is not easy to use. Better to give an actual link, found in the information tab at the bottom of the screen as part of the information in the sample citation. This should take a reader right to the image of the page desired even if the source get named wrong, etc. --Jrich 01:37, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

One thing about this online source is that if you go to image #1, you will see a film number for that group of images. That would be 540135 in J.R.'s example, corresponding to Source:Vermont, United States. General Index to Vital Records of Vermont, 1871-1908. There are different ways of recording these in the references. For an example of what a reference for one of these index cards might look like, see ref #1 on this page. At least that is how I chose to record it. -Moverton 01:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Something is underspecified in your posting. If I go to Skippy's original link, go to image 1, I get film 29205. I am not sure which image 1 you mean since it is accompanied by no link to follow. The familysearch website has been rebuilt a couple of times, but the way it currently works, the URL in the browser's navigation bar does not get updated, you have to go to the information tab as you view the image to get the correct URL for the image you are looking at. Clearly, a death in 1870 would probably not be expected to be found in a source titled General index to vital records of Vermont, 1871-1908. --Jrich 03:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Follow-up after playing around: Still don't know where 540135 comes from. (Yes, it is a film number but what link discussed above had an image 1 that gives that film number?) If I go to source page Source:Vermont, United States. General Index to Vital Records of Vermont, 1871-1908, and then click on the repository link to see the FHC catalog entry, it says "Vermont, Vital Records, 1760-1954 are available online, click here.", suggesting it is just a portion of the bigger work. On Newman Scarlett's birth record, image 1 gives film 27680. This is Source:General index to vital records of Vermont, early to 1870, which, like the 1871-1908 collection, is a subset of the Vermont Vital Records 1760-1954. I suppose you could cite the early to 1870 for Newman Scarlett's birth in 1799, but citing the encompassing collection would seem the most intuitive of all since this is the title of the collection displayed on the screen when you look at the film images. In either event, including a link to the specific image in the citation would seem to be a helpful aid for readers, and fairly trivial to do, being a simple cut and paste. --Jrich 06:33, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what was wrong with my browser yesterday, clearly something, as the Job Ramsdell link now gives image 1 as film 540135. So sorry to have added some confusion to a complex issue.

Some people, and apparently things, don't like working on Friday.  ;)

There are significant principles about source citation involved here. The ones I place emphasis on is making it as easy as possible for a reader to verify your findings and, hopefully, see why you reached your conclusion, and if they disagree, to know exactly the nature of the data that must be explained away. For that reason I find the citation on Newman Scarlett's page less than desirable for two major reasons: 1) no indication that they can find the object online, it looks like the person citing it read it off a film (except possibly the reference to image numbers, which is unlikely unless somebody is counting-i.e., online viewer) leading to the conclusion the reader must order a film to see what they are up against, and 2) it gives no indication of what the record said, thereby implying whatever the page currently says came from that source even though the page may have been changed by a subsequent edit. Having found many stupid errors, I have developed a deep seated desire to see if the record says June or Jun (which could be a misreading of Jan); if the record says the death belongs to Jane Doe or widow Doe; etc. So usually, I personally try to provide an abstract or transcript, as I think most useful, so the reader knows the nature of the information found there. And that way, if some thoughtless GEDCOM upload wipes out the birth or death date, it does not end up looking like the cited source supports the new date.

Regarding how I would cite this, one deficiency is that I rarely bother to specify an image number, or film number. I assume familysearch.org is not likely to remove or change the location of this image, so if I provide the URL which takes you to the image, I expect that will always work. Weird things always happen, and it would provide redundancy to give a film number, and the page number in the filmed object so if somebody had to revert to film, they could still find things. It is just that this redundancy probably takes 2 or 3 times as long as providing a URL of the image, and if I think it is important enough to go to that much trouble, I would probably take the little extra time to find the record in the actual town records (Wardsboro, in the case above) rather than work so hard citing an index, which is inherently a copy, anyway. But I recognize that providing redundancy location information in addition to the URL of the image is probably a good idea.

My opinion is that these sources should all be merged into Vermont Vital Records 1760-1954. Many of the Family History Catalog titles are inaccurate and arbitrary anyway, especially as regards date range (e.g., above, the 1870 death date of Job Ramsdell found in a subcollection for 1871-1908?) This particular collection was probably hard to use on film (the 1871-1908 subcollection says it is 122 films, the early to 1870 is 287 films, how do you locate one record in that-order and read 122, or 287, films until you find what you are looking for?) On the other hand, the online images, named Vermont Vital Records 1760-1954, are indexed on familysearch.org, so they are extremely easy to find and use, and so, whereas probably nobody ever cited the underlying films, the online collection is cited often, and the name of the online collection is Vermont Vital Records 1760-1954.

However, the issue has more to it than just that. There are other collections, unconnected with familysearch.org, such as Dedham Early Records, where the individual volumes have been added redundantly even though the collection exists as a source already, so now there are two ways to cite the volumes within that collection. And others such as Boston Marriages, Watertown Records, etc. People don't recognize the volume is part of a collection so don't realize the source is already defined. What is the best way to deal with these? --Jrich 04:03, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Some good points, and as far as your last couple of paragraphs...

The films are in order with all of the cards alphabetical by name, so it would probably be as simple as if they were searching for a specific page in a sequentially numbered book stored on film (the searcher would just be scanning one film for a name instead of a number). The problem with merging the original sources/collections into the new larger collection is that not all of those are always going to be of the same type and quality. Speaking more generally, a collection of vital records can be taken from a number of different sources. Each source may have its own peculiarities. And it is hard to determine the quality of the data in an overly broad collection. A certain amount of granularity may always be needed because different people may arrive at a source in different ways (online index, film on reader in their local library, printed manuscript, &c). -Moverton 05:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

In this specific case, it is the same set of images being looked at, so "type and quality" is identical. Further all appear to be handwritten copy made by town clerks and the various sources part (i.e., whether the town clerk used town records or gravestones, etc) predates the creation of the cards, is endemic of the collection whether found on film or online. The data is the same under both names. I think this is true in all the other cases above: whether you call it Boston Marriages 1700-1751, or Boston Marriages Volume 1, or Record Commissioners Reports Volume 28, it is the same book with the same pages in it.

Regardless, the larger issue, i.e., when are two items the same source or a different source, I agree. I have been trying to intuit the design principles the entire time I have been using the source system, and it is clear, I am unable to do so, and in many places where I think I know the right answer, it differs from others. Some examples:

• Census: clearly a page for each county, but it seems by year would be a unit since administered by a single agency, used the same form and questions. So I conclude the purpose was to provide a place to discuss the census of counties separately. It is also clear that almost all GEDCOM uploads simply link to census sources by year and ignore the county.
• If the purpose is to provide a central place to discuss a source, why was Source:General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Mayflower Families through Five Generations created lumping several volumes of widely differing styles and content and quality into a single page.'
• If the purpose is to provide an accurate citation that helps users find a source and locate the information, then the current policy is broken (see here), particularly about reprints that contain different content and page numbering than the original having the same title. Noting that it takes a breadth of experience and access most users don't have to know if two forms are identical or not. Ease of use suggests the poster needs to be able to figure out how to cite the source by just looking at that one source, not by doing a week's research of all the different editions, reprints, etc.
• The article type has related issues which seems to cut across most the possible design principles: it is polluting the source name space (conflicting with book titles and reprint titles of the same name, filling drop down lists beyond their capacity), there is an ambiguous guideline when to use the type so it is used in different patterns (only if discussion of the article is needed, when cited more than 10 times, etc.) making both types (article title in record field, article title as title of source page) of usage less valuable, it looks like a book when in edit mode, and it provides no real functionality (like gradually creating a table of contents of a magazine or being able to convert record-name and article-type both into a consistent form).
• If it was all about books, the answer might be simple: based everything on worldcat.org or on the title page or how the card catalogue entry would look. If those are different, the source is different. It becomes harder with online collections since they are often mirrors or collections of other sites.
• An area where the comment "type and quality" really applies is the citation of an index. I think many of the comments about sources are meant to deal with the proliferation of indices. But in many ways, different indices offer different views of the data, often barely identifiable as having the same underlying basis. Shouldn't different data mean different source? For example, familysearch.org Massachusetts Marriages does not distinguish between intentions and marriage, but the underlying record does. Ma-vitalrecords.org creates an index with added information not found in the underlying record contributed by the person who built the index. Indexes are not supposed to be used as sources, but as we all know, this is all that some contributors have access to. --Jrich 16:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

For the Vermont Vital Records it may not be a big problem to merge them since they all contain cards from the Office of the Secretary of State. But as long as FamilySearch continues to keep the separate film titles (and I doubt that will change anytime soon), I would be hesitant to remove them from this site. -Moverton 20:26, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Place linking dropdown problem - Middlesex, Virginia [1 March 2016]

Something is wonky, but I can't figure it out. When I try to add Middlesex Virginia to a page:

1. the dropdown gives Middlesex, Virginia as the top entry

2. when I click on this entry what appears in the place box is County|Middlesex, Virginia

3. when the page is saved, what appears on the Person Page is just the word "County", a blue link

4. When you click on the blue link, it goes to Clay County, Kentucky

For example see:Person:Rachel Kemp (5) The Place pages for Middlesex and Clay counties don't look obviously wrong, but I haven't looked at place pages in a while. Perhaps the dropdown list's index is garbled? The problem is repeatable on other Person pages. --Judy (jlanoux) 14:28, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I edited Rachel to get the place to show correctly, what was there was an incomplete place followed by a pipe the County, whatever is after the pipe is what gets displayed on the page the bit before has to match the place page name. I assume you want the page to link to Middlesex, Virginia, United States so that needs to be on the left of the pipe and the name you want displayed, maybe Middlesex, Virginia, on the right. If you leave out the pip[e and the display name it will display the name in full. Hope this helps. Rhian 14:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Judy, I wasn't able to reproduce the symptom. I found that clicking on the Middlesex, Virginia entry of the dropdown list made the correct thing appear in the box, with the correct link (as tested from the Preview). This might have been a bug with temporary effects on the WeRelate server or in your browser. If you still find that you can reproduce the problem, please post that fact. You might then close your browser and restart it to see if the problem goes away when you again try it. --robert.shaw 18:34, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick replies. I have manually fixed Rachel's birthplace without using the dropdown. Your responses led me to look at the dropdown again. It appears that the order you see things has to do with what you used recently. And the first entry looked different from the others. The others had the place name repeated in small type, the top one just had the word "county", which linked to Clay, Kentucky.

Scrolling down further, I have discovered another (proper) entry for Middlesex, Virginia that works fine. You guys probably got that one. I'll have to chalk this up to a glitch in the dropdown system which is peculiar to the user (me) since the list order keeps changing after I select a different county. Thanks for the responses - they were helpful and let me narrow down the problem.--Judy (jlanoux) 23:28, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I see you have also created a sample of the error, the problem with that is you have "County|" before the place name this means the page will display the text you want but link it to a none existent page 'County' which shows as a red link. For the dropdown problem it could be the system is trying to match with a recently added gedcom place that is wrong and not linked properly or as you say it reuses recently used places in preference. At least you know a bit about how to fix it :) -Rhian 08:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Access to Guilford (CT) Vital Records, etc [20 March 2016]

I'm trying to source Henry Doude(1) and his children & grchildren, but don't have access online to Guilford Vital Records. Also, the publ. by Gale Ion HARRIS (American Ancestors) that proposes that Hannah SALMON was 1st wife of John Doude (2). Would anyone be willing to read the Guilford vitals for DOUDE/DOUD/DOWD, and the Gale HARRIS work for validity and copy ? My email is gardnerneal@hotmail.com --SkippyG 19:34, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Neal. I have access to this material and can work on this. I'll enter the Guilford VR source information into WeRelate. I just brought up the Gale Ion Harris article. It is called "Hannah Salmon(2) of Southold, Long Island, Probable First Wife of John(2) Doud of Guilford, Connecticut" and starts on page 76(2001):296 of TAG. I haven't read it yet, and am probably too tired to make much sense of it tonight. I'll see if I can summarize the gist of the article, but of course, it is under copyright, so I can't copy too much.

I should be able to get this done over the next week or so. Do you have a preference for what I tackle first?--DataAnalyst 01:51, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

First of all. Thanks very much for your help; the W.W. Dowd book has lots of errors, but the only one I could access. I have no preference as both would help. I can work on DOUD/DOWD lines in other locations. Wonder if there is a better place to ask for this kind of collaborative help. Perhaps it would encourage a little more comradeship ? It's a little like being on a tiny island in a big archipelago without means of communication. Neal --SkippyG 03:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Done. For good measure, and because I enjoy the research, I created pages for virtually all the Dowd/Douds in the Guilford VRs. The only ones I skipped were a couple of illegitimate or posthumous infants that I could not reliably place, and several later marriages of people whose births were not in the Guilford VRs. I also tripped over church abstracts (Ancestry.com) which filled in some gaps, but I did not go through them to any great extent. Enjoy.--DataAnalyst 14:34, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. You went above and beyond what I anticipated. Have a great day. Neal--SkippyG 18:48, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Adult baptism causing problems [20 March 2016]

I was trying to tidy up the places in the entry for Person:Gladys Drew (1), but her christening in 1907 is pointing up an error. I tried putting the christening on the baptism line instead, but this did not help. How can this correction be made?

--Goldenoldie 10:56, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not quite sure what error you mean, if you move the name of the church to the description field the place links correctly, or did you want the place as it is but linked to Canterbury? --Rhian 11:09, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

It's not a place problem. If you go into Edit a warning comes up at the top of the screen (this person died less than 110 years ago and there is no death given). If you don't make the correction that causes the warning, you can't save. Despite the birth being given as "abt 1880", the warning is not cleared on "Save". To escape I had to go back to the original. --Goldenoldie 14:03, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I see what you mean, it uses the baptism as it is a complete date where the birth is so far an estimate. I edited in a work around as she is certainly not living with a template to advise of the incorrect data.

--Rhian 14:17, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Didn't we have an event "adult christening" at one point? (Is it in the sandbox?) I seem to remember it had a bug that it still triggered the proxy logic for birth, but at least it would document that cases like this weren't infant christening. If your aesthetics prefer, you could signal that the person is affirmatively deceased by putting the 'Y' in the description field of the death event line instead of the 'bef 2016'. --pkeegstra 12:17, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I have very little experience with research in England and am unfamiliar with most English sources. So I can't really verify the information that is on this page. But what is the possibility that this looks like an adult baptism because it has been combined with the census records of a different person? After all, the husband is said to be born in 1909. So in 1935, a 26 year old man married a 55 year old lady? There is also this: Name: Jessie Drew / Event Type: Death Registration / Registration Quarter: Apr-May-Jun / Registration Year: 1996 /Registration District: Canterbury / Birth Date: 06 Jul 1907. (Another Jessie Drew is listed b. 1873, d. 1920, which may be the Jessie Drew listed in the 1881 census?) Rather than neatening up a page that looks like it is incorrect, deleting it may be the better action, if nobody can actually research it. --Jrich 15:29, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

You make some valid points and as the original uploader has done nothing with their upload for 7 years they are unlikely to return now to correct the pages. I will have an deeper look and see what I can find tomorrow, there should be data from 1911 census and maybe the 1939 register as well as BMD records which should confirm some things.--Rhian 16:16, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

This seems a lot better now, there were two, or more, people with similar names. I have tied the 1907 birth to a census address in 1911 that matches the baptism address, ideally a family member would have or buy a marriage record to confirm this. I also traced the other Jessy who seems not to have married, I added census transcripts to her as well. Strangeley I cannoy find this one and her husband in the 1939 register which implies they were not in Britain, in the armed forces or most likely have been miss transcribed by cantfindmypast. --Rhian 10:31, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

GEDCOM import stuck? [21 March 2016]

There could be a problem with gedcom importing. At the moment a gedcom has been sitting for 25 hours with 'Waiting for analysis' until that is done it cannot be reviewed or deleted, it is not big, about 17 people plus sources and places. This size normally processes in about 5 minutes. Another was put in the queue about half an hour ago and that shows the same message still.

I cannot tell if my gedcom is causing the problem, it opens OK locally, or if the importer is broken.--Rhian 11:29, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Problem solved gedcom import works now.--Rhian 08:35, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Correcting Errors [3 April 2016]

How do I correct the spelling of a name? My husband's last name is spelled incorrectly therefore mine and all of the children's names are wrong also.

Thanks, Erin--Erin Joy 18:54, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

WeRelate has a policy against living people, so your name and your children's names probably shouldn't be an issue. If they have pages for them, the pages should probably be deleted.

Changes to pages are made by editing, recognizing that this is a collaborative, group environment. So while nobody owns or is sole authority on a page, changes can be made by anybody, trusting people are guided by an appropriate amount of objectivity.

Providing a link to the erroneous page will help others review it as well. --Jrich 21:46, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

As you do not appear to have made any contributions to WeRelate it brings up the question of where the error is, is it data someone has added here or is it on your computer not yet uploaded? As Jrich said telling us the pages affected will help us sort it out. --Rhian 07:27, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

While waiting for an answer I did some poking about and found over 70 family groups with an Erin in that were all potentially living people, they have been marked for speedy delete. If you have a page here it should not, of course, have your husbands name, it should have your birth name but should still be deleted to protect you and to conform with legal requirements in some countries.-Rhian 11:02, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

CSS addition [7 April 2016]

I'm not sure of the best place to post this, but can we add some code to the CSS? I'm proposing to add the following:

.columnedtable th { border-width: thin; border-style: solid; padding: 0.4em; }
.columnedtable td { border-width: thin; border-style: none solid; padding: 0.4em; }

The class columnedtable would be a new class used to create a table with only column borders in the table's data and slightly larger padding between the rows. When combined with wikitable it should look like the following table:

This will allow for the creation of tables where the information can be displayed in columns like this and without the extra clutter of horizontal borders. (Compare with the table below.) -Moverton 17:11, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

This could be useful in some situations although most of the tables I tend to use benefit from the horizontal borders. this would be a point to raise with Dallan I think.--Rhian 18:56, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd just like some pointers on how to reduce the white space between the rows. Thickness of horizontal lines comes into this too. A current example is on [[Place:Cannington Hundred, Somerset, England|Cannington Hundred]]. --Goldenoldie 20:28, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

In this case cell padding=5 gives a lot of white space, reducing it to 1 might make it look cramped, try 2 to see if you like that better, to reduce the horizontal white space removing the 95% constraint should allow the system to alter the width so each column is wide enough for the longest entry, The border=3 is what gives the outside border a thicker line and changing the value will change the thickness. If you use the wikitable class, as in the example above, then the instructions are different, see Help for a bit more, and the wikipedia article linked from the help page goes a lot deeper.--Rhian 07:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia provides a good help page for tables. Just be aware we don't have all of their CSS classes. If you use class="wikitable", you get a good basic formatted table. I usually tweak it to my liking for the particular situation (eg. adding style="background-color:white;"). -Moverton 16:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I have no opinion regarding the esoterics being suggested, but it is always dangerous to change an item that has been in use and perhaps has been massaged by some user to a very specific look. An example in the past was a general purpose template that got tweaked to suit one specific purpose and now that are hundred of previous invocations that don't look good, and hundreds of the new invocations that wouldn't look good if it got changed back to the original. --Jrich 20:45, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Delete 'Wethersfield Village Cemetery' [28 April 2016]

Could an Admin Speedy Delete "Wethersfield Village Cemetery", so I can correct "Weathersfield Village Cemetery" which has all the info (Lat/Long, etc) to the correct spelling. The first cemetery name is on the signage for the cemetery. I'd like to correct my error ASAP. Neal--SkippyG 00:25, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Done.--Rhian 07:26, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response ! Neal--SkippyG 15:47, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Ads in text while creating page [14 May 2016]

I was just creating a person page and when I went to preview the page, there was this ad for MyHeritage popped actually INTO the text portion of the page. I couldn't edit or delete the ad so decided to go ahead and save the page and edit it out afterward. But after saving the page, the ad was gone. This was strange and unexpected. Hope this is not the new normal!! --janiejac 19:24, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The same happened to me this morning when I created a new page. I had thought it may have been an imbedded link from some copied text for this new page, but didn't see it in Edit mode, only in the Project Page mode. It disappeared, then returned after I went back to it a while later. Now it's back again. Seems to pop up and disappears.

I understand and can tolerate the ads on the margins, but find it difficult to accept it in the text portion which should be reserved for user input. Image shown below. --BobC 20:51, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Dallan's response to an email: "It's an ad that shows up periodically. I'm trying out a less-obtrusive ad type with myheritage." My opinion is similar to yours, it looks too much like user-posted data - which requires reading it, which, while good for the advertiser, makes it, if anything, more obtrusive. I thought maybe a template or something had been hacked at first. It only seems to come up every dozen or couple dozen pages or so, not every page you look at. --Jrich 21:45, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

When it comes to advertising and its degree of obtrusiveness on these pages, if it must be included on the page I'd rather see an ad be somewhat obtrusive and give me the ability to know it's an ad or an income-generated link to a subscriber-supported site rather than disguise itself as user-inputted data or links. If the MyHeritage link directs the user to valid data on the same individual, then it should be highlighted, bordered, flagged, or in some way identified as a revenue-producing advertisement at the end or bottom of the page where it doesn't compete with and disguise itself as user-inputted information. --BobC 15:17, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

This pops up every 3 or 4 pages for me.--SkippyG 03:11, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

They started showing up last Sunday and far from beimg less obtrusive I find them greatly annoying, especially when they show up almost every other page on speedy delete pages. It seems the frequency of appearance is based on the amount of data, and pages for deletion as living people tend to have no data. Perhaps ads in general should be removed from active admins?--Rhian 09:50, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I've just checked this out regarding a few of my own pages. The 'Vital Records' My Heritage paragraph appears as the first paragraph for each person where a possible records match has been found. It may disappear when the page is next viewed. It is totally unacceptable because it precedes real user content, and because the so-called matches very likely relate to a different individual. It is not consistent with WeRelate's standard of carefully checked, accurate information. This ad needs to be eliminated. --Helen-HWMT 08:45, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

The discussion of including ads on WeRelate pages (pros, cons, alternatives) was presented in much detail about this time one year ago. The conclusion was that they are here to stay unless users opt to donate funds to support continued improvements. So like myself, many users have probably learned to put up with the fat-belly images and other targeted ads on the margins. Many also suspected that his would be a slippery slope of income-generated efforts here at WeRelate. (Is this déjà vécu for old-time users of RootsWeb?)

In my humble point of view, this one is more insidious than a more obvious margin ad, in that the way it is formatted it passes itself off as user-provided data in the first paragraph where it's guaranteed to be viewed on the screen when the page appears, which may or may not be considered a benefit to interested contributors to WeRelate or even to subscribers to the MyHeritage site. Do donators to WeRelate have the same paragraph pop up on their screens or are those ads eliminated for them? That may answer the question whether or not these pop-up paragraphs are designed to provide genealogical value as identifying an alternate source and repository of usable data, or if they are designed primarily as a marketing technique for a commercial website. When I actually clicked on the link presented on the page above, it did take me to a MyHeritage teaser page with enough information showing it was the same individual, but beyond that provided only a link to page soliciting me to pay for the subscription service. Since I still subscribe to Ancestry, I decided there was no value in doing so.

So, all said, I guess I object more to the format, placement and deceitful presentation of the ad rather than to the inclusion, use and end target of it. --BobC 16:54, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I can answer the question about donors. I have been on WeRelate every day this week and have not seen this ad.--DataAnalyst 23:32, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

BobC: I agree very strongly with your conclusion. What are we going to do about it? Does anyone on WeRelate have the authority to get this ad kicked out of the text of Person Pages and into the margin where it belongs? Or do we need to protest in some direction, perhaps to myheritage.com? If necessary, we could compose a 'letter' here, jointly sign it, then copy it into an email to them. Or something. --Helen-HWMT 21:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Helen, not sure the mob-rule approach is appropriate or needed, because typically and thankfully group-consensus usually wins the day and most debates here at WeRelate. Dallan has always been very open to and respectful of user opinions, and I'm sure he's gauging the thoughts and opinions of the community in general (through thoughtful discussion and reasoned critique like this) and the professional advise of the Overview Committee more specifically (by way of more private communication). My recommendation is to give it time.

The other corrective measure you could take is to become a financial donor to WeRelate and thereby eliminate the ad feature completely for yourself. But that doesn't solve the problem we've addressed here or eliminate the misleading feature showing up in Person Pages for those who aren't donors.

Take care. --BobC 18:26, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

BobC: Thank you for your very reassuring explanation of how WeRelate matters are managed. When I consulted the information on donating to get rid of adverts, I could not tell whether they would be eliminated for other people visiting 'my' pages, or whether I'd be the only person benefiting from advert-free pages: can you enlighten me please? However, the very permanence of WeRelate pages, and their Wiki nature, means that there will always be a proportion authored by members who are not donors, not least, members who have died. If the Internet and WeRelate continue to exist long term, it is clear that, eventually, most authors will be deceased. WeRelate needs to protect the integrity of those pages.

I'd also like to comment that the wording of the intrusive advert, under discussion here, is an insult to the intelligence of any family historian: people do not need a long-winded explanation of what vital records are, and they certainly don't need to be told over, and over, and over! In every respect, this advert reflects badly on MyHeritage. --Helen-HWMT 06:09, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Helen, donating only affects the view of the donator, as this is a community wiki there are no 'my' pages, only ones you are watching as you contributed to them or want to follow as they are 'your' ancestors, as well as some other peoples. If you donate then you do not see advertising, anyone else viewing pages you watch will unless they also donate, which is what makes these in text advertisements more insidious, I also agree with you about the wording. On the other hand there are so many pages here with no information let alone sources that perhaps some members do need to be reminded to add vital records and sources.--Rhian 07:37, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I find the ads even more annoying than I did at first, even though visually, I think I am learning to skip them. But they rankle me every time I see them because 75% of what I do is add vital records to pages that don't have them, only to have my contributions pushed down to advertise a set of mostly irrelevant vital records collected by simple name matching. You know when they advertise 25 vital records for a person, they either are duplicates or not applicable. The one case I followed, none of the 3 being advertised were even in the same country. So yes, these are ads designed to trap the inexperienced. I am not sure what percentage of people looking at the page are browsers brought here by some search engine, versus users familiar with WeRelate, but many are going to think this is a commercial website based on the text of the ads. How many will even scroll past the ads to see if there is anything interesting below them?

That said, I don't think my heritage is the culprit and complaints to them may not be the right response. Obviously, Dallan inserted the ads, and it sounds like he was investigating the format, and that he is the decision maker here.

I do not want to start a long discussion on a separate topic, but donating has been mentioned as a way to get rid of ads. At one point, I would gladly have paid to remove ads, or even for no benefit, because I think this website has potential to be unique and a desperately needed tool to advance Internet genealogy by allowing peer review to improve data quality, but ever since some discussions about wikipedia, it has been clear that the enhancements being planned were mostly to investigate whizz-bag software features instead of focusing on data quality and user education. I can enter all I need to with the current software, and while there are certainly improvements possible, but I can't do today is ensure that only quality data is displayed at WeRelate. So until I see significant changes being planned to provide more feedback to new users, effective user education, automatic correcting to guide towards consistent data presentation, and perhaps a policy requiring the posting of sources, I consider donating a waste of money. I hate to walk away from 7+ years of trying to donate quality, but perhaps at some point, that will become necessary. --Jrich 13:36, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

If Dallan thinks these are "less-obtrusive" he's mistaken. Regular users may in time get used to it but new users will always be confused by it. To put an ad in the area for user text is rather deceitful. And about those 48 hours it take for a donation to get rid of ads - that may have worked last year. I donated 4/25/16 and am still today seeing ads. --janiejac 03:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to be so late joining in here -- thanks to BobC for letting me know this discussion was happening. I discovered the ads when I went to check something without signing in. They are on every page I've checked so far when not signed in. When I checked "History", there is no history of their being added. When I signed in to edit it out of one of the pages where it clearly didn't belong, it disappeared and I couldn't get rid of it. Like others, I find it truly offensive, as it appears to be user added, not an advertisement in disguise. (I'm also not a fan of My Heritage, but that is another issue.) I agree with Jrich that WeRelate is potentially the best of the wiki sites, but it is not keeping up with the competition. Has any consideration been given to entering an agreement with My Heritage that they will display data from WeRelate along with having advertising space on WeRelate? In that situation, the advertising could be handled rather differently, with a display box to the side, but framed differently than Google ads. At least it would provide some minimal promotion of WeRelate, which is badly, sadly needed. In this day and age, being best doesn't count, just being the most "in your face" everywhere anyone looks. And yes, BobC, I've been seeing RootsWeb all over again for some time.--GayelKnott 20:16, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Using the RootsWeb experience as the historic model, they proved that being the best (at the time) didn't count for much when bills had to be paid, that contributory efforts didn't pay for new computer servers and expanding memory storage space, that passionate volunteers couldn't guarantee the longevity of a quality product, and finally, that solicitation for modest donations from its users couldn't secure or indefinitely extend the life of a free service. Their eventual absorption under the Ancestry.com umbrella probably saved the site and secured the service they still provide for free today. True, there's not a page or screen that goes by without one, two or three links to the parent organization, but the site was saved and continues to provide a free service for family history researchers. Their biggest product, the WorldConnect Project, is still a name collection outlet (now up to 640 million names) and a feeder service for Ancestry.com that makes no attempt at quality, but provides users access to upload data and view results for free. It's quick, low-maintenance, and provides very mixed results, totally reliant on the interest or ability of the contributor as to quality of information shown and the citation of sources or vital statistics used in its databases. WeRelate, while slower and much more high-maintenance in the file creation process, contains data that is generally of much higher quality and reliability for the most part, not only because of the caliber of users and administrators, but because of the community approach to data collection and page maintenance here, and the stricter criteria built in to the application process itself by design.

One of my concerns about the imbedded MyHeritage ads is that they cheapen the WeRelate site. Not only may casual users not realize they are being directed to a subscription site with unknown pertinent information, but they may think there is a cooperative arrangement or underwritten sponsorship of the link they are being directed by the way it is presented on the page. While having taken a couple marketing courses in graduate school years ago does not qualify me as a Marketing Communication Manager or Consultant, I am aware that product placement, brand integration and embedded marketing in movies, television and written communication is an extremely effective marketing tactic for companies to pursue. This non-traditional advertising technique is highly valued by companies to subtly promote their products because it is not readily identified as an ad. The advertiser expects that the better the product placement fits the surrounding content, the better the implicit effectiveness (like attitude or purchase-intention) will be. So, because this MyHeritage ad was not clearly identified as a advertisement, the advertiser expects that it will produce better results than if it was a separate ad on the margin and clearly identified as such, and therefore may be potentially worth higher revenue for the hosting site. Conversely, once discovered as an ad, marketing research also shows that the audience may feel manipulated and reject not only the advertising company but also the hosting activity. The advertiser has very little to lose; the host has much more to lose.

I hardly believe that any agreement with MyHeritage will be a two-way street. Once again, look at the RootsWeb/Ancestry relationship as an example. If this new arrangement with them remains, we need to acknowledge and understand that data linking will be a one-way street going their way, with a modest revenue stream coming the other way in exchange for this linking service. Is that the new reality? Is that what's needed for WeRelate to remain a viable entity? If so, where will we be this time next year? --BobC 00:44, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm one of the original RootsWeb supporters, and I agree they did run into financial problems. They also ran into administrative problems when it grew big enough that it couldn't be run solely by volunteers, people who had to work elsewhere in order to put food on the table and could only dedicate so much time (which ultimately proved to be not enough) to the project. I don’t know of any other free sites that run successfully without at least one paid administrator, which means there has to be some form of on-going financial support sufficient to pay that person.

The other problem is the rapidly changing landscape of on-line genealogy, where survival seems to depend on forming alliances, partnerships, or similar relationships. Even NEHGS is forming a partnership with FamilySearch, and FamilySearch has reached out to form partnerships with several major companies.

WikiTree, the only real competition for WeRelate, is sponsored by MyHeritage, and that relationship is clearly stated in the MyHeritage ads which appear on many pages when you are not logged in. It also offers the only genetic genealogy site that I know of, which is a big draw, and something that WeRelate has consistently, for various reasons, chosen not to deal with. And it has full time administrators, even though much of the work is done by dedicated volunteers. They also have a relationship of some sort with Amazon, and with FamilyTree DNA. (It's not "the best" site, but it is surviving and growing.)

So the problems I see for WeRelate
– financial;
- lack of at least one paid administrator;
- and ultimately, lack of any real attraction for new users.
Claiming to be the best is not an attraction in today’s world. One of the things WeRelate does offer is pre-formatted source citations, but again, in a world where many people think “Ancestry Family Trees” is a source, this is not a big draw.

I think if WeRelate is really going to survive, we need to accept relationships with “inferior” sites that have money and are willing to provide financial support. They only real questions are how to shape those relationships for the most benefit to WeRelate – which is why I suggested trying for an alternative relationship with MyHeritage. And yes, the current embedded message on text pages is a totally negative relationship for WeRelate, and probably doesn’t cost MyHeritage very much.--GayelKnott 16:33, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Once again, my dismay over this issue is not primarily with use of MyHeritage as an advertiser, but with the way it is formatted within the user text space and the inclusion of the juvenile explanation of vital records. One of the reasons I still subscribe to Ancestry.com is their use of the Ancestry leaf as a hint of a potential connecting link to other records and the periodic emails letting me know of new sources with possible connections to my family trees. I have no problem with that (because it is uniquely simple rather than simply juvenile) and consider it a resource partially worth the subscription price (at least for now).

In my opinion, the MyHeritage connection of possible links to any particular Person Page here at WeRelate could be accomplished just as well with the use of an icon (or HTML ad block) such as I've designed here, and it could be placed within the advertiser space in the margin to the right of the user space and would be clearly labeled for what it is: an advertisement. In that way it would not be confused with user inputted data and could still be selected by users who might be interested in looking at the MyHeritage sources. --BobC 22:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I like that idea, BobC, and your logo suggestion - particularly the inclusion of the word "possible". However, WeRelate could look to advertise in your suggested manner for other genealogical services such as the very genuine Find My Past, and Ancestry rather than 'MyHeritage'.

Thanks. And, yes, I agree with your recommendation of the Find My Past site (even though it seems to be British heavy). I think there are quite a few other commercial genealogy web sites I'd rather see advertised here more than MyHeritage. If, given the choice, I'd rather see Dallan make deals with more focused, quality genealogy sites like Fold3, Newspapers.com, or even GenealogyBank.com, instead of the more well-known larger sites that rely primarily on subscriber-submitted data or compiled family data from mass name-collection databases, such as the old World Family Tree, One World Tree, Ancestry World Tree, and the RootsWeb WorldConnect project (all now absorbed by Ancestry, I think). And with its data-mining capability, how can we rest assured that MyHeritage won't simply grab the WeRelate data and put it on their site for their profit-making venture, or allow subscribers the same linking capability and then charge for access of the same transferred data? That's the reason I disagreed with the implementation of the wholesale GEDCOM export feature here at WeRelate a few years ago. If someone doesn't think may happens, read this About article on the topic. --BobC 00:18, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Today I encountered the new-look inline ads for MyHeritage. The inclusion of these ads in-line with the information I have incorporated into these web pages is dis-ingenuous to say the least, and in my opinion it is downright deceptive. If viewers of WeRelate cannot readily distinguish between content created/contributed by users, vs. slick but low-quality advertising inserted for commercial purposes, then we have seriously lost our way with this wiki. These in-line linkages to basically garbage (mis)information seriously degrade the credibility of our entire wiki. They need to disappear, or be moved to someplace where they can easily be identified as advertising rather than posing as useful web page content.

"There is 1,919 vital record available on MyHeritage for Johanna Wilhelmina Van Leeuwen" Really? Even the most naive guest would have a hard time swallowing this assertion. Not to mention the improper grammar. A very amateurish advertising hack.

It is one thing to mine our wiki for useful information. It is quite another to turn it into a billboard for an inferior web site.

Get rid of these imposter ads! I am beginning to seriously wonder whether my decision to join this wiki was a huge blunder? I have constructed or contributed to literally thousands of pages on this web site. Now I would hesitate to refer anyone to this site or to recommend it. This is demeaning to the entire WeRelate community! --Jhamstra 01:58, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I feel the same way as jheemstra.--Diane Hosler 02:31, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I've just seen a terrible advertisement for WeRelate! I learned of the death of a good genealogist, prepared a WeRelate page for him and another buddy posted a link to it on his facebook page. So what shows up to announce this death? An ad for MyHeritage!!! See what a page at WeRelate looks like now on face book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/468602469959095/652677001551640/ Really grieved that it shows up this way. --janiejac 15:34, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Excellent point, janiejac. I couldn't access your Fakebook link above, because I refuse to let myself get sucked into that reality. You know, until you posted that last message, I hadn't even thought of printing my page above (at the beginning of this thread) to see what it now looked like. Doing so yielded the following result, as can be seen in the Print Screen image to the right (reduced to save page space for this dialogue). This is what printing a page with that obnoxious MyHeritage advertisement gives us. An embarrassment, to say the least, worthy of nothing except the round file! It almost sickens me to have to say this, but I will not add one more Person Page here on WeRelate until that MyHeritage ad feature and placement is changed, moved out of the User Space, or deleted altogether. --BobC 04:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I concur. I had the same experience trying to add a link at Facebook, and that was part of what induced me to delete that entire posting. I see two impacts for that. I as a user have had my ability to use the site limited because I can't link to pages from Facebook, but also that closes off a way to promote the site.

I do have a counter-suggestion, though. If this misfeature stays, it could be mitigated by and significantly raises the priority in my eyes of my requested feature of being able to (FindAGrave-style) clear the ads from all the people on my watchlist for everyone including anyone not logged in. --pkeegstra 09:34, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Adding my voice to those saying this is crazy and completely unacceptable. What everyone else has said -- it's not just ugly and almost certainly useless, it's misleading and undermines the entire ethic of the site, making me question what we're doing here. Particularly given that I use the site to build out work from the Morrow DNA project, the motivating purpose of which is to overcome the incorrect info that's been perpetuated by sloppy research like this, I can't continue to use it if these stay. (My test: James Morrow b. 1801 in SC matches to two James in England and Scotland. Useful.) I haven't donated this spring largely because I've been too busy, but also because I haven't seen anything about how the funds would be used. If the answer is that you need funds to keep the lights on, fine, but better to be honest about that then try these awful things. I'm fine with the kind of auto-populated search offered by FamilySearch, as a feature, off to the side. But this is not that, and "awful" is an understatement. --Amelia 05:56, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I will also chime in and agree that the placement and appearance of the My Heritage ads is unacceptable and deceptive. Does anyone know why Dallan (or anyone else who has the power to do something about it) is not responding to these concerns? --Cos1776 03:00, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I concur. I'd definitely like to hear from Dallan. Especially as to how long this may continue, if this is a contractual obligation with MyHeritage. Now 3 out of 4 pages I access have the ads. Thank heavens I mailed my "AD RELIEF" check about a week ago. Neal--SkippyG 03:20, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

"Adding my voice to those saying this is crazy and completely unacceptable. What everyone else has said -- it's not just ugly and almost certainly useless, it's misleading and undermines the entire ethic of the site", wrote Amelia

I agree ! ---> this is crazy and completely unacceptable - Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 04:30, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

What a stupidity ! Person:Adèle Jouniaux (1) or Person:Olga Lecerf (1) and Person:Jean Charpentier (9) ... Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 04:44, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

That may be, but please don't deface pages in trying to subvert it. Not all of us see these ads. (C'est vrai, mais s'il vous plaît ne pas mutiler pages en essayant de le subvertir. Il y a quelques uns d'entre nous qui ne voient pas ces annonces.) --pkeegstra 12:12, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Since it's been two weeks since the MyHeritage ads started appearing in the Personal History portion of Person Pages here at WeRelate, and since there seems to have been no public response from WeRelate management to the concerns raised above, it's probably time to conduct a survey to compile and compartmentalize the opinions of the community.

Users are invited to leave a vote of either their support or objection to new policy of positioning MyHeritage ads in the Personal History portion of Person Pages. --BobC 13:31, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

May I suggest the watercooler for this? --pkeegstra 15:57, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Done. Here's the Watercooler link to the survey. --BobC 17:01, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Suggested alternative solutions to embedded ads [14 May 2016]

Since Dallan has not yet responded I will start a new topic on this page with the comment I left for Dallan earlier on his talk page:
"I will not be inviting others to view the pages I've created until that embedded advertisement is removed. I hope that is not a long-term contract because you've surely read the unhappy comments by active users being left on the support page. I understand WeRelate has to pay the bills but not in this way that cheapens the content. Ads are not great but are acceptable; ads embedded in our user text area are not acceptable and instead of helping WeRelate, I'm concerned that it will be turning away more and more folks and thus be counter-productive.

"The bills have to be paid so as an alternative, I would consider a required small membership fee for active users as long as it still provided free access to viewers. The membership fee would remove all ads. Casual viewers would still see ads on the side but not embedded ads. Has anything similar been brought up for discussion/consideration? Maybe a small fee for active users and an extra donation box with stated dollar goal for those interested in further work on suggested improvements. I think fund raisers should be for improvements and not to remove ads. (The donation box will stay empty if we don't see hope of reaching a stated required goal.) If this sounds workable, you could put this on the support page for further consideration. --janiejac 17:31, 8 May 2016 (UTC)" --janiejac 18:00, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

"Search" not working [19 May 2016]

"Search" feature not working. Anyone else experiencing this, or am I an anomaly ? Neal--SkippyG 21:23, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry - my fault. Search should be working now.--Dallan 21:34, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Dallan ! Neal--SkippyG 21:37, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Now Search, List, Add, My Relate & Admin at the top bar don't work ! I got into support through the link in the body of the Home page. Neal--SkippyG 23:18, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Well, I can't do anything on WR. Please email me when this is fixed. Neal--SkippyG 23:57, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're having difficulties. I'll email you.--Dallan 04:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Everything is back again. Very strange. I don't think it was on my end. Not all functions were affected; I could move away from the front page by using any of the links in the body of the page. I could not use any links at the top. Thanks for the diligence. Neal--SkippyG 04:19, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

'Sources Needed' question [27 May 2016]

I tried my hand at adding a source to a page with the Source Needed template. I found an historical record telling about Thomas Thompson and added that to his page. The problem is that although this record has Thomas' parents and children, it has NO dates for Thomas or his wife. So I left the template on his page since the source I was adding was not a source for his birth or death dates. In the process of selecting a source from the list I noticed that this Source:Littell, John. Family Records or, Genealogies of the First Settlers of Passaic Valley (and Vicinity) Above Chatham - with Their Ancestors and is in our system 3 times and I have no idea of how to merge sources. --janiejac 15:44, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Done. One was the original book publ. 1851. One was a reprint by Genealogical Publishing. One described the filming by the Family History Library. Unlike merge, process is manual, but not too complicated. Transfer useful information onto page that is to be kept, and add #redirect[[Source:Title of Page to Keep]] at top of narrative of the one(s) that are to point at page that is kept. --Jrich 17:18, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

thank you Jrich is everything OK now Janiejac?--Rhian 18:54, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

All fine. I've learned a LOT just by reading Support and Watercooler pages and my research ability has improved but I realize I'm always going to be wiki-challenged. I appreciate that others will step in to fix what is beyond me. --janiejac 13:38, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Category help wanted [19 June 2016]

This was posted last year on the Category Help page:
Search function was improved, dramatically [last year] reducing the need for the labor intensive process of generating and maintaining Categories for generic groupings. As a result, I think overall interest in Categories has waned. --Cos1776 11:34, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm hoping that when the Help pages are re-written, instructions will be included for those of us that like and want to use categories. --janiejac 22:21, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I am hopeful that all help pages will be clearer and more useful. One problem is the Category layout seems to have been abandoned part way through and many sections make little sense, perhaps the OC should look at getting the Categories project restarted. Currently there are well over a million category pages and most are red links and contain only one or two pages, lots were auto created with incorrect places or text in the places field.--Rhian 07:43, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

There was quite a bit of focus on category pages, structure, and organization a few years back (around the 2009-2012 time frame), and unfortunately the discussion at some point seemed to turn into strong debate, and then the debating evolved into sometimes heated arguments, until most everyone seemed to give up and let one or two over-powering individuals have their way. Then shortly thereafter it seemed to drop from the radar.

I am a fan of the creation and use of categories, because I think effectively structured, organized and used, categories can help users research, find and navigate around a subject area or surname grouping in quite a different way than the Search feature; to see names, articles and other categories sorted by title and subject matter, with the end result in discovering new familial relationships. I would like to renew the interest in improving the structure of the category tree, that is, to better organize related subcategories as well parent categories throughout WeRelate. It would be great to see an implementation of a bot process in eliminating the Uncategorized Categories and Wanted Categories listings (an almost impossible task if done manually), and a method of prompting creators and users of Uncategorized Images and Uncategorized Pages to manually create categories for those pages for more effective organization.

Hopefully some of those ideas can be incorporated in the update to those Help Pages. --BobC 06:35, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

FOLLOW-UP 1: Most of the Images in the Uncategorized Images list were there because they either had no license assigned or the license was assigned prior to the implementation of the current dropdown options. I have assigned them all now, so they should disappear from that list. BobC, do you know how frequently the data for that list is cached? --cos1776 22:31, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

FOLLOW-UP 2: All Uncategorized Images resolved. --cos1776 18:44, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

I will raise my head above the parapet and admit I am the user responsible for (probably) all of our Uncategorized Categories. If you give a Category:place to a Place:, all the Sources that link to that place are listed with it. In sorting out our gazetteer for England I have been introducing these categories. This is a facility I discovered about a year ago and have followed it through ever since. I can see nothing uncategorized about these categories except that I was never asked to give a name to this group of categories. It is also a very simple addition to any Place page.

Do I want to eliminate these categories? No. I introduced them because I thought they would be helpful to other users in discovering familial relationships. But maybe I shouldn't have bothered.

Wanted Categories appear to list all the red-lined places that have occurred in the WeRelate database of people. Is it possible to reduce the size of this list? Yes, manually, a big task. Could a bot better analyze this list so that similar errors would more likely group together? That's for other users to answer. --Goldenoldie 10:51, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

It would be a reasonably quick process to create a category tree under places on the category index page, like Europe England county, so Ab Kettleby would be in category Leicestershire. A bot might be able to sort uncategorised categories into the right place once the category tree is made.

A bot to clear the wanted categories list is more problematic, these categories were auto created as Goldenoldie says mostly by incorrect data in the places field. The reasons for the data being wrong varies, a lot are just US state codes instead of names, a lot have county after the county name or half a dozen different spellings of township. A large number are text like occupation or census data in the place field or reference numbers. A lot are caused by spelling errors, I had one page with 5 different spellings of Mississippi all wrong. I have been working through the Calkins in NY category, it was 650 people but is now down to 130 and has taken about 50 hours so far. Most of the red links were due to cemeteries in the place field, misspelt county names or towns in the wrong county.--Rhian 11:24, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

If we made a series of place:pages like NY, OH, NM, etc., and also a series of matching redirects like #redirect[[Place:New York, United States]], etc, would we remove the red lines for abbreviated American states? Warning: don't do CA for California, Canada might be lost in the process! --Goldenoldie 13:59, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Those must be hidden categories. If I go to one of the "Surname in Place" categories and click on one of the categorized Person pages, I cannot find that category on the Person page or anything else indicating the page is in that category. It makes me wonder how useful those categories really are. -Moverton 21:28, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

The main problem is that someone foolishly wanted to auto create categories, which might have worked if every page had the data entered correctly, but instead it created 10's of thousands of incorrect categories using incorrect names and places. The auto create was turned off at the time the categories project abandoned their partially completed task. If you visit a Person listed in a 'surname in place' category the category does not show as it was auto created and that is no longer active, if you edit the page and save they are auto removed from the category, and if all the people in the category are removed the category does not exist.

If you want to add a person to a category you need to manually add the category to the page.--Rhian 08:22, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Need redirect? [14 June 2016]

Concerning the Place page: Place:Lucketts, Loudoun, Virginia, United States On this page is text copied from wikipedia:
"Lucketts is an unincorporated historic hamlet in Loudoun County, Virginia along U.S. Route 15 north of Leesburg. It was originally known as Black Swamp due to the large number of Black Oak trees growing in the area at the time of its settlement. From the late 18th century until the mid-19th century, it was known as Goresville."
So do we need a place page for Goresville (it is used in census records) and maybe Black Swamp to be redirected to Lucketts page? I'm wiki-challenged and won't even try to do it. --janiejac 18:38, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Put the alt names and source in the alt name field. That takes care of the redirect if someone enters one of the older names. Do not create a separate Place page for a pre-1900 Place name. Hth. --cos1776 21:48, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Done. Thanks

You didn't add a source to either name. Just to make sure we don't take everything Wikipedia says as gospel truth, what does Wikipedia show as the source for their information for either name? Just doing a little checking on-line, according to VA HomeTownLocator it appears that the name "Black Swamp" may actually be "Back Swamp," a populated location just south of Lucketts, and Goresville is a little south of that. So were these names actually former names or geographically close communities that may still exist today, even just as a unincorporated village. If you are in fact interested in the Lucketts community due to family connections, you may want to research it a little more closely before relying on Wikipedia as the source. Not to say it's wrong, just suggesting you may want to challenge the source of the info. Let me know if you find anything further out. Just curious. --BobC 00:57, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I never even thought about double checking wikipedia sources! I just knew I had seen the name of Goresville and thought it should be either a place or a redirect to a place. Always a learning experience at WeRelate! A bit of a comfort to know you folks won't let me mess up too badly. --janiejac 13:45, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

It may not be the same place: "Goresville is located on Route 15, just a few miles south of Lucketts."[3] You may need to do additional research. -Moverton 19:34, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Removed alt names! Crowd sourcing is great! --janiejac 01:14, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorting wives on person page [19 June 2016]

I hate to see a man's second wife and their children listed before his first wife and children on a person page. I read somewhere? that the first family could be moved up; but where those instructions are, I have no idea. Is it buried somewhere in the instructions? Is there any way to make it easier either to find or to do? Person:John Jackson (369) --janiejac 22:39, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

If you add a dates for the marriages, it will sort correctly. If you can't source the date yet and it bugs you too much, you can enter a best guess based on, say, the birth of the first child. HTH.

(p.s. I have been reviewing your other page and will comment over there before the weekend is out) --cos1776 22:48, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

One of the biggest bang-for-the-buck items is to make sure that at least an estimated date is entered for a marriage. If no date (and presumably no location) is entered for the marriage, it does not show up in the fact list. I don't know how other people have their screens sized, but on mine, the infobox for the spouse is usually not visible on the first screen, so if the marriage is not in the factlist, it looks like there is no marriage. So I always try to add at least an estimate, even if if is simply 20 (for women) or 25 (for men) years after their birth, or based on the oldest known child, or even a guess, etc. For second and third wives, I have often done Bef-date-of-death just to get some kind of date entered so the marriage is sorted correctly. --Jrich 03:14, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Hey, Janie. If you are really struggling with estimating a marriage year, you can also manually rearrange the marriages on the person page. Edit the person page and use your mouse to hover the cursor just to the left of the marriage until you get a symbol with arrows pointing in 4 directions. Press the left mouse button and drag it to the order you want. You can't do this in the same edit session where you just added the marriage (although you can drag other marriages) - if you just added a marriage, save first and then edit again. If this isn't in the Help, it should be, but I'm pretty sure it is documented somewhere.

BTW: There are 2 things that cause a marriage to show up in the fact list - one is info about the marriage such as date/place, and the other is a source for the marriage (on the family page). So you don't have to have a date to have it show up, as long as you have a source. There does not appear to be a rhyme or reason for this - I suspect this is one of the things we should get fixed (marriages should always show up). --DataAnalyst 21:17, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll try to copy/paste this somewhere that I can find it again! --janiejac 01:05, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Place page in wrong county?? [30 June 2016]

This page has been around since 2006 but I cannot find a Redding in Hartford County. I think it is in Fairfield County instead. Place:Redding, Hartford, Connecticut, United States There are a lot of pages that link to it so perhaps I'm wrong on this. But even the rootsweb county finder says Redding is in Fairfield County. Anybody know more about this? I don't want to make any changes to this page with so many pages linking to it. Does it need fixed and if so, will somebody do it? --janiejac 13:30, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Janie, The correct page (Redding, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States) exists. A Speedy Delete template can be added to the incorrect place page w/reason which I will add shortly. Neal--SkippyG 14:45, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Is it possible to merge Place pages, so all the links are not broken? --Jhamstra 14:52, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Only the county link (Hartford) which is incorrect, and the Family Search Catalog link are on the page.--SkippyG 14:58, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The What links here shows many pages link to it. --Jrich 15:01, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

To insure that all the "What Links Here" entries continue to be attached, I always use the #redirect facility from the wrong page to the right page in cases like this. --Goldenoldie 15:05, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions page missing "comment/edit" [5 July 2016]

Am I blind, or has the facility to comment or edit on someone else's suggestion disappeared? I can't see any instructions at all.

--Goldenoldie 06:43, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

You have to open the specific suggestion (by clicking on the link) and then you can edit the specific suggestion page. If you watch the specific suggestion page, you are voting for it unless you indicate Neutral.--DataAnalyst 00:34, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Parsa and Dallan have addressed this as a Suggestion and solved my problem. Thanks to all.--Goldenoldie 06:23, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Dup Source help needed [6 July 2016]

I believe these two sources are the same records. Shouldn't they be merged? In addition ancestry.com has this info in a database named Connecticut Revolutionary War Military Lists, 1775-83. So folks using the title from ancestry.com should probably be redirected to one of the merged sources. I'm want to fix it where it is used on Person:Ephraim Jackson (17)

Source:Connecticut, United States. Rolls and Lists of Connecticut Men in the Revolution, 1775-1783 (684254) Title: Rolls and lists of Connecticut men in the Revolution, 1775-1783 Places: Connecticut, United States Subject: Military records Year range: 1775 - 1783 Availability: Family history center

Source:Connecticut, United States. Rolls and Lists of Connecticut Men in the Revolution, 1775-1783 (788459) Title: Rolls and lists of Connecticut men in the Revolution, 1775-1783 Places: Connecticut, United States Subject: Military records Year range: 1775 - 1783 Availability: Family history center--janiejac 21:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Guidance on this question seems to be in Help:Source pages#How_do_I_know_if_I_should_create_a_new_source_page? It includes these things:

• Sometimes the WeRelate page will be different than your record (with a more recent year and a publication place of Salt Lake City) because the record is for a film of the work imported from the FHL catalog. Since the film is identical to the original work, they are both cited using the same Source page. The publication information on the Source page should be that of the original work.
• Some older books were revised or updated and republished by the author or a relative under the same title. The scope of the revision and whether it is really just a reprint will often be ascertainable in the front of the book, although it is not always clear. The revised edition should have a separate page from the original work, with the year or revision number in parentheses in the page title.

and also says:

• Vital record sets present some special problems; as more and more collections come online many will overlap. The general rule is to use the same page when the underlying material, including the years covered, appears to be identical.

If you can't tell whether the source you want to cite is the same as a page existing in the database already, go ahead and create a new page with as much information as you have. If it is later determined that it is identical to another source page, it can always be merged at a later date (citations to the merged pages will be automatically corrected).

I take this to indicate that those two Source: pages should be merged. The one with the "(684254)" title should be the surviving page since it has the original source, the 1901 book. From the other page, the fiche number should be added to the surviving "FHL film numbers" section, and other publication I would put into a new "Other formats" section of the surviving page. If you think the Ancestry DB is the same (looks so to me), it can be mentioned in "Other formats" and Ancestry.com added to the Repositories of the Source: page. The process of merging is described at Help:Merging pages#How_to_merge_duplicate_Place_pages_or_duplicate_Source_pages. --robert.shaw 17:42, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The original sources pages were generated from the Family Search Catalog. Films created pages with the film number in parentheses. Much of these was later cleaned up automatically but some got missed. The above situation could mean there were two filmings, etc. They should be merged. Usually I manually edit the page with the most "What Links Here" items to contain all the unique information, such as film numbers from both source pages, and then when that page is a good representation of both films, redirect the other to it. --Jrich 22:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

A correction: since you are going to rename one, and merge the other, it doesn't matter which one you edit to contain the final results. Just compare the two and copy unique stuff from the one going away to the one staying. Then rename the one to remove the film number, then add the redirect to the other one to point at the one you kept. It's actually not that hard: you can always edit pages that have already been fixed to see how it is done, then cancel out of the edit ensuring you don't actually change anything already fixed. When editing your page, use the show preview before you save. One or two times around the block is all it takes to make it easy, and if you mess up, then ask for help, because changes can always be reverted or manually edited back to their previous state using the page's history... --Jrich 02:12, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the instruction, but I'm not going to do it. I can barely get around a wiki page, let alone try something like messing with source pages. --janiejac 23:28, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Montville, Conn. VR [10 July 2016]

Could someone with access to Montville VR, check for the following marriage & birth of children listed below ? None of these occur in New London VR.
Children of John Hart Adgate & Sarah "Sally" Fitch, m. 10 Oct 1782
21. Sarah, b. 17 June, 1784.
22. Belinda, b. 13 March, 1786.
23. Caroline, b. 11 April, 1788.
24. John Hart, Jr., b. 1 Dec., 1790
25. Anna, b. 5 March, 1793.
26. James Fitch, b. 29 June, 1795.
Thanks for any help.--SkippyG 13:52, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

The Barbour records for Montville only show the family of Asahel and Sarah Adgate. --Jrich 14:55, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for checking..--SkippyG 16:15, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Create page for living person [2 September 2016]

I tried to create the page for Elizabeth Warren for the current genealogy contest, but the software stops you from creating pages for living people. This makes sense, of course, but I'm wondering how you are supposed to get around it for notable living people like Senator Warren? I tried adding a death date, and then deleting it, but it wouldn't let me delete it. -- Jdfoote1 21:09, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

You can enter something like "Living notable person" in the Death description field. --cos1776 21:19, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Also, you should change her surname from Henning to Herring. You could also list her married name, Elizabeth Ann Warren. --robert.shaw 22:57, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

It was already created. (See here.) --BobC 00:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

No, it hadn't been created. On 19 July, after no response by Jdfoote1, I renamed the Henning page to use correct name, Herring. --robert.shaw 01:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Help delete account [24 July 2016]

i never use this site, i dont know how to use it AND nowhere i find a link to UNSUBSCRIBE AND DELETE MY ACCOUNT

PLEASE DELETE ALLLLLLL

at least you should have the decency to make it POSSIBLE for us who know nothing about your site to LEAVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pete, not happy, belgium. pjmb@telenet.be--LittlePete 18:35, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

I have removed your account. It appears that your only edit was to this page.--Dallan 03:42, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Links for 'Barbour Collection' [2 September 2016]

Would someone with better knowledge of how to investigate & correct links take a look at the current links to the Towns in Windham Co., CT ? The link below takes me to 'Town of Windham, Windham Co., CT'; and from there I can access the remainder of Windham Co towns. If I go to WR's Barbour Collection, and try any of the links for said Windham Co. towns, I get the result "Page not found." [4] Thanks...--SkippyG 21:09, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

The Windham County placename page also connects to/from the Source:Connecticut, United States. Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records source page via the "What Links Here" tag. Does that help? --BobC 00:15, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Tried what you suggested and arrived at the main page of CTGENWEB Windham Co. with links to each town. Clicked on one of the Ashford links letter "G". Still get "Page not found". I "think" the problem lies in our links to each individual town, which may have resulted from CTGenWeb reworking their website format; this was "Under Construction" for a few months. When I found another contributor had placed a link (the one I provided above) to Windham, Windham, Connecticut, I tried it & arrived at Windham (Town), letter "F-G". I was able to back into the other towns from there (tediously). I don't know how find the correct link suitable for our page, or how to change it, if found, on the chart found at the bottom of WR's Barber Collection page. --SkippyG 03:16, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The break was not happening at WR, but rather on the CTGenWeb site. On our WR page for the Barbour Collection, the previous link to the online records for Windham (the one you referenced above) was a link to CTGenWeb's Windham County page containing a mix of different records, not just the Barbour ones. I have updated the link(s) in the table on our page (for the town of Windham only for now) to take you directly to the CTGenWeb pages for the Barbour records as they have organized them (i.e. alphabetically separated). Is that what you had in mind? If so, the rest of the table could be updated accordingly. --cos1776 11:15, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix. No rush, but if at some time soon, you could fix the other towns, it would help me tremendously; I have six direct lines settling in or moving through Windham Co. Woodstock is not as important, as I have hard copy of VR & the index. Thanks again. Neal--SkippyG 18:37, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Blank references [5 September 2016]

I'm new to werelate.org so my apologies if this is a common problem that I've failed to find an answer for. Some of my references on a couple of my People pages are blank. Two examples here and here. If you scroll down to the references section you'll immediately see what I mean. What am I doing wrong? unsigned comment 15:05, 5 September 2016 by Kf4zmt

I don't know for sure, but it looks like the text reference syntax you are using does not support the image references (e.g., "ref name=I2"). One way to fix this is to make sources for these, put the image reference in the image field, and use that in the "ref name" cite (e.g., "ref name=S4"). Another way is to write out your cite (I think, this one I did not test) -- "<ref="Document name, available [[Image:link|here]]">. Good luck!--~~~~ comment made 15:52, 5 September 2016 by Amelia.Gerlicher

I think Amelia has spotted the problem. I'm just another user and have not used images much, but it looks like images used as footnoted references have very limited support. Besides what Amelia mentioned, another way to work around the issue is to do this: Add a "Events and Facts" entry (perhaps of type "Other") and list the image identifiers in the little "Images" box for that new event. For example, for the six references on the Person:Cornelius Lawrence (2) page, type "I1,I2,I3,I4,I5,I6" into that box. This will generate a footnote which has the image caption and a link to the image page (via thumbnail or text, for PDFs) for each listed image. The references you have in the "Person History" text will then link to those generated footnotes. This has a side effect of removing the medium-sized image from the "Image Gallery" section. It's too bad one has to use one of these workarounds, but that seems to be how things are right now. --robert.shaw 17:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest that it is a marginally useful thing to provide a transcription of these images. That way, some of the search engines might be able to see the text and bring somebody's search to this page, i.e., make this information more accessible. This, of course, could easily be done by using amelia's suggestion of creating a source citation, linking the image to it, and then adding a transcription to the text box that goes with it. Plus the source citation is always useful for identifying exactly where the images came from, just to be super thorough. --Jrich 17:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you everyone! I sincerely appreciate your help. I used Amelia's first suggestion and it worked nicely. I might also try your other suggestions when time permits. Especially transcriptions of the image/pdf files. I've been needing to do that for a long time anyway.

Problem using "Citation needed" [6 September 2016]

Another noob question. I am trying to use the ^{Citation needed} tag on one of my people pages and it causes the problem you are seeing here. A new paragraph is started right after the tag and the font is different.

If the tag is added at the end of a paragraph it works ok. I want to add the "Citation needed" tag after a certain sentence in the hopes that someone else may have the information I am missing and can add it. Is there a better way to do this?

[posted by 13:17, 6 September 2016 Kf4zmt]

I think there was an extra return entered in the Template itself that got pulled in when you used {{cn}}. This was probably an unintended result of one of the various edits that have occurred over the years. I edited the Template and it appears to be working, I think.

One of the side effects of the old case, where the extra newline is inserted, is that it causes the next line to start with a space. This is signal to the system to print it with fixed width font. This is often seen in narratives where the body has been cut and pasted, and one of the pasted lines starts with a space. As a result of the extra space at the start of the pasted line, part of the narrative is printed in fixed width font (presumably unintended by the author). --Jrich 20:51, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Jrich! It does indeed appear to be working now.

Bernkastel [11 September 2016]

Currently Bernkastel is shown as a town in the North Rheinland Westphalia. Its actually in The Rhein Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate) area well to the south. The town is now known as Bernkastel-Kues, but historically it was simply "Bernkastel". A Wikipedia article is at [Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernkastel-Kues]

I've tried to correct this but run into a problem with a conflict of some sort.

Q 12:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I see we have two flavors of Bernkastel-Kues as well. However, the WR placepage Bernkastel is set up to specify a district, not a city. There is also a district Bernkastel-Wittlich. I infer that the distinction between Nordrhein-Westfalen and Rheinland-Pfalz is post-WWII and thus out of scope for the main WR hierarchy for Germany. --pkeegstra 13:14, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Have a look whether what I did to rearrange things within the scope of the 1900 rule makes sense. Also, it looks like I had the wrong Müllheim under Bernkastel; the one I had was Mülheim an der Ruhr and the one I need is Mülheim an der Mosel. I tried to fix that too. --pkeegstra 13:48, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Opening in Edit mode [29 September 2016]

Does anyone know if it is possible to open a WR page in a new Chrome tab AND directly in Edit mode? I would really like to be able to skip the double wait (first to open the page, then to re-open it in Edit mode). It seems like the pages load so slowly sometimes. I thought that it might be possible to create a custom keyboard shortcut that might be able to do this, but my Javascript skills are not that great. Perhaps some of you are already doing this? Any ideas would be most welcome. --cos1776 01:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if it is part of the check that we are logged in. --Goldenoldie 04:34, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

You bring up a good point. I would think it could work the same way that it does when we are able to open a Family page directly in Edit mode from a Person page (i.e. only when we are logged in). --cos1776 11:56, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Create a suggestion page that Dallan add edit links next to each family member in the infoboxes. Once the edit link is there, then you can right mouse over it and Open in new tab.

Alternatively, right click on the link you want to edit and choose Copy Link Location. Then alt-T to open a new tab and paste the copied location. Not paste and go, the URL isn't complete. Add "?action=edit" at the end and hit return. (This is firefox but it wouldn't surprise me if Chrome wasn't very similar). --Jrich 23:05, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate the ideas. Just to follow-up, I will hold off on requesting the addition of an "edit" link next to each Person page link, because I think it will introduce too much clutter on the page and that is usually not the situation in which I would find this ability useful. I would like to be able to use it when working with lists of page titles, such as from within a Category or Special Pages list or a Search.

Your 2nd suggestion combined with some other suggestions has me headed in the right direction I think. I have not solved it yet, but I think I am close. I'll report back if I find a workable solution. Thanks again, --cos1776 18:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Citing 'Family Search" [21 September 2016]

[5] Need some help citing a "Family Search" record for the above, John Leavitt--SkippyG 21:45, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Done. The FamilySearch record is easy to cite - just use the database name, and then put whatever details regarding the record itself and the underlying record that you retain in the notes field. However, FamilySearch is not the source for the christening date on this page. It only says 1625, not a specific date. I changed the citation to the image instead, as the images gives the date. What would be better is to add a source that describes where that image comes from, and add the image in the source record as opposed to making just the image the citation. (If it's the York registers that the England mega-database record is formed from, then that source is here.)--Amelia 23:51, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Sourcing cunundrum [27 September 2016]

Title listed in WR "York, Yorkshire, England. Parish Register of St. Martin-cum-Gregory: in the City of York" is a book I'm trying to use. It comes up in red every time. What am I doing wrong ? Be kind... --SkippyG 23:43, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Percival Levett Sr

Can you give us a link to a page that illustrates the problem? Thanks. --cos1776 00:11, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Glad to report it is simply a typo & capitalization issue. You had typed
"York, Yorkshire, England. Parish Register of St. Martin-cum-Gregory: in the City of York" , instead of
"York, Yorkshire, England. Parish Registers of St. Martin-Cum-Gregory, in the City of York"

I usually wait a second or two for the dropdown to appear and then select that to ensure that the title matches exactly. If no dropdown appears, I know that I haven't entered the page title correctly. I left the page as is, so that you can make the repair.
Hope that helps, --cos1776 00:40, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks. I'd double-checked myself, but should have gone for a triple. And initially I used the title given at Archive with the colon. Neal--SkippyG 01:13, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Spacing allocated to page number [16 October 2016]

It looks like there was an attempt to make the page number field larger in the source citations. On my browser things look okay when you enter edit mode, but as soon as you add a new source citation, things appear to get messed up. On new citations, the title is pushed why over to the right, leaving a large gap between source type and title. The existing citations change their appearance and the record name and page number fields wrap onto two lines. It would appear some formatting constraints are having unexpected side-effects? --Jrich 17:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

This appears to be fixed.--DataAnalyst 02:55, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Broken Source Remove Function [17 October 2016]

I just noticed that the "remove" link, that is available when editing a page, is now broken! When I click on it, it does some of what is expected, but the source Titles do not change (so the last title is deleted), and the other details aren't moved correctly. If I want to delete a source, I have to do it manually. -Moverton 23:36, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

This is a pretty significant defect. If you delete a source, the title moves into the next source, which makes it incorrect. I believe this cascades (title 1 goes to source 2, title 2 goes to source 3, etc.). I am emailing Dallan about this to ensure that he is aware.--DataAnalyst 15:51, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Although I suspect they are related, I have separated this topic from the one above, because it is a serious problem that needs immediate attention. Can anyone give us an update on when we can expect a fix? --cos1776 14:04, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

This appears to be fixed - at least I have added a source and then deleted the previous one on 2 pages now, and it worked fine. I have not tested the same issue with Notes.--DataAnalyst 02:58, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

And I believe there is a problem deleting Notes, which I assume is related. I added a note to a page, and no matter how many times I pressed "remove" it would not go away from the display, and it got saved when the page was saved. I had to erase all the text, and then the note was deleted by the system during the save. --Jrich 16:28, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Deleting notes and images is fixed now as well.--Dallan 05:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to those that helped to fix these issues. :) --cos1776 16:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Title line in Source [16 October 2016]

And....any progress in sliding the "Title" left ? In citing a quote I had found, there were at least 5 or 6 sources whose titles started with the same 7 or 8 words. I resorted to copying the source from another person page; not a total tragedy, but definitely a time consumer.--SkippyG 16:10, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

In my browser, in edit mode, when I try to add a source citation under the new arrangement, a slider is shown at the bottom because the page is too wide, and manipulating the slider will allow me to see the whole title field. If that helps... --Jrich 17:29, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

When working in WR I always keep my browser window at about 2/3 the width of my monitor and keep a notes app open to the side. The notes app is where I keep all sorts of repetitive material that I am copying and pasting into WR. The notes app used to be "StickyNotes" but Microsoft have made it unusable in the latest update to Windows 10. There are others available. --Goldenoldie 18:07, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

This should be fixed now--Dallan 05:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Deleting uploaded images [16 October 2016]

It use to be possible to remove/delete images we uploaded that were poor quality or no longer used. Is that still possible? ps. am also having difficulty removing sources and notes.--Diane Hosler 19:37, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

This should be fixed now.--Dallan 05:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Can't add source citation [20 October 2016]

Just tried to add a source citation -- page blinks and nothing else happens. This is true whether I try to add the source citation directly, or by clicking the plus sign after the event. --GayelKnott 14:40, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Although I was having problems entering citations over the weekend, I have been able to add them to several pages this morning, so it doesn't appear to be a problem across the board. Have your tried some of the simple fixes first (ex. opening and closing browser windows, etc.)? --cos1776 15:39, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Cos, for the quick reply. Have shut down completely, and restarted. Still a problem. It's also one of those pages where the Quality field disappeared. I think I'll try adding a new page and copy info over, then just delete this page. If that works, will report it. Gayel--GayelKnott 17:28, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Okay, just plain not working. I can add a new page, but I can't add sources. And response to loading a new page is very, very slow. This seems to be part of an on-going problem, not just for me, but for others, as well. If we have no need for fund-raising, etc., why is the site not working? Gayel --GayelKnott 17:41, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

STILL CANNOT ADD SOURCES FROM COMPUTER AT HOME -- COULD SOMEONE PLEASE DEAL WITH THIS? SHOULD I BE CONTACTING DALLEN DIRECTLY? --GayelKnott 17:56, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Problem fixed. Thank you, Dallen. Gayel --GayelKnott 22:23, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think you should contact Dallan directly, and let him know what browser you are using. I'm having no problems this morning using Chrome.--DataAnalyst 18:09, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Janet. I just did. Sorry I shouted, but I'm becoming really, really frustrated with the lack of support WeRelate is getting. Gayel --GayelKnott 18:11, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I am also frustrated with the lack of support. You may remember that when we had a conversation about the future of WR in May this year (WaterCooler 2016 Archive), I suggested that WR needs permanent paid development/support staff. I still think that is the case. Dallan is employed elsewhere and I'm not sure he's checking the Support page on a regular basis.--DataAnalyst 18:34, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Totally agreed. I have been (and would be willing to continue) donating, as I think WeRelate has the best features of the various sites out there. Gayel --GayelKnott 18:38, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I added a new Source (recently published book) last night with no difficulties encountered. --Jhamstra 22:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Fund Raising ??? [20 October 2016]

Did ANYONE say that we had no need of fund raising?? If so, I must have missed that. I very much would disagree with that. Back in May, Dallan said he would need to take a survey to determine if there was enough interest in having another fund raiser for the purpose of programming improvements. But I never saw any survey either. I thought after the uprising over the embedded ads that something would come of it - there was certainly a lot of interest, both pro and con; and then nothing more was heard. I think that Dallan has already spent all the time and money that he can on this site. It will probably be up to the users to fund any future improvements but we need Dallan to either spearhead the effort or authorize someone else to do so. Doing nothing to advance the site is not a good option. Does anyone agree with this? Even wikipedia has an annual fund raiser; why can't we do something similar? I would rejoice if that suggestion page got cleaned up!! --janiejac 18:44, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Janie. I agree that we need to revive the conversation about how to manage/administer/support/evolve WeRelate that was started in May. At a minimum, I believe the community needs a clear statement of:

• Who is overseeing the site right now? Do we have a volunteer committee, or is it Dallan, or ...?

The WeRelate:Overview committee page is current. --cos1776 00:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• It looks to me like cos1776 is in the process of clarifying the active membership list of each volunteer committee. I assume that this is so that the oversight committee can be re-established. This is a welcome development.

Thank you. Yes, that is correct. I have been working on this since the OC's last communication with Dallan in order to be able to answer some of these questions and to assess what we will be able to accomplish going forward. This means that if you are currently part of a maintenance committee (or would like to be), please take a quick moment to check in on the Talk page for that committee - there is a message there for you and we are awaiting your response. If you've forgotten how to get there (hey... it happens :) ), a quick list of committee pages can be found on the right hand side of the Overview Committee's page. --cos1776 00:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• Is the oversight committee aware of the budget - what is coming in from ad revenue (in particular) and donations (which are less predicable) and what all the expenses are?

Dallan has assured us that the revenue coming in is adequate to cover the expenses of hosting the site which he will continue to do. At present there are no plans to hire developers or admin staff, so right now it is still up to us volunteers to maintain the site AND implement any improvements. --cos1776 00:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm willing to wait for an answer to these questions for another month or so until the oversight committee is re-established (I think this has taken more time than we'd hoped due in part to Rhian's health problems). However, if someone is in a position to give a quick reply in the meantime, that would be great too.

Yes. Although the OC did begin to work on some of these issues last summer, a couple of setbacks stalled the momentum. I am hoping that we will be able to regroup and get moving forward again. --cos1776 00:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

As for fund-raising, I think an annual fund-raising request is an appropriate idea, but I can see why a decision might wait for the oversight committee to get active again.

Thanks, Janie, for continuing to be so passionate that WeRelate deserves to be improved. As you know, I agree with you and I believe many others do as well.--DataAnalyst 20:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I would certainly add my vote for having someone who is responsible and who has the time to act as a part-time administrator just to keep the site functioning and (hopefully) evolving. If that happened, I could probably even spend more time volunteering here. But -- finances aside -- the reality is that there has to be a clear leader/administrator if anything substantive is going to be done. Gayel --GayelKnott 22:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

P.S. - Think we all need to give a big "Thank you" to cos1776, who seems to be putting in a lot of time trying to get a lot of old business cleared up. --GayelKnott 22:38, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Gayel. I am certainly not the only one who is putting in a lot of hours on maintenance-type work, so a big "Thank you" should go out to everyone who keeps at it here, even when it seems like there are fewer and fewer of us. I do not have all the answers, but I am happy to answer what I can and to keep learning. I really do want to keep this site relevant and am committed to doing what I can to keep it alive. Please feel free to contact me or anyone on the OC if you have any questions. --cos1776 00:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Toronto duplication clean-up [27 October 2016]

Can someone with more administrative permision than I have decide what to do with Person:Paul McHoull (1). I found him while making placename alterations for numerous entries from Place:Toronto, Durham, England to Place:Toronto, York, Ontario, Canada. If you are curious about Toronto, Durham, England, see Wikipedia.--Goldenoldie 14:40, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I looked at it. It appears this page needs deleting along with all of the other pages created by this user. All done on the same day, no undates in 5 years, no useful info. Only one non-living person in the bunch and he would be an island. It appears someone found the site, experimented with his immediate family and never followed up. I'll take care of the deletes. --Judy (jlanoux) 15:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks. In doing this cleanup I also discovered another Toronto in New South Wales, Australia. That place has now been prefaced with a warning about how duplications of places can happen on a worldwide scale. --Goldenoldie 16:12, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Template:Source-fhlc no longer works. [17 November 2016]

Noticed that Issue occurs on each of the place pages tested so far that use Template:Source-fhlc as it no longer works and the resulting link from say any place page like Vizzini only brings up the standard "Family Search Catalog" page where you then need to reenter the query. A working query URL string is:

• https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/results?count=20&placeId=113066&query=%2Bplace%3A%22Italy%2C%20Catania%2C%20Vizzini%22

The existing (non working) template URL string is:

• http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=localitydetails&subject={{{1}}}&columns=*,0,0

Can someone with permission to edit the page see if they can fix it please?

lkpst1875 21:19, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

I want to let you know that your request has not fallen on deaf ears. I have looked into this, and, as you pointed out, FamilySearch has changed their own internal procedure for retrieving their own catalog results. They require not only the input of their unique PlaceId number, as before, but now also a unique text string corresponding to the way they have chosen to organize places in their own hierarchy. Please note that the organization of places in FamilySearch and WeRelate is similar, but not exactly the same. Your example of Vizzini is a good one. In WeRelate it is Place:Vizzini, Catania, Sicilia, Italy, while in FamilySearch it is "Italy, Catania, Vizzini".

Since Templates are intended for use on multiple pages, any changes to them must work properly on all pages. The good example of the working link above works for Vizzini, but only for Vizzini. In order to create a link that will work for any place, we need to do some programming to meet the new text string requirement. Not impossible, but a back end change to our WeRelate software is required. If you still feel it is very important to be taken directly to a pre-populated search page at FamilySearch, please submit your request on our WeRelate:Suggestions page.

That being said, I do want to let you know that WeRelate is running on very low volunteer resources right now, so this type of request will be assigned a low priority. I would not expect to see it resolved any time soon, especially since the link does still take you to a working page where it is easy to proceed to the desired result in one more step. I would be happy to update the appearance of the FHLC link on our WeRelate pages to better explain what exactly the link is providing if that helps. I hope that will be acceptable for now. Regards, --cos1776 17:15, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I've created a test template that shows that familysearch ignores the number for placeid, but if you just send a query using "Keywords" it will list resources that have that word(s) in it. See

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Template:Source-fhlc2

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:Lkpst1875/sandbox

I'll keep testing to see if placeid can continue to be used in anyway by itself.

Thanks for the explanation. lkpst1875 04:38, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Remove a 'Do Not Merge' [20 November 2016]

Can an Admin remove the DO NOT MERGE from, Joseph Stevens and Joanna Winchester (1) ? This page and Joseph Stevens and Joanna Winchester (2) are now verified as identical, and I'd like to use (1) as the surviving page #. Thanks --SkippyG 19:11, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I think all you have to do is just delete them, I don't think it requires an Admin to do that for you. However, just to be sure, I deleted them. If you run into a problem like this in the future, you could try deleting them yourself. --GayelKnott 19:18, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

These used to require an Admin; perhaps that has changed. Thanks again.--SkippyG 22:46, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Search resources [9 December 2016]

Person search always goes to My Heritage site. How do I add it to WeRelate?--Swannie 06:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

It sounds like you might accidentally be clicking on the My Heritage advertisement instead of WeRelate search. One of the ways to search for content that exists in the WeRelate wiki, is to click the blue word Search at the top of the page, and a dropdown menu will appear allowing you to specify page type. For more about our search function, please see Help:Search. If you need further assistance, please just let us know. Best Wishes, --cos1776 12:41, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps another indication that these embedded advertisements are a bit too obvious. I hope Dallan is aware of this. --janiejac 22:21, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I see nothing on the search page that suggests that the results are found at a different site. i.e, My Heritage. If I wanted to use that site I would go there directly. I was hoping to use the features of WeRelate. Thanks for any suggestions.--Swannie 02:45, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

cos1776 is basically correct, that the MyHeritage info you are seeing is an advertisement. Like many free genealogy sites, WeRelated does need some advertising income to help pay costs. Once you have selected People search on the pull down Search menu and filled in the name of the person you are looking for, be sure to hit the small white "Search" button in the lower right corner of the grey Search box. The big red Search button above the grey Search box is what takes you to MyHeritage. Good luck with your searches. Gayel --GayelKnott 02:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

It is perhaps worth noting that if you donate $19, you will no longer see the advertisements. --Trentf 01:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Where would we send donations? Are they deductible? This time of year is a good time to have a fund drive.--Diane Hosler 20:27, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

In the upper right hand corner of the page (or almost any page), click on the blue "Donate" hyperlink, it will take you to the page that gives options for donating. I think the benefit of donating -- other than helping to keep WeRelate running -- is that you don't have to look at ugly ads when you are signed in. Gayel --GayelKnott 21:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Time Zone Setup [3 December 2016]

The instructions for 'Time Zone Setup' must be outdated or somehow incorrect. --SkippyG 20:07, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Despite living in GMT (not GST!) which is supposed to be the default time zone, the time of my entries always seem to be one hour ahead of when I actually make them. The continent of Europe is one hour ahead of us on this side of the English Channel. I think instructions were set up incorrectly, but it's one of those errors I can live with.

I have never figured out what UTC is supposed to be. It wasn't there when I went to school. --Goldenoldie 22:23, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

wikipedia:Coordinated Universal Time --Jrich 23:54, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional info, but somewhere on WR is supposed to be a place where I can adjust the time signatures to match my time zone. If you search "Time Zone Setup" in Help, you'll find a link to a paragraph of instructions that begin "Go to 'My Relate', scroll down to 'Preferences'..." There is no 'Preferences' under 'My Relate'.--SkippyG 02:11, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Found my answer: Go to "Settings, then Time and Date". This is something that should be changed in instructions. --SkippyG 03:10, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, maybe not? As I recall, since it only asks for an offset from UTC, it doesn't handle daylight savings time automatically, so I seem to remember this fall having to change the offset in order to get the correct time. --Jrich 03:42, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Duplicate source [21 December 2016]

I believe these two sources are duplicates. Can someone redirect or merge or whatever needs to be done to correct this?
Source:Hale, Charles R. Hale Collection and Source:Connecticut Newspaper Notices, 1629-1934 --janiejac 02:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for noticing it. --BobC 12:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)