User talk:Tdoyle

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Pages with Many Photos

Each Reunion has a page of snapshots which have many images. I'm in no rush to import them. Unique naming of the images is an issue. You did well on the Heraldry page, but I'm not sure I'd have called one of the images "Benjamin.jpg", as that name is probably not specific enough.

- Robert | Talk to me 20:37, 29 January 2006 (CST)

My Database

Tim: A few issues, indeed! The reference numbers need to be separated by commas. Of course there are issues of missing spaces. Also, the fact that Elinor had three versions of her given name, and therefore also three versions of her married name, is a problem. I don't know how to deal with that. I could suppress the export of married names if that would help.

- Robert 21:28, 3 February 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the message

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the message about Charles M. Whitney. I got too tired last night before I could get what we know about him online. We have information about his later life, but the beginnings are sketchy. I have managed to track him down in 1860 - he's a lawyer in Troy, NY. Beyond that, I am having difficulty finding his parents.

You said you had a list from ancestry of 9 Charles Whitneys from this time period - would you mind sending it to me, as I don't have an ancestry subscription?

I've been working through the 1850 census from Heritage Quest, but have eliminated most of the Charles Whitneys that I can find. The one other clue we have is that his son, Charles F., had an 'A.J. Whitney' in his personal notebook. My father-in-law remembers hearing about an 'Uncle AJ', as well. We believe that this is Alonzo J. Whitney, who married Melissa J. Rice. I've managed to find marriage records for Alonzo, who is the son of Jacob and Sally Whitney of MA. Unfortunately, though I found Alonzo J. living at home in the 1850 census, an older brother Charles was not in the household. The same household in 1840 did have an older son living with them, but - of course - no name.

Thanks for telling me your hunch - I'll go look at James and Emma of Fitchburg and see what I can turn up. :)

-Stacy

PS - Is there any way to change the title of a document? I put in one of the families without the "Family:" as the first thing in the title. (Oops - in looking up the document in my lineage, I see you've already changed it. However, could I have changed it somehow, or is that an admin thing? Thanks.)

Eleanore Dilello's page

Whew!! i thought I would never find you.. i deleted the page because i dont know what i am doing...ha ha ha

I removed the page because it was doing something funny with one of the lines...the one that says It was Pierce's Whitney book..

anyway...if you know what happened let me know i am going to post it again...

Eleanore

Estate Info - Isaac Whitney

The Estate info on Isaac Whitney came from the original WRG site.

I have used the 'Move to page' option when I find one of the pages I set up before the new standards or find one I made a mistake on that already has data. However in hopes that you or Robert can delete the bad ones at some point (and not liking redirect), I've tried to go in and fix the parents and any children's pages to point to corrected page directly. Since I'm not sure how to make sure no one is linked to old page via the user pages lineage or elsewhere, I've not tried to actually delete the old page.

- Andaleen 08:30, 13 February 2006 (PST)

Erroneous User Name

Tim: I see that BenHWhittney (two "t"s) has registered. His name is really Ben H. Whitney, and on his User page, he seems to think his user name is BenHWhitney (only one "t"). Can you deal with this issue with him?

- Robert | Talk to me 10:57, 14 February 2006 (CST)

Databases

Links look good, however they were a little confusing at first. The Moses link looked like what I was used to, however when I click on the others, they appeared in a different format than the one I choose for my profile (at least I think that is the difference). The only other thing I might change is the name Links when used for this purpose. Wiki implies links are editable, and these are not - might change to Read-only Links or Un-editable Links, so it is clear before you click on these that you are entering a workspace that does not conform to the stated goals of the Wiki environment. These spaces are owned by single, special individuals.

So does this mean you've figured out how to automatically load the Family pages from your gedcom and don't need me to continue copying from the WRG site into Wiki, or do you want me to start including these links on the pages as I convert them? I have three more children and all their children of Benjamin² to do and then I'm done with that path unless you want me to backtrack and add these links before moving on to another line. I think I understand how you set them up and could follow same format on pages I'm converting if that is what you want me to do.

- Andaleen 08:37, 14 February 2006 (PST)

Phoenix Format

Tim: In answer to your questions, it couldn't be simple!

• NO PAGES contain the title and author of the work. I put that above the navigation links and the border of the page for that reason. This is in analogy to the imported Pierce pages. The exact format of the author and title part is not important, so suit yourself on that. I also think we need to add breadcrumbs above the title and author, at the top of each page.
• PAGES iii, v, and vii have simple borders and no headings.
• PAGES iv and vi have no borders.
• PAGE viii is blank
• PAGE ix has nothing in the center, just the page number on the right.
• EVEN PAGES x to xx have the page number on the left and "The Whitneys" in the center.
• ODD PAGES xi to xxi have the page number on the right and "Of England." in the center.
• PAGE xxii has the page number on the left and "The Whitneys of England." in the center.
• PAGE 1 has blanks in the heading, but it is still there.
• EVEN NUMBERED PAGES 2 to 2474 contain "Eighth Generation." or the analogue in the center and the page number on the left.
• ODD NUMBERED PAGES 3 to 2475 contain "Whitney Family." in the center of the heading and the page number on the right. (I just fixed the example in the WRG sandbox which had the page number on the wrong side for page 1551.)
• PAGE 2476 is blank.
• The Index of Places (pages 2477 to 2526), the Index of Surnames (pages 2527 to 2737), and the Errata (pages 2738 to 2740) have a different format altogether. I'll try to generate example pages for each. We currently only have transcribed a small portion of the Index of Surnames, and none of the rest.
• CHART PAGES, such as p0028a.txt, have a simple border around the whole page and no heading. This one is bound between pages 28 and 29, and the back of the page is blank. Others are analogous. They are all sideways, since they are wider than they are tall, except for pxxiii.txt, which is vertical. A fixed-width font is mandatory for them, because of the way I have used ASCII characters to draw the lines. Possibly a different way could be devised to draw these charts not involving this device, but I haven't really tried to find a way to do that. My version of TMG has an add-on, something called Visual Chart Form, which can draw such charts, but whether they could be somehow incorporated into web pages, I just don't know.

Another issue: since the transcription is not finished, we need to create templates into which to fit the text of newly scanned and OCRed pages, even, odd, and index.

- Robert | Talk to me 10:54, 15 February 2006 (CST)

Databases, Continued

I very much like the links and references added to the pages like Ezra Whitney you've been working on. I did notice however the one time I tried to use references that even though I incremented the reference number thinking that is what tied it to its corresponding note, it did not seem to matter what number I put in, the display incremented by one in order of appearance (ie: I input ref 2^[1], then ref 1^[2], then ref 2 again^[3] because I wanted to use the same reference call out for two sources), however the display is 1, 2, and 3. So I quit trying to do anything except setup at least one or two refs as template samples on the pages I'm converting for others to use or to come back to. I was also not always sure why on the original site there seemed to be the same information seemingly repeated 2 or more times unless that was the old site's way of indicating multiple sources without including source details. For the most part I'm just transferring what is on original site as is and assuming you, Robert, others, or myself can come back and add references and notes and cleanup later.

The skin I chose to use in my preferences is 'Cologne Blue'. I think the pages I clicked on when I was looking around shifted me to 'MonoBook'. I see 'Cologne Blue' when I view Moses and John from Archives, but when I click on other of John's children or on Moses children, I get the other skin (note: I did not click on all of them).

When I was trying to review skins, I notice on my screen 'Simple' skin looks really bad - the side bar navigation and the main body of information overlap one another like a double image making both unreadable in the area where the side bar info resides. Also noticed on my layout one or two of the other skins which had the WRG logo in the upper left corner overlapped information in the main section and I could not read headers. Let me know if I need to take screen shots and try to email to you separately.

As for the links - what I was trying to convey was perhaps two sets of links, one set taking you to other editable links and the other clearly identifying that the links are for informational use only and not editable except by owner once there. It's not that big a deal. Like you I think if Wiki is used correctly, those gedcom links become less meaningful, or become almost mirror copies of the editable page that calls them - assuming people like you and me consolidate and cross reference conflicting information from each site into Wiki page, and assuming that the authors of each restricted site, reviews information and performs similar action on their own pages. I did notice that you added information to the bottom of the pages identifying owners and asking people to contact them if they think a change is needed, so that probably suffices. It's still may be confusing the first few times a person goes to those links, but will probably clear itself up the first time they try to edit and can't - they will look more closely at the message. I just thought it would be helpful to tell them in some manner before they clicked on link not to expect to edit info when they got there.

Thanks - Andaleen 09:00, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Phoenix Index Format

Tim: I think I've got a sample index page. See the WRG sandbox for the code.

Question: Why does <font size="-1"> seem not work on wiki pages?

- Robert | Talk to me 12:57, 15 February 2006 (CST)

Phoenix Format, Continued

Tim:

In general, that is a creditable effort! Comments:

1. I have changed the PhoenixHeading template somewhat.

2. Any words in the center portion of the header should be italicized. In this case, it is "Whitney Family."

3. While your templates work fine for this page, which begins with an "entry", they won't necessarily do the right thing for pages which begin with either a continuation of an entry, or with a new family, or with a new generation. Those which begin with a continuation of an entry will have nothing in the first and last column, at least in theory, and text in the middle. Those which begin with a new family will not have the separating horizontal rule above the names of the parents. Those which begin with a new generation have about an inch of white space, followed by "FOURTH GENERATION." (or the analogue) in larger capitals, centered, followed by a new family beginning without the horizontal rule.

That's all for now.

- Robert | Talk to me 10:12, 16 February 2006 (CST)

Phoenix Format, Continued

Tim:

Yes, the center part of the heading is ALWAYS in italics.

I see that passing no parameters to the entry template would work for the continuation situation.

We need a template for beginning a family without a horizontal rule. In addition we need either a template with a rule included, or a separate template with just the rule. Either of these approaches should work.

I tweaked the new generation template.

I also created an example of the Errata pages, of which there are only three. Since they have not yet been transcribed, it makes no sense to write a specialized bunch of code just for those three pages. Instead, I'll just do a custom coding job on them.

- Robert | Talk to me 13:22, 16 February 2006 (CST)

Cousins Marry - How/Where to report children

I just came across my first set of double cousins which made issue I'm discussing here stand out to me, although issue will exist anytime a cousin marries another cousin whether it be 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. See Gilbert N. Watkins and Sarah Watkins. Gilbert N. and Sarah Watkins mothers were sisters, Sarah and Esther Whitney, while their fathers were brothers, Nathan and James Watkins. I did not like the idea of maintaining data on children in two different pages, so I deleted the children from Sarah's page and just set up link back to Gilbert's. Take a look and let me know how you want to handle Family Group when cousins marry cousins. Whose page do we want to post children to (Father or Mother or Both)?

- Andaleen 16 Feb 2006 8:41 pm PST

Cousins Marry (part 2)

What you suggested made sense until I came to my next set of cousins. Patty Watkins, daughter of Esther Whitney married her cousin Fisher Whitney. I started to direct her to Fisher's page when I suddenly realized, she had a second marriage with children, and if I link her to Fisher with no page of her own, I have no home for second family.

- Andaleen 16 February 2006 9:42pm PST

Extracts

Tim:

All the Extracts are finished, as far as I can tell, except for Phoenix and the Pierce indexes! Whew!!

On to new projects. Next I intend to finish the Biographies, then start on the City Directories.

- Robert | Talk to me 15:02, 20 February 2006 (CST)

"Add a new page" Problem

Tim: On the WRG:Start_a_new_page page, the labels above the two windows and the action of the two buttons below are mismatched. The button under the Simple Version window gives you the Complete Version template, and vice versa. Either the labels should be switched, or the buttons should.

- Robert | Talk to me 18:40, 25 February 2006 (CST)

Links in Transcriptions/Extracts

Tim:

It occurred to me that putting links in ALL our transcriptions or extracts from names pointing to family group records may or may not be a good idea. As a case in point, consider the Pierce transcription. We already have links from some names to the Errors page, so there is a conflict there.

I don't have a solution. I am just pointing out that there may be a problem.

- Robert | Talk to me 07:07, 28 February 2006 (CST)

Rollbacks

Tim:

Thanks for pointing out that "feature" of rollbacks.

- Robert | Talk to me 10:33, 28 February 2006 (CST)

Pierce Edit

Tim:

I think we should find the source of these dates. If it is a family bible, for example, it should be posted under bibles. If it is from the vital records of Dummerston, it should be posted under vital records.

It makes you want to "protect" these pages.

- Robert | Talk to me 15:22, 1 March 2006 (CST)

Links

Tim:

Did you see my post on this? Probably I put it in the wrong place. Where would be a better place so that all those creating new family group record pages would see it?

- Robert | Talk to me 09:00, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Conflict in Links in Pierce

Tim:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, sometimes there is a link in the Pierce transcription from a name to the errors page. If we want to link from the name to that person's family group record instead, we have a conflict. In such cases, we could add something like "[ERROR!]" after the name, and make the link to the error page from that word. I think the mechanism is a reasonable solution, but would like your input as to just what to add.

Could it be as simple as just using the traffic danger sign graphic? If so, how do you create a link using a graphic instead of text? Does [[Archive:Errors in Pierce#67-1|[[Image:danger.jpg]]]] or some similar variant of that actually work?

Thoughts, please!

- Robert | Talk to me 10:15, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Error Links

Your solution to the image=link problem is good, but it is very much not obvious that the graphic IS a link. In HTML, a graphic which is a link gets surrounded by a blue border, just like text gets a blue underline. That way, one can easily recognize that this image is not just an image, but also a link. Your solution lacks this feature. I, for one, would never think of clicking on the danger graphic.

I rather suppose that the above is not fixable, so I now prefer the idea of using some text for the error link. Perhaps the word shouldn't be "error", but "correction" instead.

- Robert | Talk to me 12:20, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Printable Version

Tim:

Have you looked at the Printable Version of any of the pages using the {{ref|#}} construct? Yike!!

- Robert | Talk to me 18:26, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Why I Don't Need a Template for "Under Construction"

Tim:

I understand how to make and use templates. I don't need one in this situation because of how I am creating these new pages:

1. Find a link to the person's page from the parent's page.
2. Click on it, opening a blank edit window.
3. Go to my word processor, where I have my own custom copy of the family group template.
4. Copy the whole file.
5. Go back to the blank edit window, and paste.
6. Edit the file until satisfied.
7. Delete the top two lines.
8. Save.
9. Edit "Robert's Tasks" to record a task as "DONE".

You see that it doesn't matter whether the "Under Construction" code appears on the top line of my file or whether your new Uc template does. I'm not retyping that line over and over. I actually thought about using one of the colored divboxes rather than what I did, and I may still do so.

One advantage of doing it this way, rather than using the "Add a new page" link in the navigation box, is that I can't misspell the name of the file I'm adding in the name box. You may have noticed that I have deleted several duplicative files, some of which were inadvertently generated that way.

My custom template is somewhat different from the one at the web site. In particular, it has twelve children instead of four, and more reference/note constructs. I find it easier to delete extra children than to add more. I may also create a separate one for female heads, with pronouns of the opposite gender and daughter/son swapped, but haven't done that yet.

- Robert | Talk to me 12:03, 16 March 2006 (CST)

Backups

Tim:

Since our method of working has changed with the new website, I realized that I will no longer have a mirror of those files on my home computer. This means that the burden falls on you to do a careful job of backing up those files regularly, also keeping the backups safe (preferably at a different geographic location). I assume you are already doing this, but I would like you to describe to me your efforts in this area.

- Robert | Talk to me 06:15, 21 March 2006 (CST)

Printable Version

Tim:

You wrote

"Robert: This has been solved. You may need to force a reload of the page to see the change."

I'm still seeing the problem. Look again.

- Robert | Talk to me 06:32, 21 March 2006 (CST)

Bull / Baull

Robert:

I seem to remember something about a Bull / Baull woman in the information that Paul reed and I were corresponding about. Could you check the file that I sent to you and see what the name of the woman was that ran the inn that the Christopher Marlowe was killed in?

Thank you!

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 11:52, 21 March 2006 (CST)

Eleanor (Whitney) Bull

Tim:

I've sent you information on her by e-mail.

- Robert | Talk to me 12:32, 21 March 2006 (CST)

St. Mary Aldermary

Tim:

I love what you've done with that page! Kudos!!

I also see that Smith and Sanborn made an error in calling the second Mary "Margaret." That settles that!

- Robert | Talk to me 16:17, 27 March 2006 (CST)

Printable Version

Tim:

I use Mozilla Firefox v1.0.7. For example on Benjamin² Whitney's page, in the place where {{ref|1}} is found in the source, I see "[1] (http://wiki.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Family:Whitney%2C_Benjamin_%281643-1723%29#endnote_1)" (without the quotation marks, all as a superscript) which is, of course, the web address of the place to which the reference points, namely the first note construct, enclosed in parentheses. It is the same after every use of the reference construct. I expected to see only "[1]" (without the quotation marks, as a superscript).

Everything else seems acceptable for a printable version.

If you can't eliminate this artifact, I would consider the printable version option to be useless.

- Robert | Talk to me 19:15, 27 March 2006 (CST)

My Wiki Expectations

Tim:

I'm glad you asked this question now, since I have seen many of the advantages of this structure. I also see a few disadvantages. On balance, this is a BIG WIN.

• Ad: Everyone can add information.
• Dis: There is a learning curve on how to do that, and it's more than many users will choose to learn.
• Dis: The wiki syntax is quite different from HTML, so even web people have the learning curve (although not as steep).
• Dis: Someone has to review each change to check the syntax, maintain the correct style, and enforce proper documentation.

• Ad: You are a wiki guru, and can be consulted in case of questions.
• Dis: You are the sole wiki guru, as well as webmaster, so there is a huge problem with single-point failure: if you are killed by a meteorite, a tornado, or a snakebite, the web site is in deep trouble. With the old web site, I had a mirror, so could bring up the website in my own web space if necessary, or could arrange for a new host without loss of any data.

• Ad: Cross-linking between sources and family groups is relatively easy.
• Dis: Creating family groups becomes a bottleneck. Andaleen is doing yeoman service here!
• Dis: Documenting the family groups becomes a second bottleneck. I've been working hard on the first three generations, and am almost done. I'm not sure I want to continue into the fourth.
• Dis: Cross-linking is a third bottleneck. This involves MANY edits of our source material, each minor. I've fallen behind with this on the first three generations, I know.

• Ad: Templates are good!
• Dis: They are near the end of the learning curve, so only you and I have any chance of writing new ones right now (and I'm not too sure about me!).

• Ad: The search engine exists, and works well for simple searches.
• Dis: I am constantly missing a strong search engine. For some searches, I even go back to the old website and use Google, a strategy I devised because the old search engine was also rather weak. This will become less and less possible as the new web site mutates, and diverges from the old one.

Features I really like: What Links Here, hiding e-mail addresses, ease of uploading images. I like the idea of a discussion page attached to every page, but I haven't found an effective way to use them yet.

- Robert | Talk to me 20:48, 27 March 2006 (CST)

Isleworth Parish Register

Tim:

I'm quite sure you mean March 25th (Lady Day) and not 21st for the first day of the year. See, for example, this page.

I have made what I think are the appropriate changes to the web page. Since the Gregorian calendar did not exist until 1582, the Julian calendar was the only one in use, so writing 1575/6 is anachronistic, and 1575[/6] is probably also improper, so I am leaving it as 1575. For dates after 1582 and before 1752, I have used 1623[/4], for example.

- Robert | Talk to me 09:12, 28 March 2006 (CST)

Importing Status

Tim:

I have finished sourcing and cleaning up the first three generations of descendants of John¹ Whitney, and my line to the fifth generation (where the names change to Flagg/Hardy and Billing/Hayward). I also have finished converting the Combined Index to Massachusetts Vital Records.

There are some small, miscellaneous tasks left. Whenever I find a link in the Archives which is red, I will try to create a page to turn that link blue.

We are running out of big tasks. The next one, in my opinion, should be the Phoenix import. What can I do to help expedite that?

Another big task which needs a policy decision is what we should do with the photos posted to the old web site. I'd be happy to upload the images, name them, and supply some text, but how will they be indexed?

- Robert | Talk to me 15:45, 1 April 2006 (CST)

Census Index Problem

Tim:

Have you seen this?

- Robert | Talk to me 13:50, 2 April 2006 (EDT)

Unattached Families

Tim:

What do you think we should do with unattached family groups? In addition to creating a Family Group Record for the family, if we don't know the Whitney parents, should we have some special way to identify such? Would a category be the best way, or a page with links to all of them? How about conjectured identifications?

So many questions, so few answers!

- Robert | Talk to me 14:22, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

It Finally Happened!

Tim:

I have two Mary Whitney family groups, both born in 1744 and last record found in 1788. One married Samuel Whitmore of Gorham, ME, the other Elijah Gibbs and Edward Scott of Westminster and Fitchburg, MA. They would both be listed as Family:Whitney, Mary (1744-a1788). How should we differentiate between them so as to have a unique name for each family group?

- Robert | Talk to me 08:26, 8 April 2006 (EDT)

Sources in Footnotes

Tim:

Often we have several sources for an event. For example, we have multiple sources for John¹ Whitney's second marriage to Judah (-----) Clements. Of course we cite Watertown Records, which is the best one. What other sources, if any, should we cite? All are probably eventually derived from that one. Putting links from all the sources back to John's page makes sense, but I don't think we need links from his page to all those sources. Thoughts?

- Robert | Talk to me 10:17, 9 April 2006 (EDT)

Duplicate Birth and Death Years

Tim:

I think we can use the day and month of the birth date, say (31 Mar 1744-a1788) versus (19 Sep 1744-a1788). That will work for this case, and probably for any case we are likely to encounter. Of course, there is no guarantee that it'll work ALWAYS ...

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 13:19, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

Reciprocal Links

Tim:

I agree that reciprocal links are unnecessary, especially because of the "What Links Here" feature (which I really like!).

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 13:23, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

Renaming Files

Tim:

Renaming a file, as I understand it, involves using the Redirect feature, which you have warned me has problems. My method is to copy the file to one with the new name, then changing all the links to it to use the new name, and finally to delete the old file. I understand that the history is lost at that point, so that has a problem, too. Is there something I have missed, or misunderstood?

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 08:42, 12 April 2006 (EDT)

Importing Photos

Tim:

It seems to me that somehow we should keep the original photos, no matter how large, somewhere. Perhaps the versions we display could be smaller and cropped more neatly, with a link in case someone wants the original picture in all its high-resolution glory.

I have PhotoShop 5.0 Limited Edition, with which I can create the new versions. What formats (.jpg, .gif, .bmp, ...), file sizes (in kB), and picture dimensions (in inches) would you recommend?

I would suggest having the original picture in one file, and the more manageable version in a second file. Then we could have a page for the picture, showing the modified picture, accompanying text, and a link to the original picture (with a warning about the size). Finally, we could have an index page, with links to each of the last-mentioned pages above, and a VERY short description as the link. Of course, we have the issue of names for the three files . . . . (I never liked WRG00031.jpg and its analogues, anyway, although it had the advantage of simplicity.)

Thoughts?

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 10:42, 12 April 2006 (EDT)

Photo Importing Progress

I'm doing this now. I encountered an anomaly at WRG00049, which is alleged to be a death certificate, but is actually an obituary of someone else. Similarly, WRG00051 is mismatched with it's text. Also, the .jpg file for WRG00054 is missing. Should we just change the accompanying text, or should we contact the owner?

I didn't have a good way to name the photos, so, at least for the time being, I'm keeping the numbering scheme. We can change later if we decide on a different plan.

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 14:58, 21 April 2006 (EDT)

Real User Names

Is there a way to get a list of the real names of all the users and their corresponding usernames? If we want to change the e-mail links on the lineage pages to username links, I think we need that capability.

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 10:24, 23 April 2006 (EDT)

Bug in "What links here"?

When I go to this page

and click on "What links here", it tells me that no page links to that image. On the other hand Family:Whitney, Charles Field (1831-a1900) does link there. What gives?

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 10:34, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Listings of Pages

You've added an excellent feature. Thanks for thinking of it!

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 13:24, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Photos

I finished migrating the Photos part of the archives to this web site. I've also created a facility for adding a photo to the archives. See Archive:Add Photo. I'm very unsure that I did the coding for the text box and button correctly, so please check it out for me. Any revisions or improvements would be gladly accepted!

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 13:24, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Listing of Pages

Your listing is nice, but isn't more or less the same functionality available by going to the Category:Vermont page?

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 14:28, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Listing of Pages

The new Vermont page is nice, but you have lost the Subcategory functionality in replacing the old one with it.

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 14:40, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Subcategories

I saw them after you added them today.

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 14:48, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Error in Pierce

The error has already been linked from the erroneous lineages of the brothers to Archive:The Descendants of John Whitney, Errors#213-1 and Archive:The Descendants of John Whitney, Errors#213-2. I have just added links from those places to the Archive:Who were Calvin and Haynes Whitney page for the fuller discussion.

Any errors found in Pierce should be linked from a [NOTE] insertion at the place of the error, to Archive:The Descendants of John Whitney, Errors#PAGE-ORDINAL. On that page should be an explanation of what the facts are that contradict Pierce, plus a link back to the person in the text whose treatment contains the error.

I stopped trying to find all errors in the middle of page 129 of Pierce, where the family groups of the fifth generation fathers end. Whatever other errors are there are ones concerning the sixth generation sons carried over to their own sketches, such as this one, or others discovered more or less by accident.

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 20:49, 6 May 2006 (EDT)

Census Index Pages

I see that you have been making excellent progress on importing the census index pages. That's great! I noticed that on WRG:Website Conversion Project you have marked 1900-1930 as DONE, yet on Archive:Census Records there are no links to any of these except Puerto Rico in 1920. Presumably you meant to put IN PROGRESS instead of DONE.

Are you just bringing the existing index pages over from the old web site, or are you using Ancestry's indexes, too, and merging the two?

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 09:47, 8 May 2006 (EDT)

Nested Templates?

Can I call a template by passing its call in through an argument of another template? I was trying to make a two-column footnote template, and pass the contents of the two columns. The contents themselves contained a template for a footnote span tag, number, and text. This failed, probably because I haven't much of an idea what I'm doing. See Phoenix Test for what I was trying to achieve, but done without templates.

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 18:48, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

Many thanks for the interest. I managed to locate the info you mentioned. Many thanks

Printed Version

Your suggestion of upgrading to Firefox 1.5.0.4 seems to have worked. Of course, I really don't know why, but who cares?

- Robert L. Ward | Talk to me 14:18, 18 June 2006 (EDT)

My Photograph

Tim:

I have many much more pressing matters to deal with than posting my photograph on my User page.

By the way, I see that you have changed the tab label from "edit" to "edit this page". This is an improvement, in my view.

- Robert - Talk to me 13:37, 25 June 2006 (CDT)

Sample Page from Pierce

Tim:

A creditable effort! I noticed three things immediately:

1. The name of the page should be "Family:Whitney, James Scolly (1811-1878)"
2. The names of the page links for the lineage should all begin with "Family:Whitney, ...", and likewise for the children.
3. Titles shouldn't be part of the page names. The person wasn't born with them, they may change over time (military promotions, being named a deacon of a church, being knighted, etc.), and one man may hold more than one at the same time (Deacon and Captain, for example).

It's hard to believe that the entire five-page narrative is a single paragraph!!

By the way, the categories are well done, but don't conform to the model I have been using. I use [[Category:Massachusetts]] + [[Category:Norfolk County, Massachusetts]] + [[Category:Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts]], rather than [[Category:Brookline, Massachusetts]]. Of course this will be really hard to generate automagically, since the county is not included in Pierce's text. When I generated the Index of Places for Pierce, I had to find out the counties for each town in the index, which I did, with just a handful of exceptions (places I couldn't find in gazetteers and searches). Perhaps you could use that index to help with this situation.

I also see that [[Category:St., New York]] appears. Probably it comes from "37th St., New York" mentioned in the text. Probably we'll have to replace things like that with [[New York, New York County, New York]], etc., by hand.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:54, 26 June 2006 (CDT)

Sample Page from Pierce (cont.)

Tim:

You said, "Titles will be a problem as that's how Pierce has them. I'll have to see if I can pick them out one by one." Here's the main criterion: if the first word of the subject's name ends in a period, it's a title. I don't think there are any names like S. Whitney Phoenix or Sir Robert Whitney as subjects.

Also, "Also, what county should I add - the county at the time of the event, or the current-day county?" That's a policy issue which I don't believe has a standard solution. I have used the current-day county, as it makes finding a place easier with current maps, and the records are likely to be in the current county seat. It also avoids issues such as towns which existed in areas before there was a county there. It also avoid using "Massachusetts Bay Colony" and "Plymouth Colony" instead of the state of Massachusetts, and the fact that parts of current Vermont were at one time claimed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York, all at the same time.

Further comments:

"5. SubjectName can sometimes be a link to an error page." I have been changing these links, adding the word "[NOTE]" after the name and making that the link. I have finished the first part of the book (through p. 129), which has the most of these, but there are still many left to be done. I'll get started right away on finishing that job.

"8. Add Childrens' surnames." The surname is ALWAYS Whitney.

I've just received your e-mail and will be checking out the data. Perhaps I'll have more comments later.

- Robert - Talk to me 08:57, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Another Pierce Issue

Tim:

Check out the bottom of page 176. There is an example where the children are arranged in TWO columns instead of one. This occurs occasionally elsewhere. I have no idea how you should deal with this. Possibly it's a hand-edit situation.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:42, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Re: Pierce

Tim:

You wrote: "I dealt with ... improper formatting; improper spelling (Witney, Whtney) ...." If you report these to me, I'll make the changes on the wiki pages.

You also wrote: "You said 'I have been changing these links, adding the word "[NOTE]" ... I'll get started right away on finishing that job.'" I'm now up through page 206, and will continue as time permits. You continued with, "I guess I should mention that I am using the files originally imported to the wiki, not the current versions." Glad you mentioned that. I didn't understand that.

You went on, "I had envisioned needing to manually go through the Error page so that adjustments could be made to these family pages (rather than just linking to an explanation). Thoughts?" Now that's something I could usefully do. I'll take that on.

ALBERT APPLETON (WHITNEY) FAY and other name-change cases were something I had not seen in Pierce heretofore. Always a chance to learn something new!

"Would you like a fresh one so you're not reporting things that have already been fixed?" Yes, that would be good, thanks.

- Robert - Talk to me 11:46, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Pierce Notes

Tim:

1. The dates for page names and links are not working right. John¹ Whitney isn't (1659-1673), Joshua² Whitney isn't (1635-1666), and Cornelius³ Whitney isn't (1715-1715).
2. Footnotes in the original are handled badly.
3. When a child's name is a link to the error file, this is handled badly.
4. De-hyphenation reuniting a word split between two lines is still not working well.

More later.

- Robert - Talk to me 17:21, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

More Pierce

Tim:

How about just deleting footnotes entirely?

Child's name is a link:

1. See Alice, alleged daughter of Joshua² Whitney on his page. There is a problem with bolding and the link being intertwined. (Of course, the footnote confuses the matter, but I don't think it caused the problem.)
2. See Moses³ Whitney, son John⁴.

De-hyphenation:

1. See the same Alice, under her children, Bath- sheba.
2. Under Benjamin³ Whitney (1660-1736) [John², John¹], his daughter Ruth, Ken- Dall.

I noticed that each of these were inside a link text.

New problems:

1. See Joseph³ Whitney (1651-1702) [John², John¹], end of children. There two children are somehow conflated.
2. Same Ruth⁴ Whitney as above, her narrative seems to be messed up somehow.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:37, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Pre- or Post-Import?

Tim:

If the only issues we find are related to error-links, then we can fix them manually. There are only a few links from child-number Roman numerals, all having to do with missing children. (I couldn't think of where else to put the link for that kind of problem.)

By the way, in the wiki version of the transcription, I have now finished making all the error-links be from the string "[NOTE]" inserted in an appropriate place.

- Robert - Talk to me 08:44, 28 June 2006 (CDT)

Children of Daughters

Tim:

That's perfect! Excellent!

- Robert - Talk to me 09:39, 28 June 2006 (CDT)

Abbreviations

Tim:

Your list of geographic abbreviations did include all the states except Alaska, which did not appear abbreviated in our transcription on the old web site. Please add to it the following, which I found there:

 'D/. C/.' => 'District of Columbia',
 'D/.C/.' => 'District of Columbia',
 'Penn/.' => 'Pennsylvania',
 'L/. I/.' => 'Long Island',
 'L/.I/.' => 'Long Island',
 'Can/.' => 'Canada',
 'Ca/.' => 'Canada',
 'N/. S/.' => 'Nova Scotia',
 'N/.S/.' => 'Nova Scotia',
 'Que/.' => 'Quebec',
 'Mex/.' => 'Mexico',
 'S/. A/.' => 'South America',  [but not S.A.]  [but U. S. A. = United States Army !!!]
 'W/. I/.' => 'West Indies',  [but not W.I.]

There may be more. This is all I could think of and could find. I also found that some transcriber(s) chose to use postal abbreviations (grrrr!):

 'CT' => 'Connecticut',
 'IA' => 'Iowa',
 'IL' => 'Illinois',
 'IN' => 'Indiana',
 'MA' => 'Massachusetts',
 'ME' => 'Maine',
 'MI' => 'Michigan',
 'MO' => 'Missouri',
 'NC' => 'North Carolina',
 'NJ' => 'New Jersey',
 'NY' => 'New York',
 'OH' => 'Ohio',
 'PA' => 'Pennsylvania',
 'RI' => 'Rhode Island',
 'VT' => 'Vermont',
 'WA' => 'Washington',
 'WI' => 'Wisconsin',

I hope this helps.

- Robert - Talk to me 07:06, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Page Names

Tim:

The list at Sandbox4 is discouraging. Some is due to Old Style/New Style dates. Some is due to us having more information about birth and death dates that Pierce did, including using "after", "before", "circa", and "say" dates. There's quite a lot of work to do to fix all of those!

- Robert - Talk to me 07:12, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Two More Changes

Tim:

I made two further changes to Sandbox4. Heaven only knows how you'll deal with them! Look for the word "conglomeration" to find them.

Otherwise, I suppose we're ready to go!

- Robert - Talk to me 20:59, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Some Dates Not Right

Tim:

I see that some dates are converted to 30 Aug 1802 and others are left as Aug 30, 1802. I don't know why that happens, or whether or not you want to correct that.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:36, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

130 Years Old!

Tim:

We'll have to move Family:Whitney, Phinehas (1740-1870) to Family:Whitney, Phinehas (1740-1812). It's interesting to see why that was generated!

- Robert - Talk to me 21:46, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Andaleen

Tim:

I haven't told her, and I don't think you have either. Probably she hasn't a clue. I think you should tell her, since it was your idea and mostly your work, so you have bragging rights!

- Robert - Talk to me 22:00, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Duplicate Names

Tim:

We have a problem with duplicate page names. See Family:Whitney, William (?-?) for example. Two such pages were generated, and one overwrote the other.

- Robert - Talk to me 22:06, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Sewing Together Gens 5 and 6

Tim:

I began the process, working alphabetically using the Family Groups list.

I found the first problem at Family:Whitney, Abiezer Holbrook (1794-1865), whose father Family:Whitney, Nathan (1768-1849) was given the generation number 1, and no further lineage. AHW was given generation number 2, and his children 3. Now Nathan has a perfectly good page, with correct lineage, and on that page, he has generation number 5. I fixed this particular instance, but surely there are more of the same kind. Here's one: Family:Whitney, Abram Hinckley (1817-1851).

The second problem was at Family:Whitney, Abner (1807-1888), where the page actually contains the information for Zachariah Leach Whitney. Both appear on Pierce p. 412. Abner's is the first family on the page, and Zachariah's is the second. That one I didn't fix.

I've finished given names A through C. Will continue later.

- Robert - Talk to me 06:51, 30 June 2006 (CDT)

Family Groups

Tim:

Great, well done, and about time. I was starting to worry that it was never going to get done if it depended on me doing 2-10 per week which is about all I've been able to do recently do to work load and some family obligations. I'm on vacation till week of July 9th and will review more then.

Mass Edits

Tim:

Prime candidates for mass edits using the bot would be the following sections of Pierce Conversion Project:

• Overwritten Family Data
• Lineage Breaks
• Merged Pages

As I progress through the sewing, if I find more, I'll put them in those sections.

Also, I notice that Andaleen has put the generation numbers in lineages outside the links. The bot should replace all instances of"]]¹" with "¹]]", and likewise for generations 2, 3, and 4. Similarly, in her lists of children, she has used " Surname''']]^X" instead of "^X Surname''']]", and " Surname'''^X" instead of "^X Surname'''", where X is a generation number digit and Surname is a string of letters.

On all the Family: pages you could replace "the Whitney Research Group" and/or "The Whitney Research Group" with "the [[Whitney Research Group]]"

- Robert - Talk to me 10:47, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

Half-numbers

Tim:

I've discovered a new source of annoyance! There are many numbers in Pierce ending in " 1/2". I found 21 of these, of which only one is carried forward: 4814 1/2, Eprhaim Whitney. Of course he wasn't caught as the beginning of a family group, nor as a child in his father's family. The other 20 weren't caught as children in their father's family, either. I also found one number ending in " 1/4"! There are also Roman number child ordinals of the form "vii 1/2." I suppose that's to squeeze them in between vii and viii. I found 7 of those. I'll try to check them all out myself.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:10, 6 July 2006 (CDT)

Comment Line

Tim:

Isn't the removal of the comment line a perfect use of the bot?

- Robert - Talk to me 10:19, 6 July 2006 (CDT)

Location Categories

Tim:

While you are at it, keep a list of locations which weren't found in the geographic index but were in the import, along with the page numbers where found. We may have to deal with these on an individual basis. That way we can find two- or three-word locations, like Cottage City, Massachusetts, or Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

In any case, don't start until we have all the issues from the Pierce Conversion Project done. We may be creating new pages or changing the names of pages during that process.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:35, 6 July 2006 (CDT)

Census Indexes Versus Census Records

Tim:

I had an idea that the census indexes should be separate from the census record transcripts. This isn't so on the 1790 pages, for example, with the data included directly in the index. This is mandatory for 1850 and beyond, and for the sake of consistency, probably should be so for the earlier years, too. Then we can put anchors at each family group, and make links from the Family Group Records to the records themselves, rather than to the indexes, and from the indexes to the records themselves, as you've done with the 1880 census records. Also reverse links from the records and the indexes back to the Family Group Records can be made.

- Robert - Talk to me 11:05, 6 July 2006 (CDT)

Location Categories, II

Tim:

Another approach would be:

• Scan the Special:Categories page, finding ones which seem to be syntactically ill-formed.
• Use the geographical index to find ones which may be multiple-word names, and ones which may be misspelled (such as Action, Massachusetts), that don't appear in the index.
• Invalid categories will have to be resolved individually and manually. A list of these categories could be put on the Pierce Conversion Project page to be dealt with by us.
• Deal with possible ambiguities in valid category names (such as Braintree versus New Braintree, Massachusetts), again using the geographical index. This may require a scan of the pages for such a category to determine which of the possibilities apply to each page.
• For each category with a missing county, use the geographical index to find the county name.
• Go to each of those category pages, and pick up the names of the pages using that category. That will give you a list of the edits that need to be done for that category.
• Collect and sort the lists of those edits, creating a master list sorted by page name.
• Invoke the bot to make all the edits.

- Robert - Talk to me 06:47, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

Abbreviations and Poston

Tim:

Here are a few I noticed:

• unm. --> unmarried (may be end of sentence, too)
• No. --> North
• So. --> South
• Theo. --> Theodore
• U. South America --> United States Army (or U. S. A., as you prefer)

I did notice Mike Poston's work. Perhaps you could get him to improve the page for Jabez's father, Phineas, about whom he knows far more that Pierce knew. In the process, he might learn the syntax we use. Then he should add pages for the other descendants of Phineas.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:28, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

Changes Complete?

Tim:

I've finished everything I know how to do on Pierce Conversion Project. Hooray! I also found all the family groups with two children on the same line, and fixed them, too. Is there anything else to do besides the minor issues and first five generations, or are we actually done?

- Robert - Talk to me 21:20, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

Pierce Places

Tim:

Should I make any corrections there, or just tell you about them?

- Robert - Talk to me 09:45, 9 July 2006 (CDT)

Canadian Counties?

Tim:

I can supply county names for places in Canada. Do we want to do that, or is the province name enough? I notice that some places have them, others don't.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:49, 9 July 2006 (CDT)

John Whitney of Gorsington

Tim:

All you have written is stuff I already was aware of. I agree with everything you said with one exception. I haven't found a credible source for the existence of John Whitney, second son of Robert and Alice (Vaughan) Whitney of Whitney. It was in Carolyn Winch's database, without a source. That makes it somewhat suspect. Certainly there is nothing in Melville to support it. I put it on Robert's page anyway, with hopes that someone could turn up a source.

There are quite a few other places where I can't confirm what was in that database, too. Who knows where she got her information?! Possibly the LDS web site <gr-r-r-r-r>.

- Robert - Talk to me 13:58, 9 July 2006 (CDT)

Royal Ancestry of Whitney of Clifford

Tim:

I found the following line:

1. Edward III, King of England (1312-1377), m. Philippe of Hainault (1311-1369)
2. John of Gaunt (1340-1399), m. Katherine Roet (c1350-1403)
3. Henry Beaufort (c1375-1477), had mistress Alice FitzAlan (b1382-b1415)
4. Joan Beaufort (c1403-c1453), m. Sir Edward Stradling (c1389-1453)
5. Sir Henry Stradling (c1424-a1477), m. Elizabeth Herbert (c1427-?)
6. Jane Stradling (?-?), m. Henry Parry (?-?)
7. Miles Parry (?-?), m. Alice Milbourne (?-?)
8. Sybil Parry (?-?), m. James Whitney of Clifford (s1520-1564)
9. the later Whitneys of Clifford

Alice FitzAlan was herself a descendant of King Henry III. I haven't pursued this much further. It's possible there are other royal connections.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:15, 9 July 2006 (CDT)

Royal Ancestry of Whitney of Clifford

Tim:

I found the following line:

1. Edward III, King of England (1312-1377), m. Philippe of Hainault (1311-1369)
2. John of Gaunt (1340-1399), m. Katherine Roet (c1350-1403)
3. Henry Beaufort (c1375-1477), had mistress Alice FitzAlan (b1382-b1415)
4. Joan Beaufort (c1403-c1453), m. Sir Edward Stradling (c1389-1453)
5. Sir Henry Stradling (c1424-a1477), m. Elizabeth Herbert (c1427-?)
6. Jane Stradling (?-?), m. Henry Parry (?-?)
7. Miles Parry (?-?), m. Alice Milbourne (?-?)
8. Sybil Parry (?-?), m. James Whitney of Clifford (s1520-1564)
9. the later Whitneys of Clifford

Alice FitzAlan was herself a descendant of King Henry III. I haven't pursued this much further. It's possible there are other royal connections.

For the Parry family, see Parry Family History.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:16, 9 July 2006 (CDT)

Texas Land Grants

Tim: Thanks for all the good information. This is great I feel like a man who has been stumbling through a dark tunnel and now I can see a light, and it is not a train. I still havent been able to upload the documents yet. I havent been able to get back to the discussion group page where we fist made contact either. as I use this program more I will be better at it I hope. Thanks again for the info. and I have gotten Lois McCoin on line now too. Tex ( Jess)

I am now tring to send 1 of 8 pages of Whitney Texas land grant documents. as I am on dialup it may take sometime. I hope it goes where it needs to go.

I sent 2 pics of the land grant front and back. I dont know if they went thru or not let me know if you get them

these jpg s are large so it may take some time

land records

Tim

We finally got the land grant records on line. One is extremely large. Please let me know if I need to reupload it.

I have resent it in a smaller version.

the back page of the land grant has been resent

Thank you

I am not sure if you received my last message so here it is again. I have resent the back page of the land grant for Jason Whitney Republic of Texas Land grant

Hi Tim...I am not savy enough to format by myself. I know I need references. They are packed away in a box. I will get to them. Sharon Barnett

Family Group Record Creation

Tim:

I tried your form, filled it out completely, and clicked on "Submit". A completely blank white screen came up, and I think the page wasn't created. If you can do it but I can't, perhaps there is a permissions problem. I noticed that the URL of the page ends with "&create=Submit". I suspect you meant "&action=create" or "&action=Submit".

- Robert - Talk to me 11:09, 16 July 2006 (CDT)

Duplicate Numbers

Tim:

I see at the bottom of page 113 and the top of page 114, there are duplicate numbers 1490-1492. Fortunately, the first set on 113 are not carried forward, while two of the second set on 114 are, so there is no conflict in links, page names, nor anchors. I have removed the spurious links. Another 1895 boo-boo.

- Robert - Talk to me 12:31, 16 July 2006 (CDT)

Creation

Tim:

I tried what you said, and it seems to have worked. Thanks!

Shouldn't the page name start with "Family:"??? When the birth and death dates are blank, shouldn't it supply (?-?) for the year range in the page name?

- Robert - Talk to me 13:47, 16 July 2006 (CDT)

Created Page Names

Tim:

I understand about cleaning up the submissions, but I think getting the page name right will save a lot of moving of pages to new names. I'm thinking about using it for all the miscellaneous unknown people, where birth and death years are often unknown. I'd have to have to move them all!

- Robert - Talk to me 14:00, 16 July 2006 (CDT)

Still a Problem

Tim: I see the ? defaults. Good work. But now I'm still getting a blank page when I enter a full family group. It may have to do with the length of the URL generated (it's really long!).

- Robert - Talk to me 14:57, 16 July 2006 (CDT)

Thanks

Tim..you gentlemen are amazing!. Thanks for the assistance.

Sharon

Questions

Tim,

I have some questions. First why do I have to change my password so much this is the 3rd one so far? Second, how can I add family information and records to the site? Third, can I submit records Marriage, Census, etc. to the site? I would like to have them tied to my page if possible, as the land grant page is. and I have the back page of the Land grant on the log page now small enough to work I think.

Tex

Isaac Amsden Whitney

Tim:

Isaac was son of Ami, not brother. I have made corrections to this lineage in two places, on the Image page and on the WRG Photo page. I'm afraid this was my fault, as I created those pages when I imported the Photos directory from the old web site, and I just copied what Denis Adams had posted there (which was wrong). I should have checked the lineages. There could be other problems of the same sort.

Should I (can I?) change the lineage on the old web site?

- Robert - Talk to me 09:07, 18 July 2006 (CDT)

I am sure it is something that I am doing wrong with the password. I must not be saving it or something. I will watch it closer.

As for the family history, I have more pictures of my Great Great Grandmother Mary E. Whitney Who married Thomas Henry Freer I., their marriage license dated 1873, Census Records on the Whitney Family from 1830, death certificates, muster roles for the Mexican American war, Civil War pay vouchers, Land records, and other materials.

I believe the only way to preserve Family History is to share it. This is my only goal. This site is fantastic and I would like to be a part of it.

I will see if I can locate the pages and begin adding the information that I can there. Thank you for this site. Jess

Look-Ups

Tim:

Here are more than you could possibly deal with!!

To augment our Massachusetts vital records collection:

• Membrino, Marcia L., and Paul A. Russell, eds., Paxton, Massachusetts births, marriages and deaths, 1748-1850, (Bowie, MD : Heritage Books, c1996).
• Van Antwerp, Lee D., comp., and Ruth Wilder Sherman, ed., Vital Records of Plymouth, Massachusetts, to the year 1850', (1993).
• Stover, Margaret Harris, comp., Vital records of Raynham, Massachusetts, (Plymouth, MA : General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1997).

How about the 1798 Direct Tax of Massachusetts records? I don't know what form they are in, but they should be available at the NEHGS Library.

There are a lot of Maine vital records published that we haven't abstracted yet. There are county-wide marriage return books, of which we have only extracted the one for Cumberland Co. The others are Hancock, Oxford, Penobscot, Waldo, Washington, and York Counties.

Maine probate records:

• Abstracts of Probate Records of Penobscot County, Maine, 1816-1883: Including abstracts of Probate Records from Hancock County 1790-1816 relating to that part of Hancock County set off as Penobscot County in 1816. Ruth Gray, editor. 616 pp. 38,179 entry Every Name Index. 1993. #1434. $95.00. Picton Press, P.O. Box 250, Rockport, ME 04856.
• The Probate Records of Lincoln County, Maine, 1760 to 1800. Wm. D. Patterson, editor. Maine Genealogical Society Special Publication No. 6. 448 pp. Every Name Index & Place Index. 1991 (1895). #1177. $39.50. Picton Press, P.O. Box 250, Rockport, ME 04856.
• York County, Maine, Will Abstracts 1801-1858; Maine Genealogical Society Special Publication No. 27. Compiled by Joseph Crook Anderson II, CG. 2 vol; 1,376 pp. 30,095 entry Every Name Index. 1997. 2 vol set: #1845. $99.50. Picton Press, P.O. Box 250, Rockport, ME 04856.

Perhaps these Revolutionary military records can be found at Ancestry.com, but if not, we could sure use them:

• Connecticut. Adjutant-General's Office, Record of service of Connecticut men in the I. War of the Revolution, II. War of 1812, III. Mexican War / compiled by authority of the General Assembly, under direction of the Adjutants-General ... (Hartford : [Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.], 1889).
• Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Rolls and lists of Connecticut men in the Revolution, 1775-1783; Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, v. VIII (Hartford : Connecticut Historical Society, 1901).
• Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Lists and returns of Connecticut men in the revolution, 1775-1783; Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society. vol. XII (Hartford, Connecticut Historical society, 1909).
• Hammond, Isaac Weare, ed., Rolls of the soldiers in the revolutionary war... Published by authority of the legislature...; Provincial and State Papers, Vol. XIV-XVII, (Concord, N.H.: P. B. Cogswell, state printer, 1885-89).
• Roberts, James A., Comptroller's Office, New York State, New York in the Revolution as Colony and State, a Compilation of Documents and Records from the Office of the State Comptroller, (Albany, N.Y. : J.B. Lyon Co., 1904). 2 v.
• Fisher, Major General Carleton Edward, and Fisher, Sue Gray, [Maine] Soldiers, Sailors, and Patriots of the Revolutionary War, 944 pp. (Rockport, ME: Picton Press, 1982). #1324. $55.00. Picton Press, P.O. Box 250, Rockport, ME 04856.
• Fisher, Major General Carleton Edward, and Fisher, Sue Gray, [Vermont] Soldiers, sailors, and patriots of the Revolutionary War 672 pp. (Camden, ME : Picton Press, 1998). #1322. $49.50. Picton Press, P.O. Box 250, Rockport, ME 04856.
• Goodrich, John E., Rolls of the soldiers in the Revolutionary War, 1775 to 1783, (Rutland, Vt. : Tuttle company, 1904).

Also, there are a huge number of town histories of towns in ME, NH, and VT which have genealogical sections. Some no doubt contain Whitney information.

That ought to keep you busy!

- Robert - Talk to me 17:47, 18 July 2006 (CDT)

How Many?

Tim:

This is an interesting exercise. I once investigated the statistical aspect of genealogy, especially the matters of how many ancestors a person living today had at remote times in the past, and how many descendants a person who lived in the past might have living today. It turns out both questions are very difficult in the abstract. The answer to the second question is likely to be, "Zero." A more tractable, but still difficult, question is how many descendants a set of contemporary people might have living today. The larger the group, the more likely one is to be able to say something interesting. Tools used are fertility rates, for those who had children, and rates of death without children, through history. In our case, we could take for that group the U.S. Whitney people living in, say, 1700. One has to take into account the fact that if a father and son were both living then, that all the descendants of the son are also descendants of the father, so cannot be counted for both. Then there is the matter of cousin marriages .... As I said, this is difficult! At the end, one gets statements like, "Given the assumptions _____, the chance that the number is between ___ and ___ is __%," which is not terribly satisfying, especially if the two numbers are far apart. The higher the percentage you pick, the father apart the numbers fall, of course.

You can see that the very practical approach you have begun is much more likely to yield meaningful results that the more mathematical/statistical/abstract approach.

You could link to this page from the Whitney Surname page.

- Robert - Talk to me 07:22, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

Great Wiki

Tim,

You have done a great job on this wiki. I am starting one of my own called wikicpa.com for all this related to being a certified public accountant.

Where did you get the extension for your discussion forums? It is very similar to what I have been considering paying someone to write for me. Any help would be much appreciated.

Michael

Curve Fit

Tim:

You have a convincing curve fit. I'm impressed! It seems to me that you could get an actual count of Whitneys by counting the total number of people in Whitney households in the 1790 Census. It might be a bit low, because of Whitneys in non-Whitney households, but that should be nearly compensated for by non-Whitneys in Whitney households. It would be an estimate, but really quite a good one (probably within 1%). Similar remarks apply to 1800 through 1840, of course, but it would be a longer job to do the counts, as there are at least ten categories instead of just three. (I suppose one can ignore the counts of slaves and free blacks.)

I may be able to do this, via Heritage Quest, even though I don't have an Ancestry.com subscription. Would you want me to try?

Would you want me to try to get actual counts for some of the early missing years for HOH and total?

- Robert - Talk to me 09:03, 20 July 2006 (CDT)

Location Categories, III

Tim:

I've been going through the Categories and trying to correct some of them that seem wrong. I started at A and am now up through "Castle, New York", which seems to be universally "Seneca Castle, New York" (but there is also a real "Castile, New York" in Wyoming County!). I go to the Category page, and see the list of the pages referring to that category. Then I go to each of those pages and correct the category call at the bottom, meanwhile reformatting things I see which are artifacts of the import, such as the comment on the first line, putting the parents' names in with a link, bolding the wife's name, adding the mother's name before the list of children, changing "1." to "*" in the references, and fixing all the other erroneous categories. Then I save the page, and on to the next. You've patrolled these edits, so you can see my progress.

This will be a long job, but I think it's worthwhile.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:03, 20 July 2006 (CDT)

Bot Versus Not

Tim:

Yes, the Bot can do those changes, but if I do them manually, I can do multiple edits at once, thus keeping the size of the database much smaller. Also, much of the editing uses my sense of what "isn't right", including transcription problems, misformatted dates, etc. I'm willing to continue this effort, which will get simpler as I progress, as I won't have to fix more than one error on the same page (hopefully!), having fixed the page at the occurrence of the first one. By the way, I'm changing St. Louis to Saint Louis (and analogues), Mt. Morris to Mount Morris (and analogues), No. to North, So. to South, E. to East, and W. to West, when they are parts of geographic names. I am also undoing some of the Col. -> Colorado transformations that were made in error, when Col. actually meant Colonel! 8^(

- Robert - Talk to me 09:29, 20 July 2006 (CDT)

African American Whitneys

Tim:

Your new page says that African Americans were first listed on the 1870 census. That's true only for former slaves, and that means almost always in the South. In the North, being free blacks, they appear in the 1850 and 1860 census, too, and if they were heads of households, they appear on earlier ones, as well. I'm not sure how to correct what you wrote, or I would have done it myself.

Do we have any (American) Indian [whatever the current politically correct phrase is] or oriental Whitneys?

Then there is the issue of mulattos. Should they be included in the count of African Americans, or in a separate category?

- Robert - Talk to me 17:39, 21 July 2006 (CDT)

Native American Whitneys

Tim:

I did a search of the 1880 Census of the U.S. for Whitneys by race. I found a total of 16981 Whitneys in our index on the old web site. Using FamilySearch.org, I found:

• 683 black
• 179 mulatto
• 15 native American
• 2 oriental
• 0 Mexican

I suppose there must be 16981 - 683 - 179 - 15 - 2 = 16102 whites or those with race not given. You can enter the 16981 number in your table at How many Whitneys?.

- Robert - Talk to me 07:09, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Location Categories, IV

Tim:

I've finished going through the categories and making all the changes I could find. I repeat the comment, "I can supply county names for places in Canada. Do we want to do that, or is the province name enough? I notice that some places have them, others don't." If you want me to do that, let me know, and I'll proceed with that. Should I make the changes on the page Pierce Conversion Project - Place List, or on each individual family group record, or some other way?

- Robert - Talk to me 18:35, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

thank you for your kind words.

thanks for your welcome on http://wiki.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Discussion:I_come_in_peace...

my question is, are there any special modifications (like family tree diagrams) that you have that are not part of mediawiki? thanks!!

Canadian Counties, II

Tim:

I'm in favor of adding county names to all Canadian locations. I'll start, but where do I make the changes? One option is on the family group record pages. Another would be on your master list of places at Pierce Conversion Project - Place List. There may be other options, too.

That should keep me busy!

- Robert - Talk to me 09:29, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Master Place List

Tim:

Is it necessary to regenerate the master place name replacement list at Pierce Conversion Project - Place List since I have finished working on the categories?

By the way, have a nice trip! Talk to you when you return.

- Robert - Talk to me 06:53, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

Canadian Counties, III

Tim:

Since I have only identified about 50 Family: pages with Canadian place names, I'll just correct each page, entering county names (but canton names in Quebec, which has them as analogues of counties, just as Louisiana has parishes instead of counties). I can do that in just a couple of days. Then I'll return to Robert's Projects.

Do we want to put location categories on Mailing List Discussions: pages, too? That seems like a lot of work, but possibly helpful to visitors.

I think we should wait to run the bot on place categories until after we import Phoenix pages. By the way, what is the status of that effort? I have created a template into which to insert information from newly-scanned pages, but I haven't tried to use it yet. That's partly because I don't know what the name would be of the Archive file containing a particular page of the book. Partly it's because I want to be very sure to be completely compatible with the import results. Partly it's because I've been busy (make that VERY busy!) working on the Pierce import.

I noticed some examples like this: "... served in County. B, under Capt. Smith, in Colorado. Jones's Regiment ..." They come from replacing "Co." with "County." (instead of "Company") and "Col." with "Colorado." (instead of "Colonel"). In many cases, that was a valid replacement, but in situations like the above, it was over-agressive. I have fixed many of these, but there may be others still lurking around. I can try to hunt for them and correct them, too. I thought you should be aware of their existence.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:16, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

Census Formatting

Yes I would like to add formatting to get the information aligned. If you know what to do immediately to apply it, please do so, otherwise I'll try to review the documentation for formatting tonight and do it later.

- Andaleen - Talk to me 8:32, 2 August 2006 (PDT)

Removing a User

Tim:

I think we need a way for people to remove themselves, their preferences data, and so on, and release their Username. I'm sure you could do it manually, but I think people should be able to do it without your intervention. Probably there are ramifications and issues with this suggestion which I cannot imagine, but you can. Let's discuss it.

- Robert - Talk to me 11:28, 4 August 2006 (CDT)

Gary Boyd Roberts

Tim:

You've made good progress. Great!

No, I didn't know that Roberts had mentioned my new theory in a book. I did know that he was aware of it, in two ways. First, I sent him a copy, which he never acknowledged. Second, I heard of a discussion between Michel Call, Douglas Richardson, and Roberts, about my theory, when Call telephoned me last winter. Call was not enthusiastic about it and Richardson was highly skeptical. Perhaps Roberts has a more sanguine view of it than the other two. Call particularly wanted to point out that the descent from Edward III through Constance Touchet is wrong, and that James Whitney who married Blanche Milbourne was son of his father's other wife, Alice Vaughan, citing Peter C. Bartram's Welsh Genealogies. He suggested that there might still be a royal descent from, perhaps, Henry I, but he didn't supply any details.

If you can find it at NEHGS, extracting the Whitney data from Bartram's work would be very useful.

I'd be interested in getting a photocopy of the relevant portions of Roberts's new book.

- Robert - Talk to me 14:49, 8 August 2006 (CDT)

Fifth Generation

Tim:

I have just finished the last family group record for fifth-generation male Whitney heads of household. There are still 23 female Whitney heads, and 36 with other surnames, descended through female lines. This is in addition to the 27 fourth-generation plus 92 subsidiary fifth-generation pages that Andaleen was working on, descended from daughters of Joshua² Whitney, named Shepard, Jewell, Williams, and Farnsworth. "Only" 178 more pages to create. Progress!

I've used your form, which is good. I did notice that it gives you 10 children no matter how many you supply, and you have to add children beyond the 10th manually. This may not be worth fixing.

- Robert - Talk to me 17:15, 8 August 2006 (CDT)

Family Group Record Form

Tim:

There is a gender issue with the form you created. When the head of the family is a male, it is fine, but when it is a female, there are problems. First of all, it refers to the head as "he", and the spouse as "she". It calls the spouse "daughter of ...", and the names of the parents after "Children of ..." are inverted.

- Robert - Talk to me 06:58, 10 August 2006 (CDT)

Recent Changes

Tim:

I've noticed an anomaly with the Recent Changes page. Yesterday I created a page called Family:Stevens, Thomas(1728-1755). Then I noticed that the name was mal-formatted. I moved it to Family:Stevens, Thomas (1728-1755), changed all references to it, and deleted the redirect page. Not all these events were recorded in Recent Changes. Today a similar situation arose with Family:Stevens, Anna (1733-?) being moved to Family:Stevens, Anna (1733-1811).

What gives?

- Robert - Talk to me 12:37, 20 August 2006 (CDT)

Whose page?

Tim:

I have encountered the case of Moses Blood (1750-1838), not a Whitney descendant, who had three wives. All three of them ARE Whitney descendants: Abigail Shattuck (1744-1810), Keziah (Shattuck) Shattuck (1745-1832), and Alice (Shattuck) Wright (1754-1840). There were only children by the first wife. What page should contain the record of his wives and children? What would the policy be if there were children by more than one wife?

- Robert - Talk to me 13:13, 13 September 2006 (CDT)

Alured de Merleberge

Tim:

If you google "Alfred of Marlborough", you'll find that that was the actual name of Alured de Merleberge, and there's lots of information about him and his holdings. He wasn't a Norman at all, but a Saxon, as his name reveals (think Alfred the Great). Why he was favored by the Normans with all those lands is not clear. I leave it to you to modify his page and other references to him, accordingly.

- Robert - Talk to me 13:54, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

Bayeux, not Bayoux

Tim:

The file Image:bayoux.jpg is misnamed. See the Wikipedia entry for the tapestry. You need to delete it and, if you wish, upload a version with the correct spelling.

- Robert - Talk to me 17:15, 15 September 2006 (CDT)

Jonathan Whitney Will Page

Tim:

Jonathan Whitney Will should be renamed Archive:Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Probate Records. Then a link to it should be put on Archive:Probate Records, labeled |Luzerne County, PA, Probate Records]], 1831. See the similar case for Ontario County, NY, Probate Records, 1881. Credit should be given to the person who supplied it.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:32, 18 September 2006 (CDT)

Fifth Generation Done?

Tim:

I have finished making family group records for the last of the fifth generation heads of household, descendants of John¹ Whitney (I think!). This was the work that Andaleen had not finished. Now it's done. There remains a lot of sourcing on the fourth and fifth generations, and adding categories, but at least we have pages for them all.

In the process, I found a Hannah Whitney who was actually a widow Hannah (Russell) Whiting, and corrected that. Progress!

Next I think I'll work on the English part of the family, including not only attached people but also others, all before 1700. Any other suggestions?

- Robert - Talk to me 13:15, 20 September 2006 (CDT)

Next Projects

Tim:

You suggested

1. Medieval / early English Whitney families

I'll get on this one next.

2. Research immigrant families to other countries. I've recently done a lot of searching and have made contact with an Australian Whtiney family. I also found Whitneys in South Africa.

I have very little idea how to proceed with this.

3. Create archive pages for the military extracts that Ken Whitney has been posting to the mailing list.

Excellent suggestion. I'll put that on my to-do list.

4. Trace families from key locations in England from the 1841 census down through the last available census in an attempt to locate living male line descendants who could join our DNA study.

Why not enlist John G. Whitney in Oxford to help with this?

Here's one for you: Run the bot to modify all the locality Category tags to include county names where they are missing. In all the pages I have done recently, I have been careful to do the categories with county names.

Here are some HUGE ones:

1. Add locality categories to all of Andaleen's pages.
2. Source all fourth- and fifth-generation pages from John¹.
3. Make pages for daughters with substantial information on their parents' page.

I'll add some items to the WRG:Website Conversion Project.

There remain, of course, the matters of the Phoenix import and the rest of the census pages ...

- Robert - Talk to me 10:30, 21 September 2006 (CDT)

Duplicate User

Tim:

I see that User:Big Bill Whitney (UK) has also registered as User:[email protected]. One should be deleted, presumably the latter, and anyone trying to access that page redirected to the other. This seems to be an attempt to change his e-mail address.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:10, 22 September 2006 (CDT)

Heir Male of the Whitneys of Whitney?

Tim,

Notice the family of George Whitney of Icomb, Gloucestershire. His wife Julyan ----- was named in his nephew's will, and also his son George, Jr. (b. say 1555). The latter m. ----- Savage of Worcestershire, according to the pedigrees in Melville. Now notice Archive:Parish Register, Church Iccombe, Gloucestershire, England. There is a George Whitney (b. say 1585) with a daughter Julian. Now this can hardly be George, Jr., but it could well be a putative son, call him George, 3rd. Surely with that daughter's name, he is somehow descended from George, Sr.!

If that connection can be made, then George, 3rd, is the heir male of the Whitneys of Whitney, since the lines of all his brothers seem to have daughtered-out. Furthermore, George, 3rd, had sons, including a George, 4th, bapt. 1618.

If these sons' lines could be followed further, one might be able to trace at least one of them to the present, and get a DNA profile of the Whitneys of Whitney!! Perhaps we should broaden our search from Herefordshire to Gloucestershire.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:17, 2 October 2006 (CDT)

Robert Whitney of Castleton

Tim,

If you reread my thesis, you'll see that some of the argument is based on the order of people listed in James Whitney's will as heirs. Thomas Whitney of Castleton and his brother Richard Whitney are in the position of second cousins. That implies that their Whitney ancestor had to be a son of James and Blanche (Milbourne) Whitney, not a brother of James, which would make them third cousins. Admittedly this is fairly thin, but it all hangs together, with no evidence to the contrary.

- Robert - Talk to me 19:24, 2 October 2006 (CDT)

The Entail

Tim,

What you say has merit. Your solution is viable. I guess I was just using Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one.

It is well-known that the earlier the generation of a visitation pedigree, the more unreliable it is, and the curve is quite steep. Thus we can place very little reliability in what the pedigrees say about the great-great-grandfather of the claimant John Whitney of London (b. 1638), the former being the grandfather of our Thomas Whitney of Westminster. Only when the pedigrees can be supported by viable chronology and contemporary primary sources can they be trusted. For the early generations of the main line, there is such support, based on the descent of the lordship of Whitney. For the cadet lines, there is no such support.

I guess my point is that there is no reason to let the conflicting statements as to Thomas's grandfather deter us from accepting my thesis, as opposed to the solution you propose. We should be very interested in when the ownership of Castleton in Clifford Parish passed out of the ownership of the main line Whitneys. That would give us some indication of what time frame the line of Robert Whitney of Castleton split off that line.

- Robert - Talk to me 20:04, 2 October 2006 (CDT)

Flourished?

Tim,

In some cases, we encounter someone whose birth and death dates are completely unknown, but who appears in a dated record. In such cases, is there any need to have a family group record page?

If we do decide to create such a family group record page, the issue of a name for it arises. Librarians often use the idea of saying things like "Geoffrey Whitney, fl. 1552," where fl. is an abbreviation for "flourished". What do you think of using names like "Family:Whitney, Geoffrey (fl1552)", or "Family:Whitney, Geoffrey (fl.1552)", or "Family:Whitney, Geoffrey (~1552)", to handle such cases? Or should we just use "Family:Whitney, Geoffrey (?-a1552)"?

- Robert - Talk to me 17:59, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

Private Page

Tim,

The test worked. I'll start posting the draft.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:01, 10 October 2006 (CDT)

Article

Tim,

Let's discuss the article in its own comments page, not in our User talk pages.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:59, 11 October 2006 (CDT)

Alumni

Tim,

In default of any other obvious place, you could link to it from the Miscellaneous page. The only other possibility I see is Biographies, but I don't really like it.

If we get other data of the same type, like directories of physicians, or clergymen, etc., we could create a category of Professions, or some such name. Then we could link this in, since almost all graduates became clergymen or barristers.

- Robert - Talk to me 11:48, 13 October 2006 (CDT)

How to Make Plaintext Small?

Tim:

I want to make the pedigree chart at the end of Archive:Whitney's Choice of Emblemes in a smaller font. It is inside a p tag making it plaintext. I don't want to put font tags at the beginning and end of every line. How can I do that effectively?

I also notice that some of the font tags I have used in footnotes aren't making the text smaller, either. I guess I don't understand changing sizes of text in the wiki paradigm.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:37, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

How to Make Plaintext Small, Again

Tim,

This didn't work as desired. See the pedigree at the bottom of the page. I guess either I need more help, or I need you to edit the page until it works. Replacing div id="Lineages" with p id="Plaintext" (and /div with /p) makes the table look right, but not smaller.

- Robert - Talk to me 17:17, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Footnotes Smaller, Too?

Tim,

You'll see on the same web page, at the bottom of each of the transcribed pages lxxxii, lxxxv, and lxxxvii, appears a footnote, begun with an asterisk. Please explain why putting "font size=2" tags didn't work, and tell me what will work to make the footnotes appear in a smaller text than the rest.

- Robert - Talk to me 18:11, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Footnotes Smaller, Too, Again

Tim,

When I used font size=2 on the title page, it worked fine. Why did it work there and not in the footnotes?

- Robert - Talk to me 18:23, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Footnotes Smaller, Yet Again

Tim,

Using "font size=-1" didn't work, either. The only thing I found that worked was "font size=1", so I used that.

- Robert - Talk to me 18:38, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Problem with File

Tim,

There is a problem with the file Image:Will of Robert Whitney, 1541.jpg. I can include it in a web page using the usual construct [[Image:Will of Robert Whitney, 1541.jpg]]. I can also use [[Image:Will of Robert Whitney, 1541.jpg|thumb|400px]]. I can't use [[Image:Will of Robert Whitney, 1541.jpg|thumb|500px]]. When I use either version that works, and click on the image (which is a link, too), I get a totally blank screen. I can't delete the file, nor does reloading it seem to help.

Can you straighten out this mess? If not, can you delete the file and let me upload a new version, thus hopefully rectifying the situation?

- Robert - Talk to me 08:14, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Can One Post a .pdf File?

Tim:

I've been thinking about how to post the index to the Whitney and Clifford Manor documents. They came to us from Adrian as a large .pdf file. I don't want to print it out and do OCR on the pages. I'd rather just post it directly, but I don't know if that could work, or how to do it if it could. Any ideas?

- Robert - Talk to me 20:16, 3 November 2006 (CST)

PDF

Tim,

Perhaps a better temporary measure would be to post it on the OLD website, and make a link to it from the new one. Asking for a volunteer sounds good!

- Robert - Talk to me 09:16, 5 November 2006 (CST)

Tree Template

Tim:

It seems to me to be just as much work to use this template as to draw the tree using ASCII characters, but the results are much prettier. I read some of the comments, and I agree that marriages should be designated with a double solid line, not a single dashed line. That means that more tiles would have to be designed and labeled by some single characters.

My net reaction is that this isn't worth the trouble, but I am not adamant about that view.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:36, 12 November 2006 (CST)

Two Chronology Issues

Tim:

1. You wrote, " ... this would mean that his eldest son Robert was still living in 1645, but we have him listed as having died before 1638. Do you know why we have him listed thus?" Yes. It comes from the matriculation records of his younger brothers. If Constantine was second son in 1638, then Thomas, the eventual heir, must have been the first son, so all older sons must have died before that date, including Robert. There seems to have been a clerical error, either in the index, or, more likely, in the original document, and it should have said Thomas Whitney, esq., son and heir.

2. You wrote, "If the Eustace Whitney who married Elizabeth Freville in 1301 was actually Eustace de Whitney (c1287-c1352), then he had to have been born before our estimated date of 1287. Either we have this Eustace's birthyear too late, or this marriage was a second marriage for his father Eustace." The birth dates we have for the early generations are rough estimates and extrapolations from the ages of later generations. That means that they are likely to be off by a certain amount. My guess is that Eustace was born somewhat earlier, perhaps 1275-1280, and his father accordingly earlier. That also means that his son Robert probably was born before 1318, perhaps 1302-1307, and later generations might be accordingly somewhat older (possibly enough older to include an extra generation we don't show).

- Robert - Talk to me 17:17, 19 November 2006 (CST)

Bad Links

Tim:

On the "Recent Changes" page, in the toolbox on the lower left-hand side of the page, are two links, one labeled "rss" and the other labeled "atom". Neither is valid, although I can't say I understand the error message. (Neither do I have any idea what their purpose might be, but that probably doesn't matter.) Please either fix them or remove the links.

- Robert - Talk to me 12:53, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Llores vs Llorde

Tim:

Looking more closely at the name, I think it actually must be Elinor Lloyde. I have changed the page to reflect that.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:21, 1 December 2006 (CST)

Projects versus Conversion

Tim:

I see we have the WRG:Website Conversion Project page and a WRG Projects page. I am reorganizing these to reflect the division between converting the old website data to the new one (such as importing the existing Phoenix pages), and organizing the data on the new one (such as adding links between Pierce and the family groups coming from it). I also added a link to the latter on the Main page.

- Robert - Talk to me 08:54, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Consolidation?

Tim:

I see that we have two pages that maybe would benefit from consolidation: Whitney and Clifford Manuscripts and Archive:Whitney and Clifford Manuscript Index. The consolidated page, perhaps named Archive:Whitney and Clifford Manorial Records Index should have breadcrumbs at the top, leading back to Archives and what else? Should we create a page for Whitney-on-Wye/Whitney Parish/Whitney Manor? Or would this be an appropriate use of the Category: page? Likewise for Clifford (Village)/Clifford Parish/Clifford Manor?

- Robert - Talk to me 09:28, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Navigation

Tim:

What do you think of adding "sideways" links to the Family: pages, leading from each page to the next most senior in genealogical order? That way, one could step through a generation without having to go up the line to ancestors and then back down. This occurred to me because of my list of John Whitney Descendants by Generation, which serves almost the same purpose.

As you no doubt have noticed, I have been working my way through the fourth generation from John¹ Whitney, cleaning up Andaleen's pages and adding place categories. I have NOT tried to source all the data. That remains a HUGE project for the future. I've now completed the grandchildren of John² and Richard². Next is the grandchildren of Thomas². Two done, four to go. Then there is the fifth generation, which figures to be about four or five times more work than the fourth.

- Robert - Talk to me 16:41, 15 December 2006 (CST)

Location Categories and Pierce

Adding the categories to the transcription pages does seem silly. Should this be a policy for most or all the Extracts pages?

- Robert - Talk to me 17:41, 16 December 2006 (CST)

1880 Census

Tim:

There is still one link not done on the Archive:Census Records page: the index of the whole U.S.A. in 1880. Of course it is just a sorted concatenation of all the state indexes, but it still needs to be done.

- Robert - Talk to me 17:45, 16 December 2006 (CST)

Migrating

Tim,

Congratulations on finishing the migration of the census pages!

As to the U.S.S. Constitution, I suppose we should bring it over, but I haven't been enthusiastic about doing that, since it is fairly tangential to the purpose of Whitney genealogy. There is a connection, of course, I just felt we had more important things to do. If it is the last thing left to do, then I suppose we should do it. <sigh> At least when it and the Phoenix import are done, we could say that we have finished the migration.

Actually, there is another import that has to be done: the descendant report for Ebenezer and Huldah (Mooers) Whitney of N.B.

Then there is the matter of the databases ...

I moved the adding of locality categories to WRG Projects, under Families.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:27, 16 December 2006 (CST)

Phoenix Page Name Format

Tim:

We have to decide whether we are going to keep the Phoenix pages in groups of five, or split them apart into single pages as you did for the Pierce Project. Once that is decided, we need to settle on the correct format for the names. For Pierce, we used Archive:The Descendants of John Whitney, page 99, for example. For Phoenix, should we use Archive:The Whitney Family of Connecticut, page 99, for example, or Archive:The Whitney Family of Connecticut, pages 96-100? Or would some other name be appropriate, such as Archive:Phoenix, page 99 and analogue? If we split the book into single pages, probably we would have to subdivide the index page into several parts, not wanting to put 2700+ links on a single page.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:35, 21 December 2006 (CST)

Article Notes and Issues

Tim:

Yes, I saw the new note. I don't think we need to change anything. We've referenced the visitation pedigrees multiple times. To do so again seems gratuitous. Perhaps if David Greene wants it, I'll add such a reference, but I think it's unnecessary.

I've also considered the Issues carefully. I can't really answer any of them, so to include statements to that effect seems not a useful exercise. Again, if David Greene or his reviewers want them addressed, I'll try to do something, but not unless. Also, the article is already over-long, so adding anything to it makes that problem even worse.

All I'm waiting for is the original pedigrees from England, and I'll submit the article.

- Robert - Talk to me 22:30, 21 December 2006 (CST)

Placename Categories

Tim:

Adding placename categories to Andaleen's pages I consider a part of importing my 6-generation study from the old web site. For other pages, it's a WRG Project. That means it really fits under both topics.

- Robert - Talk to me 22:38, 21 December 2006 (CST)

New Users

Tim:

The list of new users on the right-hand side of the Main Page is not working right. No new users appear for several days, even though they have, indeed, been added.

- Robert - Talk to me 08:48, 24 December 2006 (CST)

Subtitle

Tim:

Good job with the subtitle on the main page! I like the idea and your execution of it. One suggestion: I think the page would look better with less space between it and the orange "Welcome" box below it.

- Robert - Talk to me 12:41, 27 December 2006 (CST)

Andaleen Has Volunteered Again

Tim:

I see that Andaleen Whitney has volunteered to help with updating the census indexes with data from Ancestry.com. Let's start talking about what format/template/model to use.

Are you comfortable with the table format we are using, with headings Given Name, County, Township, Page, and Data? Should we put the Data on a separate census extracts page? It's obvious that this has to be done for 1850 on, but what about 1790-1840? Should we do that just for the sake of consistency? Should the link from the index to the data be Given Name, or the Page, or something else? Should we link the Given Name to a Family Group Record? We should definitely link the name on the extracts page to the FGR.

Other thoughts?

- Robert - Talk to me 17:56, 31 December 2006 (CST)

James Francis Whitney

I have a little information on James Francis Whitney. Not sure if it is true still checking. Parents may be: John Whitney m. Emily Tracy b. Ireland they married in New York around 1867. I was also told a different name so like I said still checking this out. I know that James parents moved to LaSalle because his father John was a brick layer and worked for the LaBasce Chimney Works and he relocated to LaSalle, Illinios around 1885. John Whitney help build the catholic church in LaSalle, Illinois they moved to LaSalle around 1885. This is what I have been told by older relatives that still attend the same church. I have sent information to the LaSalle Ottawa Genealogy Guild site to see if they have any records on the Whitney family. The whole town of Ottawa, Illinois is Whitney and Fribbs so that should be fun. Thanks for any research you can give me on this matter... Pam

Parentage Unknown

Tim:

Of course this category should only apply to families. I put it on that page when there wasn't any family group record for John Whitney of Kinnersley, and forgot to remove it when I created that page. I erroneously rolled back your change, so now I've made it again, removing the category from the will page. Sorry about the error!

- Robert - Talk to me 15:51, 6 January 2007 (CST)

Copyright Date

Tim:

When a new page, either Family: or Archive:, is created using the facility for doing this that you made, a preloaded page is displayed. It contains a copyright notice. The date on that notice needs to be changed from 2006 to 2007.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:52, 7 January 2007 (CST)

Jacob, son of Ezra

Tim,

Thanks for the message. Definitely a different Jacob (our Jacob died in 1833).

I will change my user page to reflect that.

Now we need to find a birthdate for Jacob Whitney, son of Richard Whitney, Jr.

Is there someone who can help us with this branch?

Thanks again,

Jerry

Jacob, son of Richard

Yes. Timothy Watts Whitney went to Nashua, NH and married Hannah Frances Knight of Amherst, NH in 1849. They moved to Waterford, PA after that. She seems to have preferred Frances to Hannah. On some census she is Hannah F. and Francis H. Whitney on others. I don't know who the Samuel Whitney, Machinist in Nashua is.

Should I upload Timothy's obituary and link it to my user page? Among his next of kin, it lists his half-brother Warren Foster. Polly Watts married Daniel Foster after Jacob Whitney died in 1833.

I am working on Richard6 as Jacob's father.

I find Richard Whitney in the 1800 & 1810 census in Andover, VT (next to Weston) and in the 1820, 1830, 1840 census in Weston.

Jacob appears as head of household in 1830, living next to Richard Whitney.

(note: on Ancestry.com in 1830, Whitney is transcribed as Whiting) (Also, in 1840, Weston is called Baltimore on Ancestry.com)

I have an inquiry into Wilton, NH to see if there is any record of Jacob's birth, circa 1797.

From the descendents of John-1 generation 5 Children of Richard5 Whitney and Sarah Butterfield were: 3631. i. Richard6; b. 25 Jun 1770 at Wilton, NH; m. Salley (--?--) circa 1795 at Wilton, NH; d. 30 Mar 1845 at Weston, VT, at age 74.

Best regards,

Jerry

Elizabeth Nelson's User Page

Tim:

What shall we do about Elizabeth Nelson's user page? I left her a message that what she has put there is impossible, with links to the sources. She persists in adding wrong information to her user page. I, for one, don't want that stuff on our web site, even if it is on a personal user page. Should we send e-mail? Should we just delete it? How about using strike-through to indicate the false data? How about a [NOTE] link to a page explaining the problem, as we did with Pierce? How about a warning box at the top of the page, like we did with Bond and Phoenix? Other ideas?

- Robert - Talk to me 20:41, 4 February 2007 (CST)

Progress!

Tim:

I've finished reformatting and adding categories to the Family: pages of the fifth-generation descendants of John², Richard², and Thomas². There remain Jonathan², Joshua², and Benjamin². That means I'm not even halfway done (328 of 818 families, just over 40%) with that project. It has been long, about seven weeks, and will continue for some time, but the result will be worthwhile. It will remain to source all the facts on those pages, a much larger job, which I don't intend to begin! Then I'll begin to add pages for the sixth generation families of male Whitneys.

Have you given any more thought to the census page issues we discussed earlier?

- Robert - Talk to me 08:04, 5 February 2007 (CST)

New Buttons

Tim:

Yes, they would be of use, except the subscripting, strikethrough, and picture gallery ones. Among the buttons already present, I also would never use the media file link or math formula ones on our web site.

- Robert - Talk to me 18:36, 9 February 2007 (CST)

Computer Crash (again!)

Tim:

Well, it happened again. My Dell computer won't boot up to Windows XP. I've been on the line to technical support for three days, with mixed results. I am using my wife's laptop to send you this message. It's not clear how much longer this situation will last. Fortunately, the computer is still under warranty, so if it's a hardware problem, they have to fix it free. If it's a software problem, presumably that can be solved (eventually)!!). The laptop itself has major issues having to do with Norton Internet Security 2006, so I use it only sparingly. Hopefully I'll be back to business as usual very soon.

- Robert - Talk to me 12:07, 13 February 2007 (CST)

He's Ba-a-a-ack!

Tim:

I'm back. At last! It turns out that the problem was an intermittently bad memory board. It passed all the hardware tests, but failed when trying to boot up Windows XP. I've removed the offending part, and am now running with half of my usual quota of memory. That slows things down a bit, as the OS is doing more paging now than before, but at least I'm functioning! Since my computer was still under warranty, Dell is sending me two (not one) memory modules, with which I'll replace the old ones (both of them), and return the old ones to them, with no charge (even for shipping!). The diagnosis of the problem was lengthy, and took many sessions with the tech support guys at Dell, Verizon, and Symantec.

Let me say a word for Norton Ghost. Without that, I'd have had a great deal of work to restore all the installed software and all my settings. My data I'd have gotten back from other backups, but Ghost 10.0 almost immediately returned me to the exact state I was at a week ago. Hooray!!

Now back to the work at hand.

- Robert - Talk to me 13:43, 14 February 2007 (CST)

More Progress

Tim:

I've finished reformatting and adding categories for ALL of the fifth-generation heads of household.

What do you think of Andaleen's idea of inserting pre tags around each family group? I think it's unnecessary, and I don't really like it.

- Robert - Talk to me 15:40, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Wiki Error?

Tim:

Go to Recent Changes. Go back to 14:23 on 25 Feb 2007 and look at the unpatrolled edit there. When I click on (diff), I get a blank page. That seems like an error. Can you please look into the situation? It's been that way for several weeks.

There's another at 13:50 on 28 Mar 2007 of the same kind.

And another at 16:53 on 28 Mar 2007. All three are pages modified by Andaleen.

- Robert - Talk to me 07:51, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

Duplicate Pages

Tim:

I see we have two pages which duplicate each other:

• Archive:Calendar of Probate and Administration Acts, Herefordshire
• Archive:Bishop of Hereford Court Books

Which one should we delete and redirect links to it to the other one?

- Robert - Talk to me 18:12, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

Phoenix Footnotes

Tim:

I changed Template:PhoenixFootnote, and so I had to go back and change all the pages which used it. I think all those pages are O.K. now. This template now only creates one-column footnotes, left-justified. I can create one for one-column footnotes, centered, if that seems to be a good idea, reflecting the actual typography in the book. I don't know how to create one for two-column footnotes. I tried several permutations, but passing a table in as an argument to a template seems to fail. Another issue is that passing a block of lines with blanks at the beginning, to make a chart, as an argument to a template also seems to fail. It would be nice to have both those capabilities, but neither is essential.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:22, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Phoenix Import

Tim:

I have finished importing pages 1-346, consisting of the first six generations, of Phoenix's The Whitney Family of Connecticut. This is slightly more than 1/3 of the pages I had previously transcribed. I can finish the job without help from a program. It should take me about a month of work, give or take.

I also used the material from pages 1-12 to flesh out the page of Henry¹ and create a page for his son John². I realized that creating such pages is a more difficult operation than I had thought. The next big project for me after the import is that family group record creation, using the data from Phoenix. I thought I'd start with the Whitney males, then the Whitney females, then the children of Whitney females, and so on. Thoughts on this?

Comments?

- Robert - Talk to me 11:45, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Duplicates

Tim:

Yes, those two pages are duplicates.

- Robert - Talk to me 08:05, 16 May 2007 (CDT)

Phoenix Progress

Tim:

I have finished making family group pages for all the male Whitney descendants of Henry¹ through the fourth generation. I have supplied sources for all facts. I have not tried to find all sources for these family groups.

There are 52 Whitney males in the fifth generation. I have considered making pages for them similar to what was done for the Pierce import, that is, just cite at the bottom that all data was imported from the Phoenix transcription, without trying to source each fact.

There are 4 Whitney females in the third generation, and 6 in the fourth generation. Do you think I should try to deal with them by sourcing each fact, or by the alternative method above, or just leave them alone for the time being?

- Robert - Talk to me 08:55, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

Phoenix Process

Tim:

Here is the way I'm doing the Phoenix pages.

I create a large file with all the pages I intend to work on, by appending all the 5-page files together in a word-processor file (I actually use WordPerfect). The one I'm uploading now contains pages 347 through 500. I have another ready to go with 501 through 916. Each of these is about 0.7 megabytes. Then I do a lot of global search-and-replace operations to remove the HTML syntax and replace it with the templates and other wiki syntax. This is trickier than I originally thought, but feasible. Then I have to fix the links, including the PhoenixPageLinks arguments. This is a bit painful, but also feasible. Then I have to deal with footnotes, whether they are one-column or two, whether they are centered or not, and whether they contain charts. Charts are done separately, then pasted into the big file.

When all the edits are done, I can begin the uploading process: I copy a pageful from this file to the clipboard, and paste it into an edit window for the next page. Then I do a preview (which often turns up some anomalies), make any adjustments, and save the result. I use the "Next Page" link to open an edit window for the following page, and repeat until done.

- Robert - Talk to me 16:35, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Phoenix Essentially Done

Tim,

As you can tell, the Phoenix importation is essentially done. Remaining are just the links from the main Phoenix page to the book pages, which I'm working on. Then there is the matter of what more pages from the book should be transcribed. I'm thinking the 50-page index of places could be valuable. I'm also thinking that the person numbers in the index of names should be linked back to the book pages. Thoughts?

The next most important project in my opinion is how to deal with the databases. I'm afraid that this is your bailiwick, not mine. Thoughts?

I suppose I'll go back to making family group pages for the male-line descendants of Henry, as giving by Phoenix. If I get tired of that, there's plenty more to do with the descendants of John.

- Robert - Talk to me 18:54, 5 June 2007 (CDT)

Database Options

Tim:

I've been thinking about the database problem. I have several comments.

First, I think we need to import the database information on families which are not already in the wiki format into wiki family group records. Then we will have to create links to and from them with the appropriate other family group records (parents and lineages, particularly). We may also need to modify existing family group records according to what is in the databases, but that's a bit trickier.

Second, I think we need to keep the current versions of the GEDCOM files available for download. This would be via a link to the old website, no doubt.

Third, as far as updating the wiki goes, it might be possible to get the database owners to send us, in addition to the new versions of the databases, a differential GEDCOM, that is, what has changed in the database since the last version. Then we could update the wiki family group records accordingly, without having to do a full import every time there is a new version.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:33, 6 June 2007 (CDT)

Ebenezer

Tim:

I looked for things your bot could fix about the Ebenezer file. This could all be moot if we find a way to import directly from the GEDCOM to wiki family group records.

Complicating this is the fact that I have received a new version of the Ebenezer GEDCOM from Mary Ellen Jones, which I haven't done anything useful with, yet. I could make a new version of the HTML file on the old website, using TMG and the new GEDCOM, and then you could import that, as you have already done with the old one. Would that be a good idea for the interim?

One bot fix would be to convert strings like [#idNNN TEXT] to [[#idNNN|TEXT]], where NNN is a string of digits, and TEXT is any text not containing a ]. Then when the anchor issue is fixed, this will create the proper links to the anchors.

I'm still looking at the file.

- Robert - Talk to me 10:45, 6 June 2007 (CDT)

Searching

Tim:

Thanks for recreating the searches in Rootsweb and the Forum. That's a biggie for me!

- Robert - Talk to me 12:33, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Problems Galore

Tim:

I see that all our Massachusetts Vital Records pages were affected by the "upgrade" of the wiki software to the newer versions. Now the <dl>, <dt>, <dd> and </dl> tags are not recognized. It looks like your bot has a big job to do to rectify all that.

<dl> and </dl> tags can be deleted. <dt> tags can be replaced with a carriage return, and <dd> tags can be replaced with a colon. While you're about it, you can replace <b> and </b> with ''', <i> and </i> with '', <h2> and </h2> with ==, <h3> and </h3> with ===, etc.

Another issue I noticed is that I used <font size=-2>...</font> to display a gravestone inscription, and passed that in to the PhoenixEntry template as part of the second argument. This caused an error. I finally left the font size unchanged.

There are no doubt further artifacts to be discovered. I'll keep my eyes out for more.

- Robert - Talk to me 18:10, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

More Changes

Tim:

Fine! Substitute for <br> instead <br />, and where ever the words "Whitney Research Group" appear without enclosing [[...]], add them. Furthermore, you can change <pre> and </pre> to <div id="plaintext"> and </div>, respectively. This holds true on every page at the web site.

I also see some left-over <p> tags, about which I'm not sure what to do.

Have you figured out how to deal with the anchors in the Ebenezer GEDCOM import?

- Robert - Talk to me 11:49, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

Hubert Whitney

Yes, That's what I was thinking too. I want to confirm that Hubert is the descendent of

Chauncy Harris Whitney Born: 1805-03-17 Oswego,Oswego,New York,USA Died: 1874

whose mother is a Mayflower descendent. I'm still trying to get the hang of the wiki! Thanks for your post! I'm interested in any help you have to offer.