User:Tdoyle/2007 2Q

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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.

More Errors

Tim:

I see on Archive:Holman Research Reports, Part 1, for example, that the wiki no longer recognizes <ol><li>...</ol> constructs, either. We'll have to replace the <ol> and </ol> with nothing and the <li> with #. I haven't seen and <ul> and </ul> yet, but if they appear and aren't recognized, the <ul> and </ul> can also be deleted, but now the <li> tags should be replaced with *.

- Robert - Talk to me 08:28, 13 June 2007 (CDT)

Silas and Turbodoug

Tim:

Isaac and Nathaniel from the article are not listed as children of Joshua⁴ Whitney on the web page because the evidence for their existence has been invalidated. Isaac is a mistake for Isaac Kibbe, a son-in-law, married to Joshua's daughter Phebe⁵, and Nathaniel Whitney was another son-in-law, married to Joshua's daughter Hannah⁵. The identity of this Nathaniel is unknown. They were supposedly listed in Joshua's probate, but an examination of the original revealed the above relationships.

- Robert - Talk to me 21:48, 13 June 2007 (CDT)

Joshua #3

Tim- Thank you for the information about the third Joshua. In the handwritten notes from my father's cousin.

I have Silas Whitney b. 1770/71 marrying Tryphina Lane in 1791 died 1836 Buried in Temple Hill Cemetery, Geneseo, N.Y.. #2 wife Electa Hawks (came from Connecticut) and #3wife Huldah born 1774 died Oct. 4, 1846 in Rochester, May be buried in Temple Hill. Children with Tryphina. 1. Jemima born 1792 2. Male child ? 3. Simeon L. born July 7, 1802 ?4. Another son?

Silas 1795 Came to Ontario County, N.Y. from Medway MA. 1796 was in Ontario County at Pittstown (now Honeoye) Later in Bristol, N.Y. Came to Geneseo, N.Y.

1855- Silas was 85 yrs old and lived in son Simeon's home.

I am still digesting the handwritten pages but the above is an excerpt. I will continue to correspond.

Which Nathaniel?

Tim:

On Family:Whitney, Nathaniel (1696-1776) it says that "On 15 Oct 1727, at Concord, MA, he owned the covenant." Notice that his grandfather Family:Whitney, Nathaniel (1647-1733) married his second wife in 1724 in Concord. Don't you think it's more likely that the datum belongs to the grandfather rather than the grandson, who has no other known connection to Concord?

- Robert - Talk to me 20:05, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

Ebenezer / Databases

Tim:

Of course I agree that working directly with the databases directly is the preferred method. You'll have to do that anyway for the remaining databases, so why not do it with Ebenezer, too? In fact, since we have a new version of his GEDCOM, the old descendancy report is obsolete anyway, so importing that version is a mistake, except as a test.

Using TMG is a good idea for each of the databases. Once the GEDCOM is imported, one has to go through a tedious process of editing and realigning all the place names. Then it would be a relatively easy matter to use TMG to create a report in any word processor format (HTML would be good, for the links), and containing whatever information the GEDCOM contains. The use of sentences for tag types is critical for creating grammatically correct versions of each fact. The precise contents and lay-out of such a report would be pretty much under control. The internal links would of course be HTML links. There is also the capability of generating place and name indexes for each such report, which might or might not be desirable.

The above is more or less the process I used to create the six-generation studies for John¹ and Henry¹, and also the full descendancy for Ebenezer. If I did such a thing again, I'd pay more attention to the sentences for tags. For the purposes of the wiki web site, I think separate reports for each descendant might be preferable to a single massive report for everyone in the GEDCOM. Then the conversion to wiki format might be simpler, since one wouldn't have to split up the report first. I don't know if the HTML links would work in that case, but it would be worth finding out.

I don't know how to merge the information from the GEDCOMs with the wiki family group records that already exist. That is sure to be an issue at some point. There are family groups in some of the GEDCOMs that already exist, and there are some which can be linked from the existing pages through children which don't already have a page of their own, but appear on their parents' page.

I'll help in any way you think I could be useful.

- Robert - Talk to me 09:52, 19 June 2007 (CDT)

RE: your edit of mine---

Hi Tim, My dad (Frank James Whitney) passed in February of 06 (just short of his 90th birthday). I have a brother,(Richard Alan) but he had only 2 girls, I never married and have no children--so, our line stops with my brother. I rather doubt that either of my neices will marry and have children. As Rich and I were cleaning out my dad's house, I found many things that I'd thought were lost. I've got George's marriage license to "Helen" Louise Jones in Australia as well as the name of her father. But I was not able, YET, to find out how/when her family came to be in Australia. I also know quite a bit about "Uncle" Frank (my dad's name sake). I have patents that he and ggrandfather George held as well as some photos. Of course I know of my dad and brother's war service in WWII & Vietnam. I hesitate to post it as it is "current" data and it could be used for an identity theft situation. I doubt any of this info would be of interest to anyone outside of our line. By the way, I've corrected something on your addition--there is no RIVERSIDE, Illinois where George & Frank were suppose to live. They lived in HUBBARD WOODS which is now WINNETKA, ILLINOIS. They died there and are buried in Sycamore, Illinois. No one knew much about the other "Uncle" Fred as far as we knew he died/was killed/?? in Minnesota before anyone moved down to Illinois. My grandfather, Fred Allington--son of George and Orrilla--passed in the late 70s and again, I hesitate to post info about him for the same reasons mentioned above.

I'm trying to figure out how/why/when exactly our ancestors left the "east" and traveled "west" to end up in the Ohio/Minnesota/Illinois area. Any help there that you might run across would be appreciated.

Thanks. Sandy Whitney (Las Vegas, NV)