User talk:Rlward

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System Rights

Robert: I just realized that I had not given you 'sysop' or 'bureaucrat' rights on the wiki. Sysop rights allows you to delete pages and other administrative tasks. Bureaucrat status allows you to grant similar sysop and bureaucrat rights to other users. If you see pages which need to be deleted, you should now see a delete tab at the top of each page (you may need to log off and back on to see this). To rename a page, simply select the Move tab and type in the new name.

Tdoyle 09:01, 17 January 2006 (CST)

Table converter

Robert: As you move data over, you might want to convert HTML-style tables to wik-style tables. You can copy the source to your clipboard, paste it on this website, and it will provide the modified source for you to place in our wiki. Wiki Table Converter.

Divbox feature

Robert: I have just added a new feature. We can decide to use it or not use it. In any case, it's there when and if we need it. Take a look at Template talk:Divbox. This basically gives us an easy way to add a colored box to any page.

Tim, Tdoyle 15:12, 19 January 2006 (CST)

De Salis Fraud

Robert: I see that you've been adding N.B. sections and other comments on pages containing information that came from the De Salis fraud. I'm thinking that we may need to really let people know about this - in a stronger manner. Take a look at Archive:Phoenix, xvi-xxii and you'll see the warning that I have added at the top. If you'd like to change the wording of this message, just edit Template:De Salis Fraud.

Tim, Tdoyle 18:20, 21 January 2006 (CST)

Warning

Robert:

At the top of the page you are working on (with the N.B. at the top), try this instead of your current divbox:

{{Warning|The information given here does contain some errors. Use with care!}}

Which will produce this:

You can add any text that is appropriate and the image will always be displayed. We can upload a larger version of that image for this purpose if we think it'd be better visually. If you prefer, you can also stay with your current method.

Tim, Tdoyle

Userboxes

Robert: Take a look at my user page, above my lineages. These are called userboxes and we can create them as we think of them. It's a great way to get people interested in working with their homepages, and telling others about themselves. I've created one for descendants of John & Henry, and we can add them for other immigrants or groups, locations that members currently live (countries or states), other interests, genealogical certifications, etc.

- Tim Doyle 09:18, 26 January 2006 (CST)

Editing the Main Page

Robert: It looks as though you've already fixed the main page, but I suspect you may not realize it. On that page, I have the following:

===[[Miscellaneous]]===
{{:Miscellaneous}}

• The first line is fairly simple - start a 3rd-level heading (the equal signs) and make the text be a link to the page named 'Miscellaneous'.
• The second line might be a bit confusing - it basically says go grab the contents of the page named 'Miscellaneous' and display them here, as if I had typed them here originally. That's what the {{ and }} characters do. This is how the templates work. By default, these curly braces look for the page you designate in the Template: namespace. Because I wanted to grab the Miscellaneous page from the main namespace, I had to put the : in front of it. In this way, we can display the contents of the Misc. page both on the Misc page as well as on the main page, and only have to edit it once. Why do we have to have it in both places? This goes back to that whole discussion many years ago where I was in favor of a simplified main page, but others wanted the descriptions. We can break this to make it easier to edit by placing the items on both pages, but we'll have to remember to edit both.

- Tim Doyle 21:13, 27 January 2006 (CST)

Citations and Family template

Robert:

The new citation functionality that I was looking into (and had mentioned on my list) turned out to be for a future, as yet unreleased version of the software running this site, and as such, we cannot yet use it. I propose we continue with the current method of citing sources. We can always re-examine this in the future if we choose to, but there's no reason to stop from moving forward now.

I have created a Family Group Record Format page where I have started to add style guidelines as well as a template format that we can use for the Family pages. Take a look at the discussion tab on that article as well - that's where I suggest we discuss issues in the Family namespace.

Thanks,

- Tim Doyle 08:50, 2 February 2006 (CST)

GEDCOMs

Robert:

I have made great progress on getting the GEDCOM data on the wiki. Take a look at John Whitney in Allan Green's database and let me know what you think. Keep in mind that this is a beta version, and that not all of the links presented on those pages work properly, but the links to other people do.

- Tim Doyle 09:59, 3 February 2006 (CST)

Your database

Robert: Take a look at John Whitney in Robert Ward's database. I've noticed a few issues, but it's at least there.

- Tim Doyle 18:56, 3 February 2006 (CST)

Phoenix Format

Robert:

A few questions regarding the Phoenix import:

• Do all pages include the title you currently show at the top of the page?
• Do all pages include the title "Whitney Family" inside the box?

Thanks!

Phoenix Format, part 2

Robert:

I am soon going to take that sample page and start to extract certain repetitive formatting type information out into templates and add the calls to the templates in the page. This will simplify the pages themselves making for easier editing by users, and will put the formatting code in one area, so that if we decide to change it in the future, we can make the change in one place instead of thousands of individual pages. Your information about the headings is very helpful - now I know that I need to do it like I did the Pierce headings, sending in three parameters.

- Tim Doyle 11:07, 15 February 2006 (CST)

Phoenix

Robert:

Take a look at the first page of the Phoenix Test located at Phoenix Test. As you can see, I pulled out all of the formatting code into templates, making the actual pages a lot more readable. Can you verify that the results look correct? Does this format make sense to you?

Thanks,

- Tim Doyle 08:48, 16 February 2006 (CST)

Phoenix

Thank you - I think adding these templates really cleaned up the page and made it easier for editors to understand. It also reduces the chances for typos to throw the whole page out of whack. Feel free to change this page or the templates as desired. Although the test page will eventually be deleted, the templates are there to stay, so it's important that we fine tune them to get them right.

Are the center items ALWAYS italicized? If so, we can change the template to add that. If not, we'll need to change the call to the template to send in the italics when needed.

When pages start with a continuation of an entry, we can either just add a new entry and not pass any parameters to the template for the left and right columns, or we can create a new template called PhoenixEntryContinued and just pass the text for the middle section.

We should probably seperate out the horizontal rule and the title for the new family - so that we can call when needed. This will solve the issue of a page starting with a family group, but no horizontal line needed.

We should probably add a new template to start a new generation, and call it when needed.

I am going to go make these changes, but I'll probably need you to modify the contents of the generation template once I create it.

- Tim Doyle 10:40, 16 February 2006 (CST)

Excellent Progress!

Robert:

You're making excellent progress! I've been very busy with work and haven't had a chance to really sit down and make much progress here other than a page here and there. I'm leaving for California this afternoon, returning Friday, so I probably won't make much progress here before next weekend.

I made a change last night and converted the page Archive:Whitney Whistler, Volume 1, Number 2 that had been entered with <pre> to instead use <p id="Plaintext">. This makes the page look like it's in a pre section, but allows the use of links. As we start to add links from these source material pages to the families, this will become important. No need to go back and convert all of these pages, but we'll need to keep this in mind as we start adding links. Also, this method is a bit fussier than the pre method. It allows the paragraph section to work, but it also opens up other things to start working as well. On this page, I had to 'fix' a line which started with a '#'.

I think I found a way to add my talk page to my signature - if so, you'll see it below.

Thanks,

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 07:33, 21 February 2006 (CST)

Reverted edit on Thomas' page

Robert:

I saw your two edits and your rollback on the Thomas Whitney page. Were you aware that the rollback feature rolls back multiple edits of a single author? Both of your edits (the descriptive changes for the ancestry as well as the spacing changes were reverted. Was this what you were intending? If not, the bext way to roll back a single change like this is to go to the history page, select the date/time of the version that you want to keep, edit it, and save it. That will make that version the most recent version.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 10:05, 28 February 2006 (CST)

Change to Pierce

Robert:

Take a look at this edit: Pierce Edit. Deb Whitney has added a few dates to a section in Pierce. We obviously don't want to lose this information, but I also know that adding it to Pierce is the wrong thing to do. I plan to roll back this change, but where should we record her additions?

Thanks,

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 14:55, 1 March 2006 (CST)

Errors in Pierce (and elsewhere)

Robert:

I think the idea of adding a warning graphic is a good one. It took us a long time to figure out how to make a graphic image a link, and it's not pretty, but here's how to do it:

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 10:33, 2 March 2006 (CST)

A better way

Robert:

How's this instead:

We can make a more generic one that can take a page name I think...

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 11:33, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Printable Version

Blech! That's nasty! I think I know how to fix it though. If I remember correctly, the software has a 'template' for the printable version, so a few tweaks to that should solve things (I hope).

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 18:38, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Henry Whitney

Robert:

I have added some information to the bottom of the page Henry Whitney's English Ancestry and I thought you would be interested.

Tim

Printable Version

Robert:

Thanks for reminding me about this. I have found where this is being generated, and it appears to be a one line change. I am now working to determine how best to fix it.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 10:10, 15 March 2006 (CST)

Printable Version - Fixed

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

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 10:15, 15 March 2006 (CST)

Templates & Under Construction

Robert:

I've noticed the new 'Under Construction' banner that you've been adding to the top of the page that you are currently working on. While my guess is that it's not that difficult to add and remove this from the page when you create and finish, I thought this might be a good time to explain a little more about templates. Templates are simply pages in the template namespace - that is - they start with "Template:". If you have content that you need to add to multiple pages, or content which you want to make easier to add to pages, then you can put this content in a template and then include that template on your page by adding {{TemplateName}} to your page(s).

For example... I just created a page named Template:Uc and placed in it the code that you have been adding to the top of your pages to mark them as being under construction. Now all you need to do is to add {{uc}} to the top of your page, which should be easier than typing or copying & pasting the full text.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 07:12, 16 March 2006 (CST)

SLC Trip

Robert:

I got your messages and will look at the printable version issue again. I am currently making backups and will send additional information soon.

I am currently looking at the original Isleworth records and they are highly damaged at the bottom of the book. It is possible that the missing children and even perhaps John's marriage to Elinor are there, but we are unable to read the records.

I have made copies of many records and should have some great stuff to put up on the site.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 11:03, 21 March 2006 (CST)

Elinor

Interesting... I've found two Elinors baptized during the right time period...

• 31 (Nov?) 1597 Elinor Nichols daughter of (Henry?) Nichols
• 2 Apr 1598 Elinor Baull daughter of Willyam Baull (Bull)

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 11:17, 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)

A number of issues

Robert:

This message is an attempt to catch up with a number of items that you have mentioned on my talk page...

• Why you don't need a template for Under Construction: I understand completely - sounds as though you have a great system that's working for you. I didn't want to imply that you should use a template for this, just wanted to make sure that you knew that you could.

• Backups: I am currently using the free software MySQL Administrator to back up the SQL databases containing our data. These backup files are then kept on my personal machine here. Since the WRG server is also in my home, the backups are not currently off-site, though I could certainly move them to some machine which is. I am also working to prepare a full system image of the server to reduce downtime should the server ever crash. In addition to the WRG databases, there would be a lot of additional infrastructure which would need to be set up in order to return the site to functionality. With an image, this would make all of that setup a breeze.

• Printable version: I think I made some improvements, and it's actually looking very good in Firefox, but now that I look at it in Explorer, I still see some issues. If you could describe exactly what you're seeing, that would help me to make sure I am not missing something.

• St. Mary Aldermary Changes: Thank you! With this format, there's no longer any questioning - everyone can see exactly what's in the register. Of course, this one only had 3 entries! The other ones will take a bit more to get in place, but I think it'll be worth it.

Now that you have had time to really use and to see the power of the wiki software, how well is it living up to your expectations and vision?

Thanks!

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 18:47, 27 March 2006 (CST)

Isleworth Records

Robert:

I can confirm that the Isleworth parish registers, as early as 1573 and probably earlier, start the year on March 21st, not January 1st. Although the original records do not indicate "1575/6", they do have the year starting on 3/21. Because of this, the date is listed as 26 Feb 1575, but to us would be considered 26 Feb 1576. Thus, I think the date should properly be listed as "26 Feb 1575[/6]"

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 08:15, 28 March 2006 (CST)

Replies to your Questions

Importing Status

Congratulations on the completion of the projects you have been working on - we're making great progress! Phoenix is next for me, I just need to find an afternoon or evening that I can devote to writing and testing the conversion code for it.

As far as the photos go, they all need to be imported, but I noticed that several of them were very very large and need to be resized, and some need to be trimmed. Do you know how to do that?

Unattached Families

Robert - How about adding categories with names such as "Unattached Families" or "Uncertain Identifications"? I'm not sure about the category names here, but I think categories would be a good way to go. I can then use the recentpages extension to automatically / dynamically display all pages with this category identification, so we'd have the best of both worlds.

It Finally Happened!

Robert - regarding the case where two individuals of the same name also have the same birth and death information, you're right - we need a way to identify them further. My suggestion would be to either add "(of Gorham, ME)" and "(of Westminster and Fitchburg, MA)" or perhaps their spouse names. If additional information is obtained in the future to differentiate them, we can rename the pages to a more standardized name.

Sources in Footnotes

Robert - I agree - I don't think that we should cite each and every source for an event on the family pages. Let's just cite the primary / best source(s). We should still link the other items to the family page, but we don't need to have reciprocal links for every case. We can always use the 'What links here' feature to find those other sources if needed.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 08:24, 11 April 2006 (CDT)

Moses Whitney

Robert:

I've noticed that sometimes you delete pages that have already been created for a given family. I didn't think much about it, but I see that you're currently updating the family of Moses Whitney, and I suspect that when you complete the links, that you will delete the page that I originally created. While this results in all of the links being correct, it completely erases the editing history of the pages before you created the page with the new name. This history could be valuable at some point in the future. I'm not sure if you are doing this because it is easier than renaming the existing page and then updating, or if you are just unaware of the 'correct' way to update the name of a page. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 19:51, 11 April 2006 (CDT)

Renaming Pages

Robert:

Here's the scoop...

To effectively rename a page, simply click the move tab at the top, then type in the new name that you would like it to have. This moves (renames) the existing page, and all of the editing history is saved with the page. In addition, a new page is automatically created with the old page name, and this new page contains a redirect to the new page name. This means that all existing links to the old page name will get to the new page name without any problems.

Personally, I like to 'clean up' after I move/rename a page. To do this, I navigate to the redirect page that was created and then use the what links here feature to determine which pages are linking to the old name. After I update all of them to point to the new name, I simply delete the redirect page. Note that this step is optional - it is perfectly ok to just leave the redirect page in place.

I think it would be better to have redirect pages on the site rather than losing editing history.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 08:32, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Real User Names

Robert:

There is no way to obtain a list of real user names via the Wiki interface, but I can obtain that by accessing the database directly. I've just emailed you the current list.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 08:23, 28 April 2006 (CDT)

What Links here / Photos

Hi Robert:

Here's what's going on here....

For each image uploaded, there is

1. The picture itself
2. A page which both describes and includes the picture

If you click on the image, you are taken to the page which describes that picture. Look at the section at the bottom of the page. It lists the pages which link to the image (which is a valid list). When you select 'What Links Here', you're asking for the list of pages which link not to the picture, but to the page that describes the picture, and there are none currently. This may not appear to be correct at first, but once you understand that the picture and that page that describes it are not one and the same, it makes sense.

If my explanation doesn't make sense, please let me know.

Thanks,

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 09:43, 2 May 2006 (CDT)

New Family Listing

Robert:

Take a look at Whitney Family Groups and let me know what you think of the new family listing. Also, take a look at the bottom of Archives.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 09:28, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

Locality Pages

Robert:

Thanks for the comments - I've been meaning to get these listings working and finally had the time to get the new extensions loaded.

Take a look at User:Tdoyle/Sandbox to see what else we can do with this functionality. I have basically called the 'RecentPages' extension and asked it to display all pages in the Family namespace with a category of Vermont, and then did the same thing for the archives. Imagine the possibilities! We could have a page for each State and perhaps even each county or location, though I wouldn't recommend setting all of those up yet. There may be a way that we can have just one page and allow the user to select which state they'd like to view.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 12:37, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

Listing of Pages

Robert:

Yes, it's basically the same functionality, but presented in a much better and more customizable fashion. Take a look at the Category:Vermont page now. Note that you can link to a category page without actually adding the page you're placing the link on to that category by this syntax: [[:Category: Vermont]].

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 13:35, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

Locality Subcategory

Actually, the subcategory is something that I added just today (at least to the Vermont category page). I still have plans to add that to the new page, but I haven't been able to get it to work just yet. Have you played with subcategories before, or did you just see it there after I added it today?

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 13:44, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

Pierce Error?

Robert:

While importing the page Archive:Who were Calvin and Haynes Whitney, I noticed that the Pierce page does not mention the potential problem. Should a note be added in Pierce?

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 17:56, 6 May 2006 (CDT)

Census Indexes

I am currently just bringing over the old pages, but my plans include going back and doing additional searches to see if we have missed any. I've also noticed that we have duplicates in our indices, as well as other things such as tax records, etc. These can be great alternatives to missing tax records, but I think they need to be called out more prominently than they are currently. I think there's a whole project around updating the census pages, but right now I'm just working on getting what we have migrated over.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 09:03, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

WRG-Robot

Robert:

You may have seen in the Recent Changes logs that I have been experimenting with a 'bot' under the account WRG-Robot. This is simply a set of programs which can be run to do automated tasks on MediaWiki-based websites. For example, data placed into a text file with certain keywords to designate where each page starts, ends, and what the title should be for each can be quickly imported into multiple pages on the site. It can also add, change, or remove categories from pages, make edits to all or a set of pages, etc. In order to do these edits, we must identify a unique pattern for it to follow.

There's nothing that you have to do with this information, but if you find yourself doing repetitive work of any type that you think might be able to be automated, please let me know and we can discuss how and if we can accomplish it with much less effort.

This is half of the effort to get Phoenix imported. The next step will be to analyze the existing pages and convert them to the new format, and add the necessary start/stop/pagename tags.

- Tim Doyle | Talk to me 10:04, 16 May 2006 (CDT)

Family History

I'm not sure where this should be added to the family history page. Can you add for me?

John-1 WHITNEY, m. (1) Elinor ----- ..Richard-2 WHITNEY, m. Martha COLDHAM ....Ebenezer-3 WHITNEY, m. Anna ----- ......Enoch-4 WHITNEY, m. Thankful PARKE ........Hezekiah-5 WHITNEY, m. Olive KNIGHT ..........Elisha-6 WHITNEY, m. Rachel FROST ............Marshall Frost-7 WHITNEY, m. Huldah Roxanna WARNER ..............Jason Frost-8 WHITNEY, m. Ellen Lucena TYLER ................Andrew Clarence-9 WHITNEY, m. Amelia Newman PARRISH ..................Ernest Frost-10 WHITNEY, m. Elizabeth Cargill BRUCE ....................Marian Elizabeth-11 WHITNEY, m. Albert Edward DURRELL ......................Albert Ernest DURRELL, m. Martha Helen BREIT

Thanks, Al Durrell

Family History

Thanks! Al Durrell