User:Tdoyle/2006 2Q

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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 (1740-1824). 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 (1768-1848) 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)