WeRelate talk:Support/2012

Help finding all file references [20 April 2012]

I added a family history I had scanned (Image:Our Cooper Family.pdf). Unfortunately, after the fact I realized that it contains information on living persons. The problem is that I have embedded references to it in a number of places. I can and will delete the file, but when I do all those references will be orphaned and I want to clean them up. Is there some way to perform a "what links here" for this file to help with this?--srblac 09:25, 31 December 2011 (EST)

Srblac, on the image page itself underneath the Links heading, there is a list of all of the pages that reference that image. You could remove the references to the file before you delete the image. If you choose to delete the image first, you can run a search with "Our Cooper Family.pdf" in the keywords field and select Exact Match Only. --Jennifer (JBS66) 09:35, 31 December 2011 (EST)

Include the quotes when you put "Our Cooper Family.pdf" into keyword field and press search and leave Namespace set to All. Finds 45 pages (including this one). --Jrich 09:38, 31 December 2011 (EST)

Thanks, I have cleaned up all references and deleted the file.--srblac 07:46, 2 January 2012 (EST)

i am starting with my dad then tring to fill the blanks from there! but i tried to list myself, my siblings, and my childen under his page but since where still present its not allowing this, is there away around this? Bryan--Bko1182 00:01, 21 April 2012 (EDT) ,

Bryan: Living people are not permitted on WeRelate. If your father is deceased, start with him and work backward, not forward, in time. If he is still living, start with his parents and work backward.--Amelia 00:34, 21 April 2012 (EDT)

Villages & hamlets in Towns [7 January 2012]

The municipal divisions of certain NY communities have long puzzled me. But I've found in wikipedia the following info concerning the Town of Oyster Bay. Now how, or do we want, to get these villages and hamlets into a list of inhabited places in Oyster Bay? I will be uploading folks that lived in these areas and want to be able to match them properly. I think some of them are already on place pages but they aren't listed on the Oyster Bay page. I think also the Oyster Bay page should be changed to Town of Oyster Bay. The town designation is already there as an alternative, but changing the title will help distinguish it from the hamlet of Oyster Bay. Will somebody please help? This is beyond my abilities!!

Town of Oyster Bay, New York
County Nassau County, New York

Villages: Bayville · Brookville · Centre Island · Cove Neck · East Hills · Farmingdale · Lattingtown · Laurel Hollow · Massapequa Park · Matinecock · Mill Neck · Muttontown · Old Brookville · Old Westbury · Oyster Bay Cove · Roslyn Harbor · Sea Cliff · Upper Brookville

Hamlets: Bethpage · East Massapequa · East Norwich · Glen Head · Glenwood Landing · Greenvale · Hicksville · Jericho · Locust Valley · Massapequa · North Massapequa · Old Bethpage · Oyster Bay · Plainedge · Plainview · South Farmingdale · Syosset · Woodbury

Website: oysterbaytown.com

I will be having the same problem with Hempstead.--Janiejac 14:35, 1 January 2012 (EST)

Offhand, I would suggest not beginning a place name with something so generic as "town." (Imagine "City of Dallas" and "City of Detroit," etc, which are technically their names.) But are all those villages and hamlets located within the actual town limits of the "Town of Oyster Bay"? If so, you could just append the village name at the front, as we do with township/county designations. If all those places are out in Suffolk County, then you can discriminate with parenthetical qualifiers: "Oyster Bay (town), Nassau, New York" vs. "Oyster Bay (hamlet), Nassau, New York". Since those naming patterns are already in use at WR, I would stick with what we're used to. (Practically, I tend to list places like that as just "Nassau, New York" and then put whatever further detail I want to include after the pipe, where it won't be an issue.) You might also check to see what the Post Office calls each of them, since the USPO has long been the de facto authority on place names in the U.S. (or at least what the Post Office used to call them, in the days before ZIP codes). --Mike^Talk 10:02, 2 January 2012 (EST)

If I understand you right, you're suggesting that these smaller places don't need to be listed as "inhabited places" with pages of their own. So perhaps I should just put this in text on the Oyster Bay page. Since I was confused about these places, I found this info listing villages and hamlets to be helpful and thought it ought to be found on the Oyster Bay page.

So we already have a page Place:Muttontown, Nassau, New York, United States but the title does not indicate this place is in Oyster Bay (town). We also have Place:Matinecock, Nassau, New York, United States, Place:Roslyn Harbor, Nassau, New York, United States and Place:South Farmingdale, Nassau, New York, United States. I didn't check the other villages, but in those I did check, it appears that you have to read the text to know they are in Oyster Bay (town). If you are on the Place:Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States page there is no link to the inhabited villages pages that we already have. --Janiejac 12:26, 2 January 2012 (EST)

I don't think anyone is saying the smaller places don't need to have pages of their own. It's like the township system in the Midwest. Glenford is a small village in Perry County, Ohio, but people consider it part of the county, not part of the surrounding township (Hopewell). So you have Glenford, Perry, Ohio, United States, rather than Glenford, Hopewell, Perry, Ohio, United States. -- Amy (Ajcrow) 12:42, 2 January 2012 (EST)

Well, . . . yeah, that is what I was getting at, kinda. I don't think every single tiny geographical subdivision needs to have a separate place page. Not to say we should delete those that already exist, but it doesn't seem useful to create a bunch of new ones -- especially if there's nothing useful to put on the page other than that it exists. I would have no problem with simply including a list of villages, hamlets, and whatever on the page of the next-higher geographical entity. And then, as I said, putting that sort of detail after the pipe on the person page that refers to it.

Janie, from what you say about Muttontown being "in" the town of Oyster Bay it sort of sounds like "town" in NY means something different from the western 80% of the country. In NY, are "town" and "township" equivalent? (I admit, townships aren't something I grew up with, since Texas doesn't even have them.) --Mike^Talk 20:45, 3 January 2012 (EST)

Mike, there seems to be no simple answer to your question. I did find this at wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_New_York - but I'm as confused as ever. This article does speak of the different administrative divisions of New York, but deciding how this should be applied to WeRelate and locations where our very early ancestors lived is a stumbling block to me.

And as far as what the Post Office calls them - try this: "The Village of Muttontown, as did the Hamlet of Locust Grove, did not and does not have a same-named post office, and thus no place in the Village of Muttontown has a "Muttontown, NY" mailing address. Depending where a place in the Village of Muttontown is located, that place can have either: a "Jericho, NY" , a Syosset, NY", a "Glen Head, NY", an "East Norwich, NY" or an "Oyster Bay, NY" mailing address. Prior to 1990, Locust Grove was a hamlet in the central part of the Town of Oyster Bay, Nassau County. There was no "Locust Grove, NY" post office, and thus no place in the Hamlet of Locust Grove had a "Locust Grove, NY" mailing address. The majority of places in the Hamlet of Locust Grove had a "Syosset, NY" mailing address, while some places in the Hamlet of Locust Grove had a "Jericho, NY" mailing address."

I dispair of every figuring out how to match my many NY locations during an upload. Maybe I should just not worry over matching and therefore leave the locations as I have them. At least that would get the genealogy info uploaded. Perhaps you're right: don't fret about the 'towns'; just get these smaller locations into the right counties. I started this discussion because I thought the villages and hamlets should be listed as inhabited places on the pages for the towns. Lacking that, I'll just put that info in the text for the towns of Oyster Bay and Hempstead. --Janiejac 02:36, 4 January 2012 (EST)

My vote (as a relatively new user) is for including these place pages. Specifically, I think the analogy with unincorporated places in midwestern townships makes sense. There the heierarchy puts unincorporated places directly under the counties, but in principle the township pages should have pointers to the unincorporated places. (I need to do that for the counties I know about.) Note that in Friesland and Groningen, Netherlands we have something similar, but with no counties, so the heierarchy explicitly includes both village and municipality. --Pkeegstra 06:18, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Well, what it seems to come down to is that the only universal statement you can make (and I assume WR would prefer something "universal" for consistency, if it's possible) is that a larger geographical subdivision includes one or more levels of smaller subdivisions. And we structure the name as "Larger, Large, Medium, Smaller, Smallest" -- and assign whatever type-labels are useful to each level. And that's about it. In the U.S., there are any number of independent cities that are subdivisions only of the state and not of the county which happens to surround them, but of which they are not legally a part.

In Texas, as I said, there are no townships; Dallas is a chartered city in Dallas County, which is a subdivision of the State of Texas. Unincorporated communities in Dallas County have no legal status and are just "loose land" within the county, with law being enforced by the county sheriff. In Indiana and Iowa, which I know pretty well, when a county was formed it was immediately divided into "townships," which is just carried over from the meridianal survey system and which are simply administrative subdivisions with a misleading name. And many townships in rural counties there don't even have a "town" in them, just farms. And in Iowa, as I recall, all chartered communities are automatically "cities," even if there's only 100 people, just to confuse things further. In New England, the system was brought in wholesale from the English system, and at an early date -- and "township" there has a whole different meaning.

And when we turn to Europe, you have to throw out everything I've just said and start over. I've been struggling with the British parish system of administrative division for years -- and Germany's a lot of fun when you're sorting out the geo-hierarchy before and after Bismarckian unification.

But I think as long as we stick to that Larger/Smaller system and don't become too anguished about how many additional levels we can squeeze in, the system works okay. Everyone agrees on (in the U.S.) states and counties (plus independent cities); below that, most states have townships or something similar. But below that, I think, there's just too much legal variation to allow real consistency. Nor do I believe it realy matters -- and that's the important part. Anything you put after the pipe is "free text," and that's where you get to invoke the idiosyncratic local system without having to redesign a part of WeRelate. --Mike^Talk 08:28, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Since an example of a place that has been set up correctly might help the discussion, I edited Place:Pomona, Rockland, New York, United States to show the links to the towns. This would be the "normal" way to set them up. The village (also applies to hamlets) is in the county by default, and the towns are added as "also" links. -Moverton 13:24, 4 January 2012 (EST)

I think Moverton has the right idea. wp:New England towns are supposed to be somewhere between counties and midwest townships, though I didn't think towns were set up in New York. Setting things up the way Moverson has done, with also-located-in links to the town, makes sense to me. For England, use "city, county, England" for the title, with also-located-in links to the other jurisdictions. And regarding Germany, I'd love to have more review of the jurisdictional hierarchies there. I suspect they could use additional work.--Dallan 01:20, 7 January 2012 (EST)

Mislocated places in Kent County, Michigan [8 January 2012]

The text for the place Place:Byron, Kent, Michigan, United States describes a place in Shiawassee County which already is defined here. There is no community of Byron in Kent County, so the Kent County place should probably either be merged with Byron Township or Byron Center (a community in Byron Township).--Pkeegstra 06:57, 5 January 2012 (EST)

There is no place called Cannonburg in Kent County; it is a typo for Cannonsburg, and the two places should be merged.--Pkeegstra 07:09, 5 January 2012 (EST)

Chauncey and Buena Vista describe the same place. Can they be merged?--Pkeegstra 07:09, 5 January 2012 (EST)

I redirected the Byron (township) page to Place:Byron, Kent, Michigan, United States since this page follows WR's naming conventions. I also redirected the misspelled Cannonburg to Place:Cannonsburg, Kent, Michigan, United States. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:18, 5 January 2012 (EST)

Regarding Chauncey/Buena Vista - it seems to me that we should keep the Chauncey version and redirect Buena Vista to it. Would you agree? --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:27, 5 January 2012 (EST)

Sounds good to me. My Michigan Atlas of county maps calls the place Chauncey.

Does including a name in the "alternate names" section of a place page prevent creation of a page with the same name?

On a more general note, would it make sense to have specialized forums for discussion of places and sources?

Many thanks! --Pkeegstra 09:37, 5 January 2012 (EST)

Take a look at Portal:Place & Portal:Source. And there's a list of all the Portals WR currently maintains at Category:Portal. --Mike^Talk 19:08, 5 January 2012 (EST)

I merged Buena Vista into the Chauncey page and moved over the WP template as well. Regarding alternate names, no, having an alternate name listed does not prevent the creation of a page with that name. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:01, 6 January 2012 (EST)

Thank you! I'm about 1/3 of the way through linking the unincorporated places in Kent County with their townships, but I looked through the list, and think I already caught all the anomalies. After that I'll do Ottawa, Ionia, and maybe Houghton and Keweenaw counties, which is about the limits of my expertise. (I see one already: Kearsage in Houghton County is a typo for Kearsarge, and should be merged in. The typo probably originated in the description of this source.)--Pkeegstra 12:20, 6 January 2012 (EST)

Thank you for reviewing and reporting mistakes! I merged Kearsage into Kearsarge. By the way, if a place doesn't list contained places, you can rename it or redirect (merge) it into another place yourself. Or feel free to ask someone to do it here or on the Portal talk:Place page.--Dallan 01:34, 7 January 2012 (EST)

Thanks for fixing this! That's good to know when I can rename a place. Since this place did have a reference, I wasn't sure I could do anything with it. --Pkeegstra 07:07, 7 January 2012 (EST)

There is no community called Gaines in the township of that name in Kent County. So Place:Gaines (township), Kent, Michigan, United States can be renamed to Place:Gaines, Kent, Michigan, United States. But there are 3 contained places, so I don't think I can do that myself.

done.--Dallan 01:48, 8 January 2012 (EST)

System not allowing me to connect brothers to same wife [6 January 2012]

My husband's aunt, Faye Elizabeth Carlisle, (1924-2012). Her first husband (William Meese) died in WWI, 1945. Later, she married her deceased husband's brother, Robert Nelson Meese. When I attepmt to add the 2nd spouse to Faye, the system doesn't show Robert Meese (1). When I go into Robert Nelson Meese's record, the system doesn't show Faye Carlisle (1).--Rebekah Carlisle 09:46, 6 January 2012 (EST)

I was able to do the add. Not sure what was happenning for you. Let us know if you have any further trouble. --jrm03063 09:50, 6 January 2012 (EST)

GEDCOM persons born "too early" [23 January 2012]

A week ago the system let me upload Person:Samuel Jackson (84) who was born in 1706, but now I can't upload his brother John born in 1701 (or John's wife born in 1713) because they are 'too early'. What is happening here? Their parents are already in the system; I want to get John and his wife connected. --Janiejac 16:19, 6 January 2012 (EST)

The system won't let you gedcom-upload people born before 1750. You need to add them by hand online. There is an exception: if at least one member of the gedcom family was born after 1750, then you can upload all members of the family. The exception is so the gedcom uploader doesn't split apart early families -- they're all or none.

The reason for this is we had trouble in the past with people loading gedcoms with lots of early people, and merging and messing up existing pages of the early New England colonists. So we made a rule that people born before 1750 have to be added online. I realize it's a pain, but it's less of a pain than cleaning up bad matches and merges of early people done during gedcom uploads.--Dallan 01:44, 7 January 2012 (EST)

This has really stymied me. I've had a hard time figuring out how to divide up my large database for upload and decided to work my way down from the immigrant ancestor. So he was uploaded apparently before this rule went into effect. I have uploaded a couple of his children but now I can't upload the rest because of this rule. So I'm back to square one. There are really too many to add in by hand. I'm really ready to give up on this! --Janiejac 12:06, 11 January 2012 (EST)

Curious how many of the too-early pages already exist? --Jrich 12:57, 11 January 2012 (EST)

Any chance the community can selectively wave/bend the rules for long-standing contributors, who are unlikely to be the authors of chaos? Beyond that, I would ask how far back the content of the GEDCOM in question actually goes...??? --jrm03063 13:28, 11 January 2012 (EST)

I wanted to add the descendants of Col. John Jackson 1645-1725. Counting Col John as one generation (he's already here) it will take 4 generations to get beyond the 1750 time frame. I can't say my research is all from original documents - it isn't - but I'm a careful compiler. I feel like the 1750 limit is too restricting but I do understand the frustration of dealing with 'junk trees'. Here was my plan; you can see what is already uploaded. I should have done the whole thing when I first started watching WR but I kept waiting for some of the kinks to get worked out.

Person:Robert Jackson (1) immigrant ancestor
   Family:John Jackson and Elisabeth Seaman (1) one gen; + Transcript:Will. John Jackson 26 Aug 1724
       Family:John Jackson and Elizabeth Hallett (1) RIN 547; one gen
          Family:John Jackson and Kesia Mott (1) all desc but a few folks were excluded
          Family:Samuel Jackson and Mary Townsend (1) all desc already uploaded
       Person:Elizabeth Jackson (103) to add spouse and desc
       Family:James Jackson and Rebecca Hallett (1) 3 generations already uploaded
       Family:Peter Titus and Martha Jackson (1) to add children, descendants
       Person:Mary Jackson (224) to add spouse and desc
       Person:Sarah Jackson (122) to add spouse and desc
       Person:Samuel Jackson (46) to add spouse and desc
       Person:Hannah Jackson (61) to add spouse and desc

When I first uploaded John Jackson and Elizabeth Seaman with only one generation it was because I knew there would be so many descendants of each of his children that I planned to tackle them one child at a time. But now I can't upload their spouses or children to get down to the 1750 time frame. (If I had only my own direct line, I could have started from the bottom up - but this database is for "the descendants of Robert Jackson" which includes as many as I've been able to find. I'll probably never get them all uploaded in my lifetime without help!) And last week's upload exposed so many inconsistancies in my New York locations that it about did me in! --Janiejac 14:54, 11 January 2012 (EST)

Regrettable. Seems like a very self-limiting rule. I am not going to manually input these folks, so it appears I am unable to continue with this.

As a long-standing contributor (and someone who is very patient, thank you :-) you now have the ability to upload gedcoms back to 1550.--Dallan 21:52, 23 January 2012 (EST)

Three place pages for same place? [21 February 2012]

We have 3 places: Place:New York, Kings, New York, United States
Place:New York City, New York, United States and
Place:New York, New York, United States
Is there any consensus to settling on one page/one title for the City of New York? And is there a way for anyone searching for any of these places, to be directed to one page? Can someone fix this if it needs fixing? I'm afraid to touch it.--Janiejac 14:42, 7 January 2012 (EST)

Allow me to add one more Place:New York City, New York, New York, United States. Then there's Place:Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, which is apparently what Place:New Amsterdam, New York, United States became, not to mention Place:Brooklyn, Kings, New York, United States, Place:Bronx, Bronx, New York, United States, Place:Queens, Queens, New York, United States, and Place:Staten Island, Richmond, New York, United States. I have no knowledge of NYC beyond what I see on wikipedia. It might seem that since the city contains the 5 boroughs and the boroughs are in different counties, the boroughs need to be contained within Place:New York City, New York, United States which has no county specified? --Jrich 17:13, 7 January 2012 (EST)

I agree that there needs to be something which includes all 5 boroughs. That is probably Place:New York City, New York, New York, United States, right? Then the question is what to do with the boroughs. Each borough should have a place at county level, and then at least one place below that, with the name of the borough, right? Does that mean we rename, e.g., Place:New York, Kings, New York, United States to Place:Brooklyn, Kings, New York, United States? What about a New York alias for Manhattan, New York, New York, New York, United States? (Probably not if we don't allow the preceding.) And then, I would argue to restore New Amsterdam as a place contained within Place:Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, since it was not co-extensive with the Borough of Manhattan, but a tiny subset of it. --Pkeegstra 17:41, 7 January 2012 (EST)

I believe the proper name of the consolidated metropolitan area is "New York," period. No "City." People commonly call it "New York City," just as they call the larger entity "New York State," as a matter of disambiguation -- but that's not the proper name in either case. And don't forget that the unified city didn't even exist until 1898. Before that, if you were born in Brooklyn, you were born in Brooklyn -- not New York. Ditto Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx, and Manhattan. Except that "Manhattan" is also the original "New York." (Confused yet?) And since all those 19th century records are maintained in the separate boroughs -- because they're also separate counties -- I really don't think we want to lump everything misleadingly and inaccurately into an all-inclusive "New York." --Mike^Talk 15:52, 8 January 2012 (EST)

I don't think we're saying to put everything under the all-encompassing name, just that one should exist for those cases where one doesn't know the borough to prevent having to invent information (or throw information away by just listing the state). The boroughs definitely need to exist, and their use should be encouraged when they are known; the other question is what exactly they should be called.

And the all-encompassing name can't be New York, New York, United States because that's the county for Manhattan. --Pkeegstra 16:08, 8 January 2012 (EST)

How about the following proposal?

We have one place for New York City, named as such to distinguish it from the county of the same name:

• Place:New York City, New York, United States

one place for each of the five counties:

• Place:New York, New York, United States
• Place:Bronx, New York, United States
• Place:Kings, New York, United States
• Place:Queens, New York, United States
• Place:Richmond, New York, United States

one place for each of the five boroughs, with also-located-in links to New York City:

• Place:Manhattan, New York, New York, United States
• Place:Bronx, Bronx, New York, United States
• Place:Brooklyn, Kings, New York, United States
• Place:Queens, Queens, New York, United States
• Place:Staten Island, Richmond, New York, United States

also, put New Amsterdam under Manhattan, and redirect the other new york-related places to one of these places?--Dallan 20:33, 8 January 2012 (EST)

Looks good to me.... --Pkeegstra 21:47, 8 January 2012 (EST)

My only issue is with New Amsterdam, a name that has no meaning after 1673 when it became New Orange and in 1674 it became New York (according to wikipedia - as I said, all I know of New York City is based on wikipedia). From 1798-1800 New Amsterdam was the name given to Buffalo by surveyor Joseph Ellicott. Either way, as I understand things, we should not technically have a page for New Amsterdam as it did not exist in 1900, so shouldn't it should only be listed as an alternate name? --Jrich 22:36, 8 January 2012 (EST)

Now I'm really confused. I thought Queens County was no more; it was absorbed by NYC. I put it on WR as a 'former county'. Where is the geography teacher when I need him? My ancestors were born in Queens County in the early 1700s (before Nassau was formed). It grieves me to say they were born in Nassau County, but I guess I'll get over it. Here I've been thinking that the borough of Queens was the old Queens County. Trying to upload to WR is an education! --Janiejac 23:52, 8 January 2012 (EST)

The meaning of "New Amsterdam" is the historical footprint of the Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island, which only extended as far as the wall at what is now Wall Street. (And there is no ambiguity in giving Buffalo, Erie, New York an alt name of New Amsterdam, since it's in Erie County; I see it's already there.) For the names of the boroughs and counties, see this article. --Pkeegstra 06:53, 9 January 2012 (EST)

There is ambiguity if the name is Place:New Amsterdam, New York, United States, which it is, i.e., with no county. The point is, WeRelate conventions say we name a physical location by giving the name of that same location using the name it had in 1900. I don't believe a place named New Amsterdam existed in 1900. If Manhattan is too large, maybe there is a contained-in place inside of Manhattan that would be more appropriate. Alternately, maybe there is a source citation that could be added to the page that not only provides a more precise description of the location, supplementing the place field, and incidentally, also documenting how it is known. For example, this is what you do when a death record says someone died in another person's house, a location too precise to have its own place page. It is the same issue with every historical name, such as Plymouth Colony versus Place:Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States or Place:Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, neither of which is the same. --Jrich 13:13, 9 January 2012 (EST)

My interpretation was that New Amsterdam would be handled as a designated place in New York County. Do we allow other designated places in New York County or the other 4 counties? Flatbush, maybe? To the extent that we want to represent events in Plymouth Colony, and don't know a more specific place in Plymouth Colony, the problem is similar. The difference in that case is that when we do know a more specific location, we can map the place in Plymouth Colony onto a modern (OK, 1900) name and then use the pipe trick to map the 1900 place onto the place as it was known in, say, 1630. Right? (We could do that for New Amsterdam too, but then we get all of Manhattan.) --Pkeegstra 14:47, 9 January 2012 (EST)

Dallan, I have a question regarding how redirects are handled in place matching. On Place talk:New Amsterdam, New Netherlands, it says that the place had to be deleted because it was causing places given as "Amsterdam, Netherlands" to be matched incorrectly. Is this still true if "Place:Amsterdam, Netherlands" were made a redirect to Place:Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands? The reason I bring this up is that I'm wondering if a "Place:New Amsterdam, New Netherlands" couldn't be made a redirect for New York City. It would eliminate the need to have to enter "New York City, New York, United States|New Amsterdam, New Netherlands", which might not be a very obvious solution for new users to this site. -Moverton 14:05, 9 January 2012 (EST)

The 1900 rule is so that we don't have multiple pages for the same place. It's ok to create a new page for a place if it no longer existed in 1900. If it still existed, just with a different name, then you'd add an alternate name to that page, but if it was absorbed into a larger area or split into smaller areas, then it would be alright to add a page for the former place. With that understanding, I'll let people who know more about New Amsterdam than I do decide what to do: whether it became New York City, in which case add an alternate name to New York City, or whether it was a different-sized area that gave birth to New York City and other places, in which case create a new page. It's a fuzzy rule, I know. The guiding principle is we want to create pages for places that appeared in records, but just one page per place, and without creating so many places that we just have a jumbled mess. (Also, it's fine to add an alternate name of New Amsterdam to places under other jurisdictions, as User:Pkeegstra mentions.)

Wikipedia says that Queens county still exists, distinct from Nassau county.

New Amsterdam, New Netherlands was deleted because of weaknesses in the current place matcher. I didn't want to delete it, but the current place matcher was confusing it with Amsterdam, Netherlands. Redirected pages aren't used in place matching, so although a redirected New Amsterdam, New Netherlands would allow people to write Place:New Amsterdam, New Netherlands without the bar, it wouldn't help with matching. Lately I've been working on an improved place matcher, which should allow us to unredirect Place:New Amsterdam, New Netherlands if we want to. It will take me a few weeks to replace our existing place matcher with it. I'll announce it when I do.

I redirected Place:New York City, New York, New York, United States to Place:New York City, New York, United States and added the also-located-in links for the boroughs. Except for New Amsterdam, the New York City area places look pretty good now as far as I can tell.--Dallan 08:43, 24 January 2012 (EST)

I just put some explanatory text and a table of boroughs and counties as place pages at the bottom of the New York City entry. I hope that's a reasonable thing to do. I still have a couple quick questions:

• It looks like subregions within the boroughs are being linked into the county level (except for New Amsterdam). Are we happy with that, or should they be linked into the borough level.
• What about cemeteries? Should they be linked into the county or into the borough? Are there category pages for the counties of the 5 boroughs? (n.b. I still haven't gotten an answer for the analogous question for counties in the US midwest.) 9And where are the cemeteries for Manhattan? Surely these must be some. I know there's Grant's Tomb.)
• What about New Amsterdam? I think of it as a region within Manhattan just like Harlem, Central Park, Governors Island, or Ellis Island. If I agree to manually fix up the first dozen references, can I move it to be New Amsterdam, New York, New York, United States?

--Pkeegstra 17:54, 17 February 2012 (EST)

Personally I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. Maybe others could give some advice? If not, I'd say do what you think is best. Regarding cemeteries in the midwest, I believe the standard has been to put the cemetery under the city/town when it's inside a city/town, under a township when the township is known, or under the county otherwise. Just FYI, I now have a list of about 20,000 townships in the midwest. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be checking to see which ones we don't have and I'll add them.--Dallan 18:00, 17 February 2012 (EST)

That's good news that you have the data to help with the townships. I'm rapidly reaching the limits of my expertise in West Michigan for those. I agree with what you said, but since I do have access to township info, should I move cemeteries from the county to the township? And what about "also locating" township cemeteries in the county? It was argued that the county-wide category page serves that function without cluttering the county place page with a long list of cemeteries. Oh, and bringing it back to NYC, should there be 5 cemetery category pages, or just one for the city? Is doing the latter technically possible? --Pkeegstra 08:39, 18 February 2012 (EST)

I moved the New Amsterdam page to New Amsterdam, New York, New York, United States and specified it as a "historical city" with text, a position, and a synonym "Nieuw Amsterdam". I hope everyone can concede that that makes sense. --Pkeegstra 09:56, 18 February 2012 (EST)

BTW, the page for Queens Borough references a Wikipedia disambiguation page. Could somebody who knows how to work with those please fix that? --Pkeegstra 09:13, 18 February 2012 (EST)

Feel free to move cemeteries into the correct townships if you know it. As for also locating them in the county, I wouldn't worry about it. As for NYC, categories are added for every place that's two levels away from the US. So we have a category for NYC (and other independent cities), as well as categories for each of the 5 counties. Doing anything else would be somewhat difficult. I edited Queens; it should get the latest update from Wikipedia over the weekend.--Dallan 22:22, 21 February 2012 (EST)

Watched pages in common [19 January 2012]

I was just checking my new upload and was pleasantly surprised to see someone new in my network and clicked on the page to show 'Watched pages in common' - only to find that I have nothing in common with these folks expect maybe the location involved. So how did I get to be a watcher on abt 140 pages that User:Katsus98040 uploaded and is watching? And how do I 'unwatch' all of these pages without manually going to every one of them?? Did I do something in my upload review to cause this?? --Janiejac 00:39, 10 January 2012 (EST)

I can't tell how you got to be a watcher. Is it possible that at some point when you added a page to your tree you clicked the checkboxes to add multiple generations of ancestors or descendants at the same time? That's the only thing I can think of. Unfortunately if you want to unwatch them you need to do it one page at a time.--Dallan 23:51, 19 January 2012 (EST)

Hijacked Link [11 January 2012]

The link https://library.familysearch.org/ on the page Source:Family History Center has been hijacked. It goes to some awful spyware site Zookaware. I'd fix this, but I'm not sure what it should link to instead, and I thought people should be warned, also. (If it were a legitimate site, they wouldn't need to hijack familysearch.org links.) --Pkeegstra 20:51, 10 January 2012 (EST)

I changed to to https://familysearch.org/locations which is the new site. The URL got changed a year ago. I believe the problem might lie at familysearch.org because typing in the URL directly still went to the spyware site. --Jrich 21:43, 10 January 2012 (EST)

I use the familysearch site [1] every other day and have never been redirected to this spyware site. I assume the problem is only with the library site and not the main family search site.--Beth 21:56, 10 January 2012 (EST)

I agree; I had been accessing other familysearch urls at the same time, and they were fine. Only the library.familysearch.org link has been problematic, and the problem is at their side. Does someone have a contact at familysearch to let them know?--Pkeegstra 06:52, 11 January 2012 (EST)

Family: Unknown and Unknown [12 January 2012]

Because of dividing up my database for an upload, I have the children of Family:Unknown and Unknown (12942) and know the parents' names which I could add but I'm unsure how to go about it. Are there instructions for this type of situation? Could I just rename the family page and then create the person pages? Or it that even desirable because although I know the parents' names, I have no dates or locations for them. --Janiejac 19:27, 11 January 2012 (EST)

I would ask that you definitely rename the Family page to provide the names. You can provide a source or a note on this page. I do not create Person pages where I have no content. --Judy (jlanoux) 10:14, 12 January 2012 (EST)

I would just rename the page so that the parent's names are....apparent! No need to create the person pages if they're coming in a later load - though you could create them with the DOB/DOD information - it would just make it easier to find for matching up later. There's no sin in creating multiple copies of a person or family on a temporary basis to help you re-assemble things later. Your own pages merge as well as any others. --jrm03063 11:06, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Redirecting page to User Page? [15 January 2012]

I just created, with the author's permission, a page for a study done by someone else. But now I'm thinking it should be better if the page was his own 'user' page so it would more clearly show that he was the author and give him more control. He is registered with WR but not active and not familiar with wiki formatting. Is there some way either he or I could redirect the current article to a new 'user' page for him? The page is currently still under construction, but there is just too much formatting on this page to redo it. Can I finish it for him and then have him redirect it? I hesitate to risk loosing the formatting by doing a copy/paste and than he couldn't fix any problems. --Janiejac 12:26, 15 January 2012 (EST)

If you edit the page, cut and paste should grab any formatting tags as well as the text. Then just cancel out of the edit after you can cut and paste everything. Doesn't that work? --Jrich 13:02, 15 January 2012 (EST)

Source delete or redirect? [24 January 2012]

I just created a source which I think should probably be either deleted or redirected; I'm asking because I'm unsure. I created Source:Marriage Records of St. George's Episcopal Church but this source is a website which has compiled information from the book Source:Haight, John Sylvanus. Adventures for God : A History of St. George's Episcopal Church, Hempstead, Long Island. I made the free website a repository for the Source:Haight, John Sylvanus. Adventures for God : A History of St. George's Episcopal Church, Hempstead, Long Island. So I know this duplication is not right but what is the best way to cite such a source? I have not seen the original book; just the transcribed info on the website which they say comes from the book.--Janiejac 10:39, 24 January 2012 (EST)

I looked VERY quickly. If the web site is a COMPLETE transcript of the book, with minor changes to make it more convenient for use on the web, then I would say they are instances of the same source. You might note subtle differences in the two versions via a bullet item in a usage tip section for the source. If the web site is a transcript of PART of the book, then I think they're different sources - each with a usage tip noting the existence and relationship to the other source. --jrm03063 10:48, 24 January 2012 (EST)

family pg not showing parents [1 August 2012]

This family page shows the parents of Thomas Jackson but not the parents of his wife Elizabeth Jackson. (1st cousins 1 time removed.) But when you click on her name, it shows her parents. A bug?
--Janiejac 13:14, 24 January 2012 (EST)

Hi Janie, yes this is a known bug :-( To fix this, edit the page for Elizabeth, remove her parents, and save the page. Then, edit the page again, add the parents back in, and save the page. Even though the family page does not display her parents, the pedigree chart does. --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:18, 24 January 2012 (EST)

When is this known bug going to get fixed? Sure would like to see Dallan's gonna-do list in approximate projected order of work. I know some non-essential items are going to fall to the bottom of the list but think it would be encouraging to see some things being checked off as complete. Maybe there is such a list and I just don't know about it. --Janiejac 13:42, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Changing the Root Person [26 January 2012]

How does one do it. When I type changing the root person, I get a complete list of all the Root's in the database. Not very helpful.--Bud 17:46, 24 January 2012 (EST)

Launch the FTE for the desired tree from your user page. Select the root person. When the desired root person is shown select the menu item that changes the root person. This is the first icon on the line below the main menu. Immediately to the right of the root button is a +icon.--Beth 18:51, 24 January 2012 (EST)

It looks great on paper; not so hot in practice. The point is - I cannot find a menu or a button that says "Change the Root Person." Following your directions I wind up looking at the page for my current Root Person and that is a dead end.--Bud 23:40, 24 January 2012 (EST)

Okay Beth, I have found it. Are their some limitations on who you can make the Root Person? I tried to make it the progenitor and the program wouldn't allow it. So I went all the way to the other end and made my father it.--Bud 00:44, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Okay Beth, I have found it. Are there some limitations on who you can make the Root Person? I tried to make it the progenitor and the program wouldn't allow it. So I went all the way to the other end and made my father it.--Bud 00:44, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Hi Bud, glad you found it. There are no limitations that I am aware of. Is the progenitor actually in your tree? If not add the page to your tree. --Beth 08:16, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Beth, I looked at what I think is my tree and it only brings up Heinrich. I searched for him and it brought up a list of Conrad's and Coonradt's. There are two listings for Heinrich, b. 1670. The shorter one has been designated #1 and the one I want to use is designated #2. Again, this site is somewhat difficult to use. Nowhere do I see how to delete an unwanted person. If it weren't for the opportunity to collaborate I would have quit after my first frustrating day.--Bud 12:39, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Bud, go to the person page for the Heinrich you wish to have in your tree. Select edit. At the bottom of the page you check the box for the tree in which you wish to add this person.You may delete a page if you are the only contributor. On WeRelate we usually only delete pages for people who are living. The other pages are improved or merged with a duplicate page. To request a deletion use the Speedy Delete template. See 9.1 on Help:FAQ.--Beth 13:26, 25 January 2012 (EST)

--Beth 18:43, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Beth, It appears the Heinrich I want to delete is in a tree called Default, all by himself. I would happily delete this whole tree but I can't figure how.--Bud 18:01, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Bud, I cannot find the Heinrich that you wish to delete. To delete your default tree, select My Relate from the menu bar; Trees: Manage Trees; Delete. Exactly how is this Heinrich listed. What birth date and spelling of last name?

Beth, Everything is exactly the same except for the narrative.--Bud 22:46, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Enter the name of the person page in this format Person:Heinrich Conrad (2) so I can find the page. Check the edit page, spacing is imperative. --Beth 23:10, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Sorry Beth, I don't get what you are asking for. It seems like you wrote what you want me to write. Write it where? You've got it already. I don't know where you are but I'm in upstate NY. It's 12:10, both Letterman and Leno are reruns so I'm hitting the hay. Hasta manana.--Bud 00:13, 26 January 2012 (EST)

Quandary about Manlius Township,. Allegan County, Michigan [28 January 2012]

I just created Manlius Township as Place:Manlius, Allegan, Michigan, United States, but after I did so I discovered that there was a ghost town/deserted settlement of the same name in the township. I thought about creating the pair "Manlius" and "Manlius (township)", but I discovered that I already had a dozen references to Manlius that that would change the semantics for. How should I go forward? Create a place "Manlius (ghost town)"? Or take the hit on the semantics and create the more conventional pair "Manlius" for the ghost town and "Manlius" (township)"? --Pkeegstra 10:33, 26 January 2012 (EST)

It would be best if you created the conventional pair. I imagine you want the existing pages to link to the township. Since there are only a dozen of them, would you mind relinking them?--Dallan 22:44, 26 January 2012 (EST)

Done. (I love tracking down ghost towns.) I noticed we needed Norman Township, Manistee County so I created that too even though that county is well outside my area of expertise. --Pkeegstra 08:58, 28 January 2012 (EST)

Cemetery Placement in the US Midwest [9 February 2012]

The cemetery portal suggests something different, but I understand from reading various talk pages that the preference in the US midwest is to place cemeteries not located in cities or villages into the containing township. (And list them in the cemetery category page for the county.) I am in the process of working through the unincorporated communities in west central Michigan. Should I be renaming the cemeteries there to confirm to this plan? And if a cemetery is closely associated with an unincorporated place, should it get an "also located" listing for that? (Unincorporated places do not have official boundaries, so "closely associated with" will always be subjective for this case.) --Pkeegstra 07:21, 1 February 2012 (EST)

As examples, you may want to look at (1) Place:Kansas cemetery, Liberty (township), Seneca, Ohio, United States, (2) Place:Fairmount Cemetery, Buffalo (Township), Ogle, Illinois, United States, and (3) Place:Jackson Center cemetery, Jackson (township), Wyandot, Ohio, United States to see how others have handled rural cemetery placenames in Midwest townships. When I get a chance I'll add a couple of those examples to the Cemetery Portal since you raised the issue. --BobC 07:58, 1 February 2012 (EST)

Thanks! I see two of these include the county as an "also located" and one doesn't. (Does this need more discussion?) And none try to link the cemetery with any unincorporated populated place, although such a link might be justifiable for Kansas Cemetery and Kansas unincorporated populated place. --Pkeegstra 09:58, 1 February 2012 (EST)

One thing to keep in mind with the above examples is that they do not follow our titling convention for townships. The (township) disambiguation in a place title should only be used if there is a town in the same county with the same name. Otherwise, we leave the (township) out of the title and put Township in the type field. Also, we would capitalize the word Cemetery and use the spelling as it appear on Find-A-Grave. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:08, 1 February 2012 (EST)

Also, I believe we said that if the township was known, you should place the cemetery within the township, but if the township was unknown, it was ok to place it directly in the county. If the cemetery is placed in a township located in county X, you don't need to add county X as an also-located-in place for the cemetery. It will already get picked up in searches for cemeteries in county X. One of the problems is we currently don't have a lot of townships in the place database. I'm going to try to find a list of all townships and add the ones we're missing.--Dallan 12:07, 9 February 2012 (EST)

Places and What Links Here [9 February 2012]

I have relied quite a bit on What Links Here to clean up sources before, but now am working on Places and it seems to be behaving funny.

In the old days, if a GEDCOM said Plymouth, I think the system would match to the first page containing Plymouth based on creation date, of some relatively random way. Anyway several people that should have said Plymouth, Devon, England or Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States ended up linked to Plymouth, Trinidad and Tobago. And there are other examples.

Recently I have cleaned up a bunch of pages that were supposed to be pointing to Harwich, Massachusetts and think I have got most of them. But when I look at What Links Here for Harwich, Essex, England, I still find some included. I check the pages and when I mouse over the locations, they all say they point to Massachusetts. I can't find any use of the England location on the pages (probably any of the people named Small on the links list, for example). This appears to be a slight bug? Is the only way to fix this to make some small change and resave the person? Will it wash out on its own at any time?

I have seen comments rarely about updates to parents, etc., not being reflected, but this involves several pages I have changed in the last day or two, probably half the pages I fixed for these place errors, and 5-10% of my total changes. Are places more susceptible to this error for some reason? --Jrich 21:12, 1 February 2012 (EST)

Were these persons previously merged? I have seen the same thing, but it was after a merge, and I assumed that the continued existence of links to places I could not see on the pages was due to pages the system had saved somewhere to be able to undo the merge. But I guess that would probably still be a bug, right? --Pkeegstra 07:00, 2 February 2012 (EST)

What I believe happened is that the marriage location used to be pointing to the wrong place and this caused the Person pages to get registered on What Links Here. The Family page was fixed, but the Person pages don't get removed from What Links Here. I have to make some minor change to the Person page and do a save to remove them. Is the listing of the Person pages on What Links Here just an artifact of how things used to work, but not how it works now? Since I am cleaning up errors introduced by the old GEDCOM place-matching algorithm, this would explain why I am noticing this so much, but haven't noticed it before. --Jrich 18:24, 2 February 2012 (EST)

Would you let me know the next time this happens, and don't update the page? I've been unable to track down the bug that's causing this, and an additional example would be helpful. Thanks.

Also, I'm in the process of improving the place-matcher so that it will match places better going forward (more information). At some point, we may decide to use the new matcher to automatically re-match all existing places in order to correct them.--Dallan 12:13, 9 February 2012 (EST)

template for conflicting data? [2 February 2012]

I thought there was a template for conflicting data but now I can't find it. Can someone point me to it if there is one. I want to acknowledge a problem with the data and so maybe get some help resolving it.--Janiejac 12:16, 2 February 2012 (EST)

JRM used to add a section to the narrative for Disputed Lineages, but I was unaware of a template. What are you picturing the template doing: adding a graphic, or something more? I would expect one would use "Alt." facts, such as Alt. Birth, Alt. Death, multiple spouses, multiple parents, etc., attaching appropriate sources to both regular and alternate facts so people can compare and assess them. Alternately, a discussion in the narrative, since conflicts are usually the result of not having conclusive primary sources, and therefore involves explaining the differing assumptions that give rise to the conflicting data, etc.

In addition to documenting conflicting data, I believe there is value in documenting rejected values so people that come to WeRelate knowing only those rejected values will be able realize that those pages are intended to be the same person even though the data doesn't match theirs exactly. But there doesn't seem to be a good way to do that, and there is always the question of which alternate data carries enough authority to justify mentioning. So again, free-form narrative seems to be the way this gets done. --Jrich 13:12, 2 February 2012 (EST)

Place links to wrong area of Wikipedia [5 February 2012]

I just saw Place:Baldwin, Nassau, New York, United States and the text has material from wikipedia about a different Baldwin - a Baldwin, Chemung Co., NY. WP does have a good article about Baldwin, Nassau County that should be linked to instead. Will someone with more skill than I please fix this. The Baldwin, Nassau article also tells of a couple of alternate earlier names. --Janiejac 11:08, 4 February 2012 (EST)

OK, I just tried my hand at it. It now goes to Baldwin, Nassau, New York correctly but doesn't pick up the History and Geography link. Those show as red links though there is material in the wikipedia page that should show. What do I need to do to correct this?? --Janiejac 11:51, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Janie, I corrected the WP template on the Place:Baldwin, Chemung, New York, United States page. Regarding Place:Baldwin, Nassau, New York, United States, the WP template only copies information from the first section of a WP page automatically. If you want to include other sections, like History and Geography, there are instructions here. To my knowledge, the text from those subsections will be updated a couple of times per year. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:47, 5 February 2012 (EST)

I created the template pages and it looks right. Now to wait 6 months to see the text . . . I tried to put the four prior names the hamlet was known as in the box for 'also located in'. I would have preferred 'also known as'. In any case, the system wouldn't let me put the names in 'also located in' unless I created pages for them - and I didn't want to create pages for these early names. I just wanted searches for Hick's Neck and Milburn etc to turn up the page for Baldwin saying these were prior names for Baldwin. But that didn't work, so how is the system to know that Hick's Neck, Queens, New York is Baldwin, Nassau, New York?? All I wanted to do was upload my data base - not spend these hours trying to create place pages! I ended up putting the info in the text box which will not be helpful for searches or matching. --Janiejac 17:26, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Try the "Alternate Names" field. --Jrich 18:39, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Thanks!! So simple I missed it. I knew I didn't have the skills to fix this page so it was a learning experience. If I weren't so bulldog stubborn, I'd wait until this site came out of beta. But I'm too old to wait. Thanks for everyone's patience. I was running short. --Janiejac 19:25, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Can't add Cemetery [4 February 2012]

I've tried to add a place page for Smith County Cemetery #2, Prentiss County, Ms. The system is giving me this error "A place cannot be added with this title because it is not located within an existing place (country, state, district, etc)"

The cemetery link is http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=2208398&CScn=Smith+Family&CScntry=4&CSst=27&CScnty=1570&

Can you help me fix this? Thanks--Txbluebell6 11:42, 4 February 2012 (EST)

See if this linked page is close to what you are looking for. Good luck. --BobC 15:25, 4 February 2012 (EST)

Automated GED editing [4 February 2012]

I have close to 30,000 people in my GED file.

In order to filter out all of the living people, e.g write a command like If birth date > 1912 and no birth date delete?--Duncansta 13:10, 4 February 2012 (EST)

You need to check the features of your genealogy program. All of them I'm aware of permit partial export to gedcom based on criteria you specify. Note also that you'll only be able to import a small fraction of your file here at any one time (max 5000 people b. aft 1750), and the best idea is to start very small (<100). The upload process has a learning curve that is far easier with a smaller file, and most people find they could make global changes to their file that will make subsequent uploads much easier. (Read this for more details.)--Amelia 13:27, 4 February 2012 (EST)

North Riding of Yorkshire [9 February 2012]

I am new to WeRelate and endeavouring to tidy up the finer points of the small gedcom I imported to start with.

My family's roots are in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. Yorkshire is the largest county in England and has traditionally been divided into three Ridings: North, West and East. These geographical regions are so commonly used that The Federation of Family History Societies uses the abbreviations: NRY, WRY, ERY.

Parish names and hamlets can be duplicated within the county and sometimes within one riding. Therefore, differentiating by ridings is one way in pinning down the place under consideration.

I am trying to figure out a way to get "North Riding of Yorkshire" or "Yorkshire North Riding" or "NRY" accepted on WeRelate.

Thanking you goldenoldie--Goldenoldie 07:51, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Create the locations as minimal place pages but redirect them to the actual properly named page? But you said it was a small GEDCOM - so how many of these do you really have? Cleaning up any GEDCOM usually means hitting every page to do a few small edits anyway - is it really worth it?--jrm03063 08:49, 5 February 2012 (EST)

I've just edited Place:East Riding of Yorkshire, England to add ERY and Yorkshire East Riding as alternate names, and added similar alternate names for Place:North Riding of Yorkshire, England and Place:West Riding of Yorkshire, England so that they'll be matched correctly on future GEDCOM uploads.

If North/West/East Riding also used to be part of Yorkshire; that is, if you'd ever write "North Riding, Yorkshire, England" in a GEDCOM, then would you please add "Yorkshire, England" as an also-located-in place on each of three Place pages for the Ridings? Thanks.--Dallan 12:20, 9 February 2012 (EST)

What time zone is UTC? [7 February 2012]

Not familiar with the abbreviation UTC although I have lived on two different continents during my life. Could you expand, please. /cheers goldenoldie--goldenoldie 09:56, 5 February 2012 (EST)

It's one of the modern successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Check out Wikipedia article for more details.

Time and Date is a great site for everything time and calendar related. I use it frequently to get dates when an obit says "died last Tuesday". --Judy (jlanoux) 11:12, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Last night the BBC World Service radio network used the expression GMT. It has not gone away, no matter what Wikipedia says. --goldenoldie 10:28, 7 February 2012 (EST)

help instructions for creating cemetery pgs [11 February 2012]

Can someone add instructions for adding a link to Find-a-Grave on a new cemetery page. I will be adding so many pages and need to learn how to do this myself. I found the template but how do you find the cemetery number to put in the template? I just created Place:Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings, New York, United States and it needs a link to Find-a-Grave.--Janiejac 11:19, 5 February 2012 (EST)

I didn't know we had a template and just put links on the pages I did. But for your need, I went to FAG and looked for your cemetery. Then look at the URL for the page. You will see CRid=64319 in the link. --Judy (jlanoux) 11:43, 5 February 2012 (EST)

And you can find more information about linking to Findagrave at its source page Source:Find A Grave and you can find out how to include Wikipedia at the Wikipedia source page Source:Wikipedia. --cthrnvl 19:31, 10 February 2012 (EST)

Editing Place:Newton-Le-Willows, Bedale, North Riding of Yorkshire, England [6 March 2012]

I am trying to correct the above place name. I keep on being told "Bedale, North Riding of Yorkshire, England" does not exist and I must add it as a placename in order to do so.

How can I do so if clicking on the wording in red does not allow me to go any further?

In other words, how does one correct/remove one's own error in a placename?

The place does exist in Wikipedia under the name Bedale, Yorkshire, England. I am willing (grudgeingly) to alter to that description but I cannot see how to do so. Yorkshire has undergone a great deal of administration changes in the past 30 years and finally ended up reverting to the way things used to be. Two articles in Wikipedia are in disagreement with each other as to whether Richmondshire exists currently or only back in the 12th century.

I have read Help:Place pages. I do not find the guidance I am looking for.

Suggesting going to Wikipedia for my own birthplace is useless. I was born in a very large city. I am currently looking for small places in a different country.

--goldenoldie 10:23, 7 February 2012 (EST)

Place:Newton-le-Willows, Yorkshire, England already exists. Is that what you are looking for? -Moverton 16:27, 7 February 2012 (EST)

The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to edit the pages. The boxes in which to make changes are so far down the screen that you have to roll down to find them. For a newbie like me that means the alteration boxes did not exist. I spent all afternoon trying to figure out how to make the required corrections. It's done now. The design team could consider pulling their socks (I mean editing boxes) up. --goldenoldie 16:37, 7 February 2012 (EST)

I'm the design team :-). Could you tell me which editing boxes need to be pulled up, and where? Thanks.--Dallan

Dallan

There is no date on your reply. I have just seen it.

Immediately upon opening an Edit page we do not see the section in which we can make edits. We have to roll down through a whole lot of white space to find it. The white space is governed by the length of the list of family members on the right. If it's a family of ten it occupies a lot of vertical space.

Now, if some of the boxes to fill were in that white space on the left, they might be more quickly seen.

Another point, if I may. There are no instructions on the Edit screen with regard to putting a reference source (S1) or note number (N1) in the boxes which tie them to the Citations and Events. They may be in the instruction videos, but a repeat where the instructions are to be used would not go amiss. --goldenoldie 02:03, 6 March 2012 (EST)

Sorry, I'm confused. When I click on the "Edit" link to edit a person page, I see input fields for the name, gender, families, etc. on the screen without scrolling. I think we must be talking about different things. There are ?'s after the Sources, Images, and Notes headers that you can click on to get instructions, but I agree that the instructions could/should be made more obvious. Thanks for the feedback.--Dallan 14:33, 6 March 2012 (EST)

Oyster Bay rename? [21 February 2012]

The whole of Nassau County is divided into 3 Towns:Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay. These are similar to townships. I really think the Place:Oyster Bay should be renamed to 'Place:Oyster Bay (town)' to differentiate between the whole town with its many villages and hamlets and the hamlet of Oyster Bay. But there are links to Place:Oyster Bay so I would be uneasy renaming it. What do the admins think? Until I started trying to upload this GEDCOM, I never realized Oyster Bay encompassed a whole lot of places! (This map helped me realize how it is laid out: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mfox7/gnmap.gif) Nassau wasn't established until 1899 (from Queens) so I assume these 3 towns were not established until then. But I really haven't found info about that yet. --Janiejac 11:21, 7 February 2012 (EST)

I'm still concerned about this. When I click on Place:Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States it takes me to Oyster Bay (town) but it doesn't say town. When I click on what links here, I see all the hamlets and villages in the town - but I'm wondering why these places are not listed on the OB page as inhabited places??

Also, I want to create a place page for Oyster Bay (village), Nassau, New York and hesitate to do so until the current Oyster Bay page is renamed to Oyster Bay (town). Then I need to go back to see whether those 2 cemeteries linked to Oyster Bay are actually in the village or in some other village in Oyster Bay (town).

When looking at the history of this page, I see that it was once named Oyster Bay (town) but the town designation got removed sometime. Perhaps I could be bold and rename it but what about all those villages that are linked but don't show as inhabited places?? Since I don't know what I'm doing, I don't think you want me messing with it! --Janiejac 12:02, 9 February 2012 (EST)

I created a new page for the town: Place:Oyster Bay (town), Nassau, New York, United States and moved the wikipedia content to that page. Everybody now links to the hamlet, but I think that's alright, since it's ambiguous in most cases - if you say "Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States" in your gedcom, do you mean the town or the hamlet within the town? I don't think it matters that much.

I'll let you figure out whether the cemeteries should be under the hamlet as they are now, or under the town.

As for Place:West Neck, Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States, I noticed that you created the page and then marked it for deletion, since West Neck is now part of Place:Lloyd Harbor, Suffolk, New York, United States. Since it used to be an independent place back in 1900, I think it would be fine to keep the page. I'd might rename it to Place:West Neck, Nassau, New York, United States, and add an also-located-in place of Place:Oyster Bay (town), Nassau, New York, United States.--Dallan 13:04, 9 February 2012 (EST)

1. Place:Oyster Bay (town), Nassau, New York, United States which contains many village and hamlets and
   
2. Place:Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States a hamlet or village within the town.
   

No.1 The Town has many villages with pages at WR but these pages are not linked to the town.
No.2 Oyster Bay (village) is in Oyster Bay (town) - but all the neighboring villages are linked to this village and not to the town.

I know it is confusing, but leaving the many villages linked to a neighboring village is going to compile more confusion. Instead of unlinking and relinking all those villages from Place:Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States, can I just rename the current Oyster Bay (town), Nassau, New York United States to Oyster Bay (village), Nassau, New York, United States and then rename the current Place:Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, United States Oyster Bay (town), Nassau, United States so that all the villages currently linked to Oyster Bay will go to Oyster Bay (town)?? I am assuming the links remain with the renamed pages. I had a hard time figuring this out; I want to make it easier for those coming after me. --Janiejac 11:14, 11 February 2012 (EST)

I believe that the standard way to title villages/hamlets and towns in New England at WeRelate (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) is to title towns with (town) after the place name, and to put villages directly under the county, with also-located-in links to the containing town. A lot of villages are missing the also-located-in links to the towns though.

The reason that the neighboring villages were linked to "Oyster Bay" (the village) is because of the wikipedia templates. I moved the wikipedia template for the town to the Town page. But the wikipedia templates for the villages still think that the town page is "Oyster Bay" (the village). In a few months, the next time we update the wikipedia templates, the neighboring villages will be fixed automatically point to the town page instead of the village.

If you didn't want to wait, you could edit the wikipedia templates for the neighboring villages and update them right away to point to the town, like I did with this template. About 10 minutes after you edit, you'll see that they now link to the town instead of the village. It looks like there are about two dozen templates. If you'd like, I'll ask one of my children to update them.--Dallan 13:07, 14 February 2012 (EST)

OK I figured out how to change the wp template. Go to the place page, edit and at the bottom of the edit page are the templates used on that page. Edit from OB to OB (town) and that should link the village to the town. So I'll let your children off the hook; I'll do it as I have time. The village still does not show up as an inhabited place in the town. It shows only as an inhabited place in the county. And perhaps that is as it should be. I think perhaps the villages and hamlets should be listed on the town page just as a matter of historical accuracy, but when matching these villages, they are said to be in the county, leaving out the town as if it was a 'township'.

But now all the sources linked to the village of Oyster Bay need to be examined to see if they really pertain only to the village or if they pertain to the larger Oyster Bay town. I may get around to this as I have time, but any help would be appreciated.

In the process of trying to figure it out, I found OTHER mis-directed pages that also need some help. So can someone fix the following pages:
Place:Nassau, Nassau, New York, United States - this town of Nassau is in Rensselaer County, NY, not Nassau County. fixed
Place:Woodbury, Orange, New York, United States I don't know if there is a Woodbury in Orange County or not; there is a Woodbury in Nassau County but this Orange Co pg is linking to Oyster Bay, Nassau County.
Place:Orient, Suffolk, New York, United States is linking to Oyster Bay, Nassau, NY, USA. Reading that page, it doesn't look like Orient was ever considered part of Nassau County and certainly not the village of Oyster Bay. --Janiejac 17:36, 15 February 2012 (EST)

Ok, Woodbury, Orange County had the WP template for Woodbury, Nassau County, and vice versa. I don't know how they got that way, but I switched the templates and things should work better now.

The reason that Orient links to Oyster bay is because the Wikipedia article happens to mention Oyster bay. That's why Orient shows up in the "what links here" list for Oyster bay. I wouldn't worry about it.

I have a question for you and others regarding New England towns: When a GEDCOM has Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York, which place should the system match it to: the hamlet, or the town? I've been thinking that it should be matched to the hamlet unless it specifically says "Oyster Bay town, Nassau, New York". Is that correct? I'm working on an improved place matcher right now, so this is a good time to get an answer.--Dallan 17:22, 17 February 2012 (EST)

Dallan, From everything I've read New York State handles 'Towns' differently than other New England states. So what we're determining will apply to New York; but I don't know about the other states.

I just added this comment to New York page. If this is premature or not what you are thinking, will you change it to what it should say. Following this comment are definitions for the various governmental organizations:

Current convention at WeRelate is to match to villages and hamlets when that information is known and then to the county, leaving out the designation of Town. When the name of the village is the same as the name of the town, distinguish between the two by adding (village) or (town) to the title of the place page. This essentially is considering Towns the same as mid-western Townships. Link to the Towns only when the village or hamlet is unknown. During GEDCOM upload, the system will assume the city, village or hamlet unless Town is specified.

That looks good to me -- thanks.--Dallan 22:09, 21 February 2012 (EST)

Duplicate source pages; need help! [12 February 2012]

I believe these two sources are duplicates. Can someone merge or redirect one or the other? I am also confused by this source. The title page says the author is Ross, Peter but when you scroll further it says the author is Pelletreau, William S., A.M. It also must have been originally published in 3 vols but ancestry has one main search window for all three vols. I can't say . . . it is just confusing. I hope someone else can figure out just how this source should be listed on WeRelate and how it should be cited. beats me....
Source:Ross, Peter. History of Long Island
Source:Ross, Peter. History of Long Island : From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time
This source is both history and biography and is available at FHC and at ancestry.com (also as a freeGoogle eBook).
I just updated the URL to the ancestry.com search window so you can see how they present it. --Janiejac 14:00, 8 February 2012 (EST)

I combined these sources into Source:Ross, Peter. History of Long Island. Ross is the author of Vol 1, and Pelletreau is listed along with Ross on volumes 2 and 3. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:32, 8 February 2012 (EST)

Thank you!! That was a quick response! I'm linking to it in my GEDCOM review.--Janiejac 14:46, 8 February 2012 (EST)

I believe I've found another duplicate source; both created by the WeRelate agent:
Source:Names of Persons for Whom Marriage Licenses Were Issued by the Secretary of the Province of New York, Previous to 1784
and
Source:New York, United States. Names of Persons for Whom Marriage Licenses Were Issued by the Secretary of the Province of New York, Previous to 1784 --Janiejac 11:16, 9 February 2012 (EST)

These two sources are now combined into Source:New York, United States. Names of Persons for Whom Marriage Licenses Were Issued by the Secretary of the Province of New York, Previous to 1784. --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:50, 9 February 2012 (EST)

Another source with duplicate pages that looks like they should be merged:
Source:Record (New York Genealogical and Biographical Society) and
Source:New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (New York Genealogical and Biographical Society)--Janiejac 14:45, 12 February 2012 (EST)

Done. Thanks to Murphynw for painstakingly adding all those links to Internet Archive. --Jrich 15:26, 12 February 2012 (EST)

I would like to download a GEDCOM [11 February 2012]

I would like to download a GEDCOM for a person's family and it doesn't seem to be working. I followed the instructions in the FAQ. Or is it just me? --cthrnvl 21:24, 10 February 2012 (EST)

It's not you. The gedcom exporter stopped working. It's working again now. Would you please re-export your gedcom's? They should export now. THANK YOU for letting me know.--Dallan 01:55, 11 February 2012 (EST)

Thanks! That really helps, I bought Family Tree Maker and now I can upload a GEDCOM there (that I have worked on here) and make fancy charts to print out : ) --cthrnvl 11:58, 11 February 2012 (EST)

Problem with place page, how to fix? [17 February 2012]

We have a Place:Woodbury, Nassau, New York, United States. It is marked as a town and several other pages link to it.
The problem I see is that our WR page links to Woodbury, a Town in Orange County, New York.
Wikipedia has a page for Woodbury, Nassau County, New York (a village) and also has a page for Woodbury, Orange County, New York (a town and a village) If I edit our WR page of Place:Woodbury, Nassau, New York, United States to a village (from a town) and link it to the wikipedia Woodbury (village) Nassau, NY that would fix the looks but what about all the links that are currently linked to that page? It looks like some of them should be linked to the Orange County Woodbury, but I don't know about all of them. How do you handle this?? Or is there an easier way to bring this type of problem to the administrators' attention so that it gets fixed without me messing it up some way?--Janiejac 01:53, 16 February 2012 (EST)

The problem was the wikipedia templates were on the wrong pages. I moved the wikipedia templates to the correct pages (they had gotten switched for some reason). The other place pages still show up incorrectly in the "what links here" list because their template pages need to be updated -- the wikipedia templates are still pointing to the wrong pages. The templates will get updated automatically over the summer, or you could manually update them now if you wish.

Thank you for bringing up these issues. I think you're getting more comfortable making the changes necessary. Please continue making them, and asking questions here as things come up. For now this is the best way.--Dallan 17:29, 17 February 2012 (EST)

images going with the text [23 February 2012]

Dear team, much would I like to insert a photo of my great-grandmother Leontine Hoffmann. Please, advise me how to do that. Regards Jurgen--Jurgen Tuttipole 14:38, 23 February 2012 (EST)

Would you like to add her photo to a person page or to your userpage? To add a photo to a Person page for Leontine, you will first need to create a Person page for her.

• Go to Add>Person
• Enter her first and last (maiden) names and birth/death dates
• Click Next
• When you have created a Person page for her, click on the Edit link, go to the Images section, and add the title of her photo in the title box (LEONTINE.jpg)
• Click the Save Page button at the bottom of the page.

If you need any additional help, just let me know! --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:47, 23 February 2012 (EST)

Rename my USER : [28 February 2012]

Just getting started and it says to go to SUPPORT to rename my account /USER NAME . How do I go about it ?? Thanks.--HFR100 00:02, 28 February 2012 (EST)

The message you received means that in order for your Username to be changed, you need to leave a message here and an admin will rename your account. If you let me know what you would like your new Username to be, I can rename it for you. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:38, 28 February 2012 (EST)

Hi Jennifer . Thanks .Can you rename my USERNAME as HFR100 ??--HFR100 17:16, 28 February 2012 (EST)i.e. from HungarianFamilyRecord to HFR100 .

I renamed your account and your new user page can be found here: User:HFR100. --Jennifer (JBS66) 18:05, 28 February 2012 (EST)

Places suggestions hard to confirm [28 February 2012]

I find it very difficult to get a suggested placename to be confirmed when I click on it. Usually it is faster to keep on typing to the end of the line, and I am not a fast typist. Is there some knack to this? Clicking at a specific point in the suggestion, perhaps?

Thanks --goldenoldie 11:47, 28 February 2012 (EST)

Place Editing Screens [2 March 2012]

The phrasing of the PlaceName edit screen is very confusing, particularly when trying to add a cemetery. I am beginning to learn that to make an edit I will have to leave WeRelate, go over to Google Earth, and pick up the longitude and latitude there before I even attempt to make the edit/addition.--goldenoldie 11:49, 28 February 2012 (EST)

Can you provide more details? What's confusing?--Dallan 18:56, 29 February 2012 (EST)

Edit summary: /* Place Editing Screens */ [1 March 2012]

I went to send this yesterday and the original message and Dallan's reply had disappeared from the list of discussions I could find. Another kind member of WeRelate had to direct me back to this part of the website.

This is the Place: Template as it stands (in italics) with my thoughts as I look at the various questions.

Alternate names (one per line): Name|Source I only know of one name for the place. How can I answer this question? Am I allowed to leave it blank?

Type: [pull down list, starting with blank highlighted with pink] This is fine, so long as one realizes it is a pull-down list. That pull-down list sure goes on and on.

Latitude: N

Longitude: E

I wasn't expecting these questions. I wonder where I can find out? There are no links here to any gazetteer or atlas website. In the case of a cemetery, it won't be obvious on GoogleEarth if it is smaller than a couple of acres and even then it may not be named on the website. What is wanted? The coordinates of the cemetery or of the village? The funny thing is that should I get a placename accepted into the database a Google- or Bing-linked map comes up in the top right hand corner. I could have used that to begin with when trying to work out the answer.

Located in Ontario, Ontario, Canada (blued) from year: to year: from year Duhh. I wonder when the first settler arrived? 1800? 1825? 1850? Haven't a clue. to year I know that one. There was a province-wide re-organization of municipalities in 1974.

Also located in (one per line): Place| from year | to year The name of the place after reorganization is unknown to me. Once again, one has to go searching around the web to find the answer, always hoping I can find the right page of WeRelate when I get back.

See also (one per line): Place How can I answer this question? Doesn't it mean almost the same as the previous one?

| Reason: "Because the powers that be decided to change it." But I don't think you'd like that in your database of placenames.

Summing up In the case of cemeteries, we do not always know that it is the community in which the cemetery is located that is not recognized by the database of placenames. When we have completed the template, the phrasing of words on your software does not explain this to us.

Problem 1. The question of adding the cemetery must be put aside until I can add the village (or hamlet). But the means of getting out of the Edit screen until the cemetery can be provided with a name which is acceptable to your database is not evident.

Problem 2. I am adding a Canadian family and I have not lived in Canada (or even on the American continent) for almost 50 years. The organization of municipalities has changed. I know the names of the former townships, villages and hamlets. But I don't know the names of the "cities" into which many townships and hamlets have been merged. Here in Britain children are taught at school that a city must contain a cathedral. The tendency of North Americans to name collections of semi-rural communities cities is a subject of laughter and derision.

Problem 3. Say someone died in 1850 in [hamlet], [township], [county], Canada West and was buried in a local cemetery. But in 2012 they are buried in a cemetery in [newtownshipname], [newdistrictname], Ontario. It is the same cemetery. But two different addresses are required (1) to describe the death place in the narrative biography of the person, and (2) to locate the cemetery for someone looking for it today.

My apologies for going on a bit. Entering my nineteenth-century ancestors into WeRelate has turned into a far more time-consuming exericise than I ever expected it to be. I begin to wonder if, even after 30 years of doing genealogy, I am not qualified to have joined.

Regards --goldenoldie 05:45, 2 March 2012 (EST)

The key piece of guidance I would offer is that WeRelate is highly tolerant of information that is incomplete or mildly erroneous. Variously renaming, re-editing, and expanding pages is a standard part of the werelate experience - starting with beginning/weak content and getting it better by incremental improvement. Do the best you can of course - but don't ever be crippled into inactivity by concern about getting things perfect. Beyond that...

• I've seen you very patiently describing your [mis]adventures, and please, know that what you're doing is extremely helpful. Experienced users forget the issues that folks new to the system encounter - and we really want to understand and do better by new users. Your information is going to help Dallan add help and improve the way the pages are laid out, so thanks!

• Please don't worry that you don't enter LAT/LONG numbers when you first create a place page. We can always get back to that later. There are a lot of place names that don't even have those numbers. I figure out coordinates using the ACME mapper site, and am often able to zoom down to a level where I can recognize specific access roads and monuments in a cemetery from the satelite pictures. I would also add that there are nice ways to add LAT/LONG information when the place you want to specify is too specific to warrant a place page. For example, the coordinates of my Grandfather's first place of employment, the Kezar Falls Woolen Mill (also very handy for specifying a family plot in a large cemetery - add it in the description next to a fact, and this lat/long takes precedence over the values on the place page - see my Grandfather's page for more usage examples).

• I create cemetery place pages using the best modern political place as a starting point, and then create the cemetery place by prefixing the political name with the cemetery name and a delimiting comma. Still - again - don't be overly concerned about getting this perfect! Place pages can be renamed after the fact - and the result will be displayed everywhere that the original place page was referenced in the system.

• There are different names in play when you consider a place. There's the page name - which should try to follow the comma delimiting rules partially described in the last bullet point. There are the alternate names - these are the names by which the place may be known in various texts and at various times in history. These are added on the place name proper, and allow the place to be found by searches on the various names. Finally, there is the name that you want a place to appear under when referencing it on a page. The last point involves a simple bit of wiki syntax. For example, I can refer to Boston, Massachusetts as the place [[Place:Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States|XYZ]] = XYZ. Of course, that's probably not helpful - but it illustrates that you can assign a completely arbitrary name to a page that you want to link to.

Hang in there! The initial challenges of using WeRelate are rewarded by having a powerful presentation tool that puts your information out there for everyone to use! --jrm03063 10:54, 2 March 2012 (EST)

From one (relative) newbie to another - Welcome and I have felt the same frustrations. If you read this whole page of support, a large number of the questions here were mine. Fortunately, others are good to help and I have loved the concept of this site enough to keep coming back in spite of the frustrations. Recognize that the site is still in beta and constantly being improved as we let Dallan know what needs 'fixing'.

• Yes, it is frustrating that sometimes the autofill function seems to work and sometimes it is just better to keep typing.
• One thing I can mention that should be a help to you - when you are editing a page and need to 'leave' to go look something up; don't actually leave - open a new tab to go where you want, then click back on the older tab which should be right where you left off.
• On cemetery pages, you don't have to fill in all the blanks. If you don't know what to fill in, leave it blank. I was clueless concerning coordinates and created cemetery pages without them. Eventually I wanted to learn how to do that, and the easiest way I found was to open a new tab, go to Find-a-Grave site, search for cemeteries in that county and if there is a small map icon by the cemetery name, click that where you'll find the coordinates. Now User:Jrm03063 has suggested a new mapping site. If I can find some help in knowing how to use that site, perhaps that would be a better way.
• Agreed, when uploading I seem to spend more time creating place pages and sources than actually getting persons uploaded. But all places and sources don't have to be matched. If you're running short of time or patience, it's OK to leave them unmatched. The links to places will remain red and your sources will be uploaded as MySources. But red links are OK. Years from now when the site has matured all this preliminary work on places will be done and it will be easier for those that come after us. But for now, I like to think that we are building something worthwhile. --Janiejac 11:31, 2 March 2012 (EST)

Census Template, Help Please [6 March 2012]

Hi,

Newbie here.

I thought I remembered seeing a good looking table holding census data for a family while cruising around looking at how other folk arranged their pages. When I entered a few people, including 1850 Census info, I saw at the bottom of Source:United States. 1850 U.S. Census Population Schedule a link to a template. It looked really, really nifty, so I used it. I like clearly seeing all the information about who the census taker states was in the household. When I went on to enter the 1870 census info, I found no similar template. I looked at "What links here" on the template page and it looks like I'm about the only user who has used it. Is there a reason I shouldn't have used it? Did I use it incorrectly? It makes me uneasy using something no one else is using, especially being new here and all. Is there a chance the template might change, affecting all the pages I use it on? Do other people use this differently? Should I use Ostinatesnoopers' 1850 census template as an example and make a matching 1870's template? --LeeHollenbeck 15:13, 5 March 2012 (EST)

I'm not familiar with that template - but if there was a reason not to use it, I should think it would have been deleted or marked as deprecated. The example that I saw you using had you putting the template on a PERSON page, which is fine, but seems like overkill if you put that on the page for every person in that family. It seems like the table would make the most sense only on the Family page, though I would expect all the members of the family to still show a cite of the appropriate census and sufficient information so that the original page could be recovered. Take a peek at the history of the template, and see who created it. Perhaps you'll get more info. Good luck! --jrm03063 15:34, 5 March 2012 (EST)

It probably hasn't been used because users other than the person who created it haven't discovered it or haven't decided it's useful. I personally don't use it because 1) I think, like JRM said, it's overkill - too big and clunky for my taste, repetitive if on every page, and, relatedly, I prefer to have census information in the source info so it's all in one place; 2) it's significantly more work than just putting the information in free text, whether I'm copying and pasting previously transcribed materials or transcribing from an image anew; 3) it's likely that it will not work very well if a user wants to copy the data into another document for use in their own files (I already don't use a table/aligned data format for this reason - it always breaks for me).--Amelia 16:33, 5 March 2012 (EST)

Thank you for responding so quickly. The template was posted by Obstinatesnooper not ver long ago -- September 2011. I do not like cutting and pasting anything into multiple locations (redundancy, again) but I do like seeing all the information for a person in one place, without jumping back and forth between various family places, so I put the info on each PERSON page. Being a wiki, it is very easy to jump back and forth between the pages, but I like seeing much the information for a person in one spot so I can comprehend it better. Partly my not using the family pages is that I am not in the habit of using family pages, except for the linking of spouses and children. Families can be complicated, and I am in the habit of dealing with that by exhibiting on the person's page that individual's world view. Perhaps I need to change this.

I tried thinking of a way to write once and include on each person page, but the only way I could think to do that was to put each household census on its own Transcript or even (ugh) MySource page, and I had not seen an example of that. (Maybe try something like Source:County Census>Transcript:County Census>Transcript:subCounty census divisions>Transcript:Dwelling No., with the full,long,expected page titles? This sounds overcomplicated.)

Good points all, Amelia. I must remember KISS. But, I liked the table. I thought it was pretty :( , and very clear. I wrote a genealogy-buddy/distant cousin about my posting pages, and after looking at it what she said about it was that she likes how WeRelate shows the census data. I printed out the pages and had them with me at the Circuit courts office, and a clerk there also remarked on my "form". It must look pretty darn ugly on a GEDCOM export though. Sigh. I've been telling a few people how easy it was to edit a wiki, but if I put more complicated stuff on my pages, I probably will not get many believers. --LeeHollenbeck 17:08, 5 March 2012 (EST)

Adding all of the census references will probably be one of the last things I do in my tree on this site. But when I get around to it I plan to enter the data in a larger transcript format with links to the individual pages like I have done with Transcript:District 161, Leavenworth, Kansas, United States. 1880 U.S. Census Population Schedule and Transcript:Gypsum Creek, McPherson, Kansas, United States. 1870 U.S. Census Population Schedule. —Moverton 22:14, 5 March 2012 (EST)

Those census transcriptions are gorgeous Moverton, beautiful!

I just did a GEDCOM export, just for curiosity's sake. It was interesting how well it worked. It was interesting how the Sources and MySources were exported. The tables were ugly - What You See on the edit screen is What You Get, but at least the info was there. Since the edit screen is what you get, transcluded/template parts were not included. For instance, for a Find A Grave source, the record is {{Fgravemem|84746225|Mary E. ''Wilson'' Hollenbeck}}. In this find a grave instance, this is nice - name and memorial number are clear and present, ugly markup for html link is not present. However, on some other pages, I had transcluded in some transcriptions, and the only information present was the {{page to transclude}} link. I don't know that I personally would ever use the GEDCOM export, but it might be good to keep in mind what it does, as well how not so simply tables can be cut and pasted.

This conversation has given me much to mull over in considering where to put things and how to put them, with the purpose of collaboration in mind. Thank you Jrm03063, Amelia, and Moverton for your views.

There are data tables for all of the census years. The 1870 template is 1870 Census Data Table.--Beth 08:10, 7 March 2012 (EST)

Link Syntax for a Discussion Page [8 March 2012]

Is there a standard way to generate a link from a primary page to the associated talk page, without re-stating the name of the primary page? In other words, if I'm on page "XYZ:Fred", I want to create a link to "XYZ Talk:Fred". I want to create a template operation that does this on any given page, and I'ld rather not have to put in "Fred" as a parameter. Thanks... --jrm03063 18:39, 7 March 2012 (EST)

You can use MediaWiki's Magic word {{TALKPAGENAME}} in brackets to produce a link [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}]] --Jennifer (JBS66) 19:18, 7 March 2012 (EST)

Thanks! I'm using it in a template that's associated with marking defective sections of our transcript of the Savage Dictionary. Hope you'll take a peek and offer your views (my mediawiki script knowledge is...weak)! --jrm03063 11:44, 8 March 2012 (EST)

Reviewing Gedcom.Need instruction on how to match a spouse from person pages SEARCH FUNCTION FILTER HELP [10 March 2012]

Need instruction on how to match a spouse from review gedcom to a person page that I know was submitted last week .I have been submitting gedcoms slowly to a tree .I must be missing something as when I review a gedcom for a person page and need to FIND the spouse who I know is in the database ( I created his person page earlier and it's in werelate files ), the search filter says NO MATCH or gives me so many people that are not even close . I must be doing something wrong with the filter for search ; I do not want to ADD a new page for someone I know that's in database .~--HFR100 17:17, 8 March 2012 (EST)

I figured out what I was doing wrong . I was creating a family page to add to the person page and the search function was showing only family pages , not person pages ! It was a little confusing because I am working with a GEDCOM review .Issue solved.--HFR100 22:31, 9 March 2012 (EST)

Sorry we didn't get back to you - but glad you hung in there! --jrm03063 23:22, 9 March 2012 (EST)

Families that do not match [13 March 2012]

I have in my tree a couple named William and Elizabeth Atkinson. They are the parents of Ambrose Atkinson, born 1818 in Yorkshire, England. I don't know anything more about William and Elizabeth. WeRelate has suggested they are duplicates of William and Elizabeth Atkinson with a daughter Joice born in the early 1700s. How do I break this misalignment? Directions say tick the "Match" box under the unmatched family. But (1) there are only two boxes below the families and they say "Prepare to merge" and "Not a match". (2) Ticking a box that says "Match" when you don't want to match makes no sense.--goldenoldie 12:22, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

Thank you for flagging that strange language for us! The correct procedure though is to tick the 'match' checkbox under the person(s) you're dealing with - that tells the system which of the possibly several persons/families you want to apply the match/not match to - and then click "Not a match" at the bottom of the page.--Amelia 12:44, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

I followed your directions to the letter and got the following warning: Please check the "Match" box under the non-matching Family OK

My family is on the left. The interlopers are on the right along with the "Prepare to Merge" and "Not a Match" boxes.

--goldenoldie 14:48, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

Click on "Not a match" if there are no matches.--Dallan 20:36, 12 March 2012 (EDT)

Goldenoldie, when you are looking at the compare pages screen, you first need to mark the small box that appears underneath the words William Atkinson and Elizabeth Unknown (2) on the left side. This check box is directly next to the word Match. You'll notice the check boxes are already selected for you on the right side. When you select the very first check box at the top of the page, all of the remaining Match boxes below it will be marked for you. Then, you can scroll to the bottom of the screen and press the Not a match button. --Jennifer (JBS66) 06:36, 13 March 2012 (EDT)

Updating Places and Sources [15 March 2012]

I have just spent some time correcting the description of a small town in Ontario. The current title of the page is Place:Cannington, Ontario, Ontario, Canada. This was never correct. Historically (up to 1974) it was Cannington, Brock [township], Ontario [county], Ontario [province], Canada [nation]. Since 1974 it is Cannington, Durham [region], Ontario [province], Canada [nation].

I have entered the old and new names into the relevant boxes on the template and they have been accepted by the software. But how can (1) the title of the page be changed?

(2) How do I remove the line Located in Ontario, Ontario, Canada ( - 1974) which comes from source: Family History Library Catalog

(3) and also the sentence from Wikipedia which no longer has relevance because I have replaced the stub with an explanation?

There are a lot of Canadian places and sources which have been accepted in times passed, but need updating. Another example: There are nine Canadian censuses available. Seven are named Canada. yyyy Census of Canada, two are named Canada. Census of Canada yyyy. Uniformity would speed up referencing these very commonly used sources. I can never remember which are the odd men out. The censuses as listed in WeRelate have a variety of authors (in this case different government departments) depending on the age of the document that the original contributor used as their reference. Very little credit is given in any of the sources to the current government agency in charge of holding the census records: Library and Archives Canada.

I have no experience in making citations for American states or in continental European countries. Very likely there are other contributors who might know of other places and sources which need updating.

But the main question is "How does one go about altering titles and the parts of descriptions printed in blue?" Thanks --goldenoldie 11:22, 15 March 2012 (EDT)

I've looked at your page. It appears that you are replacing the FHL with another source so it would be appropriate to remove the designation. If you look at the page in edit view, you will see a template in the narrative box at the top. This is what creates the blue link that you see in normal view. So remove the template to remove that link. You should also remove the "stub" template from the narrative box since you are adding real information to the page.

To change a page title, one uses the Rename link from the menu on left. You would provide the new name and the reason for the change. After the rename, double check that the "located in" appears correct.

Re census... The Help:Source page titles page has examples for Canada census. If you find some in error, a rename is used for the correction. Make sure the source type is Government/Church records for the census pages. I dislike putting authors on the regular census pages because of the confusion, but I'm not sure if we made this a site policy. --Judy (jlanoux) 12:28, 15 March 2012 (EDT)

Thanks, Judy. You are very clear on all points. --goldenoldie 13:13, 15 March 2012 (EDT)

Adding a Vital Records Source [19 March 2012]

I am trying to add a source for Marriages found in the Old Parish Registers of Scotland. There is already a Source:Scotland. Old Parish Registers, Births and Baptisms I am trying to replicate this for marriages, but the following error keeps coming up despite my entering every field except the surname (which is irrelevant). "Required source fields are missing; please press the Back button on your browser to enter the required fields." Where have I gone wrong this time?--goldenoldie 12:25, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

Probably forgot to fill in source type, Government and Church Record. Must be done on the very first screen of the add process, after that the field is not editable. Notice in the existing page, that Scotland does not go into the title field, only the place field. If the Govt type is correctly chose, the page title will be built by concatenating place and source title fields. --Jrich 12:43, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

Thanks very much. It's in now.--goldenoldie 16:06, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

References Not Showing on Person Page After Adding Photos [20 March 2012]

I added photos to Hattie's person page. Now the references are not showing. Is there a way to change this on the "Edit" page? or is this a glitch? Thanks--MMatt 07:35, 20 March 2012 (EDT)

Just ensure your gallery photo block starts with <gallery> and ends with </gallery>. The decide whether or not you want your images shown separately in the image link also. Good luck. --BobC 07:57, 20 March 2012 (EDT)

"email this user" [24 March 2012]

Does the "email this user" function work? (Selected from the left hand menu bar). I tried it, using my own username, and did not receive the email. I have a gmail account in my profile, and even checked the spam folder, but nothing showed up.--Ccavello 09:32, 21 March 2012 (EDT)

It should - I'll try to send you a hello message.... --jrm03063 14:59, 21 March 2012 (EDT)

It looks like it's broken :-(. I'm out of town; I'll fix this when I return on Friday. Thank you for reporting it.--Dallan 00:18, 22 March 2012 (EDT)

Working now--Dallan 21:44, 24 March 2012 (EDT)

Delete my account [27 March 2012]

Please delete my account.--admaust 08:39, 27 March 2012 (EDT)

Before your account can be removed, you have to decide what you want to do about the pages you've contributed. If you want them to remain on the website, then I'll remove your account and set the author on those contributions to anonymous. If you don't want them to remain, you need to select Trees from the MyRelate menu and delete your tree. This will delete the pages in your tree for which you are the only watcher. Once you've made your decision (and deleted your tree if that's what you choose), let me know and I will remove your account.--Dallan 09:46, 27 March 2012 (EDT)

Delete history [29 March 2012]

Is it possible to delete this old history?

http://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=MySource:Ijkerr/Email_correspondence&oldid=11327289

It contains an email address that I accidentally posted.

Thanks.--Ijkerr 00:27, 29 March 2012 (EDT)

Unless you're planning to attach an extract of the e-mails to the MySource page, then the better idea is to junk the whole page and all the cites of it. It has no possible utility for anyone else. --jrm03063 09:15, 29 March 2012 (EDT)

As for the specific question, is it possible to delete a history of a page, the easiest way is to delete the page and then re-create it. Only the person who deleted the page and the admins can view the history of deleted pages.--Dallan 09:19, 29 March 2012 (EDT)

Ok, thanks, I've just deleted the page.--Ijkerr 09:41, 29 March 2012 (EDT)

Creating a Community Project page [7 April 2012]

I'd like to create a community project page for a very small group of people who are working on a DNA project. The others are not currently users of WeRelate, but this seems to me to be a good place to try to do-ordinate research. I've started a User page (still lots to add), but would like to shift it over to a page where others can (hopefully) contribute, and also so that relevant Person and Family pages can have a link added. Do I create an Article Page? an Other Page? Is it appropriate to add it to the Community Portal? Any other suggestions? Thanks, --GayelKnott 16:50, 2 April 2012 (EDT)

It looks like the other community portal pages are articles; feel free to shift over to an article and list it on the this page under the community portals section.--Dallan 23:26, 7 April 2012 (EDT)

Sorting Error [5 April 2012]

I added a daughter born in March, 1894 to a family all of whom were older, and for some reason she is now sorting at the top of the list. I didn't see anything odd in the dates of the rest of the children on the list. The family is Thijs Stad and Hendrika Havekate. Any ideas? --Pkeegstra 17:36, 4 April 2012 (EDT)

It just started working. Did someone change something, or did it just need to be indexed? --Pkeegstra 17:49, 4 April 2012 (EDT)

I've noticed this happening at times. Any edit to the page (or a null edit) will cause the children to sort correctly. --Jennifer (JBS66) 17:59, 4 April 2012 (EDT)

I'll keep that in mind. I did several null edits, but it didn't occur to me to try the family page. --Pkeegstra 06:40, 5 April 2012 (EDT)

Finding Elizabeth L. Connelly [7 April 2012]

Why is it I can't find anything that I have donated to this site? I searched for Elizabeth L. Connelly, born 1789, died 1871. She was the daughter of Capt. Henry Connelly and Ann MacGregor. She was wife of Aaron Tate. Yet it says no documents found. Can anyone explain this?--Teltalheart 21:19, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

When I searched for Elizabeth Connelly and put 1789 in the birth date field, 2 different pages are returned (both of which you are watching). One of the pages contains her spouse and the other page contains her parents. It may be that you entered her spouse and parents in the search form, and since no page contained that information nothing was returned. Since these were duplicate pages for the same person, I've merged them together: Person:Elizabeth Connelly (7).--Jennifer (JBS66) 07:45, 7 April 2012 (EDT)

If you want to find people that you're watching, click on "List" in the main menu, then "People".--Dallan 23:26, 7 April 2012 (EDT)

Duplicates [8 April 2012]

As a general question, what would you like us to do if we find a page that we suspect is a duplicate? As a specific, I suspect these two people are the same:

Person:Hugh Fraser (16), son of Person:Simon Fraser (6) and married to Person:Isobel Wemyss (2)

the same as:

Person:Hugh Fraser (21), son of Person:Simon Fraser (26) and married to Person:Isabel Wemyss (1)

Are there any algorithms being used to identify potential duplicates like this?

Thanks AndrewRT 20:47, 7 April 2012 (EDT)

In the "More" menu on the left-hand side of a Person page, there is a "Find duplicates" link that will show you similar pages.

In the early days of WeRelate, we didn't have checks for duplicates when adding new pages or uploadin:g a gedcom. As a result, we had many (nearly one hundred thousand) duplicates. Most of the duplicates have been merged, but several thousand have yet to be reviewed. Here's a list of potential duplicates that still need to be reviewed.--Dallan 23:26, 7 April 2012 (EDT)

I merged Hugh, but then something crashed my system before I got to Simon. You should be able to use the "compare" link on Hugh's page under each set of parents to merge those.--Amelia 23:53, 7 April 2012 (EDT)

I spent some more time in there. I think the immediate area of duplication is resolved. I also jettisoned some useless "Unknown" person and empty marriage pages (they linked nothing, and added nothing). --jrm03063 13:37, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

Many thanks. And in terms of how to do it - just chosoe teh one to keep and redirect the other one to that page, merging any additional info? AndrewRT 19:58, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

rename Nørrejylland, Denmark to Nordjylland, Denmark [16 April 2012]

What is meant by this page is the former district of "Nordjyllands amt", which is obvious to anybody aware of administrative division of Denmark. Hence, the current title is incorrent and misleading. Nørrejylland was used to mean all of the Jutland peninsula north of river Kongeåen (as opposed to the duchy Slesvig/Sønderjylland). Please rename to "Nordjylland, Denmark Hhbruun 04:20, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

I can go ahead and rename to Nordjylland. It will cause all of the subordinate places to be renamed as well. This is a lot of renaming, so before going ahead with this, I wanted to ask if anyone had any opinions to the contrary.--Dallan 11:53, 16 April 2012 (EDT)

Place:Canada West, United Province of Canada [20 April 2012]

I think this page needs to be edited because it ought to be the "mother" page for all the counties and districts that were in existence in the period 1841-1867 (i.e., the lifetime of Canada West).

Before I go ahead, I would like to ask a couple of questions: (1) Why does Canada West, United Province of Canada come up in red when it follows Category: at the bottom of the page?

(2) Why, when I try to edit into existence Place:Scott, Ontario, Canada West, Canada does the Edit page come up entitled "Place:Scott, Hamilton, Canada West, United Province of Canada"? Scott was in Ontario County (within Canada West and later within the Province of Ontario). Hamilton was either a town in Wentworth County or a township in Northumberland County.

(3) This is a more general question: What is a "WeRelate abbreviation" found in a small font following some place names?--goldenoldie 10:52, 16 April 2012 (EDT)

As a general rule, the place pages on WeRelate should be titled as they were around the year 1900. I believe that we should not have Place pages for either Place:United Province of Canada or Place:Canada West, United Province of Canada. One example of the confusion this could create is Place:Darlington (township), Durham, Canada West, United Province of Canada and Place:Darlington (township), Durham, Ontario, Canada. We want to, as much as possible, have only one place page per geographic locality. If a user would like to document a place as it was at the time of an event, they can use a "pipe" to display one text while still linking to the proper place page. For example: [[Place:Ontario, Canada|Text you'd like to display]] will produce Text you'd like to display.

Regarding your additional questions:

1. The category at the bottom of the page is displayed in red because it has not been created yet. This means that a parent category has not been assigned to it. For example, the parent category for Category:Ontario, Canada would be Canada.
2. If this place was called Place:Scott, Ontario, Ontario, Canada around the year 1900, then you would use that place page, not create a new one.
3. I believe these abbreviations are a result of an automated process. If they are identical to the title of the place page, they can be deleted. Often they differ and are common abbreviations such as St/Saint that assist with searches. --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:17, 16 April 2012 (EDT)

I wrote a response at the same time Jennifer did. It overlaps what Jennifer said, but I'm going to repeat it anyway in case the additional information is helpful, and because I spent a lot of time writing it :-)--Dallan 11:53, 16 April 2012 (EDT)

(1)Because the category "page" hasn't been created. If you follow the red link click on "edit" to create a page and save it, the link won't be red anymore. If you do this, you should add the parent category when you edit the page as Jennifer suggests.

(2) You're getting into some complex situations here. You have a place "Canada West" which is located in a superior place "United Province of Canada". And there's another place "Ontario" which is located in a superior place "Canada". As far as the computer knows, these two places are not related in any way. They're two different places in two different countries. What makes it more confusing is that "Canada West" has an alternate name of "Ontario", and Place:Hamilton, Canada West, United Province of Canada has an alternate name of "Hamilton, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada". This is not the right way to use alternate names. Alternate names should be used for aliases or historical names. If you want to refer to another Place page, that place should be listed as a "See also" place, not as an alternate name. So when you type "Scott, Ontario, Canada West, Canada", the computer looks for countries with Canada in the name. It finds two: Canada, and United Provinces of Canada. Then it looks for a subordinate place called "Canada West" in each of the two matching countries. It finds one: "Canada West, United Provinces of Canada". Next it looks for a subordinate place called "Ontario" in Canada West. The only thing it finds is Hamilton, because Ontario is mentioned in the alternate name for Hamilton. So it assumes that you must be trying to create a place named Scott in Hamilton.

If you're going to have separate places for "United Province of Canada" and "Canada West, United Province of Canada", then you need to be careful how you intermix them so that things don't get confusing.

• Move "Ontario" from an alternate name to a "See also" place of Canada West.
• If Place:Hamilton, Canada West, United Province of Canada covered essentially the same area as Place:Hamilton, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada, then merge the two places (by writing "#redirect [[Place:Hamilton, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada]]" at the top of the big text box for Place:Hamilton, Canada West, United Province of Canada, and adding Canada West as an "Also located in" place for Place:Hamilton, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada.
• On the other hand, if the historic place Place:Hamilton, Canada West, United Province of Canada was substantially different than Place:Hamilton, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada, then move "Hamilton, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada" from an alternate name to a "See also" place for Place:Hamilton, Canada West, United Province of Canada.
• When you create a place like "Scott, Ontario, Canada West, Canada", ask yourself: did this place exist in 1900? If so, you need to title it according to the jurisdictional hierarchy that it had in 1900, and list earlier/later jurisdictional hierarchies as "Also located in" places. In this particular case, it seems likely that the place that you want already exists as Place:Scott, Ontario, Ontario, Canada, and what you really want to do is add "Canada West, United Provinces of Canada" as an "Also located in" place to Place:Ontario, Ontario, Canada. By creating a single Place page for Scott, titled according to a jurisdictional hierarchy at a chosen year (1900) we avoid what would easily become a confusing proliferation of separate wiki pages for the same place. If you list "Canada West, United Provinces of Canada" as an "Also located in" place for "Ontario, Ontario, Canada", then when you enter a place or someone uploads a gedcom with a place titled "Scott, Ontario, Canada West, Canada", it will display just as it was entered, but link to Place:Scott, Ontario, Ontario, Canada.

(3) Most of the time you can ignore them. It generally means that WeRelate is abbreviating the name found in the Family History Library Catalog (moving the word Township or County down into the "type" field), or using some other form of abbreviation. For various reasons we now have a few alternate names that are exactly the same as the name in the title. It won't hurt anyone's feelings if you delete them.--Dallan 12:03, 16 April 2012 (EDT)

Thank you Jennifer and Dallan for your prompt support on naming Canada West and assorted places.

I have made some redirects and moved several "alternate names" to "see also". Darlington has been put into Durham County, Ontario, and Hamilton into Northumberland County, Ontario and are no longer showing up in Contained Places. Darlington and Hamilton townships were entries made by another WeRelate user.

The next thing is to combine Canada West, Canada with Canada West, United Province of Canada. Both still have contained places. I made an attempt to moved York (which is a county) from Canada West, Canada to Canada West, United Province of Canada, but it was not successful. Kingston (inhabited place) needs the same move. Or maybe both Canada West, Canada and Canada West, United Province of Canada ought to be redirected to Ontario, Canada. Upper Canada (the fore-runner of Canada West) would have to be redirected as well. Whatever, short historical notes with be inserted in the description.

Personally, I am unhappy with removing these historical names for the present province of Ontario. They are used in historical documents that those of us with Ontario ancestors are citing. A census enumerator working in 1861 would be anticipating birthplaces of Upper Canada and Canada West, but definitely not Ontario. To cite a census accurately, we must continue to use the old names.

Today I entered into WeRelate a woman who was born in Upper Canada, married in the Home District of Upper Canada, was found in one of the two censuses that covered Canada West, and died in Ontario. She was far from being unusual. In the future I intend to add a man who arrived in Quebec City in 1764 and others who came to Upper Canada through New York State but were born in the Colony of New Jersey!--goldenoldie 17:01, 16 April 2012 (EDT)

Hi, I'm not sure if you're asking a question here. Before you can redirect a place with contained places, you need to first redirect each of the contained places. The way to think about historical names is: if it's an alternate name for roughly the same geographic area as an area that existed in 1900, list it as an alternate name for the existing place; if it names a substantially-different geographic area than any that existed in 1900, create a new place. On person/family pages you should name the place as it appeared in the records. If you've set up the alternate names correctly, it will automatically link to the appropriate place. We don't want to create new place pages for every name variation; name variations can (and should) appear on the person/family pages.--Dallan 09:48, 20 April 2012 (EDT)

can't find template [26 April 2012]

I remember seeing somewhere a template to put on category pages that was more than just an alpha template; it also had sections to click for certain types of documents. But I don't remember where I saw it to be able to find it again. I did not find it looking through the various template index. Anyone know what I'm referring to? --Janiejac 16:53, 25 April 2012 (EDT)

Hi Janie, is this the template you are thinking of: Template:SurnameCategoryTOC? It is meant to be used on surname categories like this Category:Jackson surname. --Jennifer (JBS66) 00:15, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

That is exactly what I wanted! Thank you!

Also, I'm wondering if a section for 'transcriptions' could be added to that template. I'd like my will transcriptions to have a title like "Transcription: Will.John Jackson 1800 New York" and if they come up in a search as 'Transcription' then I could see a list of all my Jackson wills (or other transcriptions) in one place. So would it be possible or effective to add 'Transcription' to the selections? --Janiejac 01:32, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

I added a "Transcript" link to the contents section of that template. I called it Transcript rather than Transcription because that is how WeRelate's namespace is titled. --Jennifer (JBS66) 02:40, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

Thank you, that's perfect! Now I need to go back to rename my docs. --Janiejac 09:44, 26 April 2012 (EDT)

Time and date in settings [4 May 2012]

When I send a talk message, the time given after my name is expressed in EDT. I live in the United Kingdom, a 5-hour time difference from EDT. In Settings the server is set for 1.00 from UTC (or GMT in general parlance). This is quite logical--we turn our clocks forward in summer just as you do in North America.

Is it the plan that everyone's time is translated to EDT? Or is some adjustment needed?

Contrary to what it says at the bottom of this message, it's my bedtime. Good night.

--goldenoldie 18:06, 27 April 2012 (EDT)

 :-) Click on the "Settings" link in the upper-right corner, then on the "Date and Time" tab, then set your timezone.--Dallan 16:16, 3 May 2012 (EDT)

From My Settings page Server time 06:19 Local time 07:19 Offset¹ 1:00

which is correct, but the time on my message is expressed as 02:22 (EDT). This infers I live in the eastern United States or Canada, and I live in the UK. You must have a server in continental Europe as well as one in the States.--goldenoldie 02:27, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

TEXT & TRANSCRIPTION FOR MY SOURCE : WILL IT CARRY OVER AFTER GEDCOM IMPORTED ? [8 May 2012]

I am just getting the hang of SOURCING properly ( I think ) . I am doing a GEDCOM review that has not been imported yet . I am creating MYSOURCE that are particular to the person pages . It's a census transcription of a large family with many children that I do not want to retype or cut and paste every time I gedcome review a new person in same family . MYSOURCE created properly ; red linking changed to blue . However , is it because the MYSOURCE was just created that it needs to wait to be indexed that I can not carry over all the material in the TEXT & TRANSCRIPTION & CITATION boxes ?
Other question : Will the transcriptions carry over automatically from MYSOURCE if I just cite them in other person pages --or do I need to retype/cut & paste for each person page ??

Thanks . Total newbie here !--HFR100

There are a few different approaches for doing census transcriptions. But first, I took a look at your 1860 census for McCarthy Mahoney. I don't see any content on the page. So there would be little gained from using a MySource rather than citing the regular 1860 census. It doesn't even have a reference to the page where the family is found so someone would have to search all over to see the listing.

Here's some ideas for getting more mileage from your MySource:

• Add the transcript of the census to the MySource page and make sure to include all location information.
• If you found the listing online, include a link to the image.
• You can also use your transcript to include links to the Person Page for everyone listed. This can be very useful when cousins and other odd people show up in the household.

Now you would have an excellent use for a MySource. You can use this as a source on the Person page for everyone listed and don't have to cut and paste. All someone needs to do is to click on the MySource link to see the whole thing. Here's an example where I did this for a will. MySource:Jlanoux/Will of Robert Madison, 1858 --Judy (jlanoux) 14:22, 6 May 2012 (EDT)

Thanks for helpful suggestions. Really needed the tips as I just submitted a gedcom that's a work in progress . Will reference and add transcripts to MySource properly when I get it back as it was hard to " reference " persons without knowing what their namespace/number will be - in gedcom reviews , there seem to be no number/surname namespaces e.g. Person:John Doe(9) that I could bracket --unless I missed something again .

Harriet --HFR100HFR100

Once you get your gedcom imported, you should check to see it the MySources from the gedcom linked up to the one you created. If they didn't (perhaps a slight difference in title), then you can delete the one you created manually and work with the one the gedcom import created. As info, any gedcom sources that aren't matched to Source Pages on the Source tab, will become MySources automatically.

It's always a good idea to review your new pages after import and tidy up a bit if needed. You can make your links at the same time. --Judy (jlanoux) 16:04, 8 May 2012 (EDT)

References and hyperlinks [15 May 2012]

Until I joined WeRelate I was not familiar with the symbols used to adjust fonts. I managed to figure out that bold lettering is formed by using 3 single quotes on either side of the phrase, and italic is formed by using 2 single quotes. But how does one produce that blue diagonal arrow at the end of a hyperlink reference? Is there a special way of writing a hyperlink reference? Is there a list somewhere of these symbols and how to make them? --goldenoldie 10:39, 15 May 2012 (EDT)

Just to throw this in here: Internal links (i.e., to other WeRelate pages) have double-brackets surrounding the page title (and there is a button for that at the top of the window). External links, to web pages outside WeRelate (like Find-a-Grave, etc) have only single brackets (and there's no button for that). The little blue arrow is produced automatically; that's the indicator that you're about to leave WeRelate. But there's a special thing about single-bracketed outside links, too: You can (and usually should) include some visible text within the brackets. Unlike the double-bracketed internal links, this does not require a "pipe" symbol. (It's just a wiki inconsistency [I suspect the pipe is probably valid in a URL and so can't be used a terminator character, so an "inconsistency" of necessity.-jrich].) Otherwise the appearance of the link to the visitor is pretty bare. You'll find examples of link-formation at Help:Formatting#Links. --Mike^Talk 14:59, 15 May 2012 (EDT)

Actually, the external link syntax is generated by the little globe button - 4th from the right. It looks like [http://www.example.com link title]--Amelia 01:12, 16 May 2012 (EDT)

I had the same problem in getting started. I started making a cheat sheet for myself to help remember the things I personally use. Also now I have found and added several useful Wikipedia Help pages with more information and guidelines about formatting. You are welcome to refer to User:Jlanoux/Cheat sheet or you can make one for yourself in your user pages.

The most common formatting (including internal and external links) can be done through the buttons at the top of the editing window. There is also an "Editing help" link to the right of the save/preview/show changes buttons below the editing window. Also, you can always click "edit" on a page that uses the formatting you're curious about and look at the coding. For more advanced editing help, Wikipedia has endless information.--Amelia 12:09, 15 May 2012 (EDT)

Thanks to you both.--goldenoldie 15:06, 15 May 2012 (EDT)

Problem mapping location [5 June 2012]

I cannot get this cemetery I added to map.

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:Pleasant_Hill_Methodist_Church_Cemetery,_Lamar,_Georgia,_United_States

I've checked the coordinates with Googlemaps and they are correct.

Can anyone take a look at this and fix the problem?

I have done this many times before with no problem, so it apparently is not a lack of knowledge, just an inability to spot my own errors.

Thanks.--Tbrady 16:36, 20 May 2012 (EDT)

The coordinates are correct. I have had this problem before. I am not sure why the Google maps do not zoom in to the location and show details. Maybe someone else could answer this. I added the Find A Grave templates and category. --Beth 17:15, 20 May 2012 (EDT)

Thanks, Beth.

I went ahead and added a googlemaps link, which solves the problem of being able to find it. The mapping function still is not working. Looks like a technical glitch, since Ive done this many times before with no problem.--Tbrady 10:41, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

Hmmmm...I can't see a problem with it. It appears to be in the correct place when I zoom in. (Perhaps your complaint is that you have to adjust the centering of the map and cannot just press the + button?) The detail on the map looks exactly the same whether viewed on the place page or whether clicking on the Google link. -Moverton 14:41, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

I'm not sure what the problem is either. The extra link is nice to bring up a zoomed-in view; the map view is by default not zoomed in.--Dallan 00:56, 27 May 2012 (EDT)

Okay if there is not a problem why does the same map on Find A Grave show the exact place. How may we get the same result on WeRelate? Exact instructions please. --Beth 23:00, 27 May 2012 (EDT)

The level of zoom is different. If I zoom out 5 levels on the Find A Grave map, it looks exactly the same as what appears on the WeRelate page. -Moverton 12:45, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

There's no way to pre-set the zoom level; sorry.--Dallan 16:54, 5 June 2012 (EDT)

Places assumed to be surnames [5 June 2012]

I have added two Places to my research interests on my page User:Goldenoldie. The word surname automatically comes up in the Researching box, i.e., surname Toronto, even though I have edited the place out of the surname box. Can this be fixed? --goldenoldie 04:16, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

It seems to work correctly on some other pages I have seen and seems to work on a test I ran where I left the Surname field blank. I can't edit your page, so can't see what you see, but the source shows:

<researching surname="Toronto" place="Ontario, Canada"/>

but should show:

<researching place="Toronto, Ontario, United States"/>

So double-check that the surname field is indeed blank. If it is, then, perhaps something is sticky. Try blanking out the whole entry, both surname and place, saving, then re-editing to re-add the entry with a blank surname field. --Jrich 14:51, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

I do want it to be "Toronto, Ontario, Canada". Don't go crossing the border for me.--goldenoldie 15:09, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

Of course, cut and pasted from a working example and missed that. The point being that the surname field needs to be blank. --Jrich 17:48, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

I went ahead and moved Toronto from the surname field into the place field.--Dallan 17:02, 5 June 2012 (EDT)

Editing Place Pages: various questions [2 June 2012]

I have just revised Place:Cavan-Monaghan, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada because the complete article in Wikipedia contained useful historical information that the introductory section originally brought into WeRelate did not include. This is the first time I have attempted some of the operations suggested in Help:Place Pages and I know I came unstuck on at least one of them despite trying to follow the instructions to the letter. I attempted to include the History section from Wikipedia in its entirety but wasn’t sure about the templates discussed in Section 1.12.1 of Help:Place pages. Do I type the exact phrases as given in the instructions, or do I replace words within those phrases with the name of the specific Wikipedia article and the section heading?

In the end, because I wanted to see the changes I was making and because I noticed a reference that was a dead-link in Wikipedia (and which I fixed in Wikipedia), I did a “copy and paste” from Wikipedia into WR. But “change Wikipedia links from article title to wikipedia:article title“ didn’t work for me, so I used the external link form instead. (Sorry, but wiki-formatting is getting in the way of what I am trying to quote from Help:Place pages here.) With a bit more instruction I could do this the proper way.

The references brought in from Wikipedia have ended up in the wrong font. I do not know how to change this.

Last week I found the WR article “Ontario Research Guide” written five years ago and asked the original author if I might amend and expand it. With his okay in hand I proceeded and the article is now almost finished. Some further amendments will occur once I show it to a professional Ontario genealogist for comment. I have now made a template to the “Ontario Research Guide” which can be added to the bottom of any Place page for Ontario.

I have read what Jennifer had to say with respect to changing the standard template to Cavan-Monaghan. In the circumstances it is probably best if I make a “cut and paste with credit to Wikipedea” adjustment to the introductory paragraph. The wording produced by the original template did not match the current introductory paragraph on Cavan-Monaghan in Wikipedia.--goldenoldie 15:16, 2 June 2012 (EDT)

The wikipedia material is undoubtedly useful, but it is easily available just a click away, since a properly formatted wikipedia entry includes a link to wikipedia. This is perhaps the reason why only the introduction is brought in.

Cut and paste is not recommended and probably needs to be undone. Wikipedia material on WeRelate only gets updated once or twice a year, but at least it gets updated periodically, while cut and paste material won't. --Jrich 16:30, 2 June 2012 (EDT)

If you feel people can't follow a link to wikipedia, see Place:Lexington, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States for an example of adding history. (Edit and cancel to see how it was done.) --Jrich 18:56, 2 June 2012 (EDT)

place matching during GEDCOM review [5 June 2012]

Would an admin please look at my GEDCOM currently being reviewed to see what I am seeing. The last place on my list to match is Zane Underwood Cemetery in Tyler County, West Virginia. I just created a page: Place:Underwood Cemetery, Tyler, West Virginia, United States but I cannot get the search engine to find it so it can be matched. This is not the first time that the system could not find a place that I knew I had just created. So am I doing something wrong or is there a bug?--Janiejac 14:22, 4 June 2012 (EDT)

OK, I waited an hour or so and tried again. This time the new cemetery place page was found right away. Apparently just takes awhile. But it would be so helpful if place matching had recently used buttons like source matching has. --Janiejac 19:17, 4 June 2012 (EDT)

Good point. (The wait time is now only 10-15 minutes, but still...) Could you add this as a suggestion?--Dallan 17:05, 5 June 2012 (EDT)

Sources not showing on page [9 June 2012]

On the page for Person:Robert Price (6), the sources do not show up when I save the page. Can you help me fix it?

--Txbluebell6 15:54, 9 June 2012 (EDT)

Hi Pamela, I fixed the problem by adding a slash / at the end of your ref tags. --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:01, 9 June 2012 (EDT)

Thanks so much. I looked and looked and couldn't find the reason.--Txbluebell6 16:05, 9 June 2012 (EDT)

Portal Box -- Background Color [9 June 2012]

Is there an additional parameter that can be added to the basic portal box code to give a different background color for the box contents?

The basic code is:
{{portal-box
|title=Left Box 1
|color=rgb(216, 191, 216)
|content=
* xxx
* xxx
* xxx
}}

Would I need to put in something like:
|background=rgb(xx,xx,xx) If so, what is the background parameter? Background? Bkground? Bkgnd?

Help?--cowantex 15:59, 9 June 2012 (EDT)

Responded at Portal talk:Basic Layout with Instructions. --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:14, 9 June 2012 (EDT)

question re: copyrights/fair-usage [14 June 2012]

1) Does this usage of a newspaper obit comply with website regulations? [2] 2) Was not clear from the FAQ (to me at least); can I post scanned images of government vital records (e.g., death certificates).

--David 08:09, 14 June 2012 (EDT)

Scanning & posting only the obit ought to come under "fair use," since it's not even the whole page; a transcription certainly would be. In the U.S., federal documents are automatically public domain. (Not the case in Britain or necessarily in the EU.) U.S. state documents (which includes county-level) are, too -- for most states. These days, with increasingly predatory copyright practices, and with generally specious "security" concerns, though, it's hard to say. I think I would check at the relevant website for the state you're interested in. --Mike^Talk 09:16, 14 June 2012 (EDT)

To avoid any future complications, I don't post any scans or full transcripts of obits for any recent generations that might not be in the public domain. Instead I "abstract" the information by pulling out all the relevant facts and putting them in a more compressed style of writing that takes up less space than the obit did. For example, see Person:Marian Tolle (1). -Moverton 18:32, 14 June 2012 (EDT)

Thanks, Mike.

Can someone point me to a tree or trees that are good "best practices" examples?

I'd love to see some good examples of mixed usage of online data from familysearch.org, ancestry.com, as well as user scanned documents.

--David 13:15, 14 June 2012 (EDT) David,

You can try one of my pages. Just a caution, this page was done awhile back using a "Cite" template and it has been replace by "Ref Name". I have not changed my older pages. Here is Wiley's page Person:Wiley Pollard (1) A newer page I am working on is Person:Francis Price (5) Thanks, Pam --Txbluebell6 15:23, 14 June 2012 (EDT)

Thanks, Pam. Your pages are indeed helpful examples.

David 15:46, 14 June 2012 (EDT) David, I also have a QuickSheet "Citing Online Historical Resources" by Elizabeth Shown Mills, It plastic laminated and you should be able to get a copy from her website. Thanks, Pam--Txbluebell6 11:29, 15 June 2012 (EDT)

Image question [17 June 2012]

I'm trying to post an image on Family:William Smith and Caroline Rowles (1) and while I know which of the various parameters to use to achieve certain effects, I can't seem to get them to work all at the same time. I need a caption (to identify the individuals), but I want it to be a decent size and not the thumbnail-size gallery. I don't seem to be able to use "frame" & caption text & size all at once. Anyone? --Mike^Talk 17:16, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

This page on Wikipedia says that "Size is disabled when the image is 'framed'" You should be able to substitute thumb for frame and use both captions and sizing like this [[Image:Smith siblings.jpg|thumb|Caption|400px]] --Jennifer (JBS66) 17:29, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

Yep, that did it -- thanks, Jennifer. (An odd use of the term "thumb," I have to say.) That bit of info needs to be added to our own image-help page. --Mike^Talk 07:51, 17 June 2012 (EDT)

4 pgs need help [20 June 2012]

Folks, I'm sorry to need so much hand holding, but I've left 4 pages that need additional help. I don't know if I should continue to create pages that don't look right, leaving info that other folks have to clean up, or just acknowledge that wiki is not for me.

Repository:Warren County Genealogical Society - the auto added category is red and I don't know why.

I created two cemetery pages, trying to use the F-A-G template. I don't have them right yet:
Place:Woodside Cemetery, Middletown, Butler, Ohio, United States and
Place:Morrow Cemetery, Warren, Ohio, United States

I created a place page and tried to use templates to bring over wikipedia info. Although I copied the template info from another page, just changing the name of the wikipedia place, the templates are still just red templates. See Place:Franklin (township), Warren, Ohio, United States. The wikipedia township page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Township,_Warren_County,_Ohio

Would some kind soul fix these pages? If I didn't love the concept of WeRelate, I'd give up with this.--Janiejac 14:38, 20 June 2012 (EDT)

The problem with the FindAGrave templates was that each of them had an extra digit at the end. The issue with the wikipedia templates is that wikipedia definitions are different than wikipedia references. WeRelate runs a process at a certain interval to turn the one into the other. To construct a definition see the last topic on this page "Including Wikipedia content". But along those lines I had a question. Is it possible to force updating of a source-wikipedia macro, or is it obligatory to wait for the scheduled process to run? --Pkeegstra 17:24, 20 June 2012 (EDT)

References to {{source-wikipedia|whatever}} are resolved into a template reference, and create of the template with content from WP, once a week (about Noon on Sundays, ET). The templates are not actually loaded from the current on-line WP page, but rather from an extract of WP that Dallan picks up once or twice a year (at which time all the templates are refreshed). --jrm03063 18:39, 20 June 2012 (EDT)

Wikipedia notice template [23 June 2012]

I noticed on this page that the boxes on the right side of the page are overlapping the WP notice template. I've seen this happening on other pages as well. Does anyone have ideas on the best fix? Also, I noticed that Template:Copy-wikipedia is locked to edits because "changes to this template cause 100K pages to be refreshed", does Template:Wikipedia-notice need to be protected for the same reason?--Jennifer (JBS66) 11:09, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

Staples? Get a larger monitor? :) ? I've seen stuff like that from time to time (I'm a FireFox user) - but I'm inclined to think that the browser is dropping the ball. Any chance you're a version or two behind? On your second point, I think you're probably right. I know for certain that there are about 70K place pages based on WP, and we're just short of 20K person pages. 90K pages is a lot. --jrm03063 11:44, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

Well, as for protecting the template page - I see the benefits in doing so... Wondering if my one small edit to the template earlier today is what caused the site to slow to a crawl :-( I went ahead and protected the page. I'd like to know what other templates should be protected and when & how edits can be made to these pages in the future. --Jennifer (JBS66) 15:17, 22 June 2012 (EDT)

One way to deal with the original problem is to move the notice template down to the bottom of the page - the template is intended to be a footer, not something in the middle anyway. That will move it beyond most boxes, although not always. I just did it with Odin (although I'm not having the formatting issue described).--Amelia 19:28, 23 June 2012 (EDT)

WeRelate/Wikipedia problem? [15 March 2013]

Please see the dif notice here: http://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=Place:Franklin_%28township%29%2C_Warren%2C_Ohio%2C_United_States&diff=0&oldid=17734357

Perhaps my coding wasn't right or something, but it didn't bring over the history section of wikipedia. Instead the introductory paragraph is duplicated in the history section.

How to fix? I can do the genealogy, I just am not handling wiki well :( --Janiejac 13:41, 24 June 2012 (EDT)

Your link is the same for the header and the history section, that is why it is being duplicated. The correct coding should be Wp-Franklin Township, Warren County, Ohio-History, which would guide it over to the section you want pull over.--Lnsoule 22:27, 24 June 2012 (EDT)

Can't Add Page from Source Search Results [22 September 2012]

Is there something off with this? I searched for a source, and when I didn't find it, I attempted to add a page from the search results. See attached image. I filled out all the fields. I even added a surname at one point (which shouldn't be required) and got the same error message. What am I missing?

--Jillaine 12:42, 14 July 2012 (EDT)

Hi Jillaine, Did you select the type of source? --Beth 14:17, 14 July 2012 (EDT)

Yes. Jillaine 11:22, 23 July 2012 (EDT)

Sorry - I must have missed this message earlier. The problem is that "source type" field needs to be filled in so the system knows how to title the source page. But "source type" isn't listed on the search results page so you can't fill it in at that point. That's a design problem. The system should take you back to the earlier screen so you can fill it in. I'll see what I can do to fix it.--Dallan 00:27, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

Words missing in Wikipedia templates [21 July 2012]

Quite often when reading through sections imported from Wikipedia via templates, I find words missing, especially descriptions of distance or population or anything statistical. For instance "about west of downtown Ottawa" when Wikipedia says "about 46 kilometres (29 mi) west of downtown Ottawa". Why does this happen? Should this be happening? --goldenoldie 14:39, 20 July 2012 (EDT)

This is happening because the missing text is contained within (or derived from) a template on Wikipedia. It seems the importer ignores WP templates, but Dallan would have more information about that. Unfortunately, if you edit the WeRelate template directly to replace the text, it will be overwritten with the next WP>WR template update. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:54, 20 July 2012 (EDT)

An earlier discussion of this exact issue: User talk:Dallan under "Bug". --Jrich 14:58, 20 July 2012 (EDT)

In this case I decided to forego the use of the template and copied the present paragraph from Wikipedia, adding the usual credit preceeding the paragraph and the one at the end of the WR article. Somehow I don't think the distance to Ottawa is going to change (and it is given in both miles and kilometres).

As a matter of curiosity, when is the next date (approximate) that templates for supplementary sections get renewed? --goldenoldie 01:55, 21 July 2012 (EDT)

I found another instance of the problem (Smiths_Falls, Ontario-History) and this time I realized that Wikipedia's inner template is a measurement converter or ready reckoner. I have taken the liberty of separating the two expressions. "36-foot (11 m) drop" is now "a drop of 36 feet or 11 metres". I wonder if that might defy the robot. --goldenoldie 05:55, 21 July 2012 (EDT)

Wikipedia to WeRelate anomaly [23 July 2012]

The following line is from wikipedia. I have shown the links in bold. When brought into WeRelate as a Wikipedia source all the links work the same as in wikipedia except for Kawartha Lakes which, instead of linking to Kawartha Lakes, links to the tiny community of Argyle at the west edge of Victoria County. The problem is the same at other Place pages with this line, not just the Township of Mariposa. Can somebody fix or explain how to fix this anomaly?

The Township of Mariposa was a municipality located in the southwest corner of the former Victoria County, now the city of Kawartha Lakes, in the Canadian province of Ontario--50vicar 20:23, 22 July 2012 (EDT)

The error was in the template wp-Mariposa, Ontario in WR. "Argyle" has now been removed from the Place phrase there. --goldenoldie 01:50, 23 July 2012 (EDT)

need help for article page [25 July 2012]

I'm showing my ignorance again, but I've been watching and learning about this site for some time and am STILL having problems with it. Somehow it needs to get a bit easier for folks before the site comes out of beta. I thought I created an article. I got the whole long article all formatted before I realized it somehow wasn't titled right because the categories are not correct. I went to help to find how to title an article but ended up still unable to know how to fix it. I would have saved it and then renamed it if I could have figured out how to rename it properly. Since I didn't want to lose the formatting, I saved it 'as is' and will ask someone else to rename the article. Here is the problem page: (since my title wasn't right, I'm giving you an external link.) http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Timeline.Lynn_in_Prince_William%2C_Virginia
Check out the automatic categories!--Janiejac 01:18, 25 July 2012 (EDT)

I think this is two different issues. The categories are generated by the information you entered in the box up top, not the title. What is it about them that you don't think is right?--Amelia 02:34, 25 July 2012 (EDT)

That is really strange. It looks fine now. I didn't look at it after I saved it; only in the preview. So I wondered if I could recreate the situation so that you could see it. I added another article and this time named it Timeline.Jackson in Virginia. And saw what seemed to me to be the same problem. This time I copied the categories it showed:
Categories: Timeline Jackson surname | Virginia, United States | Timeline Jackson in Virginia | Surname in place. I did not save it. I noticed that the system had automatically put "Timeline Jackson" in the surname box. It had done that on the Lynn timeline page also but at that time I just removed "Timeline Lynn" and added the names I wanted in the box.

So it looks like it is OK after it is saved, but that preview showing Category: Timeline Lynn surname and Category:Timeline Lynn in Virginia surely made me think I had done something wrong. Is this a bug or does it always do this when previewed? --Janiejac 03:30, 25 July 2012 (EDT)

Categories are going to be updated when the file is saved. Probably not in preview, since updating the categories is (I think) going to have wider database implications (presumably, the category pages get or lose back links as appropriate). Preview is just a way to get an approximate look at the formatting you'll get, without actually saving. Does that make sense to you? Beyond that, are you happy with your formatting? It's sort of a cool page... --jrm03063 11:24, 25 July 2012 (EDT)

Glad you approve! I'm pleased to have a site where this kind of info can be posted. Happy with the formatting so far, but it needs more work. This is just first draft. I wonder if that preview of categories bothers other people? I was ready to throw in the towel. Decided to ask for help instead. --Janiejac 14:13, 25 July 2012 (EDT)

Adding sources that were checked with negative results? [5 August 2012]

So that persons working on the same project avoid duplication of effort, is it possible to add sources that did NOT contain any information about a particular person or surname?--EAllynM 19:31, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

There is no ban on such practice. In cases where you think it would be helpful, feel free to do so, but of course - be specific. --jrm03063 21:48, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Since such a citation becomes somewhat meaningless when definitive sources are found, it might be a good idea to add them in a Note that can simply be removed if and when definitive evidence is found. --Jrich 23:27, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

To expand on what "helpful" might mean, I think it's most likely to be helpful if it is a source in which you would expect the person to appear if what is commonly/previously thought about the person to be true. So for an early New England immigrant who is claimed to have arrived in 1630, the fact that that person does not appear in Great Migration Begins is powerful evidence that there is no affirmative evidence of such an arrival. On the other hand, if you personally can't find someone in the census where they likely lived, that's probably of minor consequence, and if you want to note it, should probably be put in a note listing the ways in which you searched, and that can be deleted if they are later found there or elsewhere.--Amelia 14:08, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

New places of the late 20th century and 21st century [6 August 2012]

I would appreciate some expert advice regarding my queries on Place talk:Kawartha Lakes, Victoria, Ontario, Canada.

The government of the Province of Ontario decided in the 1970s that the organization of its local administrations need not be set in stone. As a result, since then, there have been some alterations that are very difficult for us to handle on WeRelate.

The problem is that a large and still very rural county was made into a city in 2001 and all the townships and independently incorporated towns and villages ceased to be. If the City of Kawartha Lakes is redirected to Victoria County, what happens to entries that people may want to make for events occurring after 2001? The citations for these events will only include the new city. Where will they get put?

This is not the only county that has disappeared--there are others which have decided to follow this same course.

The problem is compounded by the temptation to import Wikipedia articles describing the "new place" with never a mention of the former one. --goldenoldie 10:28, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

I would say that this is exactly the sort of situation where the pipe is very useful. You can always put in the smallest-available governmental or geographical subdivision in front of the pipe, and whatever you think is most useful, or most currently accurate, following the pipe. I still get disgruntled about the insistence that subdivisions must be named whatever they were called in 1900 (as in having someon born in 1800 in "West Virginia"), but using the pipe allows me to maintain historical accuracy. Beyond that, I note that you've already explained the problem, and how to deal with it, on the Place page for Kawartha Lakes, so that ought to take care of it. --Mike^Talk 10:45, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

I don't see why this situation is not accommodated by the WeRelate place pages. If there is a better assignment of WeRelate place pages to WP place pages, we should use that - we are not required to carry around assignments that don't really make sense. I'll join the discussion over there --jrm03063 18:55, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

The pipe. Where in the Help pages is it talked about? Had a good look the other week and couldn't find it.
Thanks, --goldenoldie 11:35, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

"I'll join the discussion over there" said someone else. Where is there? --goldenoldie 11:39, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

Ah. Um. Yes, there ought to be something about pipes on the Help:Place pages but I don't see anything there. The associated Talk page to that Help page is probably where this discussion ought to migrate to -- but I don't see anything there, either. I learned about the pipe symbol long ago on Wikipedia and never had to look for it here -- sorry -- but there are several Help pages over there on the use of the pipe in links, and in tables, and so on. --Mike^Talk 14:45, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

I see a pipe as a temporary way to associate a place page and a historical name not currently handled nicely among the existing place pages. If you're seriously trying to do right by a set of locations, I don't think you want to leave it up to users on other pages to get the right combination of actual page and pipe form. The problem under discussion here is interesting and unusual. More typical situations would be smaller locations being carved out of larger ones - or a new location being created from pieces of others. In this case, the entire place hierarchy for everything in Victoria County Ontario is recreated when the municipal form changes. I think the best thing to do is create both sets of pages, include appropriate WP pages for new and old places (respectively, where appropriate) - and to make use of "see also" to cross link the new and old forms.

So I'm starting this out by making sure there are separate pages for Victoria County and Kawartha Lakes. There appear to be separate WP pages for the old and new places so I'm able to source that material discretely. I'm also doing a sample for the newer unincorporated community Place:Bobcaygeon, Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, Canada and the former incorporated village Place:Bobcaygeon, Victoria, Ontario, Canada. WP seems to have only preserved a single page for the location, so that's now part of the current community page, while the former village page is trivial - mostly serving to reference the current location. I hope that all makes sense... --jrm03063 18:55, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

uploading and matching individuals, families [10 August 2012]

I have a problem that WeRelate could possibly help with. I have two separate but nearly identical PAF files; one has 300 individuals; the other abt 250. There are individuals in both files that are NOT in the other. Would it be possible to upload the largest file; after it is accepted, upload the other file matching those families that are identical, adding the new individuals from this second file. One other thing, there are several 'unconnected' branches in these files. Don't ask me how this happened; long story! Then when all this is completed, I could download separate GEDCOMs for each unconnected branch. That would solve my problem and get these folks on WeRelate at the same time. --Janiejac 21:23, 7 August 2012 (EDT)

I don't see why you should try. --jrm03063 21:38, 7 August 2012 (EDT)

Well, that didn't work. I can only download the whole tree. I don't want the whole tree; I wanted only the descendants of one ancestor. I had not realized the download GEDCOM functioned this way. I hope I am misunderstanding the instructions; surely we ought to be able to download a GEDCOM from any person. What if the user wants to download info from somebody else's tree? Isn't there a way to do that? --Janiejac 04:19, 10 August 2012 (EDT)

the GEDCOM upload process - matching census records [11 August 2012]

What has happened to matching census sources on GEDCOM review? Has something been changed? For some time I've complained because the system is not smart enough to match my "1850 United States Federal Census" to "United States. 1850 U.S. Census Population Schedule". But at least I could find it and select it when searching. Now the only census records the system can find are 1850, 1860 and 1870. Any record later than that is not to be found during a regular find process. Instead the system offers all the state citations which is NOT what I want. The only way to 'find' the later census records is to change the item I'm looking for to be EXACTLY like what I want to find. In that way, the system does find it. But this is unacceptably tedious!

I prefer to do censuses by county and when entering them in TMG (on my laptop, that is), I use the shorthand format "Census Texas 1880 Bexar County" for the source -- and when I upload a GEDCOM and do the source-matching, the system seems to correctly identify 95+% of them. And that's 1820 or so through 1940. I can't imagine why it isn't recognizing yours. --Mike^Talk 09:35, 11 August 2012 (EDT)

Another one: I have a source "Find-a-Grave Cemetery site". The system cannot automatically find "Find a Grave" to match to it. I can search for it and find it but I believe the system should be smart enough to figure this one out. Is any work being done toward this? Or is everything on hold right now??

Again, I just call it "Find a Grave" in my GODCOMs and it always recognizes it properly. --Mike^Talk 09:35, 11 August 2012 (EDT)

This source needs changing but I am not sure how to do it, so will leave it to someone else: Source:Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800-1941 is available but it is set up as ancestry.com as the author, publisher and repository. I found the same records at familysearch.org and the source should state that availability. Perhaps ancestry.com is not the correct author?? --Janiejac 21:57, 8 August 2012 (EDT)

On the third point, I think (based on my experience with another FamilySearch collection yesterday) that if you read the About This Collection, it will tell you it was taken from Ancestry.com's collection of the same name. I haven't looked into it in detail, since it wasn't a critical records I was searching for, only a clue. But it could be an unfortunate development and I am going to have to pay closer attention to the About This Collection from now on.--Jrich 11:05, 9 August 2012 (EDT)

Of course it would be nice if those sorts of things were recognized on upload. Indeed - that's the best time - since it could be done in such a way that users were given an opportunity to accept or reject suggested source translations/transforms. But there are plenty of them out there - and we're going to have to find ways to more or less automatically search them out after the fact. Could either of you offer a page showing an example of what you are talking about? Thanks... --jrm03063 12:36, 9 August 2012 (EDT)

Here is the source page that was offered when I tried to match to records by the same title that I found at familysearch.org. I just thought it should say on the source page that these records were also available at familysearch. I have no idea of who originally compiled the records. Source:Indiana, United States. Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800-1941 which currently shows the records only available at ancestry.com.

But that was minor; my complaint was with the lack of census matching! That's going to be harder to fix and I wondered if there was any current effort to fix it! --Janiejac 14:01, 9 August 2012 (EDT)

FamilySearch.org has two Indiana Marriage collections: Indiana, Marriages, 1811-1959 and Indiana, Marriages, 1780-1992, so these appears to be distinct sources from the above. The link "About this Collection" on the familysearch record tells where the data was collected from. For example, the second collection was taken from IGI records. A random Jackson marriage record found in this collection cited film number 1301632, which I when looked up in the FHL catalog, and it says: Bartholomew County (Indiana). Clerk of the Circuit Court. Indiana. County Court (Bartholomew County) Marriage record v.18 (from p. 62) 1906-1907 Marriage record v.18 part 2, 1907-1908.

The familysearch collection I had seen was Oregon, Death Index, 1903-1998. The description was "The collection consists of indexes to deaths from the Oregon State Archives and Record Center. The index is provided by Ancestry.com." The citation given by familysearch is "Oregon, Death Index." Ancestry.com. http://www.ancestry.com. : 2012.

Dallan will have to address source matching in GEDCOM uploads and how the system determines the best match (i.e. is it searching for page title of the source page, or for specifically the title field. Censuses records have a title field of 1XXX U.S. Population Schedule, but the actual title of the page includes the county name. I suspect matching is undoubtedly just a simple string match word by word, with total matches determining the ranking, and I doubt it could recognize that "U.S.", "U. S.", "United States", etc., all mean the same thing. Anything that doesn't match is probably counted as a miss.) Of course, source naming decisions were made long ago and I doubt there is much appetite to change them now. --Jrich 14:34, 9 August 2012 (EDT)

Very discouraging response. If there is no appetite to change or make the matching any smarter, then I do not see many folks wading through this process on an ongoing basis. I was willing to do it knowing the site is still in beta but hoping all along that it would be getting easier to use and navigate. Matching census sources should not be that tedious! The system matches places that are not exact; why not census records? But I'm not a programmer :( . . .--Janiejac 18:27, 9 August 2012 (EDT)

I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but this has been an issue for years, and the algorithms have been tweaked a number of times. My guess is that with census sources that there's not a good way to weight them that will accommodate all of the different individual ways people have of naming - all of which are obvious to the human eye, but not so much to computers. At least with consistent page titles, we know what's supposed to be there, but the computer definitely has trouble searching when the "title" field is identical for each year (a decision that was made before source matching existed, I'm pretty sure). Anyway, I find it significantly faster to just hand-edit - I have to review every page anyway, and that way I get county-specific links, which I prefer because of 'what links here'.--Amelia 01:56, 10 August 2012 (EDT)

I agree with Amelia that recognition on initial upload may be a bridge too far. However, I can think of some ways to handle this that would be almost as painless. Presumably, your upload results in a bunch of MySource pages, that you really want to transform into actual source pages. Fine. Maybe we create a template, that we use to mark such MySource pages. The template also indicates the source that should serve in the future. The bot then looks at all the person and family pages that link the mysource, substituting the actual source where the mysource was used. It could then either delete the original mysource - or leave it around - so that when you load another GEDCOM the existing mysource is used at upload time to do the transform! --jrm03063 14:40, 11 August 2012 (EDT)

Change of User Name Requested [16 August 2012]

Copied from DFree's Talk Page

Hello fellow Admin's can someone help User Nedrabrill change her user name to NedraBrill. Thanks, Debbie Freeman --DFree 00:12, 16 August 2012 (EDT)

Help with user name [19 August 2012]

You are watching the page of my cousin GayelKnott and I cannot find any other way to get help. Gayel's user name has a capital letter for her last name. How can I change my user name so instead of Nedrabrill it shows up as NedraBrill? (without the question mark <G>). Thank you, Nedra--nedrabrill

I've renamed Nedrabrill to NedraBrill.--Dallan 16:39, 19 August 2012 (EDT)

System Requirements [19 August 2012]

This is about my third visit to We Relate and I have uploaded a GEDCOM file, which was processed successfully and is visible. I tried to use the Family Tree Explorer and got a mostly empty blue window to the left of my browser screen. This was on a iMac using OS X 10.8 and the Safari browser. My name, and my family's name, appear in the lower left of the FTE window, but I couldn't get any of the views to display. I switched browsers, opened and closed FTE with exactly the same result, nothing. I persisted with this for a few minutes.

I went back to Safari, randomly clicked on things many more times, tried opening the file from the menu and, after doing I-don't-know-what, the list view appeared. A Flash Settings box also opened and I tried to adjust the amount of local storage Flash is allowed to use. The slider wouldn't move.

I looked at the FAQ and there was some reference that sounded like this happened to someone else and the response was to check System Requirements. So, I went to some Help page, clicked on System Requirements, which took me to the bottom of that page, but there was no section on System Requirements.

I am off to a very poor start with We Relate.--BarryAbrahamsen 11:43, 18 August 2012 (EDT)

I have Safari on a MacBook Air and don't see any problem. You might want to take a look at both Help:Family Tree Explorer and Help:Family Tree Explorer tutorial to make sure you are doing it right. —Moverton 19:54, 18 August 2012 (EDT)

I have watched most or all of the tutorials. I updated Flash and that seems to make things work much better now. unsigned by BarryAbrahamsen

What to use: Categories, Notes, Tree, Tags? [21 August 2012]

One of my "projects" are the Groninger (Dutch) immigrants to the U.S. According to the Dutch website (www.allegroningers.nl) there are about 9000 registered migrants(excl. partners & children)and my goal is to add them to WeRelate, (some of them are already added). But I want to "mark" them so that watchers might find them more easy

On my own website I use tags for that, but what can I use In WeRelate?: create a category? add a note, make a separate tree?

--henk 04:47, 21 August 2012 (EDT)

Off the top of my head I would say make a category "Groningen Immigrants" as a subcategory of "Netherlands Immigrants"..... --Pkeegstra 06:26, 21 August 2012 (EDT)

Adding this category is not a problem at all. I just have a few second thoughts about it. In the main category are already over 5000 people and about 900 born in Groningen, to change these is a lot of work. And when we start with Groningen I think we have to make categories for all provinces. I would not advise to make categories on the other side of the ocean, and just let it be United States (or Canada). To find all the immigrants from Groningen it is also easy to search by entering as place of birth Groningen and as keywords dutch immigrants (exact match only) so there is no direct need for more categories. We really should consider how much time has to be invested to move the dutch immigrants in province-categories.--Klaas (Ekjansen) 09:56, 21 August 2012 (EDT)

Where to put image upload rules discussion? [2 September 2012]

A discussion has started about image upload rules (I brought up that Library of Virginia, for example, requires written permission to use their images.) I'd like to move the discusion to a better place (shouldn't be at an individual's talk page) Where should I put it? The talk page for the image portal? --cthrnvl 14:53, 29 August 2012 (EDT)

Is this really image specific? Or should this be viewed as part of a greater copyright discussion? --jrm03063 16:10, 29 August 2012 (EDT)

Yes this is image specific. Because it's not really about copyright but about how everyone seems to have a different idea about who can use images and everyone has different permission requests. For example irregardless of copyright issues, Library of Virginia wants people to get written permission from them to re-use their images. WeRelate should honor these requests, IMO. I'd like to discuss this and make an easy chart that would at least help people not to have to ask the same questions over and over. (Can I use images from Fold3? Can I use images from Find a Grave?) I guess I'm talking about expanding the Image FAQs. I think I have found a place to discuss this at WeRelate: the talk page of Image Help. Help talk:Images --cthrnvl 11:18, 2 September 2012 (EDT)

Birth order glitch? [3 September 2012]

This isnt a major problem, but this has me scratching my head. I have been doing some work on the family of George Page - Family:George_Page_and_Sarah_Linsley_(1), and after merging a stub page for his son, Deacon Daniel Page, which previously had no info, it now shows Daniel as first in the birth order, when he is actually the youngest. I take it the blank page I merged with him caused this? I tried editing Daniel's page to see if it helped but it did not. It isnt the end of the world of course, but its a strange glitch. Any ideas?--Daniel Maxwell 23:28, 2 September 2012 (EDT)

EDIT: NM. Editing the family page of George Page and Sarah Linsley fixed it.

I've seen and reported one of those, too. A null edit on the family page usually suffices to fix it. --Pkeegstra 08:11, 3 September 2012 (EDT)

Images on Place Pages [24 September 2012]

This morning I added two sketchmaps to Place:Halton, Ontario, Canada. One was a redraw of an image from Wikipedia Commons, the other a revision of the first to show township boundary changes in the county.

I am now reasonably satisfied with the outcome, but it took a lot of previewing and re-jigging to get them positioned where I wanted them.

For a while the two maps were sitting on the right below the "Contained Places". I wondered if the Contained Places box had been taken into consideration when the instructions for placing images had been written.

I should like to add sketchmaps (either from Wikipedia Commons or of my own making) to other Place pages. Has anyone else worked with this kind of problem before? --goldenoldie 13:59, 24 September 2012 (EDT)

Adopted children [25 September 2012]

Should adopted children be listed as the children of their biological as well as adoptive parents if you know both? Or just one or the other?--Shaz1 00:54, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

I don't know that we have a hard and fast rule. My preference is not to list them as children in the ordinary sense (since the biological parents may be known and we want to show them too without the situation appearing ambiguous), but there are still good ways to represent the situation. For example, My Mother was substantially raised by her Aunt and Uncle (who had no children of their own). As an adult, she was adopted, which I indicate as an "other" event on their family page, referring to my Mother's person page. On my Mother's page, I have an adoption event (formerly as an "other" event changed to type "adoption" just now), referring to my Great Aunt and Uncle's family page. --jrm03063 12:18, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

Emailed Password Not Working [29 September 2012]

I requested a new password (through the pwd reminder at login) for my Schwenningen account.

When I used what was sent via email, I still couldn't get it. Tried it again (clicking on "forgot my pwd") and it didn't work the next time either. Please advise. I use this account to manage a project. Thanks.

Jillaine 20:26, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

Hmm, I just requested a new password and it worked for me. Both the password and user name are case-sensitive. (Also, you shouldn't enter the quotes around the password.) Does this help? If not I'll send you a new password by email.--Dallan 11:43, 29 September 2012 (EDT)

Uploading New Image [21 October 2012]

Can you please explain how to upload a new version of an image? I've searched and can't figure out how to do it. Thanks, --Txbluebell6 13:53, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

On the image page, there is a link that says "Upload a new version of this file". When you click that link, you'll be presented with an opportunity to upload a new file. --Jennifer (JBS66) 14:17, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

I have hunted and hunted and cannot find the link...so I still need help.. Thanks, Pam --Txbluebell6 16:47, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

Can you provide a link to the image you want to update? --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:49, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

Image:Arthur Dorothy DeBaun Wedding Lightened.jpg Appreciate the help.. This can't be this hard... Thanks, Pam --Txbluebell6 17:04, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

Click on that image, and between the headings of File history and Links, there is the Upload a new version of this file link. --Jennifer (JBS66) 17:11, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

I don't have it... Could something be wrong with my access?

Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. Click on date to see the file uploaded on that date.

   (del) (cur) 14:58, 30 December 2011 . . Txbluebell6 (Talk | contribs) . . 1227×885 (386,464 bytes)
   Edit/annotate image

--Txbluebell6 17:25, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

That is odd :-( Let me do a little investigating to see if this might be a bug. In the meantime, does this link allow you to upload an updated file? --Jennifer (JBS66) 18:00, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

No, it gives me a warning "A file with this name exists already; please go back and upload this file under a new name". This would give me two versions of the same picture if I named it differently. I've had this problem for a long time, I just haven't checked into it. Thank you for the help and letting me know I'm not crazy or brain-dead...--Txbluebell6 18:08, 20 October 2012 (EDT)

Dallan confirmed this is a bug which he will fix. Thank you for letting us know about this! --Jennifer (JBS66) 09:21, 21 October 2012 (EDT)

Couldn't access account-created a new one [4 November 2012]

I have forgotten my user name here and could not access my account. the password i have no trouble remembering but i didn;t see a link for emailing my user name to me.I created a new account but I already have uploaded a gedcom tree to this site. should i just upload another one ?--MysticWindow 11:26, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

Hi MysticWindow, can you tell me if you recently uploaded this gedcom and has it been fully processed (ie, have the Person and Family pages been created yet)? If you recently uploaded a gedcom, does it appear in this list? Also, some of the steps listed on this Wikipedia page may be helpful to help you remember your username. --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:35, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

thanks for the quick response. my tree was posted at least a year ago. The help pages you mentioned helped-i found my old username by searching thru the watch list.Going to log in now-ty!--MysticWindow 00:19, 4 November 2012 (EDT)

Dup source pg needs merged [8 November 2012]

When I do a search source for the book "Annals of Newtown", author is Riker, the results show two pages for this book. So these pgs need merged or just one deleted; I'm unsure how to do this and just wanted to point this out to someone who could fix it. --janiejac 15:08, 8 November 2012 (EST)

Please check my work. Thanks! --jrm03063 15:18, 8 November 2012 (EST)

Number of users [28 December 2012]

Is there any where on WeRelate that has the stats for the site No of users / country etc--Colin Madge 07:54, 18 November 2012 (EST)

Overall WeRelate has roughly 33,000 registered users, but many are not active. User:JBS66 told me recently that she found that 25% of recent edits over a certain period of time were coming from people in the Netherlands. That's all the information I have.--Dallan 16:32, 19 November 2012 (EST)

There is a page Category:Users_by_language which gives some indication for those countries like the Netherlands where there is a strong link between country and language. Not universally used and not much help for english I'm afraid! Total number of users is 39,196 per [3]. I personally think it would be very useful to know how many active editors there are (e.g. >5 edits per month) - see User:AndrewRT/Metrics for further discussion. AndrewRT 14:54, 28 December 2012 (EST)

List of people in a tree [28 December 2012]

Is there a way to get a list of folks in a tree that I previously uploaded? A descendancy chart would be best but since that doesn't seem possible, can I just get a list of persons in the tree? Yes I know I should have kept the contribution list when I first uploaded it, but that's gone and now I want to know who got uploaded. --janiejac 10:28, 28 December 2012 (EST)

How about exporting a GEDCOM, and then running a script on it? --jrm03063 10:44, 28 December 2012 (EST)

Janiejac: Go into the "MyRelate" menu bard then click "Trees". Click on the word "View" that's next to your tree. This opens us a search results just for your tree. Change "Namespace" to "Person", results per page to "200" and sort by to "Page title" and click "search". This gives you a clickable alphabetical list of the first 200 people in your tree - click next for the next 200 etc. You should be able to copy this into a word processor, spreadsheet etc. to manipulate it as you wish. Regarding a descendency chart, you can view one through the FTE viewer - are you familiar with this? AndrewRT 14:40, 28 December 2012 (EST)

Returning from templates back to previous page [19 November 2012]

When working in Place pages, I quite often have to add the {{Wp-placename-history}} template to a page. Getting over to the templates section is easy, filling in the template from a StickyNote on my desktop is easy, but getting back to where I was in the place pages means going through Search--doesn't it? Using the Back button reaches the incomplete page.

Is there an easier way of getting back, or could one be made? --goldenoldie 08:43, 18 November 2012 (EST)

If you edited the place page before leaving it, it should appear near the top of your contributions list (select Contributions from the List menu). Adding the Wp templates isn't required though, so you could skip this (and maybe add your own history text) if you wanted to.--Dallan 16:32, 19 November 2012 (EST)

The November fundraiser promotion with worldvitalrecords.com [26 November 2012]

I bit on this fundraiser. As I explored worldvitalrecords, it took me to the family trees in myheritage.com. Then I was hit with a request for more money so I could view material I had previously submitted. This did not set well with me. --Bill Wright 11:02, 24 November 2012 (EST)

I believe the subscription includes full access to all of WorldVitalRecords' data. WorldVitalRecords was bought by MyHeritage sometime this year or last year, so it doesn't surprise me that there are links from the WorldVitalRecords site to the MyHeritage site. MyHeritage is a for-profit company, so it's also not too surprising that they're selling access to user-contributed material.--Dallan 10:08, 26 November 2012 (EST)

Adding Children [24 November 2012]

There has to be instructions somewhere for adding children, but I can't find them :(--Rojamg 19:22, 24 November 2012 (EST)

If you wish to add children, you need to first create a family page to which they will belong. At least, from your question, that's what I surmise is confusing you.

Most genealogy software systems hide the connecting family object - which makes things more immediately intuitive to beginners - letting you add a spouse to another spouse. However, that choice has some rather extensive and unfortunate consequences for more sophisticated users and software support. On WeRelate, you never add a person to another person for purposes of indicating either their parents, spouse(s), or children. In each of these cases, you add a family that represents the spousal relationship and any children. Hope this helps... --jrm03063 21:14, 24 November 2012 (EST)

Unwanted links in person pages [30 November 2012]

I am noticing unwanted links in many person pages. Sometimes they can be removed by editing, sometimes not. Look, for instance, at the person page for Hector W. Gunn. The word "single" has been linked to an advertisement. This is typical of what I have been seeing. How can we prevent this unwanted intrusion? How can we eliminate it when we find it?

Just returned to this page, and the unwanted link has disappeared! Is this a problem with my PC, or a problem in WeRelate? Have others experienced this problem?

It sort of sounds like you might have picked up an unwanted and intrusive addition to your computer that's reading text on web pages you subsequently access and attaching its own spam links to them. You might want to run a thorough check on your hard drive with AntiMalware or CCCleaner, or a similar cleaning product. (BTW, could you please sign your posts?) --Mike^Talk 10:19, 30 November 2012 (EST)

Redirect a former place page [29 November 2012]

I thought I knew what needed to be done but perhaps not; I cannot finish the job. I created a page for a place using the former name of the place, expecting to be able to redirect matches to that former name over to the current place page. So now we have Place:Christian Hook, Queens, New York, United States. That area became Nassau County, NY in 1899 and was renamed Ocean Side, Nassau County, NY in 1918. We have a current page Ocean Side, Nassau and I thought folks trying to use Christian Hook should be redirected to Ocean Side, Nassau - but I don't know how to do that. Will someone please either fix a redirect or just delete my new Christian Hook page.

Yes, I know Ocean Side, Nassau is not how it was in 1900, but using the 1900 name complicates it even further. Also, I was uncomfortable making it a 'former community' type as that infers there is no longer a community there. But I didn't see an option called 'former name' or 'prior name'.--janiejac 19:20, 28 November 2012 (EST) ---

I have been trying to solve these (and there are many, many examples) by adding the former name to the box "alternate names" in the page for the newer place. But I wish that we could add a date to that box as well as a source. --goldenoldie 01:53, 29 November 2012 (EST)

I just added the request that "altername names" have date ranges to my existing suggestion, which was to allow types to be specified separately for each "also located in". I believe "also located in" is the specific solution for handling cases like Christian Hook, since the enclosing jurisdiction is actually different, so as per her request I'll go ahead and set it up like that, and add her interesting text for Christian Hook to the Ocean Side page. Actually, this is a case that would be appropriate for the advanced feature included in my suggestion, which would associate a specific alternate name with a line of "also located in". --Pkeegstra 06:44, 29 November 2012 (EST)

Previous Revision [3 December 2012]

I need to roll a page back to a previous version. I changed the page by mistake. How would I go about doing this?--Khaentlahn 13:26, 30 November 2012 (EST)

Hi Khaentlahn. Select "History" (top left hand list), select the version you want, click "edit" and then save the page. That's how I do it - not sure if anyone else knows a better way. AndrewRT 13:57, 30 November 2012 (EST)

Thank you very much!--Khaentlahn 14:26, 30 November 2012 (EST)

That's the right way.--Dallan 13:34, 3 December 2012 (EST)

GEDCOM help needed [3 December 2012]

Could someone help with this question please? - Help_talk:Review_GEDCOM#Gedcom_warnings_.5B30_November_2012.5D Thanks. AndrewRT 13:55, 30 November 2012 (EST)

I answered it.--Dallan 13:34, 3 December 2012 (EST)

need help fixing person pg [7 December 2012]

I have used a long URL on this person page. I was trying to show where I got the quote. But the long URL causes the text to run off the page and the screen to be too wide. Can somebody fix this so it looks better and still gives the info. Perhaps it should be a source but it is not a source for genealogy info; just for good historical info. And I'm not sure about the dif between a reference and a citation. It's stuff like this that makes it tough for folks like me who just like to do the research and want to share it. --janiejac 01:23, 7 December 2012 (EST)

Enclose the URL in single brackets like this: [http://www.werelate.org], which gives you: [4] —Moverton 01:37, 7 December 2012 (EST)

Thanks! Making the link an external URL and using pipe to include it in the text worked. --janiejac 08:53, 7 December 2012 (EST)

places with alt names maybe need a redirect pg?? [13 December 2012]

I have created a cemetery page Townsend Cemetery, East Hills, Nassau, New York with an alt name of Willis Farm Cemetery, which is what it used to be called. When it was referred to as Willis Farm Cemetery, it was said to be in Wheatley, Queens (now Nassau) Co., NY. I as assuming it is still in Wheatley and the East Hill address is the postal designation not the physical location.

When I search for Willis Farm Cemetery, the resulting page is Townsend Cemetery, East Hill. But I am wondering if I need to create a page for Willis Farm Cemetery just so links can be redirected to Townsend Cemetery because all my burials on person pages are in red and not linking to the new name of Townsend Cemetery.

I should not have to edit each person page with the old name on it; it should automatically be linked to the new name - though I'll bet this would be very confusing to new users who might not even know of the name change. Whew! I have no idea how to address this issue. --janiejac 23:56, 7 December 2012 (EST)

Alt names are a fine way to handle what you're doing. Then you can look for what bounces off the redirect in the "what links here" list, to find pages you need/want to fix, if you so choose. --jrm03063 19:27, 13 December 2012 (EST)

Request to change account name [10 December 2012]

I would like to change my account name & user name from Rebekah Carlisle to Ashton Rose.--Rebekah Carlisle 22:30, 9 December 2012 (EST)

Unable to sign in to account [13 December 2012]

I had an account under the name Scottfinder, but could not remember my password. I could not receive the email with a new password because that email address was shut down. Not knowing what else to do, I created a new account as Scottlass. I have copied the information from the old account to the new one and would now like the Scottfinder account deleted. Could someone please do that for me? Thanks for your help.--Scottlass 18:42, 13 December 2012 (EST)

Spouse not showing on person page; bug? [16 December 2012]

On this particular page: Person:Mechteld VanCampen (1) in the "Facts and Events" section the marriage subsection does not show the spouses name (though it does show the date and place of marriage); it just has "to " under the place name. The spouse names does appear in the "Spouse and Children" box at the lower right. I have not noticed this on any other page. There is nothing too odd about the couple that I know of (although Mechteld's surname was changed from VanCampen to Van Campen in the primary name field). Kinda seems like a bug. --Robert.shaw 15:19, 16 December 2012 (EST)

I've moved the person page to consistent spacing and added in a gender (previously "unknown") and it now seems to work. AndrewRT 15:50, 16 December 2012 (EST)

Thanks. I hadn't noticed that her existing person page did not have a gender. --Robert.shaw 20:00, 16 December 2012 (EST)

Strange Map Rendering [17 December 2012]

Would one of the admins please look at the page for Place:Saratoga, New York, United States and fix the strange mapping which shows mostly the Atlantic Ocean. The coordinates are correct, but are somehow not being communicated to the mapping routine.--jaques1724 11:01, 17 December 2012 (EST)

One of the contained places' coordinates had an error. I opened the larger map on the Saratoga page, clicked on the place where the pin was appearing in Europe, and changed the coordinates on that page from E>W. The Saratoga map looks correct now. --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:23, 17 December 2012 (EST)