The American Revolutionary War Project (1776) has a new sticker

Question

Over the past year we have answered a lot of questions from members who were confused about how to properly fill out the 1776 Project sticker.  The 'old' sticker had a lot of parameters that were unwieldy and confusing.  We have sought to simplify the sticker and make it easier for everyone to use.

The parameters for the 'old' sticker included:

{{1776
|image= 
|startdate=
|enddate=
|branch=
|units=
|unit= 
|rank= 
}}

Whereas the 'new' sticker contains only:

{{1776 Sticker
|image= 
|rank= 
|unit= 
}}

The 'new' sticker has been simplified to only the three data fields: image, rank, and unit.  If an image value is not entered the default 1776 image will appear in the sticker:

The sticker's default image can be overriden by using a specific image name (a British flag for British soldiers for example).  

The rank is very straightforward and is usually the highest rank attained during the war.  

For unit, we will use the existing category name for the unit.  If no category already exists, you can create it or else the profile will go into a maintenance category and a 1776 or Category Project volunteer will create it.  Going forward this will make all of the 1776 unit names uniform.

{{1776 sticker
|image= cooper-1.jpg
|rank= Captain
|unit= Pittsylvania County Militia, Virginia Militia, American Revolution
}}

The unit will distinguish the branch served in (Army, Navy, or foreign nation, Brittain, Spain), which Colony served for, which county, and the unit name.

'Other' units served in, dates of service, and other details should be described in the biography.  The sticker was never intended to replace biographical data and has become - in many cases - too difficult to format.

Blank data fields will dissappear.  This:

becomes this:

For Founding Fathers, Civil Service, and Patriotic Service, the previous sticker variants will remain:

{{1776 Sticker|unit=Patriotic}}: ... performed Patriotic Service in the American Revolution"
{{1776 Sticker|unit=Civil Service}}: ... performed Patriotic Service in the American Revolution.
{{1776 Sticker|unit=Civil Service}}: ... was a Civil Servant in the American Revolution.
{{1776 Sticker|unit=Loyalist}}: ... was a Loyalist in the American Revolution.
{{1776 Sticker|unit=United Empire}}: ... was a United Empire Loyalist in the American Revolution.
{{1776 Sticker|unit=Founding Father}}: ... was a Founding Father in the American Revolution.

Continued in comments...

Edit: updated description and instructions

Comments

Good job folks on streamlining the sticker. I like it very much! But I'm struggling to make it work. I get a red Template:1776 sticker instead of the actual sticker. Not sure where my error is.

The profile I'm trying to correct is: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mack-226

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The word Sticker needed to be capitalized.   All done.

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Lois - I should probably hide all my comments about the various problems, which I eventually figured out (I probably will).

Short answer - if you know the state your ancestor served & his rank, you can do it. Say he was a Major serving in  Virginia. Just use

{{1776 Sticker
|unit=Virginia, American Revolution
|rank=Major}}

If you don't know the rank, just use

{{1776 Sticker
|unit=Virginia, American Revolution}}

And you're good to go!

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I did hide my previous posts. I'd left them up before because it pointed out that if you have an underscore, the sticker doesn't come out right...

good:

|unit=Virginia, American Revolution

messes up text:

|unit=Virginia,_American_Revolution

And as Robin found out, capitalization matters ...

{{1776 Sticker

(uppercase "S")

Cheers, Liz

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Lois, I'll add this to the project page:

"When in doubt, just use {{1776 Sticker}}."

And you'll get the default sticker:

It will put the maintenance category that the unit needs to be determined and that can be sorted later.

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That's what I HAD

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You had {{1776}}

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Tilton-1351&diff=111202028&oldid=106704229

What you should put is {{1776 Sticker}}

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It looks the same to me, but it's back.

Thanks. Unlikely I would have found that myself.

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Looks great!

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SJ - the Template page says to use unit=Patriotic Service instead of just Patriotic, which creates 1776 Project Needs Sticker Category Revi

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:1776_Sticker

Answer 1

This is excellent, SJ!

Comments

Time to make a few posts Natalie!  Maybe this star will get you out of this :

This is excellent, SJ!

answered 1 day ago by Natalie Trott G2G6 Pilot (666k points)

Answer 2

This is excellent, SJ!

Answer 3

It would be very selfish of me if I didn't say thanks to Steven Harris who did the heavy lifting on creating the new sticker.  Thanks Steven!  I think I'll make a Wonderful Wikitreer post for him later 

Comments

Thank you Steven and SJ. I certainly did not realize how many empty start and end dates were in past stickers I had put on. They do look better.

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(Please provide more information - at least 5 characters)

Answer 4

All I know was that Col. Peter Willats served as an Ensign in the American War for the British Army under Wellesley (Duke of Wellington).

The war was between the French and Spanish in the south with about 50% of the colonists fighting against the British Parliament.

Answer 5

Really nice work, SJ!  Thank you for your work on that. I'm sure this will make the stickers much easier to use.

Answer 6

Thank you for this sticker. I think it is wonderful.

My ancestor is William Walter Long b abt 1736 Ireland D Dec 16 1806 Pennsylvania married 1744 Dec 10

Martha Hutson b 1720 PA-Oct 15 1810 Alamance, NC

married 1744 NC

He was also married to Elizabeth Templeton 1746-1802 married 1770 Dec 27

Thank You'

Lennis Geiken

 plasticava@aol.com