Week End Chat...All Members Invited!!! April 15-17, 2016

Question

This is an ongoing "Chat" post that can be added to throughout the weekend.  All members of WikiTree are encouraged to join in, especially first-timers!

Do you have any ideas to share?

Have you witnessed any famous events?

Have you broken through any brickwalls through WikiTree?

New people, say Hello and introduce yourself!

Have you learned anything new or uncovered any techniques to improve profiles more easily?

G2G Pilots, Mentors, and Leaders... any fresh Tips for us?

Any special plans?

Any subject you want to chat about...

* Fads/hobbies when you were 18?

* What do you do other than Wikitree?

* Heard a funny one?

* Do you do anything to help people or animals that are less fortunate?

* Say something! (You know you want to!):D

Post answers here, comment on answers, up-vote things you like or agree with and have fun!  To receive notice when future Chats are posted, add Weekend_Chat to the list of Tags you follow.  You can edit your list by clicking on "My Feed" on G2G, then click to "add or edit".  Seperate words with and underscore.

Comments

I am going to leave you guys on your own for a while so behave. :D  I have to go work on opening up the camping trailer. I should be able to check in later tonight and probably tomorrow morning so have fun until then.

---

Oops!  I meant to answer, not comment!  Have a great day!

---

Thanks for starting the weekend chat Dale :) Nice weather in the Netherlands , so going to enjoy it , today we'll be at our summer house/cottage, clean up a bit and take a walk if we have some time left ... this is a picture from a few years ago taken during a walk ..

Have a great weekend everyone..or Sunday that is ...time flies when you're having fun eeh !

 

 

---

Bea - so green and blue... I love it!

---

Thanks Keith it's a great area, grassland, old farms, woods, heather fields, small sand trails with small wooden bridges across some of the swampy peat area's or marshes and it's an interesting area as well for genealogists, there was this old merchant route, the Hellweg , along many of these trails boards with historical information are placed which gives you an insight in how it must have been back than and the events that took place at these spots...have some pictures of those and was planning on maybe creating a free space with some of it :)

Of course the thing I love most is the little guy in blue in the picture , he really is our sunshine ;)

Answer 1

I know it is a day late but in my case it is a beautiful weekend to be outside and it is also the weekend the campground turned on the water and power. For that reason I am going to be very busy cleaning and setting up our travel trailer for the summer. The management also allows the seasonal members to start camping but the regular season will not start until May 1st so there will be no weekenders allowed until then. This last week I have been revisiting some of my earliest work and found some serious errors that I am working on. I had two brothers born in the 1840's when their "father" died in 1808, oops, but that just shows we all make mistakes. I have fixes that one but now I have to find who their grandfather was because the link is now broken.

Answer 2

Ideas to share: Join online free training

This week I have been doing a lot of training inside Future learn (my profile). I recommend them. 

Below trainings I follow that are all related to doing Genealogy in 2016....

A) Genealogy Researching your family tree - University of Strathclyde

Week 5 Resources that would add futher interest in your family tree

Example of a page adding context (for me adding context inside Wikitree is done easiest using Categories)

B) Reading litterature in the Digital age - University of Basel

Week 3 What is hyperreading ? 

Is Google making us stupid? "I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,”

C) Introduction to linked data and the semantic Web - University of Southampton

Week 1 Towards a web of data... web 2.0 - social web -  is moving into web 3.0 - the semantic web.

I have also bought some paper books and e.books to start learning those subjects

• Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL
• Learning SPARQL
• Facts are Sacred: The power of data

D) I have also joined a local traning to read old handwriting
see blogpost

Full size picture
From Family Search genealogy wiki about Sweden handwriting

Comments

Thank you so much for sharing this, Magnus!  Ongoing training is so important.

---

And it's so easy 2016 to join.... one click away
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses

Answer 3

I'm tied up this weekend with a "camping trip" at our church.  Some people are camping on the property while others like my wife and I are going home at night.  

On genealogy, I got a forwarded letter from a relative I'd not known about.  He's a descendant of the "lost" Harvey Miller, who moved from Ohio to Texas and then to Oklahoma.  So I'm hoping to get information shared and him interested in WikiTree.  There is the matter of Harvey's wife who has an mostly inactive PM, But it looks like he as been active lately and perhaps I can get us on his trusted list (or have him open a couple of profiles so I can put her ancestors in.

Speaking of funny, last night we had a professional comedian who lives in the valley (Phoenix area) who regaled us for an hour.(clean but not particularly religious).  .  .

Comments

Stupid question "camping trip" at our church...

You meet during the day and do ??? Never heard about that in Sweden....

 

---

Dave Our church group used to have camping trips a lot when I was growing up and between them, Boy Scouts, and my parents taking us camping a lot, I guess camping is in my blood.

Mangus Camping is usually sleeping in portable shelters and not having electricity, phones or any electronic entertainment. The way I go "camping" now however is not like that because I have a 38 foot travel trailer with flush toilet 2 bedrooms gas stove and heat along with indoor hot shower,electricity, Satellite TV, and WiFi

---

Thanks.... I am living in tent a lot but didn't understand the concept of doing it next to the church...

I sleep in tent a lot but then always on a longer trip in the wilderness

• Last summer - Northern Sweden walk 180 km

• Walking north Sweden something called jojo trail 

• Kayaking Sweden Finland 2013

Me in between Sweden Finland crazy calm (video)

---

I was a cub scout for a year or two, but not to the point of going on camping trips.  Be we did get a pop-up trailer and pulled that behind our station wagon and did family campouts including in the orchard at the back of our property (both in the suburbs and in the woods when we bought a 150 acre farm which had a 40 acre woods. Lots of fun.

Magnus, there are a variety of things going on including a guest speaker and games and contests.  The basic idea is to get the members to know each other better and have some fun without a high price.  Right now the church has three different services for different styles of music and so a lot of people don't even know each other's names.

---

When I was a leader of Boy Scout Troop 185 the church that held the charter for that troop oened a large amount  of undeveloped land behind it. We created a picnic area with hiking trails and even some shelters back there that all of the members and groups from the church could use. What was done on these outings varied by whatever group was using the property.

---

Thanks sounds nice....

I feel that the church is much more important in the USA compared to Sweden we just get baptized, get married and buried in the church... my son study in Poland and no one understand that we celebrate Christmas but don't care about the religion..... 

In the 1900 everyone in Sweden had to visit church but life has changed....

• Religion in Sweden
• Wikipedia o Religiosity

Dark is countries with less importance of religion

big

 

---

At the age of 65 I am finding that sleeping on the ground in a small tent is no longer enjoyable. Just because I have all of the creature comforts in my current trailer does not mean I use them, in fact we have never used the oven in the trailer and I do most of the cooking in a cast iron Dutch oven over a fire or on the grill. we have a lot of activities going on at the campground including boating, fishing, hiking and other social activities. This year I may not even hook up the TV, but it is nice to have if the weather gets bad. We also have church services on Sunday, nondenominational, that are hosted whenever one of us that is ordained is there to host it.

---

Dave, I guess you could say Scouting and Camping are both in my blood. I have both the 50 year anniversary badge for Scouting in America as well as the 100 year anniversary badge. I started in Scouts 58 years ago as a cub and finally left about 4 years ago as an adult leader. I started camping about 53 years ago and have not stopped yet. I still have a tent that is used, just not as often as it used to. My father has a similar history with scouts but he got a later start because when he started they did not have Cub Scouts but he started in the 1940's and continued until the 1980's

---

Dale my parents camped with a huge old Army tent.  Four families could set up beds and cots for their family.  My husband and I have a 5th wheel now (we worked up to a 5th wheel) with all the extra perks too.  We love to camp but every Labor Day weekend since 1966 we gave been going primitive camping in Dept. of Natural Resources parks with water from a pump, no electricity, and outhouses with modern toilet seats in them.  We love it and our group of over 80 has fallen to around 30.  The kids get older, go off to school and the parents stop coming.  Camping is in our blood too!

Answer 4

Hi!  We have a beautiful day here in Michigan so we just cleaned out our little vegetable garden.  Since my printer is going crazy  now, I guess our daughter is checking how how to do things correctly so we get better vegetables this year.  Last year my husband planted an egg plant only to find out it was a pumpkin!!

I have been busy the past few days trying to add sources to my profiles I have already added to Wiki Tree.  I am having fun learning how to do that and some Wiki Tree members have been helping me out by adding sources for me that they have found.  In doing so I have found some xgreat grandparents beyond the ones I already knew about.  Hopefully I will have some new connections when I am finished with them.

I love Wiki Tree to an addiction!!!  My daughter is calling me wondering where I went!  Lol!  Have a great day!

Comments

LOL, Did you have pumpkin parmigian?

---

No.  The pumpkin was growing a vine but then it died.  The dirt was not deep enough.  No pumpkins this year!!!!

Answer 5

Going to Milton Abbas tomorrow to get photographs of the memorial to Sir John Tregonwell who died in 1565

http://dorsethistoricchurchestrust.co.uk/miltonabbtregonwell.htm  and this delightful portrait of his descendent who had a miraculous escape from death when as a five year old he fell from the Abbey tower and  his pinafores acted as a parachute  http://dorsethistoricchurchestrust.co.uk/miltonabbldych.htm

It's a shame that there are perfectly good photos on the internet but they are copyright so I can't use them on the profiles.

 

Answer 6

Hi Everyone!! I am Dorothy a WikiTree greeter, mentor and ranger among other activities that I work on here on WikiTree concerning my family Tree. 

Found several of my relatives since I started the search for my cousins that I lost contact with for almost 35 years. Used Ancestry and Facebook information to tract them down and now trying to get more actuate information especially on my parents who never shared their story. I was glad that Wikitree allows you to search and read information without paying a monthly fee. From having the site available to all, I was contacted about a family connection I had on my WikiTree family tree, and in short, found out I had a long lost sister who is still alive!! How great is that!! This just recently happened, so my brother and I are trying to schedule a reunion soon. We never met in person with this sister because she was from my dad's first marriage which we had very little information or knowledge of until about 6 months ago. 

So a special "thank you" to all those who share and coordinate with others on their family tree!! Without that vidal  information, sources and facts we would never had connected. 

 

 

Comments

So glad that Wikitree has worked out very well for you..

---

I am so excited for you for finding a sister out there!  That is absolutely awesome!  I too have found cousins on Wiki Tree and the internet who have contacted me and through them I now have found my roots from Scotland.  That is on my dad's side of the family.  I also found the Irish connection on my mom's side of the family.  I am so glad I accidentally found Wiki Tree in August 2015.  I have been an addict ever since.  I am so glad you will get to meet your sister soon.

---

Thank you Chris, I hope you are able to find a relative or two yourself!!

Thanks Diane, I know what you mean about being an addict ever since. I am happy to see WikiTree's goal of connecting relatives in real life as well as here on the site. I think that is awesome.

Answer 7

Hello again from Brightlingsea, Essex, England.                                              Another weekend and plenty to do and of course respond the  to Weekend chat.

 I thought of something of when I was around 18, I was doing home study for Banking exams and had a record player in my room  and I was playing records as well as studying but the thing was it was artists like Jim Reeves, Glen Miller, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin that I was listening to. My sister was the one for pop music - she had her own record player.....However it was me always being told to turn the music down by my Mum.....                                                                                     I did pass the banking exams only 13 years later to have a career change and became a civil servant. I still have the vinyl.                                        Wish I had seen Sinatra when he came over in the 70s/80s  but I did see Tony Bennett in 2014.

More next time - have a great weekend                                                        Chris

Comments

We still have some vinyl's too and a record player.  I was a teenager in the 60's.  Those were the days!

Answer 8

Anyone in the US will sympathise - this weekend is devoted to taxes, taxes and yet more taxes. :(

Comments

Sympathize Rosemary. I did mine two weekends ago.

---

Looks like there are at least 4 others procrastinating here.

---

Tax time here in Holland too, it's a piece of cake here for many if not most hardworking people though .

Their slogan since a few years is (after they introduced this slogan slowly but surely almost all deduction options were deleted for the average people) : 

Tax authorities: Can't make it more fun, can make it easier though ...well they sure did simplify things :P 

---

I'm all in favour of a Flat Tax, perhaps with 3 or 4 levels, with no deductions, preferences, exemptions, credits, etc etc.

Love the slogan :)

---

I would prefer a sales tax with the only exemptions being for food and housing. That way you pay for what you spend on anything not needed for survival.

---

Already have a 9% sales tax unfortunately.

Answer 9

Thanks Dale for getting the Chat going.

Weather for Friday: Snow

Weather for Saturday: More Snow

Weather for Sunday: Enough with the Snow Already!

Spring Time in the Rockies, April Snows are Big and Wet.

Comments

Confirmed from downtown Denver.

---

Daytime highs in the 70's all weekend and most of next week here in Ohio. We are in the longest April Dry stretch in 80 years, but the ground is saturated so it is not a bad thing.

Answer 10

Hello everyone... enjoy your weekend!