Week End Chat...All Members Invited!!! May 13-15, 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

Woo Hoo!  Thanks for turning on the lights Star!

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Thank you Star for starting the weekend chat :)

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I just signed up today. I look forward to this ongoing search of life and history. I want to thank all of you in advance for all hard and generous work thus far. I hope to bring something new to the table and share may new experiences through a shared hobby.

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Welcome to WikiTree, Mindy!  We're glad to have you join us.  I'm sure you will find a lot of projects that will be of interest, and meet any new online friends who will be happy to share their expertise in a wide variety of areas.  We also look forward to your contributions of new profiles, new sources and information for existing profiles, photos, and offers of help to others.

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Mindy - I love how you describe genealogy as a shared hobby. I've never looked at in that way before!  Welcome to Wikitree!

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Its the weekend again......

Answer 1

Thought I would get this going this weekend. 

The Sts.Peter & Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Frederick, Maryland is having their Greek Festival this weekend.  If you happen to live just north of the Washington, DC area, come out and join us for good food, drinks, pastry, and music. OPA!!

Comments

I am hoping to move to the east coast in the next year.  Hows the weather and the bugs there?

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It depends on where you go on the East Coast.  Around the Washington, DC area, the bugs aren't much of  problem.  It's hard to predict the weather.  Winters are usually mild, but every couple of years we get a big snow storm - I had 36 inches of snow in my yard this past winter.  Summers around here are a bit humid.

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As a person currently in NYC, if you are coming to NYC to live here... the Summers can be mild (80s) to terrible (100+) and are typically humid. Winters can also be mild (40s) to terrible (-10 or lower, especially with windchill) and snow ranging from a light dusting to several feet. We also can / have been hit by hurricanes, blizzards, and in more recent years, tornadoes! Not to mention the smog... oh, the smog...

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Drink an ouzo for me please!!1

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I did!  Hope you enjoyed it.

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Thank you!!! Probably not as much as you enjoyed it tho!!

Answer 2

I think it'll be a fairly open weekend, so I'll spend it here and studying Koine Greek.  It's starting to be pretty hot here in the Phoenix, AZ area.  Mornings are ok, but by afternoon you don't want to go out.  Yesterday I did get my first look a a DNA match between me and a cousin.  The one on one match at GEDmatch showed a beautiful 19+ cm match and a pretty good 13+ one.  So now I'll try finding some closer relatives to see if some of them have had DNA tests.

Answer 3

This is May: my eight year old daughter has four events between now and tomorrow night. A pizza party tonight for her softball team, a softball game tomorrow morning (I am the assistant coach/designated pitcher), her year-end piano recital in the middle of the day and a birthday party for a friend tomorrow evening.

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Savor every moment.  My 18 year old daughter had her last day of school today.  Off to the University of Puget Sound in the fall.  I feel really really old now.

Answer 4

Oh, speaking of improvements, though.  I have recently started adding an additional subsection to my profiles.  I typically leave the Biography heading there with as much of a narrative as I can find or cobble together, but then below that is a Records subheading, usually organized chronologically from birth through death.

The profile for Welcome Stone will provide an example of how this looks in practice.  

I found that in my early WikiTree profiles, I wanted everything to fit into a Biographical narrative so if source material didn't really fit the narrative I was simply linking to it or listing it under the Sources heading so others could go find it if they wanted to.  Later, I started thinking that the details contained in genealogy records I was using provided depth which is missing in my narratives, and they also might be of use to other researchers piggy backing on my work.  They also tend to provide proof in cases where there might be some doubt about identity and connections.  

Comments

One thing I have found make sense is to add a section timeline where all events are added with year month date

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I love to read the Bios that tell me the things that create a picture of that person. Career, physical descriptions where I find them, Activities that they did or participated in, Major endeavors that they attempted or worked toward. The things that made them Individuals.
Besides the Birth, Marriage, and Death sections, I have started adding a section called = = Residences, Events, and Family= =. This is now quite often where I put the Life calendar of Census, Draft registrations, Military Time, and Interesting items of Documentation that may reveal Family linage, Family Land History.

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I would love to know that kind of stuff, but I rarely find sources that tell me any of the activities.  Professions are a nice bonus.

Answer 5

My hubbie and I stopped at the Sloughouse Inn restaurant today.   What a great story about the people that founded the restaurant.

http://www.calgoldrush.com/extra/sloughhouse.html and http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/ListedResources/Detail/575

Of course I did a quick search and realized I have some more colorful people to add to Wikitree!

Comments

hahaha so great guess we all and everywhere we go are busy with Wikitree and genealogy eeh :P

How was the food ;)

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I have started listening to people's surnames.  Do I know that name?  Are they in my tree?  Where is that from?  Then I sometimes too, look up in WikiTree to see what the relationship might be.  I already know if anyone has the surname Wyckoff or one of the many many variants, there is a extremely high likelihood that we are related.

My dad saw a doctor named Van Sickle with a Nurse named Wicoff.  We are all related.

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Genealogy addicted to the MAX we all are eeh ...same here, asking if people know who their great grandparents were, the dentist, the doctor ...no one is ''save'' :D

We really all are related, just this week was working on some profiles of what I assumed were ancestors for only my mum, but soon discovered my parents shared the same ancestors ...

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My parents are 9th Cousins. Through Ann Wilmot and William Bunnell. (PGM)

Son Nathaniel leads to my Dad and daughter Mary leads to my Mom.

We live in Evergreen, CO.  Descendant, Dwight Porter Wilmot, gave Evergreen its name and the local High School where my daughter goes was on his land.  A house across the street is owned by member of my Genealogy Society. He is a descendant of brother Benjamin.

6th Cousin 4 x removed.

So my daughter went to school on land owned by a cousin and who was a member of the county school board that created the foundation for the school she attended.

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Thanks for asking Bea....the food was great!   Sat out on the patio overlooking Deer Creek...quiet, peaceful lunch...

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I have been researching my son in laws family and have found some names that could be relatives to me, there is actually a Byers in his line and even a possible relative to my daughters Ex husband in there. But the best discovery is that he also has Earnhardt relatives, No connection to Dale Jr yet but they are from the same city and county.

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Sounds great and pretty romantic ;)

and awesome everyone to see what we all discover and kids, at least mine do, love these stories, so Wikitree is making great (Family) History teachers and family story tellers of us as well eeh :)

Answer 6

After a day of house hunting we are at the camper for the weekend. I am not doing much on computers because it looks like it will be a nice weekend so I plan to enjoy the outdoors.

Comments

Same here Dale also a weekend outdoors, and house hunting ?? Are you planning to move ?

Enjoy the great outdoors !

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Possibly, a little closer to family, but only about 1/2 hour away and just into the neighboring county.

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Bea, after looking at the home and weighing all of the pro's and con's we decided to just stay where we are for now. It was a nice house and closer to almost all of the family and we could do the financing, but the con's were more numerous than the pro's so the decision was not hard to make.

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Indeed if there are more cons than pro's it's better to just stay where you are who knows maybe a better one will come along ...good luck house hunting !

Answer 7

Since we can talk about anything, I'm going to say... I wish more people used GEDMatch in conjunction with WikiTree.

I also wish we had something to make adding resources easier. Like a little box that would appear when we hit a button saying "source" that would make a box appear on the side showing us our most commonly used sources, and the ability to add a new source, which would automatically be put into the Evidence Explained / CMoS style. I know that Citation Machine can already do the formatting, but I'd much rather not have to flip through more tabs or windows than I need to when sourcing things. Call me lazy.

Comments

Absolutely second this wish.  I made a similar comment in another thread.  A point-and-click source adding app within the WikiTree interface.

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I think this is something they are working on already, so it might take a while but I think it is really going to happen :)

Answer 8

Planning a trip to Olympic National Park Aug 20 -24.  We will go there after we drop off our daughter at the University of Puget Sound.

Anybody have recommendations for places to stay around or in the park?

Comments

Kalaloch Lodge....a little rustic, but, you cannot beat the views!

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That seems to be the consensus but fortunately it's booked for our time period.

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Ocean Crest Resort in Moclips is another place we have stayed which is south of the park

Answer 9

It seems to have been a week of hospital and dentist appointments for Dad and evening meetings for me

Tonight was out to the Brewers Arms ( Pub) here in Brightlingsea and they had a band on...playing 60s and 70s covers. Takes me back....... Nice to have time out and do something for fun...

Have a good weekend everyone.

Comments

You are so good to your Dad, Chris.  I'm glad you had the opportunity for a break.

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Sounds like a busy week , great you're helping and taking care of your dad and the night out sounds like a good time indeed it's wonderful to have some time to do something for fun !

Have a great weekend, in the Netherlands we have an extra long weekend , because of Pinksteren , bad weather today so hopefully some sunshine tomorrow :)

Answer 10

I have started a blog, Sheldon Shorts, and I am trying to set up days for particular types of posts.  I'm inspired by Randy Seaver (Seaver-15), who writes the blog GeneaMusings.  (If you haven't read it, you will find his blog interesting and helpful.) He designates Monday as Amanuensis Monday, the day on which he publishes documents that he has transcribed, mainly probate documents, and Friday as Ancestor Friday, when he publishes short articles about an ancestor, working up his ahnentafel chart, 52 ancestors in 52 weeks.  Randy's blog has been a great inspiration.

On Tuesday (I was late on the first one), I published a transcript of the Will of Nathan Viles, 1739-1788.  Now, I have almost finished writing a biography of my grandfather for next Friday.   I never knew him. Putting the bio together is helping me hone my writing, research and sourcing skills, and I am finding errors, data holes and places where I have no sources. It is a great exercise.  If you aren't writing bios for your Wikitree profiles, I recommend it.

Comments

Thank for the encouragement to write bios for our profiles, Vic.  And thanks for the link to the GeneaMusings blog. But something is missing from your post - can you include a link to your new blog?  Best of luck with this new venture!

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Always want to try and include some biographical information, particularly when it was someone I actually knew. ........