Week End Chat - All Members Invited!!! (June 3-5, 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!

 

 

Say Hello and introduce yourself... where are you from and what are your interests?

 

Leaders, Mentors, Greeters, Pilots - What tips can you share with us today?

 

What improvements can we make?

 

What do you enjoy most about WikiTree?

 

Do you have any stories to share about famous or notorius ancestors?

 

What projects are you involved in, and how are they going?

 

What's the weather been like in your neck-of-the-woods?

 

... anything that you want to talk about!

 

 

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". 

Comments

Thanks for starting the weekend chat Doug , had a busy week, working in the yard planting flowers, painting our hallway, and the weather some days (especially today) was just like a tropical rain forest here as well, and the result was a thunderstorms with hail and lots and lots of rain... the streets were flooded , if we had a boat we could have sailed to school :P 

But it all has his charmes eeh, some people were having lots of fun ...

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Just don't know where this week has gone....

Answer 1

First week of June...feels like a tropical rain forest in southeast Virginia.

It was an interesting week, I found some long lost Lockwood cousins on Facebook & exchanged old family photos & info.

Otherwise, I've spent some time gardening & sourcing profiles.

What's new?

Comments

Hello Doug, I have good friends in that live in Newport News, is that near you.

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20 minutes away, I live in Williamsburg

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They sold there home last year, so when we visited them last year we stayed at one of the Hampton Inns in Williamsburg.

My Noel family started out just a few miles north in Essex County. Also my 5th Great- Grandfather was at Yorktown with Washington. I love that town with the cannon balls still in the walls of the homes.I'm also connected to Jamestown on my mother's side.

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My mum lives in Waynesboro and she said it's been raining a lot there and freaking the cat out.

Answer 2

Hi Doug

Gosh, the weekends come round so quickly.  I liked a comment earlier in the week re: suggestions - a floating save button I thought was a great idea.

Other than that - I'm here in sunny Cardiff, South Wales UK.

Hello everyone.

Comments

Would love to see a way to sort names that have been categorized, or the sir name list by place of birth, place of death, birth date, and name, (all selectable at will). That would be so helpful in finding matches and connections

Answer 3

It's finally getting really hot here in Tempe, Arizona.  It's supposed to be about 115 tomorrow.  So I'll stay indoors and enter things on WikiTree.  Speaking of which Sunday will be my 6 month anniversary of joining. WikiTree.  I haven't made as many contributions as I might have hoped but I did just make G2G6 Mach 9.  But part of the reason I've not made as many contributions is that I've been adding more sources when I create a new profile and this includes adding sources to my offline tree(s) and that slows things down.  And I try to add as many sources as I can before saving.  Which means I get fewer contributions per profile.

Answer 4

I'll be doing the same as Dave. It's a 106 right now in Las Vegas, we're under an excessive heat warning through Sunday night. I have been adding and categorizing all the people in my tree from Niagara Falls and have built up about 240 so far. Been adding my family and then spouses families and their families and finding some of them marrying into other sides of my family. I guess when you cram thousands of Italians into a couple of square miles they all marry each other.  Think I'm going to do a place study. As my hometown  I think it should be done. Especially with Telsa and the electricity from the Falls. Also the worlds first working railway suspension bridge was built there connecting the US with Canada.  I've got Germans in the old North end, French Canadians on the river. My gg grandfather was a famous river boat plot on the Niagara River. They all arrived between 1850-1880.  Finally my Italians started arriving in the early 1890's.

 

I'm rambling now, have a good weekend all!

Comments

Jim, I have many German Duesler / Dusslers from that area, most are documented on wikitree :)

Answer 5

Hi everyone,

I was granted a native-american name by the Abenaki tribe (I am not of native-american descent).

"Wawezid Megakawinno" pronounced "wah-we-zeet me-gah-kah-we-know".

Translations include "Disciplined Warrior", "Practiced Master of Fighting", and "Learned Instructor of Battle".

That's by far the spiffiest thing that happened to me in the past week!

Comments

Honorable, you are Keith :)

Answer 6

Ok. Preliminary Discussions have ended and terms have been placed on the table.  Full and Open discussions have officially started, negotiations are in process, planning and contingency planning are in development.  

Moving to the East Coast has officially been placed at the top of our Empty Nest Enterprise and Strategic Planning has begun.

First round of location consideration include regions around Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Virginia, North Carolina.   Unfortunately, most of the New England region has been ruled out but long weekend getaways are a possibility.

Comments

No Vermont?  Darn.  I'd have taken you fishing.

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The Washington, DC area has some great genealogical research resources, Michael.  There's the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the Daughters of the American Revolution Library, which are enough to keep any researcher busy with material that is not online.  The headquarters of the National Genealogical Society is in Arlington, Virginia.  And the local Fairfax Genealogical Society is very active, with a two-day conference every Spring, a one-day Fall Fair, several active special interest groups, and sponsored field trips to local research facilities as well as to Salt Lake City.

Oh yeah, and there are a lot of other non-genealogical things of interest in the area, too!

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Michael, I take regular trips to North Carolina, the next one is being planned for the end of July.

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Looks like my opportunities are increasing. Being within striking distance of Ohio and Greeneville Tennessee are huge bonuses as well.

Answer 7

I have been locating and scanning old family pictures for another family members family tree project. That one is a painted tree on one large wall with photos for each family member. I have two 18 gallon plastic containers of photos along with a very large number of photo albums and since the photos that are most requested are the oldest ones it takes me about 1/2 hour per photo to scan, enhance, and print the picture from the original, after I find it but I think the end result will be worth it.

Answer 8

While searching for something else I noticed a familiar name in a familiar place. Turns out it was the brother of my third great grandfather. And, since he was already connected to the global tree (through his wife), I'm now connected as well. So, in a day or so, I should be able to use that spiffy connection finder to Kevin Bacon. 

Comments

That's great news, Joke.  I love your "happy dance" icon!

Answer 9

My brother lives in Norfolk!!!   Almost 30 years ago I went with my dad and his girlfriend to visit her family on the outskirts of Richmond, when I was only 7 years old. I do remember exploring the woods - the house was located back off the main roads, in the middle of a forest. We explored for hours at a time....We found several arrowheads and several old Civil War bullets, way out in the middle of nowhere. That was the most amazing thing ever!

It feels like a tropical rain forest in South Texas too.  It has rained every day this week, very unusual.  

I do not have a green thumb at all.  I cannot grow any type of plant in soil.  It's a good thing I can keep canines, felines, and humans alive, because fish and plants are just not my forte'. 

I'm working on Tennessee this weekend, doing my best to create the rest of the county pages!!

Answer 10

It's a stay inside with the fan blowing on you kind of weekend here in Central Florida. Besides, the Southern California Genealogical Society is live streaming some of their Jamboree classes. You can still register and watch live; they're going to leave the recordings online through July 5.

I've been working on our Bahamian Meares family this week. Mostly just cleaning up my gedcom import but also adding FamilySearch links for everything I can find.

Did you realize that when reference names are used, those names are appended to the reference link url? When you mouse over the reference number, at least in my Firefox setup, the link URL is displayed at the bottom of the screen. I always look at those displays to determine whether I want to click a link. I realized this week that, when I used <ref name=Something>, the URL reads http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Surname-87#_note-Something.

If you're interested in seeing it in action, I just finished setting up all the references on William Brownell Meares that way.

Answer 11

Hi Doug and all WikiTree-ers.  I live in Cary, NC, right outside of Raleigh and hail from Philly originally.  We're expecting some more bad weather today, though it looks almost sunny right now.  Just no more hail, please!  My car can't take it.

 I joined WikiTree a while back and didn't do much because I didn't really understand how it works, but now I'm going crazy trying to prove all my ancestors belong to me.  Made a breakthrough last week and found a little book that confirmed the link between my 2nd great-grandmother and the Thomas family from Wales.  I had no idea I had Welsh ancestors!  I'll be asking for help soon about a troublesome Watson, who apparently is not who lots of people seem to think she is!  Hate to lose my path to nobility, but the truth must out.  I really need to bone up on sources.  I worked my tree originally on Ancestry and don't know how to transfer sources they provide to WikiTree.  Might also be a lack of computer knowledge on my part.  Very proud that I just uploaded my first photo, which I first saw on Ancestry.  Circuitous route, but I got it there!