Biography Builders April/May 2017: Mothers

Question

Mother's Day is May 14th, so the Bio Builders theme for the next thirty days (give or take a couple of days) will be "Mothers." 

Biography Builders Goal: To make profiles as complete as possible with well-written biographies and sources. You should research as much as you can find on a person, writing the information onto the profiles to create as complete a life story as you can for that person. Sourcing should be full citations. This includes adding categories and links to events and people connected to that profile and citing all those additions. See the first month for examples of how to participate.

Here's our checklist:

Data Section.

• birth date/place
• names of parents
• marriage date/place and spouse name
• death date/place

Biography Section:

• Written sentences stating the facts above, adding inline sources to each fact.
• As a general rule biographies should be in your own words. Paraphrase and rewrite, don't copy/paste.
• Baptism, burial, military, and other life events with inline sources.
• Something to "humanize" the person, such as career or avocation with sources.
• List of children with at least one pertinent fact.
• One of the suggestions was siblings. I think this takes up real estate.
• Explanatory remarks, if needed (i.e. Disputed persons sections, Research Notes, whatever needs extra explaining).
• Photos or pictures, background. Not a must, but nice (you own the copyright or they are in the public domain).
• Categories/Projects.
• Connection to the Global Tree.
• All duplicates merged or initiated
• Links to persons and events, perhaps from Wikipedia.
• Historical context as related to the person's life.
• Sources, Sources, Sources.

You can see some ideas on where to find some of this information on the Biography Builders space page, linked below.

Use "comments" below to ask questions.

Comments

Thank you, to last month's participants and to this month's also.

Answer 1

In the UK, we had our Mother's Day on March 26.  But I'm still happy to work the Biography Builder's Challenge! :)

1.   Mary Ann (Foster) Edgecombe: Had 10 children, only one lived to adulthood, all the rest died as infants or toddlers. She died aged 49.
2.   Mary Ann (Lethbridge) Blagdon: Had 10 children and 50 grandchildren.  She died aged 48 (death certificate pending)
3.
4.
5.
6.

Comments

I never even thought about the fact that Mother's Day might be a different day somewhere else. I suppose there are probably places that don't celebrate it at all. I googled "Mother's Day" and it told me May 14th. Of course "google" knows I live in the USA. Google probably knows my favorite foods and dress size too.

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Oh those internet sites know much more than your favorite foods and dress size ...  Before genealogy, when I was working I would use each search engine, put in persons name and see what pops up.  This was years ago, now much more pops up.  You get different things back with each search engine, it is not just Google, try the others.  When I am having problems in genealogy and not getting anything back on Ancestry, Heritage, FamilySearch, Wikipedia ... I go to the search engines.  Give them all a try, if you do not know them, just do a search for SEARCH ENGINES.  Remember that each search engine will probally block other search engines, Google does.  Check Yahoo, Bing, AOL, ASK, Excite, etc., etc.

Answer 2

9 more to go ... Will I make it this month?
1. One of my husband's brick walls, his maternal 2GGM, Annie (Unknown) Scholl (added biography and linked to Family Mysteries Page)

2. My maternal great grandmother, Louisa (Gerke) Hoefer. (biography improvement)

3. Nancy (Carper) Brough. (bio improvements) My 3GGM

4. Remember (Babcock) Stewart. (cleaned up after merge added birth record from comments) A recent adopted profile.

5. Annie (Unknown) Scholl. (Added Research Note: Clue to possible LNAB) My husband's 2GGM

6. Elizabeth (Pomeroy) Fuller. (completed bio improvements - added sources, bio, new cemetery category and free-space source page) - My 5th cousin 3 times removed and she married a Fuller who probably isn't related to me!

7. Betsey (Burroughs) Walker. Added children to bio with source links and made profiles for them. She's my 4GGM.

8.  Remember (Babcock) Stewart. Started a cleanup on a merge when another merge came along ...notes deleted ...  issues ... changed source links to free space pages even after notes were deleted ... issues solved ... back on track ... added siblings/children and their profiles. Now I ask you WHY do I choose this profile to work on?

9.  Joan (Bishop) Chase. (Added sources; bio improvement; links to free space page; category) English Grandmother of 2 New England pioneers. 

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Comments

Cheering Pat on ..... go.

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Thanks! :)

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You made it.  Throws confetti.

Answer 3

I'm ready to give it go. Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there.
1. Abigail (Abbott) Lawrence Mother of 4, grandmother of 9
2. Huldah (Simonds) Blodgett Mother of 10, grandmother of 26
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Answer 4

1. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Porter-10634.
2. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/West-6614
3. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Soule-212
4. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Morgan-6393
5. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bunnell-8
6. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gifford-182
7. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Macomber-31
8. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mix-76
9. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Morgan-6422
10. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cotton-294
11. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Upson-202
12. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-269952
13. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bunnell-13
14. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Turner-143
15. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hotchkiss-890
16. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Graves-720
17. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-154003
18. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-71979
19. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stiles-1978
20. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wright-18887
21. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mix-395
22. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jones-4684
23. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Griggs-411
24. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-5947

25. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Melburn-3

These aren't going to win any prizes, but I am cleaning up a lot of the profiles on my personal maintenance category.

Answer 5

So does that mean we just work on profiles of Mothers?

Comments

don't know what I did to fix the problem but can edit now, so just deleted the one entry from here...if someone can delete this one, it would be appreciated.

Thank you. (Converting to a comment just in case can't be deleted).

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Only mothers count for the bio builders this month. You can work on others, (I"ve done two men this morning) but they don't count for bio builders.

Answer 6

1. Mary Shingler, it looks like she was 16 when she had her first child in 1732, plus she was a single mum

Comments

How unusual. Do you know you have a couple of "red" categories?

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Thanks for the reminder, I was meaning to talk to Cheshire sponsor

Answer 7

1) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Minor-356 - Needs Biography (also needed to be connected to her parents)

2) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Miner-1067 - Needs Biography

3) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Meriam-4 - Gedcom cleanup required (stepped out of my comfort zone on that one)

4) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Frink-85 - Needs Biography

5) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stanton-173 - Needs GEDCOM Cleanup

6) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Frink-84 - Removed from Needs Bio, moved my research notes from Frink-84 to Frink-4, Completed bio and expanded research notes, proposed merge.

7) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-2250 - Needs Biography

8) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Baker-26483 - Needs Biography

9) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Frink-95 - Needs Biography 

10) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brown-7127 - Needs Biography and Propose Merge with Brown-55719, Verified Merge Clean up done.

11) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Williams-1584 - Needs GEDCOM Cleanup

12) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Miner-1563 - Needs Biography

13) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Miner-83 - Needs Biography

14) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Williams-1562 - Needs GEDcom Cleanup

15) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Frink-4 - Merge Cleanup

16) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gallup-106 - Needs GEDcom Cleanup 

17) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Eldredge-516 - Created with complete Bio to link to #16

18) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wheeler-11195 - Needs Biography Clean up

19) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Denison-364 - Needs GEDcom Cleanup/Bio - Completed 1 2/3 times

20) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gallup-50 - Needs GEDcom Cleanup 

21) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Burrows-105 - Needs Bio  (Better late than never)

Comments

Sometimes, If you leave G2G and come back the edit button that wasn't there will reappear.

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Just completed my first Biography Builder for my mother,

1. Hill-17312

2.  Hines-833

3.  Gollehon-11

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Nice bio. My mother liked to sing around the house too. One tiny suggestion, in general don't abbreviate state names. It's obvious to us, but to someone from another country it's greek. The Australians do it too and I look at their profiles and wonder where in the world is NSW

Keep up the good work.