Please check out my grandfather's profile and tell me what you think?

Question

Hello. I am new to WikiTree and I have been creating a profile for my grandfather. I would like your opinions on the readability of the profile. I want to share with other members of my family (non genealogists). I want the profile easy to understand. Can you check it out and give me any thoughts on it? Dollar-44

Comments

Hi Tia... Hmmmm... interesting Biography method.  It looks like you put a lot of work into this Tia, but I was unable to find the Source documents.  The footnotes seem to double back to themselves instead of a source citation.  Lets see what some of the Pro's say.

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Oh, Wow... I see it now... Very Impressive!  It took me a minute to figure out what you did.

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Thanks Rory! Yep the source citation is with the footnote - They are combine together. It make for a cleaner look too me. The Timeline is for me to find any missing gaps and to compare conflicting data.

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Ingenious Tia!

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I had to change it up some Rory. The way I was doing it made it very hard to do any editing or find information with the references holding my sources too. So I went back old school and added a separate footnote section. And it made a cleaner look and my bio area.

Answer 1

I'm impressed that as a rookie you managed to create a wiki table. I still have to look up the directions.

I also love your use of worklists etc.

As for readability, I understood it clear as a bell. I think for family members you might want to try creating a narrative, especially for a grandparent. Leave the table there, because it has all the sources and shows where the discrepancies are. But before the table, "Joe Dollar was born... etc" will read much easier for non-genealogists and it will give you a chance to make it feel more personal.

When your "done" (loosely used) with it. You can hide the worklists if you choose to do so. Put <!-- at the beginning and --> at the end. Everything in the middle will be hidden, except in edit mode.

Comments

I didn't think about hiding the work list. And I was debating about doing a story line with the timeline there. I was never a good writer, but with the timeline it shouldn't be too hard. Hopefully. :P

Thank You for the great ideas

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Encouraging words ...Go for it.  The more bios you write, the better they get to be. This isn't like handing in a high school essay and getting a grade. Nobody is grading you, and six months later, you can do a rewrite.

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Another question. How do I insert an image into a narrative. For example my grandfather after he retired ran a lawn mower business. And I would like to include an image of the newspaper ad he ran into the story or below the story.

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Very nice! The tables came out well - I hadn't thought to use them for a simple bullet timeline like that. One suggestion - the last column in the tables is missing on some of the records. If you add the column in for those records, it will add a blank box at the end that will clean that up easily enough.

I absolutely LOVE the way you laid out your sources. That was excellent! I can find a way to look up anything you put in there and anyone could follow how you documented your research.

I would agree with Anne - a narrative would be nice at some point, as we all well know - a profile is NEVER finished - but only set aside for a little while. I always find myself picturing the person, who they were, where they grew up, what they did as a kid, what they did as an adult, who they met and married, their kids, and on and on until their death... those stories fascinate me. Everyone has a cool story to tell, and I enjoy hearing them.

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Thanks Scott!! Yep the last line in the table is on my quick to list section where I need to finish adding the occupations from the census records. And I agree, I think the narrative is the next step.

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Picture in the narrative. First upload the picture to wikitree. I see you can do that. Click on the picture - takes you to the edit image page. Scroll down - on the right hand side there are directions Use Inside Text. You can copy and paste the information. A note: If the profile is private, or the photo is on a private page as is Joe's picture. Only a thumbnail will be seen by people (like me) looking at the photo. To see the full size picture people will need to be on the trusted list.

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Ok, Did a major revamp and added a biography. It was like once I got started I couldn't stop. LOL. Let me know how did? Thank you

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Alright! See you can write. Now just so you're aware, I can't see the pictures, and if you're not logged in you can't see the pictures. When your on his page, you can click on the "public view" tab and it will show you what everyone else sees.

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Hmm, I wonder why I can see them on the public view when I am logged in? When I'm logged out, I can see some of the images but not all. Maybe it doesn't work well with .png?

Answer 2

Well, I'm not sure I'd call it readable.  It has a lot of material well organized, but a new family member would probably be totally lost.  I was just (re)reading the style pages in the help section this morning and I remember that one suggestion they had was that for very long profiles it is useful to create a summary above the biography.  This may be what Anne was talking about as a "narrative", though I write my Biography narrative style and this is below the ==Biography==.  Anyway, keep up the good work.

Comments

Thanks Dave! I am going to start working on that Biography (narrative). I think everyone is right on that.

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Ok, Did a major revamp and added a biography. It was like once I got started I couldn't stop. LOL. Let me know how did? Thank you

Answer 3

I think this information would be better to put on a family free space page, then put a narrative on the profile.  It certainly shows a  lot of work and information, but I don't see it as "readable".  It's overwhelming to me.  Just my two cents.

Comments

Thanks Carolyn! You may be right. I didn't think about created a space page for the research aspect of it. That is a great idea!

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Ok, Did a major revamp and added a biography. It was like once I got started I couldn't stop. LOL. Let me know how did? Thank you

Answer 4

Much, much better.  A narrative is more readable by not just 'non-genealogists'!  The table was a fascinating display of just how much work you had done, but it was just too confusing, I felt.  And the narrative makes him much more of a person than a set of tables ever did.  Congratulations! :O)

Comments

Thanks You Ros! Once I started typing I couldn't stop. The table did help with the information I need to write the story, kinda like an outline for an essay. But it does look better without it. I just moved it to a space page for research.