Quakers Project Challenge (June 2018)

Question

Welcome to the Quakers Challenge! The challenge starts on the 1st and ends on the last day of the month. 

This month, we are going to concentrate on improving the biographies for members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) who were alive in the 1800s. Please review the Biographies style guide and Great Biographies examples to understand what we are trying to achieve.

Being Pre-1700 Certified is not required to participate. Everyone who makes at least three improvements to a profile will receive the Project Recognition Sticker for June 2018. Improvements include:

• Use sources to write a biography for the person
• Add sources for each fact; make sure at least one source on the profile identifies the person as a Quaker
• Add the project to the trusted list (Please do not add the project to profiles of living people, even if they are Quakers)
• Check the Quakers Project Maintenance Categories to find 19th Century profiles which need work.

The Challenge Tracker option will appear. Choose the "Quakers Project Challenge" checkbox and add a comment. You can see up-to-date stats on the Quakers Challenge Tracker results page.

​Please ask questions in the comments of this post. That has worked well so far, so let's continue it.

• If you find an orphaned profile or create a profile for this challenge and don't want to be the manager, you may add the project account as the manager and add the code to create the Quakers Project Box (i.e. {{Quakers_Project}}) above the Biography heading. You can also add the email address to the trusted list to place any profile on the Project Watchlist.

• You can add Quakers Maintenance categories by adding this category [[Category:Quakers_Needs_*]] and replacing the *  with one of the following:
  • Bio_Integration
  • Biography
  • Birth
  • Birth_Record
  • Church_Records
  • Death_Notice
  • GEDCOM_Cleanup
  • LNAB
  • Marriage_Record
  • Merge_Cleanup
  • Merging
  • More_Records
  • PPP
  • PPP_Removed
  • Research
  • Transcription
  • Validation

Comments

I will do the challenge. I have identified 18 families who were Quakers in my family tree and I might be able to do it. Fun

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Great, Claudia. Let us know if you have any questions. If you want to show off a profile, click the answer link above your comment, then tell us where to go look.

Answer 1

I will do this challenge.

Comments

Great, Linda. Good luck

Answer 2

I know that I encountered a line of Quakers, but whether I documented that well, if at all, in Ancestry.com (where most of my profiles presently "live") is a mystery that is hard to sort (enough puns, yet?).

Can a specific individual be named who was a branch progenitor or are they too numerous? Then a comparison of how to get to that persons relationship might reveal a path for the line... This might spawn participation and interest in discovering Quaker roots. Also of interest is the migration effect - basically recusants who fled religious persecution.

Comments

Based on your last sentence, I'm going to answer under the assumption that you are asking about those who immigrated to America. If otherwise, please let me know.

One way to find progenitors in America would be to take a look at the passengers of the Penn Fleet (1681-1682). Not all were Quakers but many of them were and would be among the first Quakers to arrive in America. We try to get the profiles of those passengers designated as part of the William Penn and Early Pennsylvania Settlers Project but that is still a work in progress. You can find the ones that we have identified so far on the associated Category page.

After the Penn Fleet period, Quakers continued to arrive in America. They usually came as a group from one area and settled close to each other. I noticed in your tags that you identified Wales as a country of interest. An article in the The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol 17, no 4, 1893, tells about many of the progenitors of the Welsh settlements.

 

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Looks like the passengers of the Penn Fleet might be for members only? (The link didn't work.)

Yes, I was referring to those migrating to North America.

So besides William Penn, are any traditional honorifics such as Deacon or Elder associated with Quakers, or any other prominent leaders who migrated to the American colonies?

Thanks for the prompt reply!

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Scratch the last question - I see the piece in the Quarterly probably will answer the progenitors who migrated question, but maybe modify: is Deacon or Elder a typical honorific?

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Sorry, that link to the Penn Fleet passengers was broken due to my fat fingers. The correct URL is http://www.welcomesociety.org/ancestors-approved-memberships.html

Anyone can look at the list of people who have been identified as passengers in Penn Fleet ships. Membership to the Welcome Society is based on being able to prove descent from one of those passengers.

Honorifics were not typically used by the early Quakers. After some of the divisions started occurring, those called to lead a meeting were sometimes referred to as Pastor.

You can often tell that someone was affiliated with the Society based on information in the records. Those records are usually for preparatory, monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings, sometimes called business meetings, and sometimes segregated by gender.

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That helps very much. I found a missing ancestor, already.

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Excellent!

Answer 3

I'm in.

Pat

Comments

Good to see you, Pat! Good luck

Answer 4

As it happens I am in the process of adding to Wikitree a lot of relatives of a g-g-g-grandmother who were Quakers, mainly in Lancashire, England.

Comments

Excellent! Good luck with those profiles. Please share here those that you are most proud of.

Answer 5

I have some Quakers I can work on. I'm up to the task. Please add me to the project.

Comments

Please disregard Colin MacDonald's post. I was answering with the wrong profile. I work on both profiles. Sorry

Answer 6

Please add me to the project. I am sure there are Quakers in my family tree.

Comments

Hi Robin and welcome to this month's challenge. You don't have to be a member of the Quakers Project to participate. If you are interested in helping with the project, please see the Project page for details on joining.

Answer 7

I will join the challenge. I may not accomplish a lot, as I have poor internet at home, and not a lot of spare time, and am already participating in the 52 ancestors challenge, but I do have Quakers in my background, of whom I am quite proud. They had a "station" on the underground railroad. I ought to be able to find time to do at least the required 3 improvements over the course of a month.

Will it be a problem that I am not the profile manager of my Quaker ancestors?

Comments

Welcome, Alison, and good luck with that internet connection.

For profiles that aren't managed by your or the project, please be sure to communicate with the Profile Manager if you are going to make a major change such as adding or removing relationships, making extensive changes to biographies, etc. Adding sources and categories should always be OK. Even then, I usually add a comment letting them know why I thought it was for that person.

Answer 8

I'm in the middle of Barnett, all because a great aunt (LDS) married a Quaker brother, divorced him and married his younger brother.  These were two of her five marriages!

Comments

LOL good luck with that Jo! I'm sure that the profiles will be better for your work on them.

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Debi, should I add a Challenge update for every source.  or just for adding the profile?

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Since this month's challenge is about every improvement, feel free to track every change. I don't usually save between each source I'm adding but if that's the way you work, that's fine.

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I''m doing bulk saves - this guy had 3 wives, 7 children, and loads of sources.  Parents have been added.  Also Harmon may be a candidate for Project Protected because of his Underground Railroad work.  Needs research!

Answer 9

I will do the Challenge. I am working on a 2nd great-grandmother who was born into a Quaker family. I am looking over the information provided in the U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy to source her profile and find the documentation they use intriguing.

Comments

Great to have you, Joyce. There's a free-space page for the Encyclopedia which gives sample citations and links to digital images of volumes which can be found online.

Answer 10

Debi, this month's project is hard. Of my 18 families, I have found 2 that lived in the 1800s if you count a woman who died in 1801. I am extremely frustrated because I lost an enormous amount of research when my computer crashed earlier this year and I am only now finding my gaps.

I researched Wrightsborough in Georgia because one of my ancestors was supposed to have died there but NOT. She died in 1748 and Wrightborough wasn't established until 1770. Her child was there, the one who died in 1801. May I count her.
 

Also, Amy Palmer White is said to be a Quaker preacher but I can't find a source. I put a note on her profile that the source is needed. Is that too little to be counted for this project? Stretching aren't I.

Comments

Is it hard because your families didn't continue as Quakers after 1799 or that the records are harder to find? You can definitely count the one who died in 1801 *grin* after all, she was alive in 1800.

My heart goes out to you regarding that computer crash. That can be so difficult to recover from. 

Regarding Amy Palmer White, have you seen this Marriages from the Oblong Monthly Meeting, Dutchess, NY, Part I? That doesn't say anything about preaching but does establish that her marriage did take place in a Meeting. If she died after 1799 and you improve her profile, that would definitely count. 

Remember, improvements can be as little as adding the category for the meeting that was attended or the cemetery where they were buried. With the new Categorization button above the profile edit box, adding categories is much easier. See the How do you find Categories FAQ for more information on that.

 

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Thanks for the info.

You had lots of relatives in the Dutchess, NY evidently. Cool

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LOL, nope, none at all *grin* I found that by doing a Google search for "Amy Palmer White" which led me to to an Adkins Family webpage which had a link to that USGenWeb page.

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I found that website and maybe I didn't dig far enough but I didn't find a source for her being a Quaker preacher. Just a statement that she was.

Answer 11

I'm afraid that I'm not up to this challenge right now, but I can offer a hint for others. My ancestor, the John Howland who came on the Mayflower, did not become a Quaker, but his two brothers did. I don't know how many of their descendants or other family members also were Quakers, but anyone in the Howland family line might want to check.

Comments

Thanks for the tip, Phyllis!

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I didn't have time to check when I posted this tip, but I have since done so. In your WikiTree portraits of John Howland's brothers Arthur and Henry Howland, there are discussions of their associations with the Quakers. Arthur apparently remained a Quaker and moved to Marshfield, MA, along with other Quakers, where he remained until his death. A note says that five generations of his descendants continued to live on his farm. There is no mention of his descendants remaining Quakers. I didn't look up his descendants. It is less clear whether Henry persisted in Quakerism. After being punished and/or fined at least three times in Duxbury for "entertaining" Quakers and allowing them to hold meetings in his home, he seems to have been back in favor with his townsmen by 1668, when he was re-elected Surveyor of highways.

This is an interesting project, and I wish I were able to join in pursuing it.

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Thanks for the further information, Phyllis. The Quakers Project is an ongoing effort so, when/if you are able, we would love to have you join us.

Answer 12

Debi, would please look at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jones-344.  I've added a few sources re: marriage.  The children needs sources - I think only 3 of the 7 belong to her and Daniel Pegg. Does the profile have enough information to remove the 'needs bio' tags?

Comments

I'd say the 'needs bio' tags could be removed if a Research Notes heading is added to clearly indicate which part is complete and which part is still a work in progress.

I saw your question about moving the marriage text to a Free space page. You could do that or you could find the citation for the source and put the transcription below the citation. I've done both, depending on what seemed best on a particular profile.

Answer 13

What a fun and fascinating challenge. I always wish I had more time. I am possibly the descendant of several Quakers of Southern NJ. I have been reading (as in books) about their settlement just previous and along with William Penn but they were well established there before his arrival. They go by the names of 4 of my ancestral lines but the Revolutionary War really messed up record keeping. I am hoping to find the missing link or two which spans this time period. Also, I have a lot of historical information and nowhere to put it as I think many of my relatives now identified had fallen away from this sect by the 1800's. Several Quakers were disowned for fighting in the war or even for paying military fines rather than going to jail for refusing to fight.

Comments

Glad to have you join us for the Challenge, Beverly. Those historical notes are the kind of things which can really bring an ancestor to life when included in the biography. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Let us know if you have any questions about how to format or cite what you have found.