Less than a month ago, the profile for Guillaume Capela (b.1672) was about 20 lines long, including mostly references to about six sources. (He is my 7th GGF)
Cindy Bourque agreed with me that this man and his family needed to be straightened out, and that the process was likely to be fraught with controversy due to a lack of worthy sources, and a plethora of unsubstantiated opinion. Frankly, I wasn't even certain of his name when I created the profile, and neither was White.
In those few weeks, Cindy has guided me through WikiTree process, how to find stuff, how to use citations, and how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Marc-Andre Comeau's Percheur Normand, Famille Metisse arrived at my door just in time. He is cited liberally, as are Mallet, Jean, Mimeault. And Cindy was always encouraging more citations to support any statements of fact. This hasn't been my writing milieu until now, but I'm getting the hang of it, if Cindy is any judge.
We found citations for his birth record, his parents wedding record, his uncle's wedding record, his signature on multiple documents, a hospital stay during the Siege of Quebec, ... In fact, we've gathered so much information that it is starting to overflow some of the adjunct pages associated with the family, with mtDNA test result analysis. and even the historical context of the times in which they lived; the Seigneuries of the French Regime.
Yesterday, she was telling me that someone had congratulated her on the work that we had done, and what a service we had performed for this family. And Cindy said that she had responded that it was all me; that she had done so little.
She's too modest.
I'm here to set the record straight. Cindy has been fantastic. She knows how to cut through to the heart of genealogical analysis, she relies upon the evidence, and knows how to cite and who to cite. She has helped me to protect profiles that were subject to radical revision and rumor-spreading, and she has settled editorial disputes. And she just gets stuff done that a newbie like me wouldn't even try, like change the LNAB.
Now, I am a retired author/editor. I'm accustomed to having and/or being the editor. This time, Cindy was my editor and she rode herd like an editor should. But she really stepped up when she constructed this marvelous passage, citing White, four others, and the birth record; it captures the genealogical essence of the family in a very concise statement. We were able to re-use for each of their four daughters. It was really a brilliant piece of craftsmanship because we could hang citations for all of the key authors onto White's original words, because they had all cited White. It helps setup a nice footnote section. (I've grown to appreciate footnote sections.)
Today, here is what that 20-line profile has become:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Capela-3
On behalf of all descendants of Guillaume Capela, thank you Cindy Bourque, you let his light shine through.
I enjoy working with you. You are a Wonderful WikiTreer
-- Maloney-2332
