Will someone check my father's profile: Russell Beebe-669 & let me know if I am doing everything right?

+14 votes
893 views
Tryed to sign up for the Special Projects but my name was not added for some reason.  Perhaps, this project is something only Supervisors do.  Is that why it didn't register?  Oh well!  Regardless, whether I can or not I would like to fix typo's as I find them and clean up or make all my Profiles nice and neat.  That is why I have asked this question.  I want to know I am doing the profiles, biographies, catagorization's, and sources correctly.  Will probably use timeline's for the biographies if I can find out if I am doing them correctly.  The catagorization's and how you use them are confusing to me.  Is there some way we could get a listing with examples of how to do things correctly on WikiTree?  There is so much stuff I just don't understand how to do.

Will one of you who checks different things let me know if everything in my father's profile, biography, catagories, timeline, and the sources I added for the timeline are done okay or not?  It not can one of you help by giving me a complete example of how it should be done.  I am feeling rather lost.  If, I'm going to do things I prefer to learn how to do them correctly the first time.  I don't want other's to be confused when they come to the profile's I have done.  Barbara Jean Beebe-665
WikiTree profile: Russell G. Beebe
in Policy and Style by Living Beebe G2G6 Mach 3 (38.4k points)
retagged by Keith Hathaway
One small comment. The profile appears to be a merged profile,. The first half is fine, the second half was imported in a GEDCOM and needs cleaned up. A great deal of non-factual verbiage can be eliminated with no loss. Some of us feel that anything referring to Amcestry.com can be removed, so long as it is not factual, bearing on the subject.
Tom, Thanks, ever so much.  That is exactly what I was hoping for!  As a rule of thumb I usually try to get three places of reference or three sources to agree, with one category, before I add it to my final profile.  

Sounds, like most feel Ancestry is pretty useless as a source by it's self.  However, would it be safe to accept it if I had two other sources that agree with it?

What are the first steps I should take to go through my GEDCOM?  Where can I go to get examples of how to enter my GEDCOM's correctly?  I'm lost in the sea of do's & do not's as how to do them!!!  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is there somewhere on WikiTree where we can type in what we are looking for and be taken to the answer?   Not sure how to make sense of the Rough Draft's of the GEDCOM's.  Thanks!

I (hesitate to say I'm sorry its a sign of something) not familiar with the workings of GEDCOMS, all my work is hand done. Someone else will have to lead you through them. 

Yes, two supporting sources is acceptible. Often there's fewer than that.

I use Ancestry as a last resort, then state it's from them.  

Here (G2G) is probably the best place for information. We're all here to help, or at least we;re supposed to be.

2 Answers

+9 votes
 
Best answer

Beyond what Tom has already commented, I think you are off to a fine start... I do have some suggestions on things you may want to think about doing - but they are just  suggestions based on my own preferneces and I am sure there are as many ways of writing a bio as there are users on wikitree. Just so you are aware I have used italics to denote anything that is or could actually be part of the bio.

1. When you write a fact based on a source it is always nice to include a footnote to indicate which source you are considering authoratative - for example if you don't have a birth record, you may be basing the date of birth off a census record, a headstone, a published genealogy, etc., and those dates often have a great deal of variation - simply add to the end of the sentence or paragraph, as an example <ref>Birth Certificate </ref> to indicate which source a fact came from.

2. While each contributor has their own style, in my opinion, sources should read like a bibliography or table of authorities, and transcriptions should be distinct (either written in the narrative; added as a footnote; placed after the bibliographic style entry; or my preferred method in its own section of transcriptions.) As an example your first source "Birth:" I would probably enter under sources as:

Birth Certificate of George Russell Beebe, Registration 398-5554-428 (1920), Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services - Bureau of Vital Records, Personal copy in the files of [[Beebe-655|Barbara Beebe]]

Then I would (in accordance with my personal preferences) have a section just before the acknowledgments that would look like:

== Transcriptions ==

Birth Certificate, transcribed by Barbara Beebe (or whoever did the actual transcription)

STATE OF MISSOURI, Bureau of Vital Statistics CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH: Place of Birth County of Jackson, Township of Blue, ... etc. etc.

If you want to go really crazy you can even link names in the transcriptions to their wikitree profiles - since there are already links to immediate family on the profile, this is not particularly valuable for parents, siblings, and children, but you could link to the profile of a cousin who was a witness at a wedding, or the officiant (if they have a wikitree profile) - this can be a really nice touch; especially when dealing with in-laws, nephews or nieces that are often mentioned in wills and probate records - who inhereted the land, who got the hunting rifle?

3. The default == Footnotes == section is missing - this goes hand-in-hand with my first suggestion. simply add to the profile:

== Footnotes ==

</references>

This will display any footnotes you have included using <ref> tags as suggested in point 1. While the wikitree default places footnotes after sources, I prefer to have them immediately before the sources just like a book would have an endnote in the text, a page of endnotes  and then the bibliography.

4. You have taken the time to include profile numbers, such as Beebe-655 and Beebe-698. To make it easier to look at the other profile create a link using, as an example [[Beedbe-698|Charles "Glen" Beebe]]. It will display just the name as a hyperlink to the indicated wikitree profile.

5. To reiterate and expand on the point Tom made about the links to ancestry. While ancestry links can be annoying to non-ancestry users as they are inaccesible, it is perfectly fine to leave them in, but they should still be cleaned up. as an example:

Source: #S-1507419064 Page: Year: 1940; Census Place: Sni-A-Bar, Jackson, Missouri; Roll: T627_2116; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 48-53 APID: 1,2442::90534191

First Off, it would be 'nicer' looking, and more readable, for it to appear in a more bibliographic format, such as:

1940 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Sni-A-Bar, Jackson, Missouri, Enumeration District [ED] 48-53, Sheet 3B, Russell Beebe Household; National Archives microfilm publication T627, roll 2116; digital image, Ancestry.com

Secondly, this same source appears 7 times in the (second) sources list because that entire entry has been put inside a <ref> tag as a footnote (done automatically when you uploaded the gedom) supporting two name variations, two birth, and two residences. While each fact should have it's own footnote, it can be reduced to something much simpler (it just needs to clearly indicate which source is being cited)  - in this case <ref>1940 U.S. Census</ref>

6. The facts imported by a gedcom take up much more room than needed. As an example:

Birth: Blue Township

Date: Oct 18, 1920
Place: Blue, Jackson County, Missouri, USA[8][9][10][11][12]

Could just be edited down to:

Birth: Oct 18 1920, Blue, Jackson County, Missouri, USA <ref>1940 U.S. Census, 1930 U.S. Census, Social Security Death Index, Missouri Find a Grave Index</ref>

7. Categories are totally not required, but if you wish to use them, the instructions are here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Using_Categories

To give a quick example, if you wanted Russell to show up on the category page for Jackson Co., Missouri, as William L. Ray already does (see Link:http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Jackson_County%2C_Missouri )

You would enter in Russell's profile (it is suggested at the top, but some people prefer the bottom to avoid white space at the top of the profile) [[Category:Jackson County, Missouri]]

8. I have mentioned 'bibliographic format' a number of times - there are a wide variety of styles: APA, MLA, Evidence Explained, being some of the more common ones;  what style to use is an entirely personal choice, but all of them more or less present the same information just in different sequences and formatting.

In closing I will reiterate these are all just suggestions - pick through them, adopt those you like, play around with them on a profile; ultimately you have to find the balance the amount of effort expended against the point where you are happy enough with the resulting profile.

by Rob Ton G2G6 Pilot (293k points)
selected by Living X
Oooh, Rob. Nicely done. Can we draw on this guidance for the Profile Improvement Project?

And I think it's <references /> (not </references>)

Good catch... it should in fact be <references />... my bad!

Some additional points about <references /> that may be good to know - 1) it will only display things tagged with <ref> that come BEFORE/ABOVE it in the bio. 2) If used more then once it will show duplicates, for example:

Fact <ref>Source A</ref>

===Footnotes===

<references />

Fact <ref>Source B</ref>

===Endnotes===

<reference /s>

Fact <ref>Source C</ref>

 

Would display as:

 

Fact [1]

Footnotes

[1] Source A

Fact [2]

Endnotes

[1] Source A

[2] Source B

Fact [3]

Jillaine,

Take whatever you want/need - but please correct my occasional typos... for posterity ;)

Barbara

A few last things I thought of after I posted my original answer

1. In addition to the wiki markup for bold, italics, etc... You can also use some basic html tags to add formatting. As an example I commonly use <small> For transcriptions </small>

2. By default a ==Header== is created for each fact (Birth, Marriage, Burial, etc.) when you import a profile... I personally see no reason to keep these, as I feel they make the contents list unneccesarily long... one suggestion is to consolidate them in chronological order for example:

==Vital Statistiics and Personal Timeline.==

Birth: Oct 18 1920, Blue, Jackson County, Missouri, USA <ref>Birth Certificate</ref><ref>U.S. Census 1940 gives a conflicting place of birth of Kingsville , Jackson County</ref>

School: Sep 1926 to May 1936, Atherton Sibley School District, Sibley, Missouri, USA <ref>Personal Knowledge of [[Beebe-655|Barbara Beebe]]</ref>

Marriage: 24 Dec 1918, Jackson Missouri, USA <ref>Ancestry Family Tree</ref>

Residence (1930): Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri, USA <ref>1930 U.S. Census</ref>

Residence (1940):  Sni-A-Bar, Jackson, Missouri, USA <ref>1940 U.S. Census</ref>

Burial: Unknown Date, Independence, Jackson, Missouri, USA <ref>Find A Grave Index</ref>

 

Barbara, sorry for not getting your name. I just assumed that a Profile name of "Rob Ton" meant I was speaking to Ron.  blush

I've incorporated some of your recommendations into [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Biographies Biographies].

I welcome other people to add their suggestions.

Based on this answer, I'm going to put all my sources into a document, and get each one just the way it should be. Then just cut and paste into the profile. It may take time, but in the long run, each profile will be informative, hopefully, good looking.

Ron, thanks for supplying everything I should have said. I second Jillaine's use of it in the Profile Improvement Project

Jillaine,

Took ma a bit to figure out your most recent post. I think you mistook me addressing part of a post directly TO Barbara as me signing the part addressed to you AS Barbara - Also not sure how my name Rob Ton has become 'Ron" here on wikitree - but whatever, just don't call me late for dinner :D

Robert,

Glad this has 'inspired' and/or helped you - I don't always type out full formatted citations, although I do hope to get around to it - for example I usually give "Census of Canada 1871, Province/District/Sub-District/Page" and link directly to the record at Library and Archives Canada - not a "proper" citation, but enough that another researcher could figure out where to look.

While I tend to type out my wikitree sources by hand there are a couple tools available, in addition to MS Words footnote and bibliography features, that you can use to help format bibliographic entries for free.

Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/ - software to help "collect, organize, cite, and share research

Easybib: http://www.easybib.com/ - a searchable database of books,newspapers, journals, etc, that will bring up a formatted citation for free (MLA only)

Bibus: http://bibus-biblio.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page open source software to help manage sources that - can then be used as a plugin for OpenOffice and MS Word, but the database of sources remains separate.

Endnote Basic - http://endnote.com/basic Requires free site registration. Another online database of bibliographic information.

There is a more complete list at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software

Also some sites, such as openlibrary.org allow you to download citations in a variety of formats that may be supported by the above software. This also includes a Wikipedia friendly version, which I imagine/hope will be compatible with Wikitree's citation template when that is finished.

I should just stick to merging dupes and adding Puritan Great Migration details... Sorry Rob and Barbara and whoever else I'm name-mangled.
Rob very nicely done!
Rob, Thanks!  Your suggestions are extremely appreciated.  I look forward to doing them in my profiles to see how they will come out for me.

Is there a list somewhere that uses and explains the abbreviations that all of you use on wikitree?  Most of them leave me clueless.

Where can I go to find out how to enter some of the following:  small letters <small>. Examples:  italic's, bold underline, to change color of type; etc.?  If it is the wikitree mark up earlier mentioned that I just now found out I missed.  Ooops!  How or where do I find it I must be missing a lot. Barbara Jean Beebe-655

Some of the formatting is given here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Formatting

as the page linked above says not all HTML tags are supported, but you can certainly experiment with any you choose.

I also often refer to: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext_examples for things to experiment with.

Which abbreviations are you referring to? Most of the ones I see used are either 'standard' genealogical abbreviations b.= Birth, m1. = 1st marriage, etc. The ones specific to wikitree are usually acronyms for a field name such as LNAB (Last Name at Birth)

Just to add to the confusion: I thought our current Policies & Styles (or whatever it's called blush) stated that "Footnotes" was no longer recomended and that the sources section should look like:

== Sources ==

<references />

See also:

 

This makes all the information from the <ref> tags show up under sources, and then you would enter any manually entered sources after the "See also."

(I know that everything is a suggestion here, but if Barbara wants to follow any formatting trends we're trying to standardize, I thought I would mention this.)

Also, Barbara:

I think it's fantastic that you are working so hard at making your biographies both readable and informative! 

As a note of encouragement: You can't eat this elephant all in one bite! smiley  There *is* a great deal to learn here, and nobody expects you to be perfect. You can work around with your biographies to your heart's content, and pretty soon you will develop a style that you are happy with, and that's the key: You need to be happy with it.

I've spent quite a bit of time cruising around G2G and looking at other people's profiles in order to figure out how to format things. There are always the buttons in the Biography editing box that will allow you to add bold, italics and other options. Play with them. Look at the codes they put in your text, and you'll learn how to do it manually (which I find to be faster). 

Also, it's perfectly OK for you to click Edit on open profiles to see how their biographies have been formatted. Steal the code!! rofl  (Rob Ton has a great page here that he neglected to mention that will also show you how to format some cool stuff when you're ready).

I use my own profile biography area to play around with code and see what it does. Once you get the hang of it, you will discover it's not such a great mystery. smiley

Julie,

I think it is good that you posted this comment so others reading this older question will (hopefully) be led to more current information.

I would point out that this discussion from was from August/September 2013 while the style committee was still hard at work developing the current guidelines. The page sources style guide as it exists now was only created four month's later, in December. 

Similarly, it was impossible for me to mention the "Ton's Tweaks" page since it didn't exist until late November.. this question was one of many that led to the creation of that page. :)

As an aside, thanks for the compliments on the page I started - I'm glad people find it useful.

All the best,

Rob

Well, that's embarrassing! :)

I could have sworn I checked the date on this thread before I posted, so I apologize for the confusion!!

I'm going to blame it on a lack of caffeine this morning and late night last night.

Thanks, Rob!
+4 votes
Your father's profile is very informative.

Which project were you trying to join?  I don't think there are any that are just for supervisors and you don't get turned down from them.
by Maureen Rosenfeld G2G6 Pilot (204k points)
Maureen,  Thanks for your vote of confidence.  I tryed to sign up for the Special Projects doing Profile Improvement and correcting any typo's I find.  I'll try again!
In most of the projects, you add your own name to the list.  Maybe that is the problem.

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