Magna Carta Project Trails

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Contents 1 Project Goals 2 What's a Magna Carta Trail? 3 Who is My Gateway Ancestor? 4 How Do I Get a Trail for My Gateway Ancestor? 5 Can Anyone Develop a Trail? 6 How Does a Trail Get Reviewed? 7 What Does a Review Involve? 8 Links

Project Goals

There were twenty five Magna Carta Surety Barons who, in 1215, swore an oath to enforce Magna Carta. Seventeen of those surety barons had descendants who immigrated to Colonial America before 1700, known as Gateway Ancestors.

The Magna Carta Project's main goal is to have a badged trail to a surety baron for each Richardson-documented Gateway Ancestor. Profiles in a badged trail have been reviewed by project members for accuracy, giving WikiTree members and visitors high-quality information about hundreds of descendants of the surety barons.

What's a Magna Carta Trail?

A Magna Carta trail is the lineal descent from a Magna Carta Surety Baron to a Gateway Ancestor who is documented in Douglas Richardson's '’Magna Carta Ancestry or has been approved by the project.

Who is My Gateway Ancestor?

It's easy to find your Gateway Ancestor using Chase Ashely's new (as of June 2020) app: Ancestor Listmaker. Enter your WikiTree ID, select 20 generations, and in the "List type/criteria" drop-down, select "Magna Carta Gateway" and click Generate List.

How Do I Get a Trail for My Gateway Ancestor?

It's a lot of work that a lot of people have devoted a lot of time to! We also think it's worth it. The result is providing WikiTree with hundreds of attractive, well-sourced profiles leading from Richardson-documented Gateway Ancestors back to their Magna Carta Surety Baron ancestor(s).

Richardson's Magna Carta Ancestry not only lists the 240 Gateway Ancestors (vol. I, pages xxiii-xxix), it also sets out trails between Gateways and surety barons. The trail from your Gateway might already be done on WikiTree. You can find out if a trail exists by doing one or more of the following:

• Check Base Camp and search for your Gateway. If the profile appears in the table "Magna Carta Trails Completed", the trail has been set out on WikiTree. If the Gateway is listed under "Magna Carta Trails Ready to Get Started", a WikiTree trail has not yet been developed by the Project.
• Check the Gateway Ancestors category for your immigrant ancestor's name and click on his (or her) profile. If the profile is in badged trail, it should have the Gateway Ancestor badge from the Magna Carta project. If the profile has a Trail Pending project box, that means one or more trails were identified by the Project and the trail is under some state of development.
• Read the text in the Magna Carta Project Section and you can learn more about the status of the trail's development. On some Gateway profiles, you might find a complete list of the profiles in the trail(s).
• Given the nature of wikis, you'll want to check by "running up the trail":

1. Open the profiles for both parents and look for the Magna Carta "badge".
2. For the parent with the badge, open the profiles for his or her parents (if both parents are badged, open both sets of parents). Repeat until you hit a Magna Carta Surety Baron, and you've found your Magna Carta Trail!
3. If you hit a set of parents with neither being badged, then Magna Carta project members have not yet completed, reviewed, and approved a trail for that Gateway Ancestor.

Can Anyone Develop a Trail?

Yes, although it's better if you join the Project first. To join our Trail Development team, you should be a badged Magna Carta Project member who has previously improved six of the project's profiles.

After you've notified a Team Leader that you want to develop a specific trail, you will develop each profile between the Gateway Ancestor and Surety Baron using the Project's checklist.

To avoid duplication of efforts, you should check the tables at Base Camp to see if anyone is already working on the trail you're interested in (check the comments too). If you're a project member and have also joined the Google Group, you can send a note to the group to double-check that no one's working on the trail already.

How Does a Trail Get Reviewed?

Once a trail is completed, it needs to be reviewed. Magna Carta project members who are reviewers have access to a hardcopy of either Magna Carta Ancestry or Royal Ancestry (or both) by Douglas Richardson.

Only a reviewer from the Magna Carta project should add the project's "badge" (project box) and Descendant category. Both are intended to signal that the project has reviewed and approved not only the profile but also the trail it's in.

What Does a Review Involve?

Reviewers re-check the profile's citations and run through the Project's checklist one more time. When they've reviewed all the profiles in the trail, they add the Magna Carta project's "seal of approval" — the project box and appropriate Descendant category or categories. And the project moves one step closer to completing its goal of a badged trail for every Gateway Ancestor documented by Richardson.

Links

• Base Camp
• Index of Surety Barons to Gateway Ancestors