Toddlin' Tortoises Team Page

Profile manager: Melanie Paul [send private message]

Who / What are the Toddlin' Tortoises?

A non-regional "challenge" Team — the intention of which is to enhance the overall health of the Tree, using a "whole profile approach", where speed is NOT a factor.

If you like to participate in the 'Thon events, but no longer sign up because you feel "guilty" at dragging down your Team's score — then this just might be the Team for you!

If you have never participated in any 'Thon because you are "slower than a wet week" — then consider how slowly tortoises move!

Everyone is welcome, especially people who just like to work at their own pace, not bothered if the Team comes "last", so long as what they do is the best that can be done at the time.

Tracking down people in a census, and worried it'll take "too long"? Don't worry about it. The more information, the better — and the greater the chance it will help someone else find a "missing" someone they have been looking for and unable to find.

The Team is committed to a "whole profile approach" ideal — where we don't just add a source to satisfy requirements and think, "I'll come back later and fill the rest in" (because we almost never do — due to rabbits and squirrels and shiny things). Our commitment is to make each profile as "complete" as we can do at the time of creation (because no profile is ever truly "finished", as there are new resources released all the time, or new information that surfaces).

Remember — the goal is to HAVE FUN while enhancing the overall health of the Tree. It doesn't matter if we come last. In fact, if we DO come last, we'll have made every other Team look good! (Who could ask for more?!)

Tailor Made?

Reasons why you might be tailor-made for the Toddlin' Tortoises Team – or why the Tortoises might be tailor-made for you!

1. You find yourself planning on just adding a source, or two, but get distracted by finding sources for siblings, parents, grandparents, in-laws, parents of in-laws . . .
2. You find one of the children is missing from a family census, so you go looking for said child. On finding they were at boarding school that year, you check for the headmaster/headmistress, and the teachers, then get led down a different path (dratted rabbits!) trying to find the wife of the headmaster. Then discover said headmaster was quite well known, although not "Notable", and follow the leads to where you find the previous five owners of his property.
3. You find that a husband and wife died on the same day, and so go looking for the reasons. Was it a murder-suicide? Was it a house fire? Was there an auto accident? An air disaster? A pandemic, or an epidemic? Were there any children? If so, did they also die at the same time? Hours (or days) later you "wake up" and realise the 'Thon ended last week, and you only worked on half a profile.
4. You go to FamilySearch to find a few sources, and you spend the next several hours de-tangling conflated relationships and merging the duplicated parents of 16 children (because someone (or several someones) just had to create separate parents for each child).
5. You make plans, and start amassing the sources needed to either remove the {{Unsourced Template}}, or to create profiles to attach to existing profiles, in preparation for an upcoming 'Thon — then find yourself adding those sources, or creating those profiles, because you just can't sit on them any longer. Then you have to start all over again, because the next 'thon is only a couple of weeks away.
6. You have a great biography written up, with citations for every event, and a brilliant expository Research Note for "x" event, when you decide to do "one last check" for possible sources — and you find that "missing" source, thus wiping out the Research Note you'd spent an hour or more writing up so it was "just so".

What Are The Different 'Thons?

Hertyl and Spertyl, getting all Saucy Source-y.

Hertyl and Spertyl Connecting the pieces.

Hertyl and Spertyl Clean up a Storm.

• Whatever-a-Thon (page to come)

Current 'Thon

✩ The 2023 Source-A-Thon.

Previous 'Thons

     ✬ Check with the other pages for their current, or past, members.)

• The Sixth Annual "Source-a-Thon"; 1st October — 4th October 2021
• The January 2022 "Connect-a-Thon"; 14th January — 17th January 2022
• The April 2022 "Connect-a-Thon"; 22nd April — 25th April 2022
• The July 2022 "Connect-a-Thon"; 15th July — 18th July 2022
• The Seventh Annual "Source-a-Thon"; 30th September — 3rd October 2022.
• January 2023 "Connect-a-Thon"
• April 2023 "Connect-a-Thon"
• July 2023 "Connect-a-Thon"

How to Join

✩ You need to register in advance — and each 'Thon has a separate registration, so signing up for a Clean-a-Thon does NOT mean you are registered for the Connect-a-Thon, or the Source-a-Thon, nor for any subsequent Clean-a-Thons.

Go to the signup post in G2G and click on the "button". (A link to the current 'Thon will be added when one is available.)

In your answer, say something like "Please sign me up for the "Toddlin' Tortoises", or "I'd like to join Hertyl and Spertyl", or just "Tortoises, please", or anything similar that identifies this as your chosen Team, and you will be added to the team list.

★ Be sure to click that large answer button, and not the comment link, as that won't count – and don't reply to someone else's answer, as that won't count, either.

Team Members

Toddlin' Tortoises — Hertyl and Spertyl

1.   Hertyl
2.   Spertyl
3.   Melanie ★ Data Doctor, Connector, Sourcerer, pre-1700 qualified, participant in the WikiTree Challenge 2021. ★ Project Member of — Australia, New Zealand, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England, Remember the Children, Black Heritage, Notables, ANZACs, Military & War.   ★

It is expected the membership list will not be static, so each 'Thon will have its own separate list — even if they are all duplicates of each other. (Please check the other pages for their current, or past, members.)

How Do We Communicate?

Primarily on G2G, in the specially designated thread for each 'Thon — although if there are those who wish to use Discord, or some other method, just let it be known and it can be added here as an alternative.

 : check the current 'Thon page for the G2G link.

 : check the current 'Thon page for a link (if there is one - right now it's just to the Wikitree server).

On what can I work?

• Start with your own extended family members — aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and other offspring of grandparents, siblings and offspring of great-grandparents, etc.
• Any other people you like, so long as you can find accurate sources for them, as every profile needs at least one source, even when it's not a Source-a-Thon.
• If you're concerned that all your work will be "lost" by someone else editing the profile on which you are working — just click the "draft save" beneath the biography text box, and there will be a 30-minute moratorium on anyone else editing that profile. Don't forget to then click "FULL save" when you are done, or those edits won't show to anyone else.
• Each 'Thon has different requirements, so for the Source-a-Thon, you'd look for profiles in the Unsourced category; for the Connect-a-Thon — if you don't already have a list of your own — you can look for people listed in the Needs Profiles Created category (just be sure your "starter" profile has existed for at least a week prior to the 'Thon); for the Clean-a-Thon, you'd look for the suggestions list.

Whole Profile Approach

Q : What do we mean by "whole profile approach"?

A : Every person has, at minimum, two recorded life events — their birth, and their death. So we chronicle those events, with backup sources (primary, where possible, secondary, if not; or a combination of sources that verify the event (newspapers can be good for this)).

        Sometimes, however, only the birth, or only the death can be verified in documents. This is when it is most important to be as thorough as possible in clearly documenting every other aspect of the person's life that can be done.

• Large numbers of people also have other recorded events: baptisms, funerals/burials, marriages, children, education, religious professions, and so on. Sometimes there were no recorded births, but there were baptisms, so the one can be used in place of the other. The same for deaths before registrations were normal, or required; so the burial record takes the place of the death registration.

• For each event in a life, we add whatever we can in the way of sources/citations that support our claims. We also use citations full enough that anyone else can find that same source. Source citations do not require a link to some online repository, but when they exist they can be helpful.

• We write as narrative a biography as we can, in chronological order. (If biography writing isn't your "thing", that's ok. Just chronicle the live events in chronological order, with their citations, and it should be fine.) Chronological order can be important for aligning sources to statements/facts, especially if the citations are in list form under the Sources header, and not attached to the related statement in the biography area.

    Chronological order also makes much more sense than having birth and death, followed by education, followed by burial, followed by a list of the children, followed by migration, followed by marriage. Sometimes it isn't possible to keep everything to a strict chronology — such as listing the children as an attachment to the marriage event. Mostly life intervenes, and children's births are actually interspersed between those events; but it's not always the best way to present such facts. It really depends on what the overall aim is meant to present — strictly chronological, or a narrative that flows.

• It is also helpful to add categories to profiles, as part of the "whole profile" ideal. Grouping people by location, or occupation, or migration, may help someone else find someone they have been looking for.

• For this same reason, it is helpful to other researchers to transcribe as fully as possible any census records there may be. It may take longer than some like to spend, and "clog up" a biography text area, but we don't do this for us, but for a future researcher who just might be looking for their "great-grand-uncle George H Smith, who had been a miner", and not finding him until they see "date of census, Geo. Henry Smith (43), coal miner, resident as a lodger in the household of Jas. Conquest, place name".

• Everything we can add, should be. For the sake of completeness, and for that future researcher.

• In addition, stickers can be a nice addition, but be careful if adding to profiles you do not manage. The rules regarding stickers mean that they can be removed at any time, and not replaced. There is also a limit of "5, but is better", so be very choosy regarding which stickers you wish to use to highlight life events. The "migrating ancestor" sticker is always a nice addition, as can be the veteran recognition stickers. Many countries also have the equivalent to a "born in" sticker - although the non-migrating ancestor sticker can also be used for this purpose.

• If using images in the biography text box, do consider those who use screen readers and cannot, therefore, see the images except as a blank space. Both {curly braces} and [square brackets] image codes have a parameter for "on mouseover 'floating' text", which allows for a description of the image to be presented in a form that a screen reader can pick up. Images within the body of this text box all have "alt text" added for that reason.

    If there are a number of images, and there is no wish to have them on the profile's right side causing what many refer to as "double vision", then consider a free space page to hold the images so they can be linked in the biography. (An example profile with an attached space page.) If you don't wish to create your own space page, feel free to utilise this one : No Double Vision, a home away from home for profile images. (NOTE: you cannot remove the Primary Image from the profile's right side pane, as that is the only image that must be on a profile.)

    Also be judicious in the use of primary images, and background images — particularly background images, as many have expressed extreme dislike of seeing them on profiles. Where possible, to minimise the "jarring" effect backgrounds can have for some folk, they should tile seamlessly. There are a number of images pages on Wikitree, where there are seamless images of varying colours and designs.

• A few examples of "whole profile approach" edits from the 2021 Source-a-Thon.

    • Elizabeth (Smith) Bird (abt.1853-1944)

    • Edward (Tate) Hills (1883-1950)

    • Bessie Margaret (Turner) Berry (1882-)

    • William Goodrich (1846-1938)

    • Annett Emma (Wynn) Perman (1829-1913)

✩ If you frequently copy and paste text that has tabs, or extra wide spacing, and you don't use one of the wonderful apps that does the formatting for you but manually remove all those tab indents and so on, consider using this wonderful web-based tool:

    • Text Fixer: Remove white spaces

✩ The same thing applies to if you manually re-case text from all upper case to sentence case, or all lower case to sentence case, or the reverse; consider using this wonderful web-based tool:

    • Convert Case

2023 TT award

Meet the Slowsky Family

(Thanks to Edison for the last name.)

Oct 2021 TT award

January 2022 TT award

Oct 2022 TT award