Jeff Ikeler

Morning George,

Are you referring to Joseph Henry Mills Sr (1829-1913)? For that profile, I recently added a category for the cemetery his headstone appears in. But I'm afraid that I haven't otherwise edited or modified his profile, the connection with his parents, nor either parents' profile.

The change log for his profile indicates you connected John Joseph Mills (1804-1888) as his father back in 2017. N Fetterly appears to have done some edits on both parents back in early April.

Let me know if I'm looking at the wrong profile.

Jeff

Thanks again. It was a blast Thon'in with y'all!

Hey Kevin,

Unlikely. I make a lot of small non-controversial edits to profiles across the globe and time. Sometimes a thousand or more in a day.

But I'm happy to look. Can you provide the WikiTree ID for Martin?

Jeff

Good morning Carolyn. Happy Sunday! :)

Back in January of 2023, Marilyn Stewart added Frances M (Snuggs) Easley to Category:United States, Needs Biography in edit #166488214.

Categorization aims to have profiles in the most specific level possible. I moved about 3,000 articles from the United States category into their specific states. Seeing that Frances was born and died in North Carolina, I moved her into Category:North Carolina, Needs Biography.

Hope that helps explain things.

Best regards, Jeff

Thanks! People are doing different things recently that I don't understand. I guess that I'm just missing something somewhere.

Have a good day! Carolyn

Mornin',

The category I mentioned is one of the ways we help volunteers from the Profile Improvement Project find candidate profiles to craft beautiful handwritten biographies.

Hope that helps.

Jeff

Thanks! I'll check it out!

Have a good day! Carolyn

Sounds reasonable. Everybody has their preferences.

K,

Just took a peek at Gudger-183. You were really close, just missing one {, probably from a typo.

Most folks seem to prefer to place their stickers right below the biography line, before the first line of the biography body. But as long as they're somewhere within that biography block, they're fine.

(Project and research banners would have slightly different placement rules, with each described on their template pages.)

Hope that helps, Jeff

Hey Nikki,

I hear you. I sorted (I'd estimate) about 500 from Needs Biography and Needs GEDCOM Cleanup into finer categories over the weekend.

Please note that neither of those categories are labeled as top level. Category: Needs Biography is labeled mid-level and Category: Needs GEDCOM Cleanup isn't labeled at all.

Jeff

I'll pass that on to the PIP Categorization team.

Evening Nikki,

I did some re-categorizing last day and change.

Got Category:Needs Biography down by a thousand profiles or so. So many of the leftover ones are profiles from Australia, England, or other place which don't have sub-cats. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also got Category: United States, Needs Biography down from about 3,700 profiles to below 300.

Hope it helps!

Jeff

Wow! Thanks, Jeff. It is very appreciated. England is sub-categorized by counties. The list for Needs Biography is here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:England_Project_Needs_Biography

Take care,

Nikki

Nikki,

I saw those, but the description had given me a little pause. Like perhaps they're only supposed to be used with project-managed profiles?

If you're confident I'm fine dumping articles in there, I'll get started.

Jeff

It's fine. I'm involved with the England Project, so I'll give them a heads-up so the Team Leaders can start reviewing.

Hey Tom. Thanks so much for the kind words.

Sorry, I was away for a bit working on coursework.

Glad you found the chart helpful. Shucks, I'm really just tickled pink that anybody's even seen the thing other than me! :D

I often feel the same way with certain notes/resources I create. It's a good thing when they can get to an audience that benefits from them. I have been researching the related (Johnson) line for around 15 years on and off and the Ikeler connection was one I almost pre-emptively dismissed as probably-unresearchable as it was only mentioned in one unsourced document which had been passed down to me, that was based (as far as I know) almost entirely on oral history from a deceased distant relative who faintly recalled the name and listed variations, including "Ibler". It was considered fairly low-profile for me.

But having had additional time to review the implications of it, it actually seems to have been crucial for me in achieving a breakthrough in understanding the life and motivations of Isaac Johnson (c1740s-1824), who is my #1 brickwall ancestor, a highly-mobile Revolution-era yeoman farmer who seems to have moved multiple times in the 1780s-90s within the newly-created United States before ultimately seeking a land claim in Upper Canada (Ontario). I had suspected that Isaac was a "soft" or "quietist" Loyalist (i.e. did not serve in a militia but was either truly neutral in the war, or provided material support to British forces and became a pariah afterward), and the association with Wilhelm (Eichler) Ikeler (1753-abt.1808) helps to affirm this suspicion. In Upper Canada historiography, many settlers are retrospectively referred to as "Loyalists" despite their actual feelings on the British Crown, and many early settlers were actually opportunistic Americans seeking the free land available early on, so it can be difficult to winkle out actual motivations and associations. One consideration for me is that Isaac had no known association with any British-aligned militia unit or members of any militia unit, and settled amongst Quaker and Mennonite pacifists.

Obviously researching a Johnson is an infamous process on par with a Jones or a Smith, and any known family associations are key to verifying whether you have the right one. In this case, Johnson family records had that Isaac's oldest daughter Jane married a "Mr. Ikler" and another, Hannah, married a "Mr. Woolever". This established a connection to the family of Daniel Welliver (1748-1823) and creates a three-way Johnson-Ikeler-Woolever association. I now believe that Isaac may have been a neighbour or associate of Ikeler and Welliver who likely also migrated from New Jersey to present-day Columbia County, Pennsylvania, likely due to "push and pull" factors of available land and potentially conflict with Patriot neighbours. Isaac had strong Quaker and pacifist associations which was likely a major factor.

I strongly suspect that "Mr. Ikler" was either Andrew Ikeler (1773-1850) who married Christina (Johnson) Ikeler (abt.1774-1865) (possibly an alternate name for "Jane" or "Janny" Johnson in family records), or Barnabas Ikeler (abt.1774-), whose wife's name seems to be unknown. Obviously more research is needed.

Cheers to the possibility that your 6x great grandfather and my 7x great grandfather seem to have been so closely associated.

Thomas,

Sounds like you're definitely on the right track.

There is some evidence to indicate that Wilhelm, after being labeled a loyalist and having his land seized, went into hiding for ~7 years on the farm of Daniel Welliver. He reappeared, purchasing a large tract in Columbia (then Northumberland) county. His daughter Elizabeth married Daniel's son William. After Wilhelm's death, his land was split amongst his widow and children, with the largest share going to... drumroll... Elizabeth and William. Perhaps he considered William like a son, or perhaps (my probably unprovable suspicion) he had originally intended to give it to Daniel for his sheltering his family those years, but accidentally outlived his good friend.

I have a copy of Almon Ikeler's The Ikeler Chronicles, which he never sold in stores or made available online. He's a pretty nice guy and, once I was able to get in touch with him through cousins, he quickly shipped me out a copy. It is chock full of info and he adds in some suppositions of his own. Unfortunately one byproduct of it not being made for mass market is that there's no footnotes or other direct citations to easily follow the breadcrumbs on – moreso passages like "according to the records of a Lebanon, New Jersey merchant". While I have no reason to doubt any of his work, I had planned to not post it until I've been able to give it the appropriate rigor and verification. (I do believe a sizeable chunk was in collaboration with Donna (Ikeler) Laubach, a cousin who resided in Millville and was a member of the Columbia County Genealogical Society until her death about 4 years ago. She was a great granddaugther of Eri Ikeler (1830-1910), whose line I have not built out on WikiTree quite yet). That said, a lot of his sources seemingly just aren't available online today and I've been more focused on other genealogical pursuits.

If you'd agree not to re-distribute his work, I'd be happy to email you some cell photos of the pages. Given the seemingly strong connections, perhaps there's some clues in there that can help you pin down your Isaac with them.

By the way, I think you can safely discount Barnabas if the suspected connection is through a wife. He's not known to have married, and is not listed with a wife when his father's land is distributed / re-consolidated under Andrew. I recently transcribed the deed transfer consolidating the early Ikeler land after Wilhelm's passing over at Space:Ikeler Family Land Transfer of 1825. Unfortunately, no signs of any Isaacs bordering in the plot description, but who knows, he may have been one of the plots bordering where we're telling direction off of white oaks.

Jeff

Thank you for the clarification, Jeff. As for Isaac, he was already long gone to Upper Canada (and deceased) by 1825, so it would be surprising if he was mentioned in any document from that period. He would have left c1802, and the last suspected American record I have for him is a likely entry in the 1800 census (hardly conclusive as I haven't fully connected him to the area). Nevertheless I have him fairly strongly "triangulated" to the area based on association with other names that emigrated from the area such as a number of Catawissa and Millville Quaker families, and this minor unofficial migration is mentioned in a few local history works about the area as these families were all drawn from the same pool of the old Northumberland County and for the most part ended up in the same couple of townships in Ontario. In his land grant petition from 1802 he describes himself as a "yeoman" and explicitly lists the livestock he brought with him so my assumption has been that he must have owned land at some point, unless he was a tenant farmer trying to present a stronger case to the Legislative Council in his land petition. However I am unfamiliar with historical Pennsylvania land records so this is something I have not explored.

A lot of my research has been exploratory/subjective based on examining the patterns of which families had strong intermarriage links, since in my experience, at least for the time period, multiple intermarriages within a family cluster (usually of 3-4 families) tend to indicate either close proximity or religious/political/ethnic ties, or both (e.g. shared local church/congregation). Isaac and his descendants/extended family were also connected to some Catawissa Quakers (William Fenton, for example, who owned an inn or hotel of some kind at Catawissa) and Derry families as well. These are fairly loose family associations but are the basis for how I initially "placed" him in the area. Knowledge of the Ikeler and Woolever connections has done a lot to affirm that because I am doubtful, especially with the specificity of those two names, that he would have been located anywhere but the Columbia County area in the 1790s or so when those daughters would have married their husbands.

One consideration I've had is that he may not have lived directly next to the Ikeler/Woolever cluster, but had some association with them going back to New Jersey and ended up with other land in Greenwood or a neighbouring township. However that would need to be explored further. My hope once I can firmly connect Isaac to the area is to see if he is traceable to New Jersey, as there is some indication that that is where he was born.

I would be very interested in the Almon Ikeler book. Even if it does not abide by modern sourcing standards or lean on "facts" so to speak, I am not unused to works like these as they are much of what has guided my Johnson research and led me to the right places where I have later found more concrete records. Of course I would be willing to not republish it especially as I doubt there is much there of my concern anyhow, and my hope would be that a more "impressionistic" source like that might lead me in the right direction, even if it was through lateral connections like these. You can feel free to email it to me as an attachment. Once I get a chance to look through it, I can let you know if I find anything that I feel strengthens the connection or potentially contributes to further Ikeler research as well.

Thomas.

Copy all. I'll send some snaps in the morning.

Thanks Staci! Not sure how you've summoned the energy to deliver these already after just completing the Source-a-Thon, but it's certainly appreciated!

Good morning Kristen!

Sure thing, happy to take a look.

You had Template:African-American Heritage but that template name doesn't exist. It was generating a red link error instead of drawing a sticker. I changed it to African-American Sticker and it draws the sticker the right of this message now.

Hope that helps!

Jeff

Edit: typos

Julia,

Sorry I didn't reply a bit earlier. We just got home from Back to School night.

No worries on the duplicate/merge. It happens literally all the time.

And thank you for your support!

Jeff

Hey Jack,

No worries at all. I found somewhere in the range of ~200 duplicates yesterday so I admit I can't remember the ID # of the profile you're referring to.

That said, merges are rarely time-sensitive; merge proposals auto-approve after 30 days anyway. If both sides approve and you don't feel comfy with the merge tool, I'm happy to lend a hand in the final steps if you feel like sending the ID.

Hope your camping is going well. :)

Jeff

Edit: typo.

I'll put her on my to-do list for Friday.

Regards, Jack Parker

Not a problem at all. Happy to lend a hand any way I can. Feel free to reach out any time. :)

Tim,

Any time! Happy to help.

Jeff

Elaine,

Hmm. That... would indeed affect some things I was doing going forward. I can't seem to find a button to let me see the change history.

The verbiage on Special:Delete doesn't seem to be aligned with Help:Living People yet and says "This is generally only appropriate if highly sensitive information is being revealed, e.g. if it's a profile of a young child". Is deletion still the best course of action here for non-minor living people I'm not closely familiar with?

Jeff

Thanks for your quick reply! I actually need to check a few things first. Ok if I PM you or would you rather me reply here?

Elaine,

Feel free. PM, DM on Discord, email, whatever works for you.

Jeff

Hi, Jeff!

I'm one of the WikiTree Team members, and Elaine let us know about your questions here.

I would recommend going with the newer information on Help:Living People + the Privacy Policy page: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy_Policy

I've also asked the rest of the Team to consider a wording change on Special: Delete.

Thanks!!

Julie, WikiTree Community Assistant

Julie,

Appreciate the clarification. I spent the morning pruning back the living profiles.

Many of the (unlisted) profiles I had created were represented by DNA matches I've had contact with, at least until yesterday evening while I was working on my CC7. While I suppose I could have contacted them and offered cousin bait to get them to sign up, that seemed like an arduous task and one I should tackle faster than most reply to their messages.

All have been deleted with exception of my wife, my child, and my small handful of aunts/uncles. That seems to be a more manageable pool to work on. I also retained one (very) recently deceased profile as unlisted for sensitivity reasons.

Jeff

Wow, that was fast. Thanks Staci!

Margaret,

Appreciate the feedback! That's certainly a template name I hadn't seen until you mentioned it. I was leaning towards the Sticker at first based on the template page, but landed on the ProjectBox thinking it was managed. This is a third option I hadn't encountered with other countries up until now. Certainly something to keep in mind going forward, for sure.

A big thanks for taking the time to reach out. :) I know it probably took 10x longer to post a comment here than just fix it yourself, but taking this longer route certainly helps us learn and grow.

Jeff

Hi Jeff, thanks for replying and fixing the profile. If a profile is managed by a Project, and therefore has a Project box, the profile manager will show as the Project, so you can tell straight away if they are project managed. See for example, this profile, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/McMahon-898 Profile manager: Australia Project WikiTree.

Thanks again, regards, Margaret

Hey Sue,

Hard to tell of we're related due to privacy settings. But through Sarah's lines, likely not.

I found her article with the error listed in the changes log. She appeared on a site-wide report used by Project Data Doctors.

Jeff

Thanks Bill. Happy to be a part of the group.

Thanks Pip. Appreciate the warm welcome.

David,

Thanks for the welcome and for the info. Just signed the Honor Code. Working my way through the UI 😅 to add family members now.

Trying to get my Y-Haplo to appear on my paternal line. I assume once I have that side connected up, it'll automatically propogate upwards? Or are there additional steps? Please advise.

Jeff

Hi Jeff, thanks for the question!

We do not download DNA Data on WikiTree. We do enter our DNA testing information and it is very easy to do. On the top right of most pages, there is an active button "ADD". If you hover over that button there is a drop-down box and the first item is DNA. Click on that and follow the instructions. You can enter your testing company and the type of test such as Y-DNA, mtDNA, or Autosomal (Family Finder): Ancestry, FTDNA, My Heritage, and GedMatch are examples of the companies. You will also add your identifying information such as the kit # for FTDNA.

If you have already entered ancestors it will take about 24 hours for your test information to populate those profiles. As you add more profiles the information will continue to show up on all the appropriate ancestors' profiles.

I hope this helps. If you have problems or other questions, be sure to ask.

David ~ WikiTree Greeter

David,

Thanks again. I've already added both my autosomal and Y-DNA tests to my profile.

I'm linking up my grandparents to the tree and will give it a day to sync up. It currently shows no Y haplo for my paternal line, but I'll check again then and let you know if I'm still not seeing it propogate so we can troubleshoot.

Jeff

David,

Everything seems to have connected up fine on the autosomal and Y tests.

Took me a couple more generations to get back to existing profiles than I'd counted on. Seems most of my lines (so far) are either entirely undocumented here or just have skeletons profiles. E.g., my nearest DNA match is 10 steps away. 🙃

Thanks for helping me get started!

Jeff