Wednesday 19 January 2011

Revamp

SecondSite, the program I use to generate my web pages from my Genealogy database (TMG), has come out with some interesting new features.
It was a good time to review bits of my main website.
As always, when testing, I find things that are missing, have incorrect links etc etc, so a few of those have been tidied up, some snippets added to timelines and so on.

However, the main change will be added gradually as I review all the charts.

What is now possible, is to produce a dynamic descendant chart that can be expanded/collapsed to help you get the feel for where the person of interest on the chart "fits".
I've defaulted them to "open collapsed", so that the initial view you will see is that of your person of interest, and their relationship to the subject of the chart they appear on, but you can then either open/close individual branches, or nip up to the top of the chart and expand or collapse the whole chart.
I started with the FAIRBAIRN chart for my Archibald, but several others have already been converted.
One thing that was always missing from the existing descendant charts was the spouse at the lowest level of the chart. These now show.
In addition there's an alternate view of a pedigree chart with much the same expand/collapse dynamic view, but instead of being presented in the more normal flying geese formation, this one shows the parents immediately beneath each ancestor on the chart, AND has the ability to show where a person has more than one set of "parents", eg adoptive parents, foster parents, or simply alternates from research where conclusions have not yet been reached.
As yet there's only one of these charts available, and that's my own pedigree on the charts page of my main web site, but it is highly likely that this will be used in the One Name Study pages, where alternates exist on where someone "fits".

Quite apart from the above changes, there may well be some extra snippets on the GRAHAM chart from the branch in Sth Australia (see posting in my Guestbook, 12 Jan), and one or two more snippets on the WIGHT branch in Sunderland, the family of Hector Cowans GRAY and Elizabeth WIGHT on the WIGHT chart, but whether or not anything appears there depends on how many generations down the tree the changes are, as the charts may cut off a generation or two too early.

Thursday 13 January 2011

At last

Now that 2011 is well under way, I'm finally catching up on bits of 2010.
My LornaHenderson database on WorldConnect has had a long overdue update.
Not completely sure what all has changed since the last update (last August), but I do know that I've finally finished checking off the DAW updates Val sent, plus some work on the related families who connect.
This time round (last attempt was 2002) I managed to confirm David's son Thomas' death - ancestry had him indexed as DAN, not DAW, and I've still not managed to find the registration on FindMyPast.
Also managed to reduce the number of "orphans" in the db down to 45. "Orphan" merely means I know the people concerned are related, but not really how.
Never did solve how Elizabeth GRAY was a granddaughter of Hector GRAY and Elizabeth WIGHT, but did manage to extend my knowledge of the latter's family somewhat - adding in some DAVISON, BISSETT, FOSTER/FORSTER & ATKINSON surnames into the family, confirming some earlier suspicions of who married whom, mostly all in Sunderland, Durham.

Monday 10 January 2011

10th: Millers and publicans

A welcome email arrived this morning enclosing a photo of William Matthias ROWE, found by his great grandson in his mother's photos - and Howard thought I might like it, given he'd found my web pages.

Spurred me into a few updates on that branch of the ROWE/DAWE tree (William Matthias - Matt - is related twice over as his parents Joseph King ROWE and Thirza DAWE are brother and sister to my 2* great grandparents William ROWE and Honor DAWE respectively.

Checking what I had I was reminded that in the ROWE/DAWE letters he is mentioned as having given up being a miller and had moved to Teignmouth to be a publican - for which occupation the family thought he was not well suited.
He obviously came to the same conclusion as the photo was annotated that he moved from Nymet Mill to the Valletort mills, Millbay, (Plymouth) with no mention of his soujourn as a publican at the date they have him as shifting.
Matt is now included in the Originals subsite of my main web pages and I look forward to further updates.

Thursday 6 January 2011

6th: IZON redux

How many John Parnell IZONs can there be?
Or more accurately, why can't I find the one I'm looking for?
In the process of loading some overdue updates to OneGreatFamily I realised that I'd never fully convinced myself about Madeline Hilda IZON's parents.
I knew her father was a John Parnell IZON, timber merchant, deceased when Madeline married Douglas Maes TURNBULL (turns out he'd only died 8 days earlier).
But the only census data I could find had a John Parnell IZON with a wife Emma in about the right area and timeframe, but no Madeline/Hilda to be found.
This time round I found the family in 1911 and Emma was relegated to the dustbin of history as Madeline's mother turned out to be a Marion instead - additional proof being supplied by the National Probate Calendar (must have been a reasonably prosperous timber merchant, he left L6,300 in 1914).

Those interested are no doubt following the Fairbairn blog anyway, but I thought I'd mention here that the One Name Study pages have been updated to reflect my last few months of research into how the earlier generations may connect, aided by dna evidence, and a couple of very helpful wills (with some more people from the latter that are not yet identified, so yet to be fitted into the jigsaw, as is the latest exact match to the line closest to the modal for all of the matching Borders FAIRBAIRNs).