Friday, September 30, 2011

Website Additions

Just finished uploading a new version of my West Virginia Heritage website a little bit ago - check out the Recent Updates for a summary of the additions and updates.  Some of the new info includes:
  • More "cemetery people"
  • Occupations/employment
  • Residence info for some persons
  • 1870 federal census info for Anderson Clark family in Kansas

Bear in mind that I'm continually working on cleanup of my info which leads to new inclusions, so the Recent Updates may not catch all of the changes in detail, but it will give you most of them.

I've decided to finish cleaning up my census data for the people who are already on the website before I add any more people.  I'll try to do better at keeping the blog updated with my progress!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Non-person People

Did my comment about "non-person people" yesterday leave you thinking I'm crazy?  Not to worry ... my mental state isn't that bad ... yet!  I really do have a good explanation for you.


UPDATE:  The crossed out info below is no longer applicable for my website as the old Recent Updates link was renamed and moved to the menubar where there is a link for New items.  A dropdown menu underneath includes Individuals with Recent Updates - the place to check for changes since your last visit.

My West Virginia Heritage website has a Recent Updates link at the top of each page - it's a great way to check for changes since your last visit.  As currently noted at the top of that Recent Updates page,
"Website first published online on 08 September 2011 with 92 people (56 real persons plus 36 "census people" such as 1850 U.S. Census, Virginia, Marshall County)"


Now, getting back to the "non-person people" I mentioned in the first paragraph ...

Near the bottom of the website pages you can see the date and time the site was last updated, the total number of individuals, and this note: 
(count includes "pseudo persons" for cemeteries, census records, etc.)

Those "pseudo persons" are the "non-person people" to which I've been referring.  Within my genealogy database, I can create fake people who serve as convenient sources for making lists.  Yes, I can hear you thinking, "well now, that's as clear as mud!"  Examples will help:

Cemetery person:  Take a look at the Fork Ridge Christian Church Cemetery person and you'll find that this "person" is actually a means for compiling a list of real persons who were buried in that cemetery.  That's the easy example; let's move on to another one.

Census person:  As households were enumerated in a census (1950 and later), they were given consecutive family numbers. The enumerators worked systematically, whether traveling the length of a street in town or along a country road.  Generally, the result was that consecutive numbers indicated "next door" neighbors - close numbers indicated families living near each other. 

I created census persons such as:  1850 U.S. Census, Virginia, Marshall County.  If I find a family who was enumerated in the 1850 census in Marshall County, I tie that family to this census person in my database.  Now, increase that to several families who are tied to this same census person.  Look at this census person on the website, and you'll see that all those families are combined into a list of the households, sorted by the family numbers.

Not only is it interesting to see who lived next to who, it can often provide clues about families.  Remember that back in those days, folks didn't travel all over the country like we do today.  Odds were that the families of a bride and groom didn't live more than a few miles apart.  Newlyweds often lived near their parents; and it wasn't unusual to find siblings raising their families in close proximity to each other - perhaps even on the same farm.

Bottom line ... my "non-person people" are nothing more than a way to create lists of people who have something in common.  While it's great to have detailed information on each person's individual page, it's sometimes nice to see how several people correlate to each other  ... and that's the beauty of having these "people" who don't really exist.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

West Virginia Heritage website

There were times when I thought I'd never see this day ... my West Virginia Heritage website is now not only online, it's pretty much "good to go" as far as info layouts and source citations.

I also now have the photos sorting into the appropriate image galleries that are organized by:
  • The family lines of my great-grandparents (Aston, Church, Clark, Harris, Kuhn, McGary, Richmond, and Summers)
  • Cemeteries (Fork Ridge Christian, Oak Grove Methodist, Harris family, etc.)
  • Places and Buildings
  • Documents

There are a lot more photos to come, but at least I now have figured out what I need to do to get them organized the way the way I want them.  That's always the hardest part; figuring out what outcome I'm trying to achieve and then actually getting it to work!

Tomorrow I'll explain about the "non-person people" that are included in my website.  If you're scratching your head on that one, just check back tomorrow ... I promise it will make perfect sense.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

My Website Is Coming Faster Than I Thought It Would

In fact, the website is actually here!  Or maybe I should say it's there since it is separate from this blog.  Where is there???  The website, which I titled West Virginia Heritage is located at wv-heritage.com.

I'm still working out a few kinks ... and I have to admit that I didn't get it all as cleaned up as I thought I would.  That means you may find some places where it looks like something is missing - and you'll probably be right!  Once I get those sections fixed, I'll make the "official" announcement here and on facebook that the site is good to go.

Go ahead and take a peek - there's a lot more to come, but I've crossed the biggest hurdle just getting the site up and running. And I thought I had made progress when I did yesterday's post.  Ha!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

My Website Is Coming, My Website Is Coming

August was a very quiet month (only one blog post), but I finally have NEW news!  I now have my domain name for the web site I'm getting ready to launch:


If you go to that link, you'll see I have a temporary "fixin' to get ready" page set up - not the official name for those type of pages, but I think it fits!

Next step is to get set up with my web host and upload some files.  I'll be doing that tomorrow, so my WV Heritage web site should be up and running in a couple days or so.  

Progress!!!


Note:  My Website Status post last May included details about the info that will be included in the initial launch.