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ThreadStart DateLast PostMessages
Tombstone photos8-17-2012 by Ray Gurganus8-17-2012 by Ray Gurganus2
I'm setting up a way for managers of other state or county websites who want to post cemetery data to their site can get a list from this website, and copy & paste the code to post.  See this example here (which I also manage):

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vatttp/counties/alexandria/christ-church-episcopal.shtml

Getting data out to other websites is a good way to get more people to find you, and attract more traffic back here.  So nothing you need to do, except in maintaining your data here, be sure to:
  1. identify the state, county, and cemetery name in a "grave" event.
  2. attach tombstone photo(s) marked as a "grave" image.

This will ensure that yours are found.  At some point I'll post a list of sites that have this.

Boundary changes3-26-2012 by Ray Gurganus8-1-2012 by Martin Hanson17
I'm looking into ways to indicate historical names of places, and have this display instead of the present-day locations. Nothing on your end would need to change -- any places would still be entered according to the present-day location, but it could potentially change the output based on the related date.  So for example, Alexandria VA was part of DC until July 1846.  If this shift were defined into the system, then this could change the output to read Alexandria DC for events before July 1846.  This change can be indicated with a star or something to highlight this difference.

This is better than actually entering "Alexandria DC" for many logistical reasons I won't elaborate on here.  But changing the output should be enough to satisfy claims of historical accuracy.

My question for you -- assuming this is appealing, can you reply here with specific examples in your data where a county changes from state A to state B, or town X changes from county Y to county Z?  If possible, quote a webpage that documents this change.  Then I'll have more info to know how to proceed.  Thanks.
Sources tied to specific fields5-1-2012 by Ray Gurganus7-26-2012 by Virginia Sholin Smallwood4
FYI -- I'm working on a way to enhance the sources, to allow relating a source reference to specific fields, rather than only to the person as a whole.  This will be optional, so that you will not need to change how you do anything unless you want to.  Let me know if you have any input as to how you would like it to work.  It should be up in a few days.
4 new partner counties7-16-2012 by Ray Gurganus7-16-2012 by Ray Gurganus1
A few more county pages have been setup linking to Our Family Tree information.

Collin Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txcolltp
Fannin Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txfanntp
Tarrant Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txtarrtp
Lubbock Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txlubbtp
Dallas Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txdalltp
Rusk Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txrusktp
Hunt Co, TX -- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txhunttp

Anyone visiting these pages may find your people.  So if you have people in these areas, look and see if you have more that can be added.  If you have other information related to these counties, feel free to submit it to the county coordinator for posting there.
feasibility errors7-5-2012 by Ray Gurganus7-5-2012 by Ray Gurganus1
Made a change in how feasibility errors are displayed -- up until now the errors that show in yellow at the top of a page have shown only for your own people.  This is changed to always show when the people are "up for adoption".  Since there's no one actively maintaining the information for these people, this will warn others that there's potentially bad information...  and perhaps inspire you to adopt them and clean up the mess.

I've thought about having this show up for everyone, all of the time, even when the people are not "up for adoption".  This would put a fire under everyone's seat to clean up there messes, but I'm not sure it would actually help...
Links Update6-19-2012 by Ray Gurganus6-24-2012 by Ray Gurganus2
It looks like Familysearch.org has finally taken offline their old search, replacing it with the new.  Up until a few days ago, this still included the 1880 census, IGI, and pedigree files.  I suppose this is all available in their new interface, or will be soon.  I have updated the "FS" links accordingly.
Census links6-21-2012 by Ray Gurganus6-21-2012 by Ray Gurganus1
On the links menu at the top of each person's page are links for the 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 US censuses as found at familysearch.org.  This automatically puts in the person's first and last names, and a birthdate range of +/- 5 years.  You can then refine the name, dates, and location to narrow the results as needed.

Note that the years listed are not filtered based on the person's birthdate -- so if they were born in 1910, it will still show all years starting with 1850.  Just use your common sense.

Note that some years may not be complete.  I'm just proving the links.  Familysearch.org provides the data. :)
Presidents and Other Officers5-20-2012 by Ray Gurganus5-20-2012 by Ray Gurganus1
Added is the option for you to be able to add people to the lists found under View > "Presidents & Other Officers"...  so if there are existing people who belong to one of these lists and are not yet there, or if you add new people, you can add the link yourself.  Go to the page, click on "Add" at the top, and fill in the information.  This is currently limited to the positions listed there -- Presidents, Vice-Presidents, First Ladies, Secretaries of State, US Supreme Court Justices, US Sentators & Representatives, State Governors, and Monarchs of other countries.  Others may be added in the future.

When this is added, it emails the site administrator (me), and I'll verify what you put in.  If it's not accurate, it will be removed.  As far as I have seen, ALL are well-documented on Wikipedia.

There is not currently an option to edit or remove this link, except by contacting me.
Order of Actions Menu5-16-2012 by Ray Gurganus5-16-2012 by Ray Gurganus1
Someone mentioend to me that the order the "Action" menu items is confusing.  So I put in an option where you can choose a different order -- Go to Account > My Account > What I See.  There is an option that shows a couple different versions of the menu, and you can choose which one you prefer.  Enjoy.
Presidents and Other Rulers5-6-2012 by Ray Gurganus5-8-2012 by Ray Gurganus2
As we have a growing list of US presidents, governors, senators, and other rulers online, I have setup a new page to list them, under View > Presidents & Other Rulers.  It currently lists most of the US presidents, and all of the state governors I've been able to find.  There are probably others who are already online, but are not yet listed.

It will eventually have a way for you to add people to the lists, and it will grow to include US senators, US representatives, First Ladies, European monarchs, and perhaps others.

I also have tombstone photos for another 5 or 6 Maryland governors, soon to be added to the 27 MD governors already there.