User talk:Thurstan/Archive1

Haeremai, welcome, talofa, Willkommen, bienvenue, welkom
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Migrants/immigrants/emigrants
Please read Forum:Migrants/immigrants/emigrants - including those who stopped over on the way - and maybe add your opinions - before creating new categories of migrants. Note that a bot can probably give them parent categories, as discussed there. That said, I must say I'm pleased to see someone else taking a serious interest in creating meaningful categories. Robin Patterson 12:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply on my talk page. I'll look at the one you mentioned and I'll look at Category:Ancestry from England to see what misled you. Robin Patterson 04:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

More categories for Oz
I like them - http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Australia&diff=next&oldid=22814 - Robin Patterson 13:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Still more cats - http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Died_in_Tasmania&action=history  - and not only for Oz, if your recent Ireland and England categories are any indication. Most categories that have two or more significant words in their names can have at least two parent categories, each taking one of those words up one level. (:-D

Robin Patterson 09:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what should be the parents of "Died in Australia": obviously one is "Australia". Is the other "Deaths" or "Deaths by Country" or "People by Country" or "Categories by Country" or what...? Should births, deaths and marriages by under some sort of "Events" category?


 * Thurstan 11:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I spent several hours not being sure too. Then I did some category tree climbing. It's "People by death place". See Category:People by marriage place. Goodnight! Robin Patterson 13:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Postscript: another (not exclusive) option is Category:Died in Oceania. Robin Patterson 13:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Levels of categorisation - and exceptions
I like your addition of the direct link to Scotland - http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Counties_of_Scotland&diff=154486&oldid=119325

Wikipedia's category levels are generally very sensible and logical, but occasionally a leapfrog addition like that is in line with common sense genealogy.

And I approve of your changes resulting in "Members of the" Cth. I think it's the WP cat anyway.

Robin Patterson 10:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Malcolm Grieve
Hi. I am Malcolm Grieve's G Grand daughter, & I was wondering how you came about the information.Kerrywhite 03:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You are refering to Malcolm Grieve (1863-1938), I assume. My major sources are listed under "References". I am not descended from the Grieve family, but the Levingston family (my family) are intertwined with the Bath, Gillies and Hoy families, which all have connection with your family. I encourage you to contribute to the wiki (though I must revise these pages!). Thurstan 03:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Further to the above: most of the descendants seem to have come from two databses (2630182 and 2630189) which have been removed from http://awt.ancestry.com. Are you connected to William White (c1836-1899)? Thurstan 04:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Template talk:Showinfo children
Hello, I just increased the child limit to 22 as you requested. If you need to go beyond that, just ask. - AMK152 (Talk • Contributions) 20:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Info pages
Please read my recent addition to Forum:Creation of /info pages for all person articles. Robin Patterson 14:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Template for Oz county pages etc
Your use of Template:Navbox Ausdiv, without comment on a forum or talk page, must mean you think it's OK. It's not designed for states; but I can see no obvious reason why it shouldn't be used for them, at least until we have a fair coverage of lower divisions. The resulting subpages will be fairly general and may get rather full.

Since studying the UK and US equivalents and reading some earlier pages, I've been wondering whether the creation of subpages is a good idea. As the "People" row produces categories, I can't think of a reason why the other rows should have to produce subpages. Ordinary pages with the standard sort of word order might be just as easy to create and less off-putting to users, as well as being slightly easier to categorise manually.

I'll repeat that concern in Forum:County subpages - categorising and study the template code again.

And I should be heading for bed. Robin Patterson 13:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Subpages
Not much response to the above concern even when copied to the better-publicised forum page. Now done some "links" subpages. Here's the biggest: New South Wales/links. It needs a category or two, and I wonder whether an ordinary article-type name for it would be better than making it a subpage. Does looking at it give you any more inspiration? Robin Patterson 05:15, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

New bot: AMK152Bot

 * Please see this discussion, in regards to flagging it. - AMK152 (talk • contribs) 03:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Wollombi, New South Wales
Some more can be dug out of Wikipedia about that town (with 38 hits for the bare word, though some of those are the Wollombi Brook), but I suspect you need to use Google - "Results 1-10 of about 220,000 for Wollombi (0.38 seconds)"! - to make it substantial. Then we can copy it to Wikipedia and show that it comes from here. I forget whether there's a template for that. We may have to make our own modelled on one in Wikipedia:Category:Wikia templates.

Occasionally I succumb to the temptation to expand some unfinished work by relative newcomers. I'm glad it's sometimes welcome, as this time.

Robin Patterson 15:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Surname cats for similar person name pages
See Talk:Robert Levingston. Robin Patterson 06:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Now another subtlety: see hndis again and prepare to copy that block in its slightly amended form for your next disambiguations. Robin Patterson 09:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You shouldn't really need the DEFAULTSORT: surely Robert Levingston will sort on its name (so on "Robert", as required). (I just checked). Or have I missed something here....
 * Thurstan 12:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What you may have missed is my point (where I bolded the initials to make it more obvious) that an unsorted Mary Brown lists after Mary A. Brown and potentially hundreds of others, even as far down as Mary Brophy Brown, whereas I think we want the disambig page to list first in its group. Robin Patterson 15:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Gotcha, sorry to be so slow.
 * Thurstan 22:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Problems with hndis and info pages
You're right. See Margaret Wood, which I have just created to confirm your hypothetical example. AMK is probably the current expert on info pages and how their surnames get into hndis. I know nothing!! Start with Forum:Help desk to make it more likely that all the experts will see the problem. Robin Patterson 06:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Ha! Confuciuspedia say "Be bold", so Thurstan is bold. Fixes the problems himself. Gets credit for it on the hndis page. Ozzie ozzie ozzie... Robin Patterson 12:52, 27 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I should have shot you a note, since you've missed a wrinkle there: I actually coded the equivalent to ".*Mary_.*Brown_\(.*info", to only match surnames.
 * Thurstan 21:54, 27 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see what wrinkle I may have missed. See the long paragraph in my last addition to hndis (below the one that credited you for the underscores). I didn't specifically credit you with the "\(", but anyone reading the Levingston page history will see your input. Now did I really miss anything? (If not, there's no need to apologise; unlike me, you can't devote 24 hours a day to this wiki, so at my best I'm likely to miss less than you part-timers do!!) Robin Patterson 03:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No, seems to be me missing things: I read your second-last paragraph, I don't recall even seeing your last paragraph! I do tend to leap in without thinking (as you will have noticed!).
 * Thurstan 03:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:Married in 1801 and thousands like it
How long did you take to create Category:Married in 1801 and the other two around the same time? Looks like a perfect job, so it must have taken many seconds. Intervals were 39 seconds and 35 seconds. Only 20 bytes but you had to insert some digits.

From a look at its decade, I guess there must be several hundred still to create just for the last millennium and the best part of a thousand for the previous one. I'd support a request for a bot to do that.

Robin Patterson 11:36, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

healey
Hi Thurston,

i have just stumbled upon your page. My gradfather is Albert Hugh Healey and we share Robert Levingston and Mary Jane Case as great great grandparents. I will try to learn how to add our side from Albert Hugh.

patrick healey


 * G'day, great to have you on board. NDCB is another relative of ours (though not a vary active user here). I don't have any details on the descendants of Albert Hugh Healey. If I can assist you, don't hesitate to ask. Thurstan 04:49, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Regions of New South Wales
Good work filling them with localities. Now there are two earlier-created regions that don't match the ODP grouping: You know where they are, so I won't try to work it out unless you ask. I think they match WP's, but in this area that's not gospel, as I've mentioned before (with memories of distinct inconsistencies around the Sthn Hghlds). Can you fit them into our "agreed" regions? Robin Patterson 11:03, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Category:New England, New South Wales
 * Category:Southern Highlands, New South Wales

I'm sorry this is a bit late but could be better late than never. Please check out the NSW GenWeb forum regions and see if you think they might be better than ODP's: http://ausnsw.bluefido.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl. Robin Patterson 15:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Let me know if you think I'm pestering you. But after two weeks I begin to wonder whether I've missed something. Any preliminary thoughts on the above GenWeb matter? (There are lots of Yewenyi's pages awaiting links to our place pages, and I would like to get at least NSW divided up in a way that several local genealogists are happy with before I contemplate a wholesale going-over to get his pages better integrated.) I'm willing to contact the GenWeb people if that would leave you free to do more creative work. Robin Patterson 14:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for including a reply in your email to me. I will contact the GenWeb. Robin Patterson 02:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Done that, got great response, drawn some preliminary conclusions, and put it all on Talk:Regions of New South Wales. Please (this week) go there and add some comments ("yes", "no", or something more detailed!) so that one of us can do the necessary rejig before we get too many pages to change. Robin Patterson 04:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for responding — well within the requested time period — on Talk:Regions of New South Wales. I've done some more work and reached a definite opinion and am inviting known Aussies to look at the page and am willing to do the necessary changing of page names. Robin Patterson 14:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Clever template(s) not clever enough
Pages you were solely responsible for (according to their histories!) showed up something I had previously suspected about the order in which "people" pages were listing in categories. I am almost certain you are not the actual culprit, but I urge you to become aware of the problem: Template talk:Info categories. I'll tell a certain bot-manager about it too. Robin Patterson 04:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Categories for BDM and Resided (and dozens of other subjects) in places
Please ponder http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Died_in_Gloucestershire&action=history.

Kind regards --Robin Patterson 02:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * we could have a template, like, that'd make it much easier to create them. Thurstan 03:28, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You have a good point there. Worth discussing on a related forum. Tentatively Forum:County-based categories. Robin Patterson 06:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you again and please see Template talk:Born in US and its template. One of us can add the text and layout improvements to Template:b-uk after you and maybe others try to make further improvements. Robin Patterson 14:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Progressing. Here's a good example: Category:Families of Blount County, Tennessee. Robin Patterson 03:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Maps of Gloucestershire
Welcome back! And see what I got up to after investigating your proposed deletion! Robin Patterson 11:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Template documentation
You say "I was a bit sad to see that you dismantled my use of Template:Died in UK/doc: I thought that was the standard way to document templates. If we seperate the documentation from the template code, we can be confident that editing the documentation won't break the template."

True, at least for the diehard Wikipedians, and for templates we copy from them. However - I don't think I found your doc link until I had already expanded a bit, using an earlier version. Then I thought "Well, maybe that's a good idea, and it's further evidence that Thurstan is right up with play, but there won't be much text here, so we can leave that for later discussion". I didn't dismantle it so much as bypass it. Left a commented query; and I've expanded on the comment at http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Category_talk:County_navigation_templates#Commentary. WP has refined its /doc system a bewildering number of times since I started copying templates; it does look pretty smooth now. I've no objection in principle to using it for these, but is it worth the extra trouble? I guess I want you to convince me before I do another dozen!

Robin Patterson 10:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not too late. Walk me through it? Robin Patterson 13:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Your baby is growing fast
Please see Genealogy:County navigation templates, which is probably over 80% complete (unlike most of the proposed templates that it foreshadows). Robin Patterson 13:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Ahnentafel templates
You responded to my moan about Template:Ahnentafel-compact5. You "found that Template:Ahnentafel-compact2, Template:Ahnentafel-compact3, Template:Ahnentafel-compact4 and Template:Ahnentafel-compact6 all work" but pointed me to wikipedia:Template talk:Ahnentafel-compact5: "more sophisticated, with lots of  #if  calls to allow some ancestors to be missing".

Thanks for the threshing about. Seems odd that "6" works but "5" doesn't. This site should be able to run ancestry templates at least as good as WP's, so is there a solution? I've not studied the mechanism recently if ever; if it uses "GETs" as our info pages do, then we should probably stick with it and see if we need help from Wikia techies. But if it doesn't use GETs maybe our use of them can supersede it. Can you summarise a bit more of the implications/complications?

"Latest Activity" catches my eye showing that you are working on Elizabeth II's part of it tonight. Good.

Robin Patterson 10:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

"People from"
Term is too vague to be useful for genealogy. Even Wikipedia is getting rid of it in places. Our templates may have some keeping up to do, especially where WP redirects a category then just deletes the original. We WP admins can find the original and/or its successor without a heap of bother, but it's a nuisance. I'm surprised that Phlox created "People from England" when he was so opposed to the term in some respects. Do you have big plans for the page? Robin Patterson 11:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I found it when I was looking for something else, and I edited it because the category wasn't working properly (didn't manage to fix it). It can disappear as far as I am concerned. Thurstan 11:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

ctycat
Did I tell you I had finally done what I offered to do?

Template:ctycat

And see http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Maricopa_County%2C_Arizona&action=history for a really bad category you left alone.

Maybe we should include the "Established" category in ctycat?

Robin Patterson 06:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see that you have been using it for KS. Now more good news - I've done the whole of Ireland (needing a special template) and Scotland (using the general Europe one). Robin Patterson 06:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Incorporated "Established in"
So easy. Thank you for inspiring me to learn how to use numbers in triple-curlies! See Category:Cochise County, Arizona. I've included commonscat as well, because I expect Commons has every county by now. I plan to finish off those dozen AZ counties that had the crook category; maybe other counties do too; easy to check from "Allpages". (Any cautions before I go too far astray?) Robin Patterson 09:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Now, in view of what you relevantly wrote somewhere yesterday or early this morning, please see Forum:Category in same categories as its main article or in more or fewer?. Robin Patterson 03:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Tabs and info
I glance at the sidebar occasionally but only rarely let it distract me. Noticed this a few minutes ago:

Latest Activity

* James Madison (1751-1836)/info by Thurstan, 9 minutes ago * James Madison (1751)/Biography by Thurstan, 14 minutes ago

Ah, I thought, combining info pages with other tabs (something I have requested better explanations of).

But no, it's two different people - maybe! Are they due to be merged so that I can study the relationship between tabs?

Robin Patterson 10:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the detail on my talk page. The above-mentioned "request" (which is possibly not my only query on the subject) shows how little I understand what's going on in the person subpage area: Template talk:Tabs person/doc. Real beginners must be struggling too, or going away mystified. I was hoping that our info page expert would reply eventually; but maybe you as a quick learner and now keen exponent might be the best person to draft some workable instructions. Now I had better try to show AMK152 that I really have studied his latest response on the production of place displays from info pages. Robin Patterson 11:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Back to NSW for a few minutes, please
See http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Regions_of_New_South_Wales#Really_finalising_outside_Sydney and please make what could be final comments. Robin Patterson 06:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Now Category:Greater Sydney, New South Wales. Robin Patterson 06:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you work out why the region cats don't show the proper category (Regions of NSW)? Robin Patterson 11:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving on (confident that you can fix Template:ausregcat or my use of it), I have now "put" a county into its regions: Waljeers County, New South Wales. Trust me to get a 3-way split for the first one! Where ancestors had an event recorded only in a county, with no locality, they may be impossible to categorise except under county categories. But I expect most events mentioned the locality too, which will lead to the quick-clicks method via the Local Govt websites or the slower uncertain route via a parish search within the county.

Thank you for localising some links on county pages even before the ink was dry. Scored with King County, didn't we! If you find any without Template:usedwp, please add it. I imported them in blocks and have to add that manually until I can work out how to explain to a bot how to do it for me. Same with the Norway counties, but I should talk Richard into helping there.

Robin Patterson 11:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The Lord Howe Island article has the GenWeb forum link, and each mainland region now has GenWeb and LGA links, as well as a counties heading with either a list or a "pre" panel saying it's incomplete. (Your recent work should allow a bit more completion of those.) So we are good enough to boast to Wikipedians; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Regions_of_New_South_Wales. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:35, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

LGAs in New South Wales
With recent work on counties and regions and Sydney, I've seen or will soon have seen literally thousands of references to one or more of NSW's 152 LGAs. Mostly in the parish tables on county pages. I'd like to leave their names exactly as Wikipedia has them. Names all indicate something about government and are therefore partly distinguishable from place names. However, if your wish for consistency is strong enough to move them all so that they end with ", New South Wales" I'm easy. Probably best for you to do it soon if at all, to reduce the chance of having government-oriented people start making categories out of them (which are harder to change). Robin Patterson 11:01, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * My push for consistancy is always tempered by my lazyness, so let's go with your plan. Thurstan 11:14, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Model region for Australia
I've been doing intensive work on Far West, New South Wales because it's small and therefore easy. Digging up and editing and categorising Broken Hill births etc on the website (so far all are Brian's - with Wikipedia links as part of his now-seen-as-shortsighted version of his GEDCOM converter). The ordinary Broken Hill page and categories are collecting stuff. I don't know if I'll bother with a separate page for the council any time soon. I've done a page for the other council in the region; scope for giving its towns separate pages (as for the Hawkesbury Towns!), but nothing about them already on the site.

You may like to help if you have any free time from tomorrow onwards. Making it as complete as practicable will allow us to show it off (as we show off Greene County, Ohio). I've put a message on the NSW GenWeb forum for the region (and one for the Sydney region, which is a different animal but has progressed to a presentable outline state), replying to the admin message that invited submission of tips and links. "Links", incidentally, still shows on the Oz template but leads to "Category:Websites about ...", which can have a main page with the same PAGENAME.

Robin Patterson 10:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

"Died in Somesuch County, Mystate"
Hi! As one of the more recent editors this month, you can be among the first to know that it is now very easy to create a category page for "Died in Somesuch County, Mystate" in the United States. See Template:d-us. When you see that a person page is in a category like that but it's a red link, you can very quickly fix it and thereby make the link much more useful. (I probably don't need to include that last sentence for you!) Robin Patterson 03:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Really went to town with that one, didn't you! Brave man, tackling all those grating "County" names for the sake of our American friends.

d-aus
NOW - as nobody from the Northern Hemisphere or the Western has been developing that series, we can't expect anyone from those areas to develop a series for former British colonies in the south. So it's you or me, cobber. I suggest that you copy Template:d-us (rather than d-uk because the basepagename is for "[area, state]", not "[area], [country]") to Template:d-aus then make appropriate modifications, including the use of Template:Documentation (as now operating on Wikipedia and available here) to produce Template:d-aus/doc. When I see how easy it is to use Template:Documentation (which I know has some performance advantages), I will be inspired to convert the existing American and European templates before creating more. You can do all the "aus" series if you like, until you slow down and look as if you might need a hand. Robin Patterson 13:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Info pages can spoil the Wikia tour
Please see Genealogy:Wikia tour/James Blackman (1754-1842) (which looked splendid a month ago) and offer an opinion about whether info pages are incompatible with the Wikia tour. Robin Patterson 12:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I notice that there is no "Biography" tab either, so I guess that we are going to lose all subpages, via breaking any template that relies on BASEPAGENAME. How does "Wikia tour" work? I think it is time to ask a wikia expert (which I don't claim to be) Thurstan 21:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Now using Blackman's biography subpage
The local expert was unsuccessful at his first two edits. So I followed the biography to where you had moved it and I substituted it. Tour is as good as new. Better since I inserted another page. See Genealogy:Wikia tour creation and improvement for how it works, then take another tour yourself for inspiration. Robin Patterson 09:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Good solution, since the biography page has the commentary, images etc that you want to showcase. But the inspiration just makes me notice how many of the links on the biography page are to Wikipedia when they could be local. And then there is the challenge in the last paragraph.... Thurstan 09:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out. I've gone through the article fixing much of the erratic spelling and localising dozens of links. Probably left a few more red ones (though some of the WP ones were/are probably red in effect): some NSW town articles for you to start! And see Talk:James Blackman (1759-1842)/Biography. Robin Patterson 02:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Template documentation
Please see Template talk:Died in UK. You almost persuaded me, remember? But not with "outdated" templates. Robin Patterson 06:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * What a revolting development. Note I found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Template#Troubles_with_noinclude a reason for separating the documentation text from the template text: there is a performance penalty for not splitting them (which may turn into a malfunction if there is too much text involved). Thurstan 09:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure what you found revolting. However, whatever, Wikia has now got really organised in that line and put an up-to-date version of Template:documentation on the Starter Wikia along with a good range of related templates/docs. I'll post it on a forum here to tell everyone who takes a serious interest. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:47, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Michelle Obama's ancestry
I asked the number one info-page creator to do a thing on Michelle because it's topical. He started the same day, but I don't think he read all the info I copied for him. It would be good if you could check AMK152's talk page (particularly the first paragraph from Will Johnson) and see what you can add to Fraser C. Robinson III (1935-1991) (which was not my choice of name) then go up a generation or two. We might become the First Lady research center/centre!! Robin Patterson 10:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Great work! But Fraser Robinson pulls in only two of the three. You did the last tweaking of the hndis page, I think, so maybe you can work it out. Robin Patterson 06:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I asked the right person. You seem to have fixed it in about 2 minutes. I think I've asked on hndis whether that improvement might apply generally.

Now: Forum:Tabs templates. Robin Patterson 01:36, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

More "county" templates that you can adapt for Oz
Can be added to list when working. Robin Patterson 01:49, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * bu=Businesses in (done for UK, US) (subcategory of "Organisations based in")
 * mp=Maps of (done for UK, US) (subcategory of "Geography of" and "Images of")
 * t=Talk about (done for US) (the "Community messages" linked in the top line of the navbox; main "article" is a forum, so we use Template:CatmoreF)

County Kildare is in Ireland
I don't know where the Durham came from. Gone now: http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=George_Ashley_Cooper_%28%3F-1867%29&diff=prev&oldid=211038

Robin Patterson 10:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Surname cat work
http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Crawford_webBase&diff=0&oldid=41774 is a recent example of you doing work that I was sure AMK152 said his bot was doing or had already done. Puzzling. Good work, but there are better things you can do for the wiki! Robin Patterson 08:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on breaking into the Top Seven on the sidebar
I've been waiting to see you push Sydneysider Brian off the panel. You've probably improved most of his articles in the process. And got hooked on NSW counties despite earlier reluctance.

I get the impression that, like me, you don't have a day job. Is that good or bad? It's certainly Familypedia's gain. Go the Brumbies!

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:29, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. You're right, I am superannuated (and loving it). Thurstan 04:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sentence case
Thank you for http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Sultanpur_district&curid=81473&diff=214137&oldid=179659

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Northern Rivers
Northern Rivers (New South Wales) needs some sorting before we can convert it to a redirect. Got any free time, cobber? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Not tonight: maybe tomorrow Thurstan 06:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well done! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Category listing order produced by m-aus and m-us
Something I've noticed just this week. Please have a look at Category:Mid North Coast, New South Wales. The "Married" subcat is up in the asterisk region, whereas all its mates and a county are listed ordinarily. Same with Category:Greene County, Ohio and probably many others. As there will be a couple of dozen subcats of similar sort one day in most of the world's county categories, I doubt if we want them all in the asterisk section, but we might, depending on what other subcats we get (such as that Oz county and towns such as Category:Cedarville, Ohio); maybe you can give it some thought. Other countries list all such subcats simply by pagename, I think, apart from m-us (which I created at 3:25 one morning) and m-aus (which you adapted from m-us). But changing all the other templates would not be hard, especially while we have relatively few, so if a long-term gain in category usability can be seen I'll be interested in cooperating. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I had noticed the inconsistency some time ago, but I didn't do anything about it because I was not sure which way to jump. The question is, "Is it a problem that categories like Married in Mid North Coast, New South Wales are mixed in with categories like Gloucester County, New South Wales or not?". I can see an argument that these are two different types of subcategory, since they have different relationships to Mid North Coast, New South Wales, so perhaps we should split them. Thurstan 22:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Right, we have some agreement there, unsurprisingly: And categories that are partly about individuals but are also about government or religious offices, such as "Birth records of". There is something of a continuum from the purely individual to the totally impersonal. Even Landmarks can be closely linked to individuals. So I doubt if there is a useful cut-off point; that suggests to me that we should keep all together in the normal alphabetical listing of subcategories of a place category. But some items that are currently in "place" categories might have to be grouped into subcategories, not directly listed.
 * 1) "Married" and "Born" and "Died" etc should all be alphabetically in the same part of the subcategory listing; but which part?
 * 2) Cities and Oz counties etc should probably be alphabetically in the same part of the subcategory listing; but which part?
 * 3) Where does each of the four solutions to the above questions leave the non-personal subcategories such as "Maps of" and "Settlements in", which are linked from the standard navbox, and others such as "Geography of" and "History of", which are not (but which may be parent categories for some that are, such as "Cities in" and "Timeline of")??

In mainland New South Wales there are an average of 12 counties per region (ranging from one whole and three or four parts in Sydney up to about two dozen in Far West). Mixing them with the two dozen other potential subcats would not be too much of an irritation.

However, other states of Australia may have, and other countries certainly have, significantly different numbers. The average U.S. state has over 60 counties/parishes/boroughs, which is why we categorise them in, for example, Category:Counties of Virginia (one of only a few dozen subcats of Category:Virginia), and some of the counties have dozens of cities (with the most populous having 88), which is why the cities are not encouraged to be listed separately among the subcategories of every county.

Settlements can be far more numerous in a region/county/country than anything else that might be listed under that region (now that we have stopped listing individuals' pages in all the places they lived in). So I suggest that we put all settlements and their categories into "Settlements in" categories and have only the latter listed on the pages for the region, no matter what country we are dealing with.

Administratively defined areas that are not specifically settlements (e.g. NSW counties, U.S. townships) are probably best grouped also before being shown in the category for the larger area, in the same way as U.S. states and counties are grouped.

Now I think that, before you reply, nearly all of this section should be on a forum so as to be a little more accessible to everybody and categorisable. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Brief tutorial wanted
http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Genealogy:Info_pages/add_info_page_to_existing_article&action=edit&redlink=1

You're the expert!

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:30, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks you for the vote of confidence, but I am not sure that the process is really so different from creating one from scratch. Do you have some specific questions to be answered? Do you have a good candidate to be done, which could be used as an example? Thurstan 06:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the prompt clear response: that page inspires me to start serious info page creation after Christmas. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:McXyz Families of Wherever > Category:McXyz in Wherever
Before creating more of those Specific Families categories, please read or re-read the paragraph that follows the bullets in Template:f-us. I know that I created a few, but that was before I saw where the practice was leading and who got excluded. If you disagree, we should put it on a forum for consensus. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay. Sorry, I was just creating a category that was needed, without remembering the policy. Thurstan 03:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

James Robert Bruce Ogilvy (1964)
Isn't this the convention for someone who dies at birth? --Richard Arthur Norton I 07:09, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

You mean like Barack Obama (1961), Charles Philip Windsor, Prince of Wales (1948) and George Washington (1732)?

Genealogy:Page names says:

For living individuals (or individuals who are presumed to be living), use only birth year in parentheses (with no hyphen).

However, consistency seems to be elusive. Thurstan 08:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)