Portal:Wigton Walker Article Organization

The Wigton Walker Project makes use of a format designed specifically to meet the needs of Wigton Walker researchers. This format differs in some respects from the standard format used on this site. The following discusses Wigton Walker Article Organization, and explains some of the reasons for differences with the standard format. No one is obligated to use a particular format, either the standard format or the Wigton Walker format.

This is an alternative form of the standard People Template. This version includes a slightly different organization, and some differences in section names. This template is intended to be more straight forward, and at the same time, more fleixble. This is intended for use with pages whose focus is more on family history, than on presenting standard genealogical statistics of "born, married, died".

Also, this template minimizes the amount of "how to" explanation. The intent here is to provide something that can be used quickly, and requires a minimum of editorial deletion to make it page ready. Many of the sections are intended to be for "free form content" rather than have a hardwired format. The following provides an explanation of what is intended in certain sections and subsections.


 * 1. Genealogical Keynotes. This is intended to capture basic standard genealogical data, and largely conforms with the information requested in the main People Templat. Subsections include: Vita, Ancestry, Spouse(s), and Child List. An effort is made here to keep the terminlogy simple, voiding terms such as "internment", and "Vital Statistics.
 * 2. Vita. Trying for something simpler than "Vital Statistics". "Vita" isn't much better, but its at least short. This section is intended to provide more information than just simply DOB, DOD, etc. The idea is to provide the basis on which this information is given. The preference is to cite primary records as far as possible.  Citing a lineage posted on Ancestry doesn't help much in terms of giving confidence that the data is correct, as they place us in the position of simply "taking someone else's word for it".  A primary source, such as a family bible record, a marriage record, or a baptismal record, allows us to accept a particular datum with greater confidence, without taking someone's word for it.  Normally, a family history, such as White 1902, would not be considered a primary source.  However, in our case we often have nothing better to go on than what White tells us.  As a result, it would be expected that many "vita" entries would use White 1902 as the source.  We'd like to do better than that, however, and one of the challenges of Wigton Walker research is finding things that confirm or deny what's in White 1902.  So, if you come across a primary source that gives a DOB, etc. for a person, add that information to the Vita section.  Things like that will help build our understanding of the family.

The main entries for the Vita section are: The main People Template includes a space for "Sex". While the sex of a person is not always obvious from the given name, in most cases this is not going to be a point of confusion. The "Sex" datum may have been included in the main template to facilitate importation of GEDCOM data. This Wigton Walker template is not intended to be used in that way. As a result, the "Sex" category was dropped to simplify the form. It can, of course, be added back in manually if it proves needed in any given instance. life phases (early Life, Middle Age, Late life) or Subdivided by time period or subdivided by where they lived at different times or whatever seems to work for the specific family 7. Alternative Analysis. This space is provided to provide opportunity for alternative interpretations of the data. It is commonplace for genealogists to disagree about key issues regarding any given family. In some cases, significantly different interpretations are made of the ancestry and history of a family. Ultimately, individuals have to resolve for themselves which of several interpretations are correct. Such resolution needs to be based on a careful analysis of the data, with an emphasis on primary rather than secondary sources. If primary sources can not be marshalled to support a given view, then the possibliity should be considered that the iew is not founded.
 * Birth:
 * Marriage:
 * Death:
 * Burial:
 * 3. Ancestry. This section is Intended to provide information about the lineage, not just identifying the parents.
 * 4. Spouse(s). This section is intended to include details of the spouse' ancestry, not just a link to a page for the spouse. The idea is to use this page to capture ALL of the data on the other half of the husband and wife pair(s) involved. In some ways it might be better to make these pages for a couple, rather than a single individual; that, however, would not be in keeping with the general organization of the Genealogy Wiki. To this end, the page is set up for a given individual, but the intent is that complete family data for the individual and their spouse be given here. It is often the case that detailed spousal information is not available. In those instances, what is available can be readily captured here under "Spouse". Where enough information is available on the spouse, a detailed separate page can be justified. In most cases, the spousal page can be kept simple, By putting detailed information about the spouses family here, we avoid having to duplicate extensive information on the spousal page.
 * 5. Child List. Seems more accesible than "Offspring" as given in the standard template. The standard template also includes a list of Siblings, seems redundant to the child list on the parents page, and is deleted from this template
 * 6. Family History. This is intended to be the section where most of the family information is captured. It can be broken down into whatever subsections seem appropriate to the family. Those subsections could be
 * 8. Records. This is intended as a place to collect speific records. For the most part, this should be reserved for primary source material, eg., land records, wills, marriage records, etc. References to secondary and derivitive sources (emails, quotes from genealogies, etc. belong in references.
 * 9. Research Needs. This is intended to identify further work that needs to be done on the family. ie, "Research is needed with regard to identifying the parents of...",etc.
 * 10. Page Needs. This is intended to summarize missing information on the page, or other page related needs that don't fall into the category of "Research Needs".