Posted on

17,350 and Counting

The early part of 2020 was devoted to finding Alpheus Adam’s maternal line using a combination of genetic genealogy and old-fashion research into the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada and the United States. And 2020 closes as we found possible parents for Andrew Porter Sr. in County Donegal, Ireland.

At the end of 2020, there were 17,350 family members in our family tree.
Posted on

Say Anything …

By a curious quirk of human nature, rather than Mother Nature, every American family of the surname Washington is related to George, all Adamses are of the family of John Quincy, and all Jeffersons are cousins of Thomas—at least as far as family traditions are concerned.

—Elizabeth Shown Mills, C.G., F.A.S.G.
Posted on

Twenty-Fourth Census of the United States

Stanley G. Wetherbee, 1910 United States Federal Census enumerator, Fairmount Township, Richland County, North Dakota.

Beginning today, households across the United States will receive U.S. Census Bureau mail detailing how to respond to the 2020 Census—the 24th Census of the United States.

To mark this important occasion, we jump back to 15 Apr 1910—the beginning of the 13th Census of the United States. Our Stanley Wetherbee served as the enumerator for Fairmount Township (pop. 320), Fairmount Village (pop. 387), and LaMars Township (pop. 287), Richland County, North Dakota.

In 1910, enumerators were hired through the civil service system after a prolonged disagreement between Congress (favoring patronage positions) and President Theodore Roosevelt (favoring civil service positions).

Stanley visited households in Fairmount Township from 18 Apr to 25 Apr, Fairmount Village from 26 Apr to 3 May, and LaMars Township from 4 May to 7 May. He may have taken 24 Apr off. So he enumerated 994 persons over 19 days, about 52 persons per day.

Stanley appears to have made one mistake though. He seems to have forgotten to visit his own family. In 1910, Stanley was likely still living with his parents Homer and Florence Wetherbee, and his four younger brothers. We have looked high and low, far and wide—there is no Homer Wetherbee family in the 1910 US Census. So North Dakota’s population was not 577,056, but instead 577,063.

Under the 72-year rule, the National Archives and Records Administration will release the original 2020 US Census returns to the public in 2092. Until then, only statistical reports that do not identify individuals will be released. Genealogists will have to wait.

Stanley George Wetherbee (1890–1971) is 2nd great-uncle of MKS in the Wetherbee branch.

Posted on

Facts and Events—Levels of Confidence

As our genealogy skills have developed, particularly over the last year, we are more often documenting our level of confidence in the facts and events we add to our family tree, or discuss in our posts here or in other documents we author.

There are many terms we could use to express our level of confidence, and many schemes to rank these terms relative to each other. No point in reinventing the wheel, though.

After purchasing a copy of Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained [1], we chose to adopt the hierarchy of terms presented there in Section 1.6 Levels of Confidence.

Certainly: The author has no reasonable doubt about the assertion, based upon sound research and good evidence.

Probably: The author feels the assertion is more likely than not, based upon sound research and good evidence.

Likely: The author feels some evidence supports the assertion, but the assertion is far from proved.

Possibly: The author feels the odds weight at least slightly in favor of the assertion.

Apparently: The author has formed an impression or presumption, typically based upon common experience, but has not tested the matter.

Perhaps: The author suggests that an idea is plausible, although it remains to be tested.

Being more mathematically and visually inclined, here is how we tend to apply these terms in our own use.

We usually keep possibly and apparently to ourselves until we have done a little more research.

When we estimate an individual’s birth year, based on a parent’s, spouse’s, or child’s birth year, we indicate this with, for example, “Estimate based on her mother’s Birth.”

We assume the mother is 3 years younger than the father, and the mother is 22, 31, and 40 years old at the birth of their first, middle, and last child. These average ages were found in a reference that we unfortunately failed to record at the time. The reference though was for 1600–1900 America when the economy was largely agriculture-based.

And, if we copy something from someone else’s tree to preserve it until we have time to look at it, we now attach a source entitled “(copied from the internet; no source provided)”—copy these at your own risk!

References:
[1] Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained, Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, Third Edition, Revised (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2017), 19-20.

Posted on

Hosting Multiple Sites on SiteGround

SiteGround’s Managed WordPress Hosting GrowBig and GoGeek plans allow you to host unlimited websites.

We recently added two new WordPress sites to our plan, one as a domain and one as a subdomain, configured them as we did this site, and immediately encountered error messages when trying to add our first media, page, or post:

When adding media, this error message was displayed:

Non-existent changes UUID

When adding a page or post, this error message was displayed:

Publishing failed. Error message: The response is not a valid JSON response.

After fumbling around for a hour in the SiteGround cPanel and WordPress, and googling various support forums to no avail, we contacted SiteGround support. They quickly identified the problem, and we were up and running.

Let’s walk through how we set up the sites, where the issue arose, and how to fix it.

The first site created with our SiteGround account is designated the Primary Domain by SiteGround. We can then add additional Domains (called AddOn Domains) or Subdomains. Tools to create these are under cPanel > Domains.

Note that when we create an Addon Domain, in addition to creating the domain (e.g. www.addon.com), SiteGround also creates a Subdomain with the same name under our Primary Domain (i.e. www.addon.primary.com).

To keep our SiteGround directory organized, we put each site in its own subdirectory, and put each WordPress instance in its own subdirectory under its site subdirectory.

Under WordPress Settings > General Settings for each site, we set the WordPress Address (URL) and the Site Address (URL). For our primary domain, here is what works.

Site Address (URL)https://www.primary.com
WordPress pathpublic_html/primary/primaryWP
WordPress Address (URL)https://www.primary.com/primary/primaryWP

We would therefore expect something similar to work for our new addon domain and subdomain. But the below WordPress Address (URL)s did not work for our addon domain:

https://www.primary.com/addon/addonWP [results in the two errors described initially above]

https://www.addon.primary.com/addon/addonWP [results in "(browser) Can't Find the Server"]

https://www.addon.com/addon/addonWP [Results in "It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for."]

So what is the solution? Simple. Set the WordPress Address (URL) to the Site Address (URL).

Here are the Site Address (URL), WordPress path, and WordPress Address (URL) for each of three such sites:

Site Address (URL)https://www.primary.com
WordPress pathpublic_html/primary/primaryWP
WordPress Address (URL)https://www.primary.com/primary/primaryWP
Site Address (URL)https://www.addon.com
WordPress pathpublic_html/addon/addonWP
WordPress Address (URL)https://www.addon.com
Site Address (URL)http://www.subdomain.addon.com
WordPress pathpublic_html/subdomain/subdomainWP
WordPress Address (URL)http://www.subdomain.addon.com

Not really a genealogy post, but it keeps the train running.