It's Friday, and time to highlight helpful and interesting reader comments on Genea-Musings posts from the last week.
1) On Tombstone Tuesday - Samuel and Mary Ann Vaux (12 February 2013):
* Marshall helped: "Re: Request a photo. The button is right there "Request a photo". You'll be asked to register, so FindAGrave knows how to get in touch with you, and then you're good to go. It's really simple."
My comment: Yes, it is simple once you find the button! You have to register on Find A Grave, then you can request a photo. I've submitted two requests. Thanks for the help, Marshall.
* Geolover noted: "The sources of the dates for your two Vaux entries are not given. The birth and death dates are not necessarily from the gravestones. No one should assume that dates in the findagrave memorials are from the gravestones.
"A huge number of findagrave entries are not actual gravestone readings. Sources might be death records, obituaries or published genealogies. Many items posted are just extracts from published purported cemetery readings which may have dates added from other sources. Many entries are just genealogical assertions that have nothing to do with documented burial in a specific place."
My comment: Excellent warnings...and all researchers should understand them. The situation where the gravestone inscription is visible in the picture and is provided on the Find A Grave memorial is more authoritative, to me, than a memorial that has no picture or inscription.
The Find A Grave memorial for a person is a source (albeit a Derivative source) and the information is Secondary information, but it is a finding aid to more authoritative or complete sources. I'm writing source citations when I use Find A Grave to find information about persons in my database because it is a source. For my ancestors, like Samuel and Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux, I am searching for the better source. In this case, I believe that the source for the information is cemetery index cards that are on an FHL microfilm. It's still a Derivative source, but it may be the best I can find unless a Vaux family Bible pops up.
* Cormac said: ">I can hear readers saying 'But you don't know if the dates are correct!' and 'Find A Grave is not a reliable source!' You stoled my thunder!"
My comment: Yep, I knew what my smart readers would say if I didn't do it first!
* Joanna Richmond noted: "Following on from your last email on this topic you said that you tried it but got an html. Using Chrome I use the same method. I use ancestry.com's print option, wait for the print sidebar to come up then cancel the print. This leaves the tab with the image which I right-click and choose save. It saves as a jpg file. A census image I saved was around 13 mb so not too bad for manipulating."
My comment: Thanks for the tip, Joanna. That works!
* Doris Wheeler commented: "I've recently discovered that Evernote does an amazing job of capturing all or any part of an entire website. It's a one-click operation, and I love it!"
My comment: Thanks for the very useful tip, Doris. Help me out - I'm not a sophisticated user of EverNote. How do you capture all of a website (or do you mean web page?)? Aha, maybe you mean Evernote Web Clipper?
* John said: "Curiously similar to the 'Northings' figure for the Wiltshire area, if one ignores the last number. Eastings and Northings, which are sometimes used in conjunction with latitude and longitude. This could be coincidence. http://ukpostcodedata.com/postcode/SN8-3HU "
and then: "Alas, the number I saw next to a name for someone from Oxfordshire (1673116), doesn't match up with the appropriate Northing."
* Kim Mills noted: "I see numbers like this in locations for Canada to. I've always wondered what it was for."
Every location has a code number which varies in length. Searching by county, Wiltshire does seem to have a lot of codes that begin "16....". A quick look at some other counties seem to suggest leading digits may code for major location. The specific example of 1679745 isn't found, but then that information relates to a long time back in history, and maybe that parish has long been abolished, merged or otherwise vanished."
* Ruby commented: "Since this Prater is my father's line I got curious. I emailed the tree owner, but her page says her last login was 2 months ago. So, not really expecting an answer."
* Joanna Richmond said: "Being from England I think they are the numbers for the National Ordinance Maps that identify the location of the place. These are always 2 sets of 3 numbers for North-South and East-West. I have not verified this but that is what they look like. Canada probably uses the same system due to their English ancestry."
* John commented on Joanna's comment: "But these are 7 digit numbers. and the Ordnance System appears to require a 2 letter prefix as well."
My comment: Thank you all for trying to figure out this puzzle. We're still stumped, I think. There must be a master list of these somewhere...but I fear it's not on the internet, since a Google search doesn't find it. Is it out of a reference book like Phillemore that lists all of the parishes?
* KMM noted: "Two confirming sources for the story above:
http://www.monroehistorical.org/articles/files/020106_sheepsuit.html
https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce_imagery/phmc_scans/H064337_01H.pdf
"Stroudsburg United Methodist Church records indicate that James Richmond, Jr., and his family resided near the woolen mill in Stroudsburg at the time."
My comment: KMM is administering the AncestryDNA of B.E.R. who is my third cousin, and a descendant of James Richmond. We're discussing the DNA and the Richmond families in email now. The links make it pretty clear that my 2nd-great-grandfather, James Richmond (of Putnam, Conn.), was not the man in charge of the "Sheep-to-Suit" project, but it was the son, James Richmond, Jr. (of Stroudsburg, Penn.). Genea-Blogging works!
* Josh (responding to earlier complaints about the site) commented: "We are concerned about this problem and would like to fix it for you. Our apologies for any inconveniences caused by our charges. If you would like a refund for the charges made to your account please email manager@recordaccount.com to request immediate action. Thanks for sharing and we hope to solve this for you soon.
Customer Support"
My comment: There you go, Genea-Musings readers. If you feel like you've been ripped off by this site, email them and get your refund. If that works out for you, I'd like to know about it.
6) Thank you to all of my readers for their helpful and interesting comments. I appreciate your efforts, and success, in defeating the Captcha code necessary to keep the comment spam down to a steady stream.
Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver