Too Much To Do!

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We have now shot over the 91,000 individual mark thanks to a number of people who have been kind enough to pass on information about their families.

Mary Collishaw has added me to her family tree on Ancestry so that I can half-hitch information for the Tingey/Tingay family.

Arthur and Jessie Wortley

Arthur and Jessie Wortley

The Davis family (Joe and Fred snooker/billiards players) has been updated courtesy of the ‘Jakins, Thomas and Smith Family Tree’ and the ‘Hanson Family Tree’ both on Ancestry. Work on the Chalk and Wates families continues, as well as many other ‘smaller’ branches. David Fox-Roberts has kindly sent me information on the Roberts family. With a new grandchild on the way the Elliott and Ceriez families are under investigation – a trip to Belgium might be useful for this! Ian Pryce has passed on information about the Pryce and Fenn families. John Oliver Thomas continues to update me on a regular basis. Mike Jones sent me a picture of his ‘Nan’ who looks a lot like our Aunt Polly. Tricia Chesterman has updated the Jopling family and Richard Wortley has sent me information and photos of the Wortley family.

Forgive me if I have left anyone out but with so much to do I lose track rather quickly. Suffice to say I am extremely grateful for all the input no matter how large or small.

On the large side, Ian Johnson has passed me a Rootsweb link with a potential 8000+ individuals to add to The Williams Family Tree!

As well as all of the above I am attempting to clean up and update all the ‘old’ information and add images of BMD registrations and other stuff where possible.

Please keep the information coming as it all helps to reach the target of 100,000 individuals.

Thank you.

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Amiss, not Tooley

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As The Williams Family Tree database now contains nearly 90,000 individuals I am attempting to tidy things up and ensure that I have all the details about people correct before I call it a day. Whilst doing this I discovered that Edward Ashley Howell Davey’s maternal grandmother was Mary Amiss, not Mary Tooley.

Marriage for Joseph Tooley and Mary Amyss

Marriage for Joseph Tooley and Mary Amyss

In fact, she was both! Mary Amiss was the daughter of Luke Amiss and she was born about 1810 in Winterton, Norfolk. On 22nd January 1828 she married Joseph Tooley in Ormesby St. Michael, Norfolk. According to the England Births and Christening records on FamilySearch, they had four children: John Amiss Tooley (1829), Kezia Tooley (1830), Jane Elizabeth Tooley (1834) and Louisa Tooley (1834). According to the 1841 Census, Louisa was recorded as Louis, or it could be that in the FamilySearch records Louis was recorded as Louisa!

Joseph Henry Tooley died in 1836 and was buried on the 12th or 13th of December of that year in Great Yarmouth.

On 9 January 1838 Mary Tooley married William Turner in Ormesby St. Michael, Norfolk and, from what I can gather, they had five children: William (1840), Martha Maria (1843-1917), Eliza (1846), George (1849), and William J., (1852).

As we know, Martha Maria Turner married Ashley Howell Davey in 1875 and the rest, as they say, is history …

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Seasons Greetings

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to The Williams Family Tree over the last year – there are too many to mention by name. Contributions are always welcome be it information about a single individual, a family, or a complete branch. Financial contributions to the upkeep of the website are also welcome 🙂

The database has grown considerably over the last twelve months and continues to do so. My resolution this year is to finish off all the branches that have been started, including the 360 items on my “to-do” list, some going back to early 2008! The problem is that I keep getting side-tracked by one family or another and that leads me off on a tangent that I hadn’t planned for! All good stuff.

Now, however, I have am adding more and more source information and using different techniques to record the information so I will have to re-visit many of the 87,600+ individuals and 25,500+ families to update their information. This is going to take a long time! Also, new information is coming online on an almost daily basis so there are always more records to research.

Various recent technical problems are mostly sorted now apart from one very minor issue. Legacy Family Tree is currently not exporting the correct image data and so photographs, census images etc., are not being linked correctly. The programmers have solved the issue, twice, but have failed to get the necessary code into the last two upgrades. I am assured that it will be in the next upgrade…

The other major problem was that the server hosting the website had issues and when it came back on line it refused to give me access to the website from my computer. I could access it from anywhere else, but not at home – where my data is. Thankfully, that has now been sorted but until Legacy gets their act together I am unable to update the images on the website.

Hopefully, everything will be back on track before the New Year and I can reset my targets. Currently, I’m planning to “stop” when I reach 100,000 individuals or my 70th birthday. Whichever comes first! Of course, by the time the latter occurs the 1921 UK census information will be available!!

Back to the plot. It’s the Silly Season and so I have added a couple of silly items to the website. Snow that you can control the direction of by moving the mouse and a set of flashing lights that you can smash if you want to! Have fun.

Enjoy the festivities wherever you are but don’t forget – Drink or Drive, don’t do both!

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CAPTCHA

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Recently, the Williams Family Tree website has been inundated with fake user account requests. As many as one a minute at times. This means that I may have missed some genuine requests while dealing with the baddies! If I have, I apologise – please register again.

I have added a simple CAPTCHA ( “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”) method that, hopefully, will solve the problem. The module was written by Rick Bisbee and the following text is from the TNG Wiki for the add-on.

“This Captcha requires users to select one of a series of images that differs from the others. There is nothing to type, so you don’t have to lay the mouse down to enter impossibly obscured words. It’s quick and efficient and most users will actually enjoy the exercise. Those already logged into the website as registered users will not be presented with the Captcha, but will be given direct access to the page.”

For administrator he mentions “The Captcha display consists of a series of ‘fill’ images which are all the same. A subtly different ‘target’ image will be arbitrarily positioned among them. You can choose from several sets of images included with the add-on, or you can use your own custom images.”

So I decided to go with a seasonal touch …

Register for New User Account The Williams Family Tree
I feel this is a much better method than trying to decipher squiggly texts and numbers and I hope it reduces the spam attempts.

Phil.

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Tidied up the Home page

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Spent a few hours tidying up and validating the Home page. Found a few errors that weren’t down to me but eventually got it looking rather good – I think!

 

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