> > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > > > Peter J Seymour > > Many of us don't write full sentences in our NOTES files -- mostly > that's those of us old enough to have started this before > 5-and-a-quarter-inch floppies when space *mattered* who haven't > cared to spend valuable research time tidying up the file. But, > there do seem to be a lot of us. (g) > > So, however good the "make me a book" report IS, it can't fix > sentence fragments so the grammar-hammer finds those and complains. > "Was an insurance underwriter." has to turn into "He was an > insurance underwriter." > > Additionally, the occasional typo creeps into NOTES and isn't > spotted until it's in a book. > > Sometimes, a remark that makes PERFECT sense when it's in the NOTES > becomes ambiguous in a book setting...either the antecedent of "he" > becomes muddy or the thing just reads wrong or tacky ... "He was a > traveller" for instance has various interpretations, only one of > which applies to this individual, and might be nice if that were > clear? Or "was dumb." When one knows the lady, one knows she was > unable to speak, not unintelligent, but again, future generations > won't know her, so let's make that clear. > > Then, there are the potentially embarrassing comments -- perfectly > TRUE, but nonetheless rude and needlessly hurtful to persons more > closely connected. Still, I can't be certain I've found all those > until I look at the output. > > SOME people "tag" certain facts (OCCUP: farmer or MIL: Vietnam) > using truncated words which need expanding, because OCCUP: farmer > isn't a real sentence, even if you know what OCCUP means -- and MIL: > Vietnam is either Military service in Vietnam /or/ Mother-in-law in > Vietnam and clarity on that would be a good thing. ;) > > And of course -- the book generator in PAF and in Legacy throws in > an enormous amount of white-space. Looks pretty, is useful for > adding comments or new info, but uses more paper than it needs to. > So I remove a lot of blank lines. I can sometimes reduce by half the > number of pages to be printed. > > Now, whether tweaking the output each time I do output takes less > time than fixing the input could be debatable. IMO, it is at least > more fun to do the tweaks on output. > > Cheryl Singhals <singhals@erols.com> I understand where you are coming from, but I always work on the assumption that I am doing none of this for me, but for my children and grandchildren. If my notes are not clear, then my data will not be adequate for the purpose for which it is intended. Many times when there is to much white space in a report, it means that I did not do a good job of entering the data. I then go to the offending part and re edit the data to remove the the extra white space. This brings up a point that I have been considering what are you doing for estate planning as far as your genealogical records and databases? Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net>

> > > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > > > I use FTM 2006. For the basic father son grandson reports I let FTM > > do what it wants and make sure the information in each field is > > correct. I also edit my notes to make the grammatically correct and > > formated properly. > > > > I use the books function of FTM to put other things into the into > > the documents. At typical "Book" usually has these pieces. Title > > page -- In FTM this is free form text, that can be formated to your > > pleasure. > > > > Ancestor tree -- This is the FTM tree organized to provide the > > family structure > > > > Introduction --- This is a FTM function that allow the you to input > > your own text. In mine this is a basic introduction to the paternal > > and maternal families that make up the report family. > > > > Basic Family report from FTM > > > > Free form page --- This is a FTM function that allows me to put > > anything I wish into the report. In mine I discuss weak links in > > the family, or my current theories on the ancestors of the first > > (oldest) ancestor in the report. > > > > Index --- FTM function. > > > > Except for the poor quality of the FTM wordprocessor which I work > > around, I have found no need to export to a DOC or RFT file. > > > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> > > I admit that I am not very familiar with FTM. I was struck by the > Free Form Page. Structurally, it seems to serve the purpose of a > catch-all facility that compensates for omissions elsewhere in the > program. In that respect one cannot fault it, although it would be > better if the information was already incorporated elsewhere. > > What problems does the FTM wordprocessor present you with? > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> Free form pages. I do not put any thing into the actual database that is not supported by some other documents. However, there are incidents where I have a lot of circumstantial and inferred evidence that the parents of x are y and z. Circumstantial evidence would be two families of the same last name live next to each other on the plat map, No documented relation can be shown, but it is probable that they are related. When someone asked about a family, I like to include the circumstantial and inferred evidence to indicate my line of research, on the hope they may be able to contribute the clue that will solve the whole problem. While the FTM word processor does most of the functions it should, it occasionally gets an attitude and will not copy and move text properly. Sometime when copying it may just delete what you have highlighted. This is especially a problem if the information crosses page. At other time it will not paste text even if it comes from the document being worked on. I am running FTM 2006, Windows XP SP3 on an HP DV6130US with a Intel 2 Duo T5200 processor. The computer has the wide aspect screen. Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net>

> > > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > > > If I understand your question correctly, I'd think much would depend > > on the output of your report generator. I have one, for example, > > which will output date and place of death, even for living persons, > > when the "show all events" option is selected. Now, even though the > > output for living persons is something like "He died on _____ at > > ____", the fact it appears at all is annoying and more than a bit > > off-putting (took me a while to connect the output with selecting > > that particular option, BTW). That's point one. 'Nother thought is > > that you might want to rearrange the way the facts are presented, or > > combine notes or modify any of a number of cosmetic things that your > > report generator does well (good enough for government work) but not > > as you might wish. Font, layout, pagination, indexing, title page, > > table of contents, addition of graphics - there's a whole slew of > > things you might want to "play" with to get the report to look the > > way you want it. > > > > But the primary reason you might want to run the report through your > > wordprocessor might be to convert it from, say, .doc or .rtf to, > > say, .pdf or .ps. To my mind, anything that's MicroSoft or Apple > > specific is immediately suspect and automatically goes to the bottom > > of the pile for later conversion. (Notwithstanding that some 95% or > > more of personal computers run some version of Windows or MacOS, > > there are some who choose to run neither and may not be able to do > > anything with those proprietary formats. As a result, you've wasted > > your time and machine cycles preparing a report they'll likely never > > read and have probably annoyed them more than just a little bit.) > > > > Swell Ol' Bob Melson > > So I guess that if the program will output in PDF format that will > deal with your primary reason. It doesn't help with your minor > adjustments though. It looks like the program ought to allow editing > of the report before writing it to the file, but full-blown word > processing within the program would be getting a bit tricky. I think > I would be in favour of pushing back whatever those adjustments are > to being report generation options so that the generated report is > already as you want it (or pretty close). This would require a whole > raft of detail options but that is probably manageable. > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> I suspect that adding a bunch of formatting options to the report generator wouldn't be justifiable - I don't _know_ that, but think it likely. The report generator included with Gramps is really pretty good and does allow a fair amount of formatting, as well as a selection of output options (pdf, text, open document, etc.). Its limitations, and those of most genealogy software, are more a matter of what it has to work with than anything else: there are only so many ways you can say that Joe Doakes was born in Podunk Junction on such-and-such a date, married Edna Uglyperson and produced so many kids. These are the facts that're recorded in the gedcom and, except for the more or less free form notes, are pretty much plain vanilla. Since most of the world can produce but not directly edit pdf or ps files, it makes sense that if you wanted to edit your report generator's output, you'd want that output to be in something that permitted editing - text, or doc or rtf - and only after editing convert the output to pdf or postscript, if you converted at all. The reasons you might want to edit the report generator's output are probably as many as there are people producing reports. I named a few previously but would certainly not claim that the list is complete - formatting, pagination, inclusion of graphics, addition of indexes and tables of contents, font selection, etc. Swell Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>

> <snip> > > > But the primary reason you might want to run the report through your > > wordprocessor might be to convert it from, say, .doc or .rtf to, > > say, .pdf or .ps. To my mind, anything that's MicroSoft or Apple > > specific is immediately suspect and automatically goes to the bottom > > of the pile for later conversion. (Notwithstanding that some 95% or > > more of personal computers run some version of Windows or MacOS, > > there are some who choose to run neither and may not be able to do > > anything with those proprietary formats. As a result, you've wasted > > your time and machine cycles preparing a report they'll likely never > > read and have probably annoyed them more than just a little bit.) > > > > Swell Ol' Bob Melson > > Agreed except OpenOffice runs on most machines and not only deals > with the formats mentioned, but many others. And in fact when I had > office 2007 on one machine and XP on another exporting from 2007 in > 97/xp/2003 format came up unreadable on an xp machine. Openining and > re-saving in OpenOffice saved the day, office XP could now read the > file. > > I have 'strong opinions about the quality of Micro$oft software, few > favorable. > > Mick <mickg01@verizon.net> No argument. I had wanted to avoid any serious M$ bashing, which is one reason I said folks might not be able to handle the M$ proprietary formats. OO is a competent suite of programs and one I've used for what now seems like forever. As for the quality of M$ software, suffice to say that one can't rely on alpha-quality products. Steamin' Ol' Bob (but it's a _dry_ heat!) -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>

> I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > manual editing in a word processing program. > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > Peter J Seymour Many of us don't write full sentences in our NOTES files -- mostly that's those of us old enough to have started this before 5-and-a-quarter-inch floppies when space *mattered* who haven't cared to spend valuable research time tidying up the file. But, there do seem to be a lot of us. (g) So, however good the "make me a book" report IS, it can't fix sentence fragments so the grammar-hammer finds those and complains. "Was an insurance underwriter." has to turn into "He was an insurance underwriter." Additionally, the occasional typo creeps into NOTES and isn't spotted until it's in a book. Sometimes, a remark that makes PERFECT sense when it's in the NOTES becomes ambiguous in a book setting...either the antecedent of "he" becomes muddy or the thing just reads wrong or tacky ... "He was a traveller" for instance has various interpretations, only one of which applies to this individual, and might be nice if that were clear? Or "was dumb." When one knows the lady, one knows she was unable to speak, not unintelligent, but again, future generations won't know her, so let's make that clear. Then, there are the potentially embarrassing comments -- perfectly TRUE, but nonetheless rude and needlessly hurtful to persons more closely connected. Still, I can't be certain I've found all those until I look at the output. SOME people "tag" certain facts (OCCUP: farmer or MIL: Vietnam) using truncated words which need expanding, because OCCUP: farmer isn't a real sentence, even if you know what OCCUP means -- and MIL: Vietnam is either Military service in Vietnam /or/ Mother-in-law in Vietnam and clarity on that would be a good thing. ;) And of course -- the book generator in PAF and in Legacy throws in an enormous amount of white-space. Looks pretty, is useful for adding comments or new info, but uses more paper than it needs to. So I remove a lot of blank lines. I can sometimes reduce by half the number of pages to be printed. Now, whether tweaking the output each time I do output takes less time than fixing the input could be debatable. IMO, it is at least more fun to do the tweaks on output. Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

Good morning from Brooklyn New York, Family lore has it that prior to WWI my grandfather did a short stint in prison. He was working for the Post Office and got caught stealing stamps. Would anyoine have any idea where I might be able to locate these records? TIA, Emmy emmydbd <emmydbd@yahoo.com>

> > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > I use FTM 2006. For the basic father son grandson reports I let FTM > do what it wants and make sure the information in each field is > correct. I also edit my notes to make the grammatically correct and > formated properly. > > I use the books function of FTM to put other things into the into > the documents. At typical "Book" usually has these pieces. Title > page -- In FTM this is free form text, that can be formated to your > pleasure. > > Ancestor tree -- This is the FTM tree organized to provide the > family structure > > Introduction --- This is a FTM function that allow the you to input > your own text. In mine this is a basic introduction to the paternal > and maternal families that make up the report family. > > Basic Family report from FTM > > Free form page --- This is a FTM function that allows me to put > anything I wish into the report. In mine I discuss weak links in > the family, or my current theories on the ancestors of the first > (oldest) ancestor in the report. > > Index --- FTM function. > > Except for the poor quality of the FTM wordprocessor which I work > around, I have found no need to export to a DOC or RFT file. > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> I admit that I am not very familiar with FTM. I was struck by the Free Form Page. Structurally, it seems to serve the purpose of a catch-all facility that compensates for omissions elsewhere in the program. In that respect one cannot fault it, although it would be better if the information was already incorporated elsewhere. What problems does the FTM wordprocessor present you with? Peter. Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>

> > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > If I understand your question correctly, I'd think much would depend > on the output of your report generator. I have one, for example, > which will output date and place of death, even for living persons, > when the "show all events" option is selected. Now, even though the > output for living persons is something like "He died on _____ at > ____", the fact it appears at all is annoying and more than a bit > off-putting (took me a while to connect the output with selecting > that particular option, BTW). That's point one. 'Nother thought is > that you might want to rearrange the way the facts are presented, or > combine notes or modify any of a number of cosmetic things that your > report generator does well (good enough for government work) but not > as you might wish. Font, layout, pagination, indexing, title page, > table of contents, addition of graphics - there's a whole slew of > things you might want to "play" with to get the report to look the > way you want it. > > But the primary reason you might want to run the report through your > wordprocessor might be to convert it from, say, .doc or .rtf to, > say, .pdf or .ps. To my mind, anything that's MicroSoft or Apple > specific is immediately suspect and automatically goes to the bottom > of the pile for later conversion. (Notwithstanding that some 95% or > more of personal computers run some version of Windows or MacOS, > there are some who choose to run neither and may not be able to do > anything with those proprietary formats. As a result, you've wasted > your time and machine cycles preparing a report they'll likely never > read and have probably annoyed them more than just a little bit.) > > Swell Ol' Bob Melson So I guess that if the program will output in PDF format that will deal with your primary reason. It doesn't help with your minor adjustments though. It looks like the program ought to allow editing of the report before writing it to the file, but full-blown word processing within the program would be getting a bit tricky. I think I would be in favour of pushing back whatever those adjustments are to being report generation options so that the generated report is already as you want it (or pretty close). This would require a whole raft of detail options but that is probably manageable. Peter Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>

> > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> > > If I understand your question correctly, I'd think much would depend > on the output of your report generator. I have one, for example, > which will output date and place of death, even for living persons, > when the "show all events" option is selected. Now, even though the > output for living persons is something like "He died on _____ at > ____", the fact it appears at all is annoying and more than a bit > off-putting (took me a while to connect the output with selecting > that particular option, BTW). That's point one. 'Nother thought is > that you might want to rearrange the way the facts are presented, or > combine notes or modify any of a number of cosmetic things that your > report generator does well (good enough for government work) but not > as you might wish. Font, layout, pagination, indexing, title page, > table of contents, addition of graphics - there's a whole slew of > things you might want to "play" with to get the report to look the > way you want it. > > But the primary reason you might want to run the report through your > wordprocessor might be to convert it from, say, .doc or .rtf to, > say, .pdf or .ps. To my mind, anything that's MicroSoft or Apple > specific is immediately suspect and automatically goes to the bottom > of the pile for later conversion. (Notwithstanding that some 95% or > more of personal computers run some version of Windows or MacOS, > there are some who choose to run neither and may not be able to do > anything with those proprietary formats. As a result, you've wasted > your time and machine cycles preparing a report they'll likely never > read and have probably annoyed them more than just a little bit.) > > Swell Ol' Bob Melson Agreed except OpenOffice runs on most machines and not only deals with the formats mentioned, but many others. And in fact when I had office 2007 on one machine and XP on another exporting from 2007 in 97/xp/2003 format came up unreadable on an xp machine. Openining and re-saving in OpenOffice saved the day, office XP could now read the file. I have 'strong opinions about the quality of Micro$oft software, few favorable. MickG Mick <mickg01@verizon.net>

Peter J Seymour wrote: > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > manual editing in a word processing program. > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > want to massage the appearance in some way. I've seen various web sites with what appear to be out-of-the-box formatted reports and in many cases they're appalling. The chief offence is to attempt to produce a narrative style report and the result is simply a repetitious doling out of text such as "He was born on 1st of October 1790" whereas "Date of birth 1 Oct 1790" would have been quite adequate and the repetition would have grated less. If you want narrative write it yourself. If want a mechanically produced report go for a simple tabulation. Another problem is poor handling of location. For instance if the subject was baptised in a parish such as Almondbury or Halifax it's folly to assume that they were born there - such parishes include localities miles from the parish church and if the priest didn't note the actual locality it's best not to mention it unless you can provide it from other evidence. It's exacerbated when they go on to say things like "Almondbury, York". I suppose the source of much of this sort of nonsense is relying on data downloaded from IGI and simply loaded into the program without any subsequence editing although in many cases one suspects that the "researcher" hasn't bothered to understand the geography of the area and couldn't have edited it. -- Ian Hotmail is for spammers. Real mail address is igoddard at nildram co uk Ian Goddard <goddai01@hotmail.co.uk>

> I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > manual editing in a word processing program. > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> I use FTM 2006. For the basic father son grandson reports I let FTM do what it wants and make sure the information in each field is correct. I also edit my notes to make the grammatically correct and formated properly. I use the books function of FTM to put other things into the into the documents. At typical "Book" usually has these pieces. Title page -- In FTM this is free form text, that can be formated to your pleasure. Ancestor tree -- This is the FTM tree organized to provide the family structure Introduction --- This is a FTM function that allow the you to input your own text. In mine this is a basic introduction to the paternal and maternal families that make up the report family. Basic Family report from FTM Free form page --- This is a FTM function that allows me to put anything I wish into the report. In mine I discuss weak links in the family, or my current theories on the ancestors of the first (oldest) ancestor in the report. Index --- FTM function. Except for the poor quality of the FTM wordprocessor which I work around, I have found no need to export to a DOC or RFT file. Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net>

> I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > manual editing in a word processing program. > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> If I understand your question correctly, I'd think much would depend on the output of your report generator. I have one, for example, which will output date and place of death, even for living persons, when the "show all events" option is selected. Now, even though the output for living persons is something like "He died on _____ at ____", the fact it appears at all is annoying and more than a bit off-putting (took me a while to connect the output with selecting that particular option, BTW). That's point one. 'Nother thought is that you might want to rearrange the way the facts are presented, or combine notes or modify any of a number of cosmetic things that your report generator does well (good enough for government work) but not as you might wish. Font, layout, pagination, indexing, title page, table of contents, addition of graphics - there's a whole slew of things you might want to "play" with to get the report to look the way you want it. But the primary reason you might want to run the report through your wordprocessor might be to convert it from, say, .doc or .rtf to, say, .pdf or .ps. To my mind, anything that's MicroSoft or Apple specific is immediately suspect and automatically goes to the bottom of the pile for later conversion. (Notwithstanding that some 95% or more of personal computers run some version of Windows or MacOS, there are some who choose to run neither and may not be able to do anything with those proprietary formats. As a result, you've wasted your time and machine cycles preparing a report they'll likely never read and have probably annoyed them more than just a little bit.) My USD $0.02 Swell Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>

> > The 1833 document says the man lives on "Elm Street between Smith > > and Main." [Street names are fictious for the exercise.] > > > > An 1833 map shows Elm and Smith, but not Main. Smith is between two > > other streets whose names on the 1833 map match the names on the > > 2009 map. > > > > I thought perhaps there was a convention that covered the order in > > which the streets would be named, but after trying several > > acquaintances and a couple total strangers, I don't think so. > > > > The question now becomes -- which is more likely > > > > A: that the clerk names the streets as if he were moving out > > of the center of town > > /or/ > > B: that the clerk names the streets as if he were coming into > > the center of town? > > > > I already /know/ there's no way to tell with certainty without > > finding Main street on a map; I'm looking for a bread-crumb. > > > > Cheryl Singhals <singhals@erols.com> > > Yet another question. Would it be possible for you to post an image > of the map somewhere or provide a link to an image? Maybe more'n > one set of eyes would help. > > Squintin' Ol' Bob Melson I found it -- I think. At least, I found a street that has a name that COULD sound-like, it's in the right place, it's a N-S street, AND it intersects Elm. Positing that, and knowing where the "center" of town was, the progression came from out to in. Thanks, everyone! Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

I'm interested in what people do on this one. Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some manual editing in a word processing program. What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you want to massage the appearance in some way. Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. Regards Peter Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>

Patricia Kantzer wrote: > > The 1833 document says the man lives on "Elm Street between Smith > > and Main." [Street names are fictious for the exercise.] > > > > An 1833 map shows Elm and Smith, but not Main. Smith is between two > > other streets whose names on the 1833 map match the names on the > > 2009 map. > > > > I thought perhaps there was a convention that covered the order in > > which the streets would be named, but after trying several > > acquaintances and a couple total strangers, I don't think so. > > > > The question now becomes -- which is more likely > > > > A: that the clerk names the streets as if he were moving out > > of the center of town > > /or/ > > B: that the clerk names the streets as if he were coming into > > the center of town? > > > > I already /know/ there's no way to tell with certainty without > > finding Main street on a map; I'm looking for a bread-crumb. > > > > Cheryl Singhals <singhals@erols.com> > > My guess is that you would look at a map of the town and whatever > street seems to lead into town and down the section of town with > stores would be named Main street. Elm is the one that would intersect the street with the shops. Smith is well to the east of it and parallel to the shopping street. > Clerk's weren't always the ones who named the streets. Most times > the folks who lived on them did. Most times Main Street was most > likely the street that held the most of the stores located in that > town If that's what he was doing, then I'm looking at about 8 heavily populated blocks between Smith and Main. I would have thought something more pinpointed would have been wanted. Still, something to look into. Thanks. Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

> > The 1833 document says the man lives on "Elm Street between Smith > > and Main." [Street names are fictious for the exercise.] > > > > An 1833 map shows Elm and Smith, but not Main. Smith is between two > > other streets whose names on the 1833 map match the names on the > > 2009 map. > > > > I thought perhaps there was a convention that covered the order in > > which the streets would be named, but after trying several > > acquaintances and a couple total strangers, I don't think so. > > > > The question now becomes -- which is more likely > > > > A: that the clerk names the streets as if he were moving out > > of the center of town > > /or/ > > B: that the clerk names the streets as if he were coming into > > the center of town? > > > > I already /know/ there's no way to tell with certainty without > > finding Main street on a map; I'm looking for a bread-crumb. > > > > Cheryl Singhals > > Maybe he'd order the streets in the same direction as the house > numbering runs. Of course this simply replaces one the problem with > another... > > Ian Goddard The up-side there is, I know which direction the numbers run today. (g) Good idea, thanks! Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

Keith Nuttle wrote: > > The 1833 document says the man lives on "Elm Street between Smith > > and Main." [Street names are fictious for the exercise.] > > > > An 1833 map shows Elm and Smith, but not Main. Smith is between two > > other streets whose names on the 1833 map match the names on the > > 2009 map. > > > > I thought perhaps there was a convention that covered the order in > > which the streets would be named, but after trying several > > acquaintances and a couple total strangers, I don't think so. > > > > The question now becomes -- which is more likely > > > > A: that the clerk names the streets as if he were moving out > > of the center of town > > /or/ > > B: that the clerk names the streets as if he were coming into > > the center of town? > > > > I already /know/ there's no way to tell with certainty without > > finding Main street on a map; I'm looking for a bread-crumb. > > > > Cheryl Singhals <singhals@erols.com> > > Is there a Main street? If not did Main Street get renamed since > the map was drawn. Not now, not then. > With my ancestors there are several cases where the streets were > renamed since they were involved with them. Yeah, I've seen it happen close-to-home in the past decade. :( > Is Main street listed in old street directories and old newspapers? Not that I've found, yet. Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

Ahhh, well, then. I *did* learn something today! Cheryl JYoung6180@aol.com wrote: > Cheryl- > > The original posted deed seems to say they DID at least as pertains to THIS > parcel of land: > > > Jacob Byers and the said Jacob Byers and by Deed dated 4th September 1789 > > Conveyed all the right in the said described Tract of land to the said > > Michael Zimmerman > > to whom a Warrant of Acceptance Issued 9th November 1795 with the > > Appointed > > monies To have and to hold the said Tract or parcel of Land with the > > Appointed > > names unto the said Michael Zimmerman and his heirs to the use of him the > > said > > Michael Zimmerman his heirs and Assigns forever free and Clear of all > > Restrictions & > > Reservations As to Mines, Royalties, Quit rents or otherwise excepting and > > reserving > > only the fifth part of all Gold and Silver Ore for the use of this > > Commonwealth > > to be delivered at the pits mouth Clear of all Charges. In Witness whereof > > Thomas Mifflin Governor > > of the said Commonwealth hath hereto Set his hand & Caused the State Seal > > to be hereunto affixed the second > > day of Decemb in the year if our Lord One thousand Seven hundred & ninety > > five & of the Commonwealth the twentieth > > Attest James Trimble Tho Mifflin {SEAL} > > Deputy Secy > > Inrolled the 12th December 1795 singhals <singhals@erols.com>

> The 1833 document says the man lives on "Elm Street between Smith > and Main." [Street names are fictious for the exercise.] > > An 1833 map shows Elm and Smith, but not Main. Smith is between two > other streets whose names on the 1833 map match the names on the > 2009 map. > > I thought perhaps there was a convention that covered the order in > which the streets would be named, but after trying several > acquaintances and a couple total strangers, I don't think so. > > The question now becomes -- which is more likely > > A: that the clerk names the streets as if he were moving out > of the center of town > /or/ > B: that the clerk names the streets as if he were coming into > the center of town? > > I already /know/ there's no way to tell with certainty without > finding Main street on a map; I'm looking for a bread-crumb. > > Cheryl Singhals <singhals@erols.com> Yet another question. Would it be possible for you to post an image of the map somewhere or provide a link to an image? Maybe more'n one set of eyes would help. Squintin' Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>

Cheryl- The original posted deed seems to say they DID at least as pertains to THIS parcel of land: > Jacob Byers and the said Jacob Byers and by Deed dated 4th September 1789 > Conveyed all the right in the said described Tract of land to the said > Michael Zimmerman > to whom a Warrant of Acceptance Issued 9th November 1795 with the > Appointed > monies To have and to hold the said Tract or parcel of Land with the > Appointed > names unto the said Michael Zimmerman and his heirs to the use of him the > said > Michael Zimmerman his heirs and Assigns forever free and Clear of all > Restrictions & > Reservations As to Mines, Royalties, Quit rents or otherwise excepting and > reserving > only the fifth part of all Gold and Silver Ore for the use of this > Commonwealth > to be delivered at the pits mouth Clear of all Charges. In Witness whereof > Thomas Mifflin Governor > of the said Commonwealth hath hereto Set his hand & Caused the State Seal > to be hereunto affixed the second > day of Decemb in the year if our Lord One thousand Seven hundred & ninety > five & of the Commonwealth the twentieth > Attest James Trimble Tho Mifflin {SEAL} > Deputy Secy > Inrolled the 12th December 1795 Joan JYoung6180@aol.com