User talk:Gublerjones

Hello Daniel Jones,

We appreciate the extensive work you have done on the Zurich parishes pages.

It has been noted that the ‎Wiedikon parish, Zürich, Switzerland page has been "Blanked". It is preferable to place a Delete template on an erroneous page. If the spelling or other part of the title is in error it is preferable to create a new page with the correct title and Redirect the page with the incorrect title to the one with the correct title. It is never appropriate to "Blank" a page. Please revisit the ‎Wiedikon parish, Zürich, Switzerland and take appropriate action. Parrisl 01:39, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Welcome, Gublerjones,

We are happy that you have joined the research community of FamilySearch Research Wiki. We want to help you enjoy your involvement in this wiki community.

You are not alone. I am one of several people on the Welcoming Committee for FamilySearch Wiki. Each of us wants to make your time on the Wiki a fulfilling, and worthwhile experience.

As a new contributor, you may feel a little overwhelmed at the scope of the Wiki. If and when you need help please contact me (Hncamp) for assistance. If I don’t know the answer, I will find someone who does. You are NEEDED and WANTED Review the Wiki Tour to get you started and help Thanks again and welcome aboard, Hncamp 15:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC) PS: I appreciate your contributions and the work you are doing on the FamilySearch Wiki! Remember that as part of our Community you are contributing to its quality. A worldwide community, contributing information for which they are experts, can provide a repository of genealogical excellence and unrivaled information for the entire world. Hncamp 10:18, 7 May 2013 (CDT)

Bern vs Berne, Switzerland
Hello,

One of my tasks is to review new pages. When you were adding parishes in Bern, Switzerland, several of them had the spelling in the title as BERNE ( as opposed to BERN ). Being unfamiliar with Switzerland myself, I did not know if this was done purposefully. You can review your edits and creations at this link. Linda R Chappell 22:41, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello Linda,

The canton of Bern is bilingual, with the majority of parishes speaking German and a minority speaking French. I have chosen to differentiate the different parishes based on the language used at the parish level. Thus, the parish of Habkern would have called it Bern, while the parish of La Ferrière would have called it Berne. The cantonal page will be organized under the dominant language (so it would be Bern instead of Berne, and Fribourg instead of Freiburg). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gublerjones (talk&thinsp;|&thinsp;contribs) 27 February 2014 17:47

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for the clarity. I will let the others on the Wiki team know. It's nice to have a specialist working on these pages.Linda R Chappell 19:50, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Geographic maps Switzerland
I put a map on the Aarwangen_parish,_Bern,_Switzerland. I would like to get input into how this looks. The only question I have is the name assigned to Aarwangen as Aarwangen parish instead of just Aarwangen. There needs to be a way to distinguish between a kirchgemeinde and a gemeinde. I don't know if putting parish in the title in the best way. Once the gemeinde pages are developed they will link to the kirchgemeinde or parish so a person will know where the church records will be found. Donjgen 05:03, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I used wikipedia to determine how the parishes are aligned. The only question I have is the Solothurn parishes above Aarwangen. They were mostly Catholic, so I'm not sure how the Swiss reform church was organized in the Catholic areas of Solothurn. I see that familysearch has not filmed the Swiss reform records in Catholic areas. The clickable maps would be a nice addition to the pages. I wonder that perhaps the bezirks should be organized as they were 100 or 150 years ago, since we are trying get a historical perspective of the region as it was when our ancestors lived there. That would set it apart from wikipedia which has the districts well covered. Oberaargau is the district that Aarwangen is in now but previously it was its own district. Aarwangen district or bezirk covered quite a large area back then. Donjgen 06:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I am sure that the parishes above Aarwangen are Catholic since familysearch has filmed the registers and they are 75% Catholic today. There is nothing on the wiki now that is dynamic enough to go three layers deep in a Geographic location map, so it wouldn't work to include gemeinden with Kirchgemeinden on the same map. The gemeinden can have there own maps that point to surrounding gemeinden. The bezirks basically group parishes and places in the same area, so I'm not sure of the importance of this. I'm not sure if there are specific record groups that were kept at the bezirk level. What do you think of the table I created for the a district in Solothurn?, Switzerland_Solothurn_Gazetteers. I was researching in that area and needed a map to sort out the area, so I created that. On the Kilchberg_parish,_Zürich,_Switzerland you don't separate out the gemeinden places from the hamlets. I've added a number of Geographic location maps up in the Aarwangen area and will keep doing that for now. I don't read German, so when it comes to reading gazetteers I'm not much help. I notice the extensive work you've done on Vechigen. Does the library have the source material for the place names and number of houses for every parish in Bern for 1838? What is the source? Donjgen 21:31, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Geographic maps Gemienden Switzerland
I created a map for Busswil bei Melchnau, Bern, Switzerland. Is a separate page going to be created for Melchnau as a gemeinde or Municipality or is the parish page going to cover both? That is going to be an issue with all the kirchegemeinden as they are also a gemeinde. Donjgen 06:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Gemeinde vs Municipality
While a gemeinde is translated in German to mean Municipality it is far from clear to an American what the differences are. A gemeinde is a ancestral home or heimat which is the basis for Swiss research over the decades. Thats the pitfall of Swiss research of the past is that everyone is born and or married in their heimat regardless of where they lived. A person hasn't been to there gemeinde for generations yet the genealogical records say they were born there and lived there and never left. Next to understanding the concept of parishes in Switzerland is the concept of the Gemeinden. In genealogical terms Municipality is a poor translation for Gemeinde for Switzerland, so I would suggest that Municipality be fazed out or secondary to the real term or meaning, Gemeinde. Something like on Busswil_bei_Melchnau,_Bern,_Switzerland uses a mouseover text to describe the meaning. Donjgen 01:39, 4 May 2014 (UTC) " Thats the downfall pitfall of Swiss research of the past is that everyone is born and or married in their heimat regardless of where they lived. A person hasn't been to there gemeinde for generations yet the genealogical records say they were born there and lived there and never left." In this statement I'm not referring to the parish registers. I'm referring to the compiled genealogies and group sheets that form the genealogies on familytree. Its only been within the past 20 years that Bern Canton registers have been available to those outside of Switzerland.

"This is no downfall, but actually a huge help for researching, as it means that you can identify where a family is living based on the records of their parish of citizenship." The problem it creates is families are put out of context with others that actually lived there. So when you see a Swiss group sheet you don't know whether it is a birthplace or place of citizenship. I was looking at the Stettler family in Bolligen. A large family in the 1740's and 1750's. Come to find out they went to Oberdiessbach in 1735 never to return. There is no clue in any of the group-sheets or compiled genealogies that this occurred. When I discovered this, new connections were made, old thought to be connections were dissolved. Johannes Stettler, my ancestor, is the only one to return to Bolligen. But there are 2 other Johannes who were actually born there that could be him. More research needs to be done. In the future it would be best to not put everyone in one basket based on citizenship, but it would be best to accurately put people in place and time. The next problem this creates is when I search for my Bolligen ancestors that lived in Oberdiessbach in familytree it don't find them because I changed there birthplace to Oberdiessbach. I put their place of citizenship in the section, 'other information', but apparently that doesn't help the search engine. As the record keeping of the past I would but the place of citizenship as the birthplace and the section, 'other information' I would put the birthplace. Donjgen 18:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

"As the record keeping of the past I would but the place of citizenship as the birthplace and the section, 'other information' I would put the birthplace." Basically what I am saying is it is important for the ancestral home or heimat be be noted for each person when it is not obvious what it is. The only place for this in the familytree is in the 'other information' section, under residence. I keep my genealogy in Legacy. With my Swiss research which I started 1 year ago I have been adding sources to every relation, that is 1000's of sources and I go back and enter the sources in my genealogy program, after reading so many records I have become quite proficient at reading the registers. I have expanded on Busswil bei Melchnau to include other sections that pertain to that place. Writing is an evolving process, I wouldn't be afraid to change up the pages. They should be constantly changing an improving. For that reason not every page is not going to look exactly that same as the writing process evolves. Donjgen 07:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

maps
the maps on the wiki show the gemeiden as they are today. I would hope that there would be some out of copyright maps that we could use that show them as they were before 1900. Donjgen 08:05, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Genealogies
currently says - (see here for article describing Swiss compiled genealogies) replace with a descriptive sentence There are numerous compiled genealogies that have been created since 1900; however, they need to verified by researching the parish registers since it has been proven that a percentage of them are inaccurate.

The following genealogies have been researched for Melchnau families:

broken link on Zell parish page
Thank you for your great contributions to the Wiki! On the Zell parish page, there is a broken link to Reichenburg parish. I didn't want to edit it because I thought there was a chance you were intending to make a page for Reichenburg parish. Right now it is reading that the link doesn't work because no Reichenburg page exists. I tried looking for it under several combinations--took out the word parish. took out Schwyz, reversed the order with Switzerland first, etc. I am hoping that either you know how it is labelled and can find it, or you were eventually planning on making a page. Otherwise I could remove the link, if you prefer---awaiting your advice Hanna5974

Zell broken link
I received your message about the broken link for Zell. It matched my suspicion that we should leave the link in place because eventually you would get to that parish. I'll let the patrolling folks know not to worry about red links on your pages. Thanks again for all the great info you are adding to the wiki.Hanna5974

Help on wiki page
Daniel, We are so appreciative of your work on the wiki! Now I am wondering if you can give me some input from your expertise on a page I was asked to create. My assignment is to create a page for each European country of databases that just give actual data on people--no reference sites, maps, etc. And they are supposed to be databases for the whole country, not just one Kreis or Kanton. ( Although I frequently include databases that are somewhere in between, like "southern Germany".) I use databases listed in the wiki for the country, FamilySearch Historical records, Ancestry.com., Findmypast, MyHeritage, and whatever I can scare up on Google.

I was hoping you could look at my page "Switzerland Online Genealogy Records" and see if you know of any databases I have missed. I feel like the Google searches are risky for not picking up some archive collection or society collection that an expert such as yourself would be aware of. I would appreciate any help you can provide!!!!! Kathi Hanna Hanna5974

Spanwied - Film 1185147, item 2, page 7 - 1646 Loo - Film 1185148, item 2, page 307 - 1646

I noticed that you renamed some parishes in Solothurn. I don't know how to rename parishes. Messen, Aetingen, and Lusslingen have been somewhat developed. I would appreciate your attention to this matter. don

solothurn
I'm referring to this page;;;  https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Messen_parish,_Solothurn,_Switzerland

Not using the research process
Donjgen (talk) 22:11, 11 June 2023 (MDT) I’ve been working on the Swiss wiki and Genealogy for some years now in Solothurn Canton. Recently I have noticed that a lot of people are adding new names from the indexes. The indexes record names and dates, but most of them don’t indicate a place. So when they enter a name from the index and add it to the family tree, no parish is noted. I assume there are thousands of names in Solothurn Canton alone. I assume it is going to continue to grow in that fashion; so when one searches for a person the list of names is without a parish. Apparently they don’t know how to determine the parish; their disconnected from the research process and connected to the index as an end-all. The computer generated source titles are vague. I haven’t seen anyone else attempt rename them to make them understandable. People are hung up over the difference between a christening date and a birth date, so there entering dates and places in the christening column and a year in the birth column. They don’t duplicate the christening information into the birth column. I follow Julius Billeters example of referring to the christening date as the birth date. He added over a million names in his career. It is well known that these christening dates are infant baptism which took place within a week of birth or less. No birth date will ever be known. The burial and deaths have the same issue. Its like trying to split hairs. Does one, two or three days matter when were looking at records hundreds of years ago. The bottom line is there is a growing database of names with vague dates and place or no places with sources that have vague titles inserted by people unable to move beyond the indexes into the actual records, so they can create a reasonable genealogy. Am I suppose to create a page to explain the details of the research process and how indexes fall in to the process? Apparently people need some directions other than pointing them to an index. Names dates and places is about as basic as one can get. No standardized surnames, missing dates, incomplete dates, incomplete places = poor genealogy. Donjgen (talk) 22:11, 11 June 2023 (MDT)