You are requested to follow the general style which has been in use since the site started. This ensures that as much information as possible is presented in a standard format and that the site is easy to use by experienced genealogists as well as those new to tracing their family history.
These notes will help the latter understand what they will encounter in the majority of trees on this page, and also provide a further guide to those intending to post their own family trees.
Simplicity
Every effort has been made to keep family trees clean and simple, with no superfluous information which might confuse the reader. This means that extra details, including godparents, which were generally omitted in the early days of the site, are included in footnotes, not in the body of the tree.
Descendancies
There are many types of report which can be generated by family tree software, including ascendancies and descendancies, stylised trees, ahnentafels etc. Most software packages are also capable of generating a standard Gedcom report, which can be read by other packages. It is not possible to import Gedcoms into the Mediawiki software which powers Jerripedia, and we have settled on the descendancy as the most useful form of tree.
This is the type of tree which is often found in books and magazine articles. It enables the reader to trace the family generation by generation and, most important of all, it allows all siblings in each generation to be listed. The oldest members of the family are at the top, followed by their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. Each generation is numbered and indented, so it is very easy to read the tree.
Dates
Dates are important in family trees, because they help position the generations and distinguish between different members of a family who have the same forename(s). But too many dates can make trees very confusing, so Jerripedia has standardised on birth and death dates or, as are found in most early documents, baptism and burial dates. No attempt is made to distinguish between the two, on the basis that there is usually only a very short period between birth and baptism; death and burial. Exceptions can be added as footnotes.
Until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752, the new year started on 26 March each year; all dates in January and February, and up to 25 March, had the same year number as the previous year. Sometimes dates during this period are shown in the style '1645/6', but this can be very confusing to those not familiar with this style so Jerripedia shows all dates as if the New Year started on 1 January, and this should be taken into account when comparing data in Jerripedia tree with that published elsewhere for the same family.
Many dates given for births and deaths (baptisms and burials) in family trees on other sites are identified as approximate. A date believed to be within a year or so of that published is usually qualified as 'about' or 'abt'. Any dates which are less certain are often qualified as 'estimated' or 'est'. Sometimes 'circa' or 'c' is used to indicate uncertainty about a date's accuracy.
Because all dates at least until the 18th century should be viewed as uncertain, Jerripedia trees do not generally qualify any dates - site users are expected to anticipate that there will be a degree of inaccuracy. To qualify some dates as approximate is likely to suggest that all other dates in a tree are accurate, which may not be the case at all.
Dates are usually presented as shown in source material, but when dates are discovered that are self-evidently incorrect and the correct date cannot be discovered, they have generally been omitted.
Only years are generally shown in our trees to avoid overcomplicating a simple descendancy. If required, full dates can be entered as footnotes in the format '3 January 1780'. Please avoid all other date styles.
Jerripedia does not use born, baptised, b, bp, buried etc in association with dates. (1545-1595) indicates the dates of birth/baptism and burial/death; (1545- ) indicates a birth/baptism date when the death date is not known; ( -1545) indicates a death/burial date when the date of birth is not known; (liv 1545) is occasionally used and indicates that a person is known to have been living at that date.
Marriages, godparents etc
Originally marriage dates were not included in Jerripedia trees (unless this was the only date known which could position a couple in history). Production of Jerripedia trees is always a compromise between time and space and the desire to include as much information as possible. However, we soon realised that marriage dates, and place of marriage, are of such fundamental importance to researchers that they should be included when known. It is only the earliest of our trees which omit this information, and we are constantly working to include these details.
Where a marriage date is given, the style is John Smith m (1742) Jane Brown; or ... m (1742, St H) Jane Brown
Other information
Occasionally information will be added to an entry to provide extra identification for an invidual (particularly important where the same forenames have been used in succeeding generations) and a term of office as Jurat, Constable or in another important position will be noted, together with dates. These extra details are now held in separate notes, rather than being shown in the body of the tree. Those adding their own trees, or expanding existing trees, should contact the editorial team if they are not sure how to create such notes.
Marriages
Spouses of those in the direct line will be included wherever known, together with information on their ancestors. For example
John Smith m Jane Brown, daughter of Charles, son of Charles, son of Jean; and Marie Aubin
This indicates that Jane Brown was the daughter of Charles Brown (the father's surname is assumed to be the same as the daughter's) and Marie Aubin, and granddaughter of Charles, and great-granddaughter of Jean. This style is used without exception so that the user can be certain about relationships.
Where a male member of a tree has two or more wives, the style used varies depending on whether he had children by more than one of them. For example:
- John Smith m 1, Jane Brown; 2, Alice Green
would indicate that Alice Green was the mother of the children in the next generation and no children were born to Jane Brown.
- John Smith m 3, Jeanne Black; 2, Alice Green; 1, Jane Brown
would indicate three marriages, with all the children born to the first wife, Jane Brown
Where there are children by more than one wife, the style is
- John Smith m 1, Jane Brown
- Children
- 2nd wife of John Smith, Alice Green
- Children
The entry for the second wife will be indented to the same extent as her husband to make it easy to locate, but it should be borne in mind that the entry for second and subsequent spouses may be positioned some way down the tree from the first if there are many descendants of the first marriage.
In general children are positioned in order of birth, the eldest highest in the tree, but sometimes for convenience the order shown in the source tree will be adopted. It was very common in trees produced during the 19th and early 20th century for the male children to be listed first, in order of birth, and then the female children. Every effort is being made to eliminate this practice, which is understandably now viewed as discriminatory, but some trees based on early research will inevitably replicate this approach.
Female lines
In general, although husbands are identified when known, no children of female descendants in a tree are shown. This is to avoid trees becoming unworkably large and confusing. The exceptions are when a link to an important individual in another tree can be established, or when cousins marry and the extended female line links back into the main tree within a number of generations. An extended female line will usually be shown in a further tree under the husband's surname, with a link included (see next section).
Links
Blue text links are inserted in trees if information on an individual can be found in another family tree, in a family history, or in another type of article in Jerripedia. They are also used to link to definitions of positions such as Constable and Jurat or when there is any other sort of background material available.
Links from one tree to another are particularly important when a long tree has been split into two or more sections for ease of use. For example, when detailed information is known about the descendancies of two or more sons who appear early in a family tree, a general tree for the early generations may be presented, with separate trees for each main descendancy.
Overlaps
Some of the Jerripedia trees for an individual family overlap to a lesser or greater extent with others. This is usually because similar trees have become available from a second source some time after the original tree was posted. The second and subsequent trees may diverge into different lines lower down the tree; they may contain extra information, dates etc; or they may simply provide further confirmation of an important lineage. The original tree(s) were left unamended in the early days of the site, with new data shown in separate trees. Now we are more likely, following research to confirm data, to merge trees. This does not necessarily mean that one or more trees covering a particular lineage will be deleted.
What is likely to happen is that only one of a set of trees will remain under review and be subject to future updates. It will be made clear in notes attached to trees whether they are being updated or not. Trees will rarely be deleted without reference to whoever originally submitted them, but there will be no contact before additions and changes are made to a tree.
Living individuals
As a general rule our trees do not contain details of living individuals, and a cut-off point of births in about 1920 has been adopted. However, when trees have been supplied to us for inclusion with some living individuals included (with their specific consent), they have been retained, but with the minimum of information. If we have inadvertently included details of living individuals who would prefer not to appear in Jerripedia trees, please make contact and your details will immediately be removed.
