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Family History Survey Information  

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A guide is not really necessary but a few paragraphs of explanation follow. The survey is perhaps a little more than comprehensive in nature. The scope of a family tree survey is more than meets the eye, a few basic things can be immediately apparent from just a few responses.

• Birthdates
• We can determine how long each generation lived.
• Once a time relationship is established travel could be determined.
• In early times written records were not well kept but with dates for related generations we can make very good guesses.
• Names
• More than likely these are the most necessary to complete the project.
• Traditional names from European origins are necessary eg:
• Scotland - son of Donald is MacDonald.
• Denmark - son of Lars is Larsen.
• Ireland - is a little different, the O' is grandfather as in O'Brian.
• you get the idea
With a few more facts added the project becomes an informative and thorough reference.

Some questions maybe interpreted as very personal and private. Please rest assured of my intentions and read this document to the end and then make an informed judgment. Complete any or all fields as you feel comfortable. All information will be treated with the utmost care & regard, please also read the information at the bottom of the this page. It is included on THIS page and on the introduction. To assure any other respondants my intentions are honourable please distribute as necessary. Since you are reading this from another location please keep in mind that if possible you find the time to complete or distribute this survey on behalf or to another family member, they will also see the same information.

If you read this type of warning more than once it is my intention only to reinforce and assure you that this is being taken seriously and not to be judged otherwise.

A few points about the entry of the survey information first.

At all times please use Birth names, Given names & Maiden names. Nick names, pet names, second names, first marriage or second marriage surnames are not accurate in the grand scale. By all means please include this type of information in brackets or such if possible.
All dates should be related in the SI/UCT method adopted by the Canadian government, 1979. This standard was in compliance with the world wide standard of time notation. Our neighbours to the south, the Americans have very little intention of adopting this method and this is sometimes stressful when trying to properly exchange dates and times. They have a great influence on our thinking when it comes to things such as this (consider the Metric system, even England is buying into it). YYYYMMDD as in YEARMONTHDATE with no spaces and leading zeros intact is the acceptable method. I was born on April 4, 1956, 9:30AM this would accurately noted as 195604040930. This was recently revised on January 2, 1998, this becomes 19980102. With no spaces, no goofy marks, no commas, no problem. The final compilation is being done on a Macintosh computer and the dates will be accurate to just past the year 31,000 without modification, so I think we should do it right the first time.

This was written with a Netscape Navigator 3 client in mind. My site usage statistics indicate this is the current browser of choice. Eg: Of the last 250 hits, 186 have been Navigator 3.0+.
Please read the notes at the family tree news page. or here for further information. Internet Explorer version 3 should work fine but if you encounter any problem try reloading first. Let me know if the problem can be repeated.
On completion use the SUBMIT button to automatically eMail the form to me directly. Compiled information will be entered to the master dBase.

THE FAMILY TREE

There is so many names and people that compose the families of MOFFATT, MCLELLAN, HARTVIKSEN & HENDERSON.

Moffatt is my Mother's family. (Britain)
McLellan is my Father's family. (Scotland)
Henderson is my wife Carolyn's Mother's family. (Sweden)
Hartviksen is my wife Carolyn's Father's family. (Norway)

With the mixture of nationalities here can you imagine what my daughters family recipies would be like? :)

Each family is very diverse and varied with so many unknown details. I looked for some time to find the best method of storing the fine details of a family's history that it was very obvious that I should create my own. Recipe cards were the first, secondly sheets of paper in a binder seemed to be the answer but it never got updated between pages without erasing my fingers to the bone. There had to be a way a computer could do it without too much trouble!

I tried next some demonstration software designed to compile family histories and this was a complete waste of time. The stories of days gone by with such things as 3 marriages, 3 different towns along with 12 children (within one nuclear family) could not possibly work on the store bought versions. I had to make my own if I wanted it to work. Thank goodness for the FileMaker application from Claris! This was the answer from the start, no limits, any possible field combination and yet it worked flawlessly on a Mac. This is also reinforced recently with the new release of FileMaker 3, a relational data base that almost thinks for itself. Believe it or not but there is also a windoz version available, for those who need to keep extensive records this is the answer.
Yes, FileMaker 4.0 is out and it supports web published databases, this is not the answer for us just yet. We still have to get the web space set up and running, Geocities (the web server this is on) does not yet support this type of application.

Enough reading and on to the survey introduction? Click

Still reading?

The details I tried to capture were simple at first.

HOW MANY of us are there?

Let me tell you, I have no idea. Well that is a bit of a stretch. The stats are growing and to keep that posted here is not simple. The greatest numbers I have in order from about 520 names are from the Moffatt family, Hartviksen about 440, McLellan about 250 & the Henderson's come in at about 87.
I have pieces of paper scattered all over about this and that and these numbers could change drastically.

Every month or so I hear somebody speak of someone that I have no idea where they fit into the BIG picture. Speaking of the big picture, years ago the written word was not so written. This can be problematic in the sense of the information recorded was generally kept with the church. Births, deaths and marriage information was entrusted to the church where the event occured. Think about a recent birth of a child with a raging storm at the same time, during early Canada it could be days or so before birth or the baptism would later be recorded. When would the event be recorded as? The date of the real thing or the baptism? Hopefully both but not always. If you were born in England and were married in Canada, the churches do not get together and exchange facts. Ah, but we do. This is another very good reason to write this down.

Another good reason is our children. They are very curious people and rightly so. "Dad, where did I come from?", asked from a wee child while you are in the line up at the grocery store can be answered proudly, "From a fine and proud Scottish heritage!" This puts off the real answer they wanted to hear about babies and such, at least untill you can sit comfortably and explain it at home.

Tired of reading and on to the survey, yet? Click

If I may also add, over the years that I have tried to keep the records straight from paper to one computer to another, the job is still unfinished. I have lots to learn about the relational aspect of data base construction. The current version (of about 200 past) has grown to the point that any family member from no matter which branch that has any information recently available will be reflected in and on any place that their name is mentioned. Let me reword that. If your mother has another child: your father will have the same child, you will have another sibling, your siblings will also have another sibling, your grandparents will have another grandchild, and it gets harry after that. The data base as it stands figures all this out and more since revision number 20. Since revision 20 to about 130 I have added details such that if a family member divorced and remarried within the existing family we still can maintain a completly sensable record. This has happened only once that I know of and you never know if it will again.

At the moment there is a few pages here at the site about the family tree. I have refrained from publishing data on family matters to the general internet populous due to the uncertain nature of this information being used for other than research reasons. Do you agree?

As of this writing there is 7 pages here with the topic of FAMILY.

Listed is the current pages:
names and email addresses of family members (that I know of)
general family tree project info
this info page You are reading this now.
the survey introduction Read this next.
Survey part ONE
Survey part TWO
some random images (more work required)

NOTES on the form.

The form fields are simple areas to enter data and when sent via eMail to me are prefaced with the question and then your answer. To navigate within each field use your arrow keys. Each field has a maximum 255 charactor limit but some may only display 40 to nicely fit your screen.

To navigate from one TEXT field to the next text field use your TAB key or just click within the field area.

The table width is about 90% of the viewable area of your browser window. Some testing has been done and I would invite ANY comment you may have about this.

Misteaks or is that Mistakes, not to worry it happens, send it again and please tell me to ignore something or change anything that may have been sent incorrectly. Every bit of help is welcomed and I can only ask for your help. And of course your help as well, these meager few pages will contain some errors and I have tried to find them all.

MORE about the information supplied on the survey introductionpage.

****

If this sounds like a plee, it is. If you can find the time and grace to complete this survey on the behalf of someone deceased, I would be very grateful. As we all know the facts lost with the departed will never be found but if you have interesting facts and general knowledge of someone past, please share this information. If it is only the date or place of death and any thing such as a story from their or your experience with them. It gives us the warm and fuzzies that they are also remembered.

Several years ago my oldest daughter asked me for a school project (about the family and how every one is loved & such), "Dad, Mom told me her Grampa and Gramma's names, what were yours?" I was speechless. I had very little ideas other than Gramma and Grampa. What else out of respect would a kid call their Grandparents, and through the years why wonder otherwise?
With a bit of research and talking to those elders of the time I found amazing stories of days gone by. As of today most of those stories are going to be lost but the project was begun and I have tried to get as many peoples names as I could. Of those hundreds of names I have captured on paper I have come across only about 3 who have some record of recent ancestors.