As you start this walk-through Tour, you are viewing the Home Page.
NOTE: USE ONLY THE LINKS IN THIS UPPER WINDOW - DO NOT USE ANY OF THE "REAL" LINKS IN THE LOWER WINDOW.
At the outset, we want to give you an overview of what this tour will demonstrate.
You are now viewing the top of the Home Page of this multi-page web site. Immediately below the title (Giering Family Trees) and subtitle (HOME PAGE) is the "Main Menu". This five option menu allows one to traverse to one of the remaining four main pages plus the Search Engine. This Main Menu appears on each of these other main pages. Note that the HOMEPAGE option has a different color combination. This indicates that the page being viewed is the home page. When this Main Menu is viewed on one of the other main pages, that page's option will then have the different color combination.
Immediately following the four-item MAIN MENU is a eight item HOME PAGE MENU.
What you are now looking at are the first four items in that eight item menu. Since you are taking this tour, we can assume that you arrived at it by clicking on the "First Time Information" option on this Home Page Menu. While we will be using the Main Menu in this tutorial, please familiarize yourself with the options of the Home Page Menu for future reference. Following the home page menu is a statement of MISSION AND GOALS. While the Mission and both goals are important to the understanding of the contents of this web site, the second (as listed) goal, Medical Information is considered the most important of the three items.
Now return to the Main Menu.
There are two basic document types found on this web site: Individual/family worksheets and family tree chart pages. Each of these two have a "main document" for that type; these main pages are the subject of two of the Main Menu choices. The final two Main Menu options (The Support/Help pages and the Search Engine) will not be discussed in this tour as it is believed that all visitors will know what is contained in those sections.
The first of the two basic document types that will be discussed, via its Main Page is the set of chart pages.
The document page you are now viewing is the Offspring MAIN CHART page. It also has a copy of the Main Menu, but the Offspring Chart option is not available (it is a different color combination) as you are now on that main page. Immediately following the Main Menu are the six main Chart Page Menu items. It is suggested that, after the tour and at your leisure, you become familiar with these Main Chart Page items, especially the section on printing and pasting the chart pages together. We will be discussing most of the contents of these options during this tour. Note the option "FINDING THE START OF THE KNOWN FAMILY TREES".
Note that there are two columns of family tree information. The left column contain family lines that originated in or are still in Germany. There are two things significant about the information in this left column. 1) Indented names in the same family group are sub-lines of the same actual family line. 2) A right arrow indicates a sub-line that continues in a location other than Germany - The USA, England, South Africa, etc. Eventually it is believed that all will somehow be interconnected into one composite family tree. In the meantime, they are separate. Note the item for Ludwig Giering (New Castle, Pa.) in the right column. While his ancestors were from Germany, Ludwig emigrated to the USA.
This is the first page of the set of pages that includes the complete (as far as we currently know it) family offspring tree starting with LUDWIG (AKA Louis); this is the root of this family tree even though. He came from Dornstetten in the state of Württemberg, Germany. This shows that Ludwig had at least two Brothers that probably remained in Germany when he emigrated.
It should be noted that these chart pages are designed to, not only be viewed online, but also to be printed and pasted together to make a large wall-chart of the family.
Following the line to the right from Ludwig one finds a "page link (F21)." Here one finds the list of his offspring. We know of twelve children. Four from a first Marriage and eight from a second. Of the twelve children, we know of further offspring for only ten of them Note the line for Christine and follow it up to its conclusion. We note that, she has a married name of Lenning and she had six children, one of which died early (with no offspring). Then return to Ludwig's offspring schart and follow the line from Sophia) to see that we also know her last married name (Higgs), but she had a daughter by a previous Marriage to a man named SEAWALD. Now return to Ludwig's offspring chart.
One of Ludwig's children for whom we have offspring information is (Rachael) fredaricka. Follow the line to the right from her name and the list of her offspring is found (it may be necesary to use the vertical scroll bar and/or the down arrow to display the complete list). Note that above that list is a number and a name. We will discuss the number later in this tour. A non-Giering name over an offspring chart indicates that the children in the chart are from a union in which the children bear that name. In this instance Rachael married a man with a surname of STROBEL. You will note that she had eleven children. On only four of them: Lillian, William, Edna and John do we have further information. However the page is not wide enough to continue this family tree. Return the mouse arrow control back to the top window by clicking anywhere on the tour guide window. We draw your attention to the four links to the right of the four offspring: H42 for Lillian, H45 for William, H47 for Edna and H49 for John. Please note especially the link identification to the right of William's name (H45). This is the link to the continuing page for this family tree.
And this is it. Specifically the point displayed is the offspring for William (note the H45 link on the left of the identification number). When tracing a family tree backwards, this (H45) link identification enables one to journey backwards to a previous page until the root of the tree is located.
Use the arrow or the scroll bars to surf through this chart page to the right. You will note that there are no link notations on the right margin of this page as there were on the preceding page. That's because the top of this family tree is located on this page. Remember the four offspring (of Rachael) for whom we had additional information - there were four horizontal lines, each terminating in a link, from Rachael's offspring chart to this page.
The upper most horizontal line on the previous page extended from Lillian and ended in a link identified as H42. We see that she married a man named HOUSTON and had two children, Nell and Thomas, and while we know their offspring we have no further information (again as yet).
Now lets see the offspring line for John Strobel. Again use your mouse and surf the chart page to the right an see that again the top of this tree ends with a person named GARRETT, son of Steven Strobel.
Before we leave this part of this chart page, surf left and, if necessary, surf down a few lines. You will note a series of vertical lines on the left edge. As was noted earlier, these chart pages are designed to be printed and then glued together to make a large composite chart. Since the printed version will not allow for linking, these lines trace from one page to another - in both directions.
Now we want to return to the offspring chart for William. Scroll (if necessary) and we draw your attention to the identification number over the set of offspring for WILLIAM(J); it is 017_099. We will be discussing this later in the tour. Now return your mouse arrow control back to the Tour Guide window.
When you have perused this offspring chart to your satisfaction, we are ready to proceed. We wish to return to the main chart page. Normally we would use the BACK key of the browser three times to get back to the main chart page menu, from which we can make use of the Main Menu. There is, however a "quick and dirty" way to get back to the Main Menu. We draw your attention to the top of the chart page being visited, there is a link to "Main Chart Page". By using the mouse arrow and clicking on this link, one immediately traverses to the Main Chart Page and the Main Menu is available.
We are again visiting the Main Chart Page and we notice that the Main Menu is again available. This time we want to select the "Index of Names" menu item.
Now the screen displays the "Index" main page. You will note that again the color combination for the "Index of Names" option is of a different color indicating that this is the page currently being visited. In addition to the Main Menu and immediately below it is the "Main Index". This main index is merely a list of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Every name for which we have any information is listed in the index. All of the names are grouped by the first letter of the name and each person is listed as many times as that person has names (other than the name Giering). For example Rachael (Giering) Strobel, whose offspring chart we saw a few moments ago, is really RACHAEL FREDERIKA Giering. She can be found under FREDERIKA and STROBEL as well as under RACHAEL.
To find the group of names with the same starting letter, a visitor clicks on that letter in this main index. For this tour, we're interested in the letter "R" (for Rachael) and visit the list of names starting with that letter. By scrolling down the list, we see that Rachael Frederika is the very close to the top of the list. By clicking on Rachael's name we visit the detail summary (we call it a worksheet - all worksheets contain the details for the person or family for whom they are written) for Rachel Fredaricka.
This page is Rachael's worksheet. It starts with her name at the top (it is her Maiden name) followed by her identification number (015_039 - it is also known as her page number). If you are interested in how this identification number is constructed and its meaning, that information can be found through the Help Menu found on the Support Main Page (we will be discussing more on this identification number later in this tour). The next line identifies the last date a change was made to this page (AKA worksheet). The complete catalog of changes made to any given page is available by viewing the document source information.
The next item (pink colored background) is information on parents. At left of center are the two parents of the Principal for this worksheet: Rachael and on the right are the parents (if known) of the spouse. Ludwig and Christina are Rachael's parents and Wilhelm and Louisa are Herman's (her spouse) parents. We draw your attention to the fact that Ludwig was 49 years of age and Christina was 35 when Rachael was born. The worksheet for these two people is found at/with identification number 014_025. This is a link and one can view that worksheet by clicking on that identification number. There is no worksheet identified for Wilhelm and Louisa as they are not part of the Giering Family. In those instances where spouses (non-Gierings) are known and there is information available at some other web site, the URL for that information would be listed here (as a page number).
The next set of information (background color is yellow/gold) deals with the principal (the person for whom this worksheet is being constructed) and that person's spouse. In both cases the name is listed with the statistics on that person (in worksheets for more recent individuals, the statistics information would include, if known, the E-Mail address. In the center is the marriage and possibly (if necessary) divorce information. While most of the acronyms are known (if not they are defined in the Glossary of Terms document found through the Main Support Page), POI stands for PLACE OF INTERMENT. As much detail as is known about the burial site, to include lot and space number etc. is listed here.
Next comes the children (this section of the worksheet has a background color of green). They are listed in groups of five children and, where the information is known, they are listed in chronological birth order. Below each child's name is either 1) the set of statistics for that child OR 2)the worksheet page number (the child's Identification number) of the unique worksheet for that child. Generally the only time when both pieces of information are present is when no information on the child is known. If only the statistical information is known, only those items are present and no page number is available as none exists. If information beyond statistics is known, only the page number link is displayed and the statistical acronyms are not displayed.
You will note that there is a subsequent page for Lillian (the third child). No additional information is available for either Herman or Laura as they died in infancy. While additional information is available for Florence and Helen, it was not considered voluminous enough to start an additional worksheet (it is included in the commentary for this worksheet.
To indicate how the worksheet page number functions, note the page number for William H (in the second set of five children). It is 016_053 and is coded as a link. In this second group of five children, there are subsequent worksheets for William H., for Edna and for John Roy. In the non-tour environment, when one clicks on William's link, the top of the worksheet for William H. Strobel will be displayed. We could actually peruse William's worksheet if we wished at ths point, but we'll leave that to you, the tour member, to do in the future.
As you remember, Rachael is William's parent. To get back to Rachael's worksheet one could click on her page number found under her name as William's parent. An easier way, however, is the use of the back key of your browser. Let us now return to Rachael's worksheet and page down in it until the SOURCE information (following the last set of children) is displayed.
The main portion of information for a person's (or a family's) worksheet is found in the three color coded sections. Following the children is any additional information known about the persons enumerated in the worksheet. The first of these is the SOURCE information. This should identify the various sources of the information contained in the worksheet and is designed to aid in future research whenever a conflict of information occurs. This source information will be as complete as possible. After the table that shows what a specific source action deals with and when it was received, is the detail of what the actual source is or where it's located.
Following the SOURCE is all known occupation information for any person listed in the worksheet. If resume's are available, here is where they are included. Later in this tour we'll see an example of an extensive employment history included at this location in another worksheet.
Next comes any address information. If multiple addresses are known (we'll see an example of this in a few moments), all of them are included. In this instance, all we know is that Rachael and Herman moved to New Castle in the year 1899.
EDUCATION information would include (in this case there is none) all educational background data.
If any medical information on any of the persons listed in this worksheet is known, it would have been included following the Education section and before the COMMENTARY. While we have stated that we would not discus any of the HELP documents/pages, this is one area in which we digress. The Medical innformation is considered one of the most important parts of this web site! The importance is outlined in the medical portion of our Mission statement.
The COMMENTARY is the "catch-all". Any information that does not properly fall into some other catagory or is too large to be included in the table can be included here. If the information is voluminous or important enough, additional catagories could and should be generated rather than being included in the COMMENTARY.
This finishes the demonstration of the worksheet document types included in this Web Site.
We have seen two document types. While they are normally considered independent items, they are interconnected by links in both directions. Earlier we drew your attention to Rachael's Identification Number. You are now viewing the top of Rachael's worksheet. Notice again her identification number (015_039). You will note that it is coded as a link. Where do you think that link would take us? Let's find out. If we would click on the identification number.
VOILA!! We are back to the chart page and viewing that portion that displays Rachael's offspring. Note, it is on the right and you may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to fully view it. The identification number on the top of the worksheet (no matter how one has gotten to the worksheet) will get the visitor to the offspring chart from which the complete family tree for the individual can be "walked" - in either direction. On the top of the offspring chart for Rachael is her identification number once again. Also once again, it is coded as a link. You guessed it! Clicking on this link takes the viewer to the worksheet (in this case back to Rachael's).
Now it is time to view a few additional worksheets. Ones that contain some different types of information. To do so, we will need to access the index each time. On the top of each Worksheet, is a link back to the "Index of Names". Clicking on this link, takes you back to the main index (the twenty-six letters of the alphabet).
When you are finished with this worksheet, return to the main index.
We are almost finished with the tour of the Giering Family Trees and Genealogical History Web Site. We hope the tour has been informative and that you are now familiar enough with the contents and design of the Web Site to make further use of it. One of the Home Page menu items is a link to a form that can be used to furnish additional or corrective information. WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING TO ADD TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE FAMILY!
Now that you have become familiar with the Web Site, it is a good time to sign our Guest Book and, we might add, please give us your impression of this tour. when finished, use the BACK key to return to this tour. You will have to scroll down to re-find this place.
Thanks again for visiting our Web Site and a double thanks for taking this tour with us. Please enjoy your use of this Web Site. To return to the Home Page and continue to surf this Web Site, click here or return to the browser.
SINCERELY,
RICHARD (DICK) GIERING
Author