This site will be in more or less continual development over the period 2002 - 2010, with larger family trees being added first, and smaller family trees following. The very largest family tree is a Bostwick one, and that formed the main content of the first release.
The site should be useful to any genealogist who is looking for family tree information which includes any Bostocks or Bostwicks. A typical search might take the following form:
At this point the individual's record is displayed, and it will show all the factual data we know of the individual, such as baptism details, marriage, and immediate family. The family tree where the individual is placed is also shown, and may be selected.
Once you are familiar with a family tree name, then another means to access individuals is via the following path:
All the family trees are displayed in indented hierarchic sequence, with lines shown to help link children to their parents. The basic concept is to list children under their parents, in order of birth. Where a male child marries and also has a family, the family is shown directly under that child.
For all trees larger than about 45 members, the family tree has been divided into 2 or more parts. Thus for many individuals you do not actually see their family in the initial tree, but you see a reference to a further part of the family tree. When you select this part, then the individual is shown at the top of this further part to the overall family tree.
The top level family trees follow a similar principle of showing the parts of the tree as an hierarchy. In this case the hierarchic link does not necessarily show a parent/child relationship, but the link does show an ancestral link, which may be of several generations.
All family trees except the top level trees have been limited to about 45 members. The several reasons for keeping to this limit are:
At this stage there is a single narrative section covering the story of how the Bostwicks became established in America. The narrative section is written as a book, including a 'Table of Contents' which enables access to each main section in the book.
Wherever it makes sense links have been provided. The convention that a link has been set up is that the selection text is shown in blue, and is underlined. It is our intention that all links shown in this way should be active. I'd be pleased to hear back of any false links.
All pages of information contain a number of connecting links at the foot of the page. These always include the 'Home' page.
Remember that you can always use the WEB Browser's facility to view previously selected pages, or later pages, in addition to the links specially provided. When you use this facility you will also be returned to the position within that page where you were last positioned, which can be helpful.
Another way of holding position in one window and also following a link is to click the link with the right mouse button, and then use the 'Open in New Window' option.
Please note: all dates are shown in the English format dd/mm/yyyy.
Further standards for showing information are:
Attention has been paid to the appearance of printed information, though all printing is achieved by standard web browser facilities.
In particular, the family trees are divided into parts, which should each fit on to a single A4 sheet of paper, so that each family tree can be printed off as a set of its parts, in a presentable manner. The narrative section is divided up per the Table of Contents into chapters with subsections. Each subsection is a separate HTML page, to avoid long download times. This means each subsection needs to be retrieved to print a chapter in full.
Individual's records may also be printed. They need to be printed separately per individual.
You will notice that each HTML page is in fact a frameset including the main part, which is what you want to print, and a bottom part containing the navigation buttons. To print just the main part, the easiest option is to use the Right Mouse in the window, and select Print.
The size of font used in printing depends on your browser settings. In particular, if you want to get more on to a page, particularly where the names index is concerned, you may use your web browser's option to make the viewed text 'smaller'. This tends to make what is printed look more like what you see on the screen!
The general standard is to show place names as Town or City, followed by State (USA) or County (UK), and to use standard abbreviations for the state or county (eg New Milford, Conn for New Milford in Litchfield County, Connecticut, USA). However, in many cases the town may be too small to show in typical atlases, and in such cases the American county is also given. Hence a reference to the smaller town of Blodgett in Oregon would be Blodgett, Benton, Oreg, where Benton is the county name.
I have used the widely available Collins Road Atlas of the USA as my guide to whether a Town, State reference is adequate. If the town is given in this atlas I omit the county. If it is not, then I have included the county if I know it.
In order to save space and typing I have also used standard abbreviations for countries where I think the abbreviation is clear. On the family trees the standard has been to include a fuller reference to a place the first time mentioned, and then to use abbreviations on later references to the same place on the same page. Eg a first reference to Westminster, Ontario, Canada will give the names in full. Later references will be to Westminster, Ont.
Contrary to the usual way of storing and presenting family trees, I have not used any genealogy package, but have opted for full control of presentation by doing it all in native HTML. Apart from being able to present the information exactly as I choose to show it, this has the further benefit that responses are essentially immediate. There are no database records to be retrieved. This is just retrieval of the text (and pictures) as you see it.
The downside of this is that it takes longer to get information on to the system, and I simply don't support the notion of exporting data in GEDCOM or any other format. When you use 'View Source' that is everything there is. By all means copy the pages, but it was not designed with export in mind.
The detail information on individuals is given in their individual record. Wherever possible an indication as to the source of the information is given on the right hand side of the page. Abbreviated codes are used, for example 'PR' for Parish Register, or 'Will' to indicate that the information derives from a will.
The general practice is to show a single reference source for each line of information, which is either the source considered nearest to a prime (most reliable) source, or the source where all the detail is given (ie full date and location).
One day it is planned to revisit the reference codes, and make at least some of them active links to source material, eg census records should link back to a copy of the household census record itself. But this won't happen for a long while.
The full set of references used in the material to date is summarised in Reference Sources.
Something I added in October 2005 was to make my contacts in each family tree much more visible. In the top level of each family tree there is at least one part coloured in red. This means I have a contact in that part. Go to the part, and one or more people there will also be coloured red. Their individual record will clarify which reference they are. For the email references in particular, if you then visit Reference Sources / Email Reference Sources, you will then see that I give actual email ids, though I can't guarantee that they remain live, or even that the correspondent still lives.
For any problems in using this site, please just send me an email (Roland@Bostock.net), and I will do my best to help.
One tip: It will certainly happen at times that I have mistyped a link address, so perhaps you will not locate a mother from the child record. This probably does not mean that the mother's record is missing. My tip is to use another route to her, such as via the father, or via the family tree, or via the names index. Hopefully I got at least one of these linkage addresses correct. I should like to know about failed links as I can easily correct them when I know about them.