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Note: Came to America 1730. [ NOTES ON THIS FAMILY TREE
THE BOOK: In 1931, the owner of Girard Press in Girard, Kansas, Harry W. Shideler, published "A History of the Shidler Family: From The Landing of John Shideler at Philadelphia in 1730 to the Present Time, August 1, 1931." It contained the results of research over twenty years. Eighty-one of the 154 pages in the book contain entries which make up a family tree that includes 1,590 individuals, descendants of John of Hanau and their spouses.
Each entry in the book more or less follows a general format. It begins with the birth, death, and burial information for the descendant. This is followed by marriage information and birth, death and burial information for the spouse. Then any available information on education, moves, occupation, accomplishments, and any stories are given and the entry closes with religion, politics, and current residence. Commas, semicolons, and periods separate pieces of information, but the usage is not consistent and the order of the information varies. In many cases, little of this information was available.
TRANSCRIBING: The text of the genealogy portion of the book was scanned into a file. A tree was created using Ancestry Family Tree (AFT) software and, for each entry in the book, the birth, marriage, death, and burial dates and places were cut and pasted into the appropriate fields for the descendant and spouse (if any). Any remaining information was placed in the notes field. Notes applying to the couple were placed only in the descendant's entry in the tree.
PLACES: There are occasional ambiguities in the book, particularly around places. If there is no additional text ("in," "of," "at," "born in," "resident of," "lives in"), it is not clear whether a place is the birthplace of the spouse, the residence of the spouse before marriage, the place of the marriage, or the couples residence in 1931. Also, information following the marriage information may apply to either the descendent or the spouse ("graduate of"). Where there is ambiguity, the ambiguous portion of the text is placed in the notes with quotes indicating that the text, including punctuation, is exactly as it appears in the book. (Where there is no ambiguity, punctuation may be altered and state abbreviations expanded for ease of reading.) The ambiguous place is not put in any place field. (On review, I've found inconsistencies in where I place the quoted text. Check descendent, spouse, and marriage records.)
Places in place fields have been standardized. There are four parts separated by commas: town, county, state, and country. Some parts may be empty. For American places, if the town appears, but the county is unknown, a "?" is used for the county. In a Sorted Place Report (AFT), these will be grouped together before the known counties. In Canada, if the town is known, but not the province, a "?" is used for the province for the same reason.
In the text, if a town name appears alone in an entry, but appears nearby (siblings, parents, cousins) with full information, I have picked up the missing information.
CURRENT RESIDENCE: If a place appears at the end of the entry, as a separate sentence, it was assumed to be the current residence and was placed, without quotes, in the descendant's notes. (In one case, this occurs with a deceased individual. Did it indicate primary residence?)
MY COMMENTS: Brackets ("[]") around text indicate my own comments.
ERRORS: There will most certainly be errors in transcription. If you have the book and find errors in transcription, please let me know at bailey222@earthlink.net. If you find information of interest in this tree, you may want to order the book. It is available on microfilm thru any Family History Center. The film number is 1321329 - item #4. (Thanks to Mary Jane McIntire for posting this information on the Shideler Message Board.)]
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