The Goodwin news

GOODWIN FAMILY ORGANIZATION ELECTS NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS. All members were sent brief information on each of the candidates with the ballots. Forty ballots were returned with the following results: Candidate                         2 yr term      1 yr term Malcolm GOODWIN               37                 3 Robert GOODWIN                  12                28 George HOWE                         10                30 Alice Sharp                              33                  7 Murray SHARP                       28                 12 From these results, three (MG, AS, & MS) are elected for a two year term, and two (RG & GH) are elected for a one year term.

READER RESPONSE PROMPTS CHANGES IN EDITORIAL POLICY 1. Reader response is hard to get it seems, but when it is received, it is appreciated. [Please also see the Oak Leaves (Letters to the Editor) section starting on page 43 for related material.] One policy for which I have resisted change is the inclusion of married names, when known, in any reference to a female, even if the referred time is before the marriage occurred. I have 170 Mary GOODWIN’s in my database today, and the married names added to the end have been useful in quickly recognizing a particular Mary. But the practice is against standard genealogic practice of listing females by their maiden names, even after marriage. I do now capitulate!! Unfortunately, the conversion of the database will take a looooong time. However, I will try to sanitize the database as I go and try to avoid the "*Married-surname" appendages to female names to confuse readers anymore. Those of you who are so inclined (and do not have to make all the data changes) may now take a short break and rejoice. I still hate to see it go, but as of this issue, it is gone. 2. The next change is perhaps even more radical, but it is a very pleasant change for me. The sources of data will now be cited fully (so far as I have the information). Due to space constraints, I have been omitting the sources. From time to time, I have offered to provide sources on request. (The offer still stands, by the way, and for all articles previously published under my editorship.) My new reader-prompted policy is to include the references fully in the current issue. I have elected to list a bibliography, even though all information that would be included there is also included in endnotes or footnotes. The notes, end- and foot-, also indicate more specifically to which part of the information the source applies. Additionally, the endnotes or footnotes have extra comments about the source cited or, even better, comments about the source’s sources. They also show many of the references are scanty, and one may need to communicate with the contributor before finding the cited source. The remaining problems are space (fewer original articles, and more pure genealogical information) and format (endnotes vs. footnotes). MS Word for Windows, the word processor I currently use, is too smart for me. Each of the new members I entered in this issue were produced as individual articles and then added to the newsletter. Word recognized additional endnotes and renumbered them in sequence with those already added. And try as I might, there is no realistic getting around having endnotes at the end. The only way is to never join the articles into the same file, and as they do not each equal full pages, join them I must to avoid either scads of wasted space or a very jumbled mess of fill-in material in the midst of New Member listing. I personally prefer the footnotes to keep the information in proximity, but I have used both in this issue in hopes of hearing your preferences.

Included at the end of each reference is a series of five numbers. These are the confidence levels I have assigned to the source for that particular piece of information. You may not care to have this information, but before you discard it, please note that it lets you know if that particular reference included certain pieces of data. The first number relates to the first or primary person associated with the event. The second number relates to the second person. If no second person, only a period [.] appears at that location. The third number location relates to the date. The fourth number relates to the place. The fifth number relates to the memo associated with the entry. If any of these do not apply to the event being referenced, a period [.] appears at that number location. Again, if this is useless information for you, I can easily omit it. 3. The personal identification number (PIN) assigned to each individual in my database was previously given in parentheses after the individual names in computer generated sections. The intended purpose was to facilitate communication between readers and between readers and me. I have seldom received any correspondence that used a PIN, and we have had complaints that the PINs were confusing. So, as of this issue, they are gone. 4. Also gone for good are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ordinance dates. The readers to whom they were to be useful do not need them, and they are an annoyance to several of other faiths. 5. I had hoped to establish standard reference styles in this issue, but I have found another problem with my new genealogy software (which I still LOVE!). After several hundred entries of book titles with word first letters capitalized and all underlined, I find my program truncates references previously cited. Fine, but it also fails to cut off the underlining when the truncation ends within the underlined area. Thus, all subsequent notes appear underlined. Where needed, I have switched to all capitals for book titles to get this issue out. Surely hope I do not have to redo the entire source list. Well, on with it. Catching up on New Members this issue. Hint for finding women. From The Family Tree VII(2):12A, April/May 1997. Military records can contain information on women [never on active duty]. Although we all know about pension records being a wealth of information but few of us think to check the Remarried Widows Indexes. Also, look under "M" for "Mrs. " as when the clerk was not sure of a woman’s first name, sometimes they would file them there. With thanks to the FSGS Newsletter.

Any questions, problems or comments, please send e-mail to barryg@hway.net