Documentation of the Hooker family consists of 2 parts – a genealogical database using Rootsmagic 9 and a narrative using WordPress content management software. You can toggle between the two applications. The master is the narrative. Basically, you open the narrative and can toggle to the family tree and then back to the narrative.
Think of them as 2 separate repositories of information that you can move between. There will be some overlapping information, but each repository supports a specific role. The genealogy database documents the family tree, recording facts about the individuals and the relationships between them. The narrative tells the story of some of the individuals and provides a historical context and resources enabling further research into topics you may be interested in.
The Hooker family tree
There are 2 ways to open the Hooker family tree: The button on the top of the screen, “Genealogy”, will take you there and normally to the root person in Pedigree view. You can always select Root Person in the upper right hand corner to get to the start of the Hooker family Every Hooker in the narrative should have a corresponding record in the genealogy database. The link will be the name in blue, underlined text. Clicking on that link will take you to that person in the family tree. To return to the narrative, just close the genealogy database:
Click on highlighted individual…
Opens the corresponding record in the Family Tree. From here you can browse the Family tree and when you are done, just exit the genealogy database and you should get back to the narrative exactly where you left off.
What you can see in the family tree
The tree allows you to go back in time and forward in time. It also lets you see a whole lot more information stored about these individuals. Study the screen. To the right of each individual are three icons, one to view the person, one to view the family spouse/parents and one for the pedigree. You can see these icons on the screen shot above and to the right of the individual’s name. Click on the image to expand it so that you can better see the icons.
The individuals shaded blue indicate the direct male line from Neal and Todd back to Thomas Hooker (1586). All the other individuals are shaded grey. If you have a good reason to need different lines shaded in a different color, get in touch with me. An example might be pink shading to display the relationship between the Hookers and Abraham Lincoln. Ultimately the decision will be Neal’s and Todd’s.
The icons
In every name box within the genealogy database there are three icons to the extreme right. Clicking on these icons will bring up different views of the ancestor in question. You changed the view simply by clicking on another icon.
The single person icon will open the view into an individuals life — facts like birth, death, residence/census, marriage, etc.
This icon opens the family view for the individual. There are 2 options here:
- Established family – e.g. spouse and children
- Birth family with parents and siblings
pedigree of the ancestor in focus. This is the default view. The chevrons pointing to the right and to the left allow you to manouver back into past generations or forard towards more current generations.
Name Index
This lists all of the surnames in the genealogy database together with the number of individuals sharing that surname. Click on a name and the subset of individuals with their full name will be displayed:
Select Sarah to view her entire record.
What the “+” means
Sometimes you will see a plus to the left of a person’s name in pedigree view:
It means that there are children in addition to the direct line showing in the pedigree view. Click on the + and see all the recorded children:
clicking on a name — like Roger Hooker — will take you to Roger’s entry in the database.
The Hooker Story
This part of the site consists of the history of the Hooker family. Mostly this is documented through publically available sources, some of which may be obscure but all are available on the internet. There may be some private stories and pictures made available by contributing family members. Every effort will be made to indicate the source, but no formal bibliography will be produced.
The pages are made using a template. The content of the pages will differ from page to page, but the framework will remain constant
The template
The template covers a number of design issues but what you will notice is the structure of the pages with the title on the left hand side with its sub-title. On the top left side and a series of buttons.
Many pages are long. Normally a Table of Contents will be provided at the top of the page allowing you to get directly to what you are interested in. Once you start scrolling, a ‘page up’ button will appear on the lower right hand of the screen.
The home button
The home button opens the following screen:
The direct line of male ancestors shown on the left is your main menu and you can keep coming back to it by choosing ‘Home’ from the menu bar at any time. However, since Samuel, for example, was Thomas’s son, there will be a link from Thomas to Samuel. There may be links to the other children as well.
How to
These are the pages you are currently reading. The aim here is to give you a complete guide to understanding the Hooker family pages. Suggestions for improving these pages most welcome!
Contact
The button will open a form for sending an email message. You are encouraged to take contact sending comments, suggestions, corrections, additions questions, etc. This method of contacting will generate an email and not be visible to anyone other than the site administration
A second way to give feedback is through the Reply option at the bottom of each page. This will generate a comment which will be displayed on the right hand side of all pages. It is therefore public and available to all to see.
Fun Facts
A frivilous page listing trivial information more or less relevant to the Hooker family story
Genealogy
This is the link to the Family Tree. Clicking on it will take you to the Roots Magic genealogy database for the Hooker Family.
Although you may not see it here, the direct male line back from Todd and Neal to Thomas Hooker is color-coded blue. The others are grey — at least until further notice
Resources
Here you will find listed all kinds of links to articles, books, videos, etc. that may be of interest. These references are available online. On the occasions where resources are not available online, they are quoted in situ with a reference to the work.
Many of the references are obscure or out of print. The organisation Internet Archive is a treasuretrove of scanned and downloadable documents, movies, music, etc. All are available for free. Have a look! Before you download, though, make yourself familiar with the site and the search options the site provides. For example, take a look at E. Hookers The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker.
Most likely you are not really interested in downloading and keeping a copy of the manuscripts, but you are interested in some of the details in it. This is where their brilliant search engine comes in. In the upper left hand corner of the site, there is a list of available tools:
The search is by key word. In the example below, the search in The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker is for the name ‘Joanna’ (daughter of Thomas). Within seconds, the Archive has found 8 references to Joanna, listing them on the left hand side of the screen. You can browse that list or select the triangle on the bottom of the screen to move to the next reference.
Finding you way around
In addition to the menus and the links to the genealogy database and the general search option, there are 2 more ways to finding your way around. You can access them here.
Tips and tricks
All images should expand to full screen view when you click on them. If you find one that does not, let me know and I will fix it. Clicking a second time will return the image to its regular size.
When you see a triangle on the left hand side of the screen and in front of a text, it means there is more to see. It is the same as ‘more…’ Once you have opened the text, cllicking on the triangle once again will close the text section.
Some pages are very long. As soon as you start scrolling, an arrow up icon will appear on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Clicking here will take you to the top of the page. Combining the Table of Contents with the Back to Top icon should let you navigate efficiently to the relevant parts of the pages.
The easiest way to navigate exclusively to the men comprising the direct male line from Neal and Todd back in time is to use the Home page as your main menu. This is not the only way to navigate. Links in the narrative (text in blue with an underscore) provide an alternative way to navigate and will take you to related individuals not necessarily in the direct line of ancestry. The direct male line links, however, are marked with Extra Bold Italics and are blue.
Any discoveries you make that might make navigation easier will be received with gratitude and implemented and documented.