Organization of this Website
The following is a summary of what you will find on my website, how it is organized and the best way to search it. I use the genealogy program The Master Genealogist or TMG to store my data in.
The following Menu items are available at the top of every page:
- Home - The entry page for the website
- Site Organization: This page
- Surnames - Index of surnames from my TMG database
- Master Index - Index of given and surnames from my TMG database
- Families - A brief introduction to the primary families of my ancestors and those of my children with links to them
- Charts - Descendancy charts for many oldest known ancestors that have live links
- Exhibits - Photos of persons, events, homesteads, etc. that are linked back to these persons on the person pages
- Places - Places where events in my TMG database have occurred. This will include places such as births, marriages, deaths, etc.
- Search - A Google search form to search my entire site PLUS a filtered search form to search all names within my TMG database.
- Icon Key - A key to icons used on the site, generally used for photos.
There are links on each page that tie to other sections of my website and to individuals. Additionally and since the menus are difficult to use on small screens I have also placed links at the top and sometimes the bottom of many pages. By following these links you can explore the entire website. To navigate to a previous page, use the Back button in your browser or click on one of the menu buttons to go to another section of the site.
My Genealogy Database and this Website
I use the software program The Master Genealogist (TMG) to work with my genealogy data. In this database I have informaton on over 4,000 individuals.
This website has been prepared directly from my The Master Genealogist (TMG) database using another program valled Second Site. Second Site produces a number of different webpages that contain individual narratives or Person Pages for every one of these persons, along with lists of surnames and places, charts, exhibits and photo pages and also a search page. Extensive use is made of hypertext links which allow you to quickly move back and forth within the pages. Items that are linked will appear in underlined text. Most person and place names are linked.
For living people, most dates, any additional notes (other than spouses and children) and other facts have been excluded.
This data can be accessed through a series of indexes: the Surname Index, Master Index and Places Index. It can also be searched using a customized search form that allows filtering (see more below). Where a someones given and / or surname is not known, but there is information available for that person (i.e. where they were born), that information is provided and the name(s) is listed as "Unknown."
Note that for some people in the database there are other individuals named within notes, however those names may not be included in the Indexes. The Google Search Bar should find these names.
The Person Pages from top to bottom include:
- Persons Name.
- Birth and Death dates if known.
- Links to two pedigree charts with slightly different styles*.
- Father's name with birth and death dates if know
- Mother's name with birth and death dates if known..
- Marriages/Families including spouse and children. If there was more than one marriage, there are additional Family entries.
- A list of descendancy charts that their name is listed in.
- Additional information if available, unless living.
- Last date their entry was updated.
- List of citations, unless living.
- A photograph may also be displayed.
*For more information on the two pedigree charts see below.
Where available, photographs of individuals are supplied adjacent to their individual narrative on the person pages.
Note: Where the letters "RS" appear after a name it indicates that person had served in the Revolutionary War.
For living individuals, the additional information (below the Charts section) will be excluded.
For most individuals, there are icons located just below their name on the person pages that opens Family Explorer windows in the form of pedigree charts. These windows contains links to that persons ancestors and children. You can click on any of their parents, spouses or children to navigate to that person's person page . This window can be closed by clicking the x in its upper-right corner. You do not leave the page you are on when viewing this chart..
The second chart icon takes you to a new page where you can also click on the > to go back to an earlier generations.
Finding People
The Surname Index provides quick access to a list of individuals having a given surname.
The Master Index provides an alphabetical index of all individuals. Due to the large number of names, these are organized in multiple sets of pages alphabetically by surname and then given name. Married women will usually be listed under both their married and maiden names (where known). The Master Index includes name variations but links to the person's accepted name.
The Place Index contains a list of geographic place names. Clicking on a place name will open a list of individuals who are linked to an event (i.e. birth, marriage, death, etc.) that occurred at that place. If additional information is available for a place, an information icon will appear behind the place name. Click on that icon to see that information.
As noted above, you can discover people by looking them up through the Master Index and/or Surname Index pages but there are also two other ways to search my website on the Search Page: the Google Search Bar or the Search Form. These are found from the Search menu.
The Google Search bar can be used to search for anything on my website.
The Search Form provides a way to find persons in the website that came from the TMG database (that produced the website. These searches can be performed using a number of different filters to narrow down the names returned. Note that this form will only locate names found in my TMG database and not names found in other sections of this website. To search for a name that is not in the database use the Google Search Bar.
Charts, Images and Photos
The Charts page displays the list of available descendant charts. The descendant charts are for selected end-of-line ancestors. Within each individual narrative on the person pages there is a list of Charts that the individual appears on. Clicking on the link to the chart will bring up the chart, with the box for that individual situated in the upper right of the view.
If source images are provided with a citation or source, their presence is indicated by an icon. Clicking on the icon will display the image.
For photos on the Exhibits and other pages, you can click on the photo and it will take you to their person page. For those that contain multiple persons, hovering of a face may display the name of a person and clicking on these names will take you to the individual narrative for that person.
Copyright and Use
The descriptive narratives and most photographs on this website are my creative work product. These materials are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. You may copy, distribute, display these and make derivative works based on them only as long as you give credit to this website for their original creation.
The book A Dowling Family of the South and the booklet To Dowlings Who Served in America's Wars are not my works. Although I have permission to use the book A Dowling Family of the South, both are subject to and covered by standard US Copyright law. Use this material at your own risk.
Reliability of Data
Please recognize that not all of the information you may find here has been personally verified by me and some has been reported by reliable sources. You should verify it for yourself before you rely on it. Where available the sources are provided in the endnotes. If some of my information is incorrect, it will be corrected when reliable information is found and / or reported to me. If you have any questions or comments, need assistance, or can help identify someone in old photographs please contact me through the link found at the bottom of each page.
If you find any other problems with my website, please let me know so it can be corrected.
I hope you enjoy visiting my site and find something of value while here.
