Explanation

Introduction
Infobases/Books
Infobase/Book (PDF) Library
Research
Surnames
Localities
Abbreviations and Symbols
Compiled Records
Publication
Format Conventions
Source Documents
Time Period
Emphasis

Introduction ] Infobases/Books ] Infobase/Book (PDF) Library ] Research ] Surnames ] Localities ] Abbreviations and Symbols ] Compiled Records ] Publication ] Format Conventions ] Source Documents ] Time Period ] Emphasis ]
 

WELCOME to our TREASURY

What's Here?

On this site [http://lindadow.net] you will find

bulleta brief explanation of how things work, which you are urged to review on the Help page before you do anything else,
bulleta Site Map, or table of contents, that gives you a concise overview of all the pages on this site, with direct links to each,
bulletsearchable extracts of infobases that I have privately produced for my immediate family (access to most of them is restricted to our immediate family).

These extracts are recorded in their native format as Adobe Acrobat © .pdf files (called Portable Document Format ™, or PDF for short).  More information about this file format and its use can be found on the Infobases and Help pages. There are over 450 PDF files linked to the pages of this site and its companion sites (over 200 can be viewed on an iPhone or iPad).  They contain approximately 20,000 pages and 3 GB of data.

At companion sites - http://ledow.net  and http://www.gwdow.net- you will find similar extracts of infobases and compiled genealogical data for the specific individuals and families that are color-coded on the Surnames page.

All sites include information about the research and document collection supporting these infobases and charts.

My research records contain a great deal of detailed information about hundreds of people who are still living.  To protect the privacy of those who have been very generous in sharing information with me over the years, I have made every effort possible to exclude from all sites all of this information,  except for their names and the year of their birth.  Where I lacked information about whether some people were still living, I have assumed they are for this purpose.

A treasury is a place for keeping or storing treasure. 

I have called this OUR FAMILY TREASURY because I created it as a place to store treasure for my grandchildren and their progeny - the greatest treasure that I can give them is my knowledge about their predecessors.

This material comprises my family history research. It was assembled, compiled and indexed during the thirty-four year period from 1984 through 2018.  Additionally, it contains photographs and document images, as well as autobiographical and biographical material, about me and my immediate family.

In 1984, I began doing family history research, motivated by an interest in finding a myriad of details I wondered about concerning my predecessors.  In the intervening years I have found a great deal of information and assembled over sixteen thousand documents about these people.

Now, at age 86,  I realize all this data still presents only the barest outline of these people's lives and there are many interesting facts and details that will never be found.  It has also become obvious in the past ten years that our society is changing in ways that will make it increasingly more difficult in the future to find and assemble this kind of information about people.  Privacy concerns and legislation preventing access to what used to be public records, increasingly will prevent people in the future from being able to find the kind of information I have found.

Additionally, current generations are more mobile than those in the past and fewer really permanent records (e.g., those that will be saved and made freely accessible more than a hundred years from now) are being accumulated about people.  The widespread use of computer records, instead of permanent paper records, is decreasing the chances of future researchers finding the kind of data I have been able to assemble; many, if not most, of these computer records will be purged long before anyone expresses an interest in finding and/or saving them.

It is a reality of life that unless you become famous or notorious for one reason or another, authors have little interest in creating a written record of the interesting, let alone the mundane, aspects of your life.  One can write an autobiography, but if authors have no interest in writing about you, it is unlikely anyone will have much interest in reading your autobiography! 

I have been an saver/accumulator all my life and I have kept a great many things relative to my life and experiences, as well as those of others, - documents and photographs that someone will have to face discarding some day.  Unless assembled and explained in some coherent manner, much of this material is meaningless to anyone other than me.  So at age 63, and as time and interest permitted, I decided to bring this data about my life and experiences, as well as what I know about the other members of our family, together in one place where it can be readily searched and located.  This material has been enhanced with explanations and insight, and undocumented details and facts that I am able to provide to future generations - the kind of details and explanations I wished could find to fill in the gaps in my research of my predecessors!

Much of this material has been assembled in modules, referred to throughout as infobases, with a separate infobase dealing with separate subjects or components of the story of each individual.  Infobases about each individual in our family are grouped with the caption Chapters in Dow Family History.   Infobases about my life are headed with the caption Reflections on My Life and Times.  
 

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