Thomas Essman - Thomas Essman born 1934, "son of John and Nancy Essman...

William Eugene Essman, Sr - I was going to ask about Hudson John Essman.

For now I'll edit the orphan to "John Essman" and add Hudson John Essman as the orphan's TBD Essman father's brother.

@Erica Howton, I suppose I should do that just to show my gratitude for what you folks do. I've already typed enough just in this discussion to have created a whole new tree. The rub is that I don't know what's off limits and when I'm chugging along at top speed I get antsy when I hit a wall for no apparent reason. Maven B. Helms said I couldn't edit and Hatte Anne Blejer said just ask for help if I had something that needs doing, so. Do you have a short course on what I can edit?

Re Enter your parents and grandparents so you can be re connected to the tree. Advise when done.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, thank you for making that change, taking Hudson away from orphan John. Hudson doesn't need any more trouble. He left MO and moved down to TX and was hanged along with 40 other men in Gainsville in 1862 for being a Yankee sympathizer. They call it the "Great Hangings of Gainsville, TX." Google knows about it.

@Erica Howton, I'm in the process as we speak and I will let you know. I may be about to have a "sinkin' spell" about any time and may have to finish it tomorrow.

Great story about Hudson John Essman. I'll add the information to his profile.

@Erica Howton, I've got up to both sets of grandparents but need to add some children and siblings and will do that when I can access my wife's computer, tomorrow likely. I don't keep the file in my computer. Are we ready then?

Hudson John Essman

See the two images I have added to this profile.

Great Hangings of Gainesville, TX warrants a separate project. 42 men were hung. 150 were arrested at least.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, yes. You got it all just right. LOL. Poor ol' Hudson.

@Hatte Anne Blejer, it'll be interesting to see where that goes. I haven't looked into projects and not sure I grasp their purpose.

Now you’re connected back to the Geni World Family Tree. I merged Todd Boyd’s entry with yours for William Clarence Essman

You don’t need to re enter the siblings or parents, you can just edit them directly. Much easier !

I did not merge further - there’s another copy - until you have a chance to review.

So - rather than try to describe “rules,” just try an edit (whether needed or not) on one of the siblings you didn’t enter. You’ll see that because they’re in your “family group” you have the rights.

I find this chart helpful:

https://www.geni.com/company/privacy

BTW, I connect with you now a couple of ways. I always find the “in law” path more interesting:

https://www.geni.com/path/Erica-Howton+is+related+to+William-Essman...

@Erica Howton, holy mackerel, I can't even count that high and yet, I feel like I've known you all evening. The world just got smaller. How about that. This is right close to being overwhelming to an old guy like me. Yikes.

@Erica Howton, thank you for connecting me. It's so much less confining. Let me ask you, when you encounter an error in someone's file like Mr. Boyd, do you just matter of factly point it out or is that acceptable protocol?

Now, this is the “other” James David “Dave” Essman — it’s “not” merged as yet, because I think you want to see it correct first. So it’s just going to hang out here until you all are ready.

William Eugene Essman, Sr I’m bold and I’m experienced. If it’s my grandfather I just fix it. Truly, it depends on how active the cousin is, and what they know. Example: I recently connected with third cousins I never knew of. I had entered their profiles from public records long ago, but naturally that’s limited info. I “want” them to correct my entries directly, it’s their family. “Of course” they know the spelling of middle names better than I do, why should they wait on my data entry?

@Erica Howton, I have a nice family portrait of Isabella Angelina Johnson Gage in their front yard. Have you seen the picture? I use it as proof of my certification to full fledged membership in the Royal Order of Certified Arkansas Hillbillies. It's beautiful. Wanna see it?

@Erica Howton, Well, Mr Boyd served me up a couple of people who are not part of my family and I, of course, don't know what the ripple effects are when you just make someone simply disappear and yet at the rate that files are downloaded and spread around, I sense some level of urgency about letting errors just sit around on the surface where they're easy pickins for all those who want a complete tree without ever doing a lick of research. I don't know if you read what I said earlier or not but I spent a few days on Ancestry nosing around recently and found more "Essman" trees with gross errors than there are Essman people in the U. S. just in Ancestry alone. It spreads like wildfire.

:). Of course you should upload the photo of Isabella Angelina to her profile. My middle name is Isabel so I look after all the Geni Isabels. :)

I agree about getting your family correct on Geni: let all the Ancestry trees look “here” for info for their private trees. So drop your cousin Mr. Boyd a note with the corrections needed “and also” post here. He’s a Geni PRO so it’s easier for him to disconnect and correct. But he has his own Geni work to do also — trees are never ending. The idea is, third cousins can work in their corner & we thrash out together and collaboratively the bigger, more distant, more confusing issues.

Here we go - Hawkins County, TN.

Matilda Jane Counts

I’ve got Boone County AR cousins but that’s not close enough to Madison County IMO. It’s up on Newman’s Ridge we’re going to find more connections. I just feel it.

I have an “Ozark comedian” in my tree somewhere, I’ll try & find the story for you. “Treed by a cougar!” I think it was.

I'm taking a break from cooking.

You are my 8th cousin once removed, through the Livermore family:

https://www.geni.com/path/Hatte-Blejer+is+related+to+William-Essman...

@Erica Howton, thanks for the suggestion for handling the thing with Mr. Boyd. So, here on Geni we don't go straight to name calling on the first encounter then?:) Gonna have to study all this some. It's making me dizzy. he southwest corner of Boone County is only about ten miles away from the Madison County border. Looks pretty handy to me.

This has all made me a little numb. Maybe my brain will sort it all out for me while I sleep. Thanks for all your help and guidance. I'm headed in... 'night

@Hatte Anne Blejer, who stays awake and figures all that out? I'm amazed and yet confounded at the same time. Stuff's coming at me from all directions. I'm going to go sleep on it. Thank you again for all your help and consideration and goodnight. Again, Happy New Year. Enjoy it.

Hatte Rubenstein Blejer that connection doesn’t look too good to me.

Dorothy Combs Born & died in Hawkins TN

Child of a Cambridge MA couple ?

You think?

She’s an “unknown” not a Livermore. I’m disconnecting.

http://www.combs-families.org/combs/families/c-mas1.htm#children

Mason COMBS, Jr., b 21 Feb 1746/47, Overwharton Parish, Stafford Co, VA; d 1801-1808, probably in Hawkins Co, TN; m bef 1786, possibly in Surry Co, NC, Dorothy "Dolly" UNKNOWN, d aft 1828, probably in Warren Co, TN. Also recorded in Montgomery and Russell Cos, VA.

@Erica Howton Good morning. About your Boone County comedian, there was a visitor here in CO from AR last year who was jogging on a mountain trail above Boulder, I think it was, and he was attacked by a young cougar. He fought it off and killed it with his pocket knife. He made the news here and even got mentioned on one or more of the national morning shows like "Good Morning America." Do you reckon there's a connection?

@Erica Howton If I may, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. If not, you can tell me next week. :)

First, you urged me to complete a tree so I could be connected which would then allow me to edit and not be a curator leach and I did that. Then, as though I knew enough to relate you said, "I'd rather let the matches populate a profile because it's easier to take some off than it is to add all of them on there," or words that amounted to that idea. You suggested that I leave the two non-paying hitchhikers who don't belong in my family to Mr. Boyd since he's a "Pro" and more experienced and wouldn't mess that up. So, I've complied with all that and Mr. Boyd is apparently out of the office today and so I decided to do a dry run on a removal of one of the two just to see what the process is and got sirens, whistles, flashing lights and warnings that if I proceeded I would split the tree and not knowing if that's a good thing or bad I erred on the side of caution and backed out. Now when I go in to edit a profile I get no option to remove it from the tree.

The other half of that issue is that I have not been researching all sides of my pyramid and am not familiar with the various profiles behind me that spread out the further you go and am not in a position to know if all these people who can be allowed to populate my tree are legitimate or if I'm just going to get someone else's headache to weed out.

Then I got a page showing some merges that someone wants to make that seemed to be asking me for my permission to do the merge, asking me if it looked like they were the same profiles as though I would have the foggiest notion but it didn't have much data to compare and I've got a broad background in auditing so I agreed that they looked like the same people to me and that went away. On that same page there is a notation that there's 13 data errors but it isn't clear to me how to reconcile that or the other category of profile conflicts in two trees, I think, and I'm at a total loss as to why I'm getting that stuff because none of it involves anyone whose name I recognize, certainly nobody in my extended family of which I'm aware.

Most disconcerting is that I can no longer search for my ancestors John and Thomas Essman. The drop down box under the search used to be blank but now it's populated with a bunch of names and none of them are John or Thomas and I cannot type them in and go to their profile as I was earlier. I cannot get to anyone's profile in my line above my great grandfather which I think you or someone else added 'cause I don't recall adding it.

Finally, one of the main things I had hoped to accomplish was to get rid of "the wife" of my 4th great grandfather's "wife" which Thogmartin added and apparently totally without justification or documentation. Hatte Anne Blejer removed her from 4th ggftr but it didn't remove her from all of his kids profiles. I embarked on her removal and backed out before I "split the tree" but only after I had used the tool to see how she was related to me. Now, it seems to me that if she was the mother of my 3rd ggftr and wife of my 4th ggftr she would be my 4th ggmtr, right? Well she is my 10 cousin 13 times removed and I think she deserves to be removed from my ggmtr line, don't you? So, can you tell me what happens when I split the tree by removing someone and is it a really really bad thing that will ruin my life?

Sorry to drop so much on you. If you don't feel like answering, I'll certainly understand. If you decide to answer, let me express my gratitude in advance and thanks if you even read down this far.

You’ve got to take it one step at a time for me.

The easiest is - post the links or point me to the kids that need more cleanup so I can finish off what Hatte started.

The next easiest is - if you don’t know the answer to a request, don’t answer it. The point is that others may. It shows up for you in hopes you do. If you know it’s wrong - reject, if you can. You are not a PRO so you’ll have some limitations, including “tree splitting.” But don’t take my word for it, it’s been a long time since I wasn’t a Geni PRO.

You’ll have to give me more details on your lost ancestors so I can find them for you. But I specifically held off merging in John Throgmortin’s tree, until you told me that tree was now OK - see the post above. They’re probably on that branch?

Try this for me - not sure if it will work.

Go to James David “Dave” Essman & Rachel Leticia Essman

Actions > manager options > request management. Because they’re your direct ancestors in your family group, you should get automatic permission / management. That will help your ability to manage the family group.

@Erica Howton, ok. I requested management and it scooted Mr. Boyd over but kept him in bold face and me not. I'll break the other stuff down. I was afraid I was piling too much into one message. Sorry. Oh, I already said that, huh. Thanks again for your help. My memory is still fairly good so that's a plus. I rarely have to ask something more'n 4 or 5 times. :)