Tracking Down Colonel Leonard Marbury, and Wikipedia Edits in General

Originally I posted this in my "Little Scraps" blog, but decided after all to "carve it in stone" here in Glimmers, where my rants and quandaries usually go...

This whole thing started simply enough. I logged into Wikipedia to do a minor edit, and ran across one of my first old query pages. Spent about an hour trying to figure out if I could and/or should delete the thing; got side-tracked onto the subject of the original article (which is stub-quality, W's polite term for "unimportant junk"). Found a request for a citation (which I hope to goodness I didn't put there--caused myself this long, long detour, if so). Figured I'd do a quick look-up for a citation, or else rewrite the sentence so that it didn't need a citation (something like "attributed to so-and-so").

Well, someone had found a citation on the "fact" I was chasing (references to moon-eyed-people, an old myth that has been utilized in local history marketing). So... simple. Reuse citation. But there was no link. Next idea: do a quick lookup on the old source--lots of those ancient books are being scanned and made available these days. That worked! Got a hit.

I was able to find a book by Benjamin Smith Barton (a slightly later edition), but it does have the reference to the moon-eye-people, and is quite likely the source that started the "fact" (or myth) being repeated in local history books and pamphlets down through the years.

Next plan: link that source, and cite it. Simple enough, except that I don't like a plain link as a citation. Links are so often broken. I like to cite the book and page number, if possible. But this presented a new problem. The numbering sequence in the old book was odd. I found the page easily enough using Archive.org's search tool, but figuring out how to cite the page, other than using just a link, was more difficult.

The page is marked by small roman numerals. I wasn't sure whether to cite it using Roman or Arabic numerals. That took me into the realm of looking up "how to cite..." (sigh). I seem to live there these days. I am wearing out Google search on how to cite (for my Civil War book).

Not much luck. The three tutorials I checked didn't cover this exact case, but one came close: http://www.referencing.port.ac.uk/docs/cite6.php#8 . It said that if a publisher uses Roman numerals in the preface, then cite using Roman numerals; if you cite in Arabic numerals, it will indicate that the page is in the main text, not the preface. Good enough.

Except... that it's still complicated. In this old book, there are at least three sections that use Roman numerals. In the first two (a patronage page and a preface), the sequence is continuous, so, no problem. But then, the book has another section called "Preliminary Discourse." It starts fresh with a sequence of "i" in Roman numerals. After that section, the text/main book starts on page one (Arabic numeral one).

Now, anyone looking up my citation would come to the first matching roman numeral (in the preface) and decide, "That's wrong! The fact is not in this source." So... should I somehow designate the section to let readers know they should continue past the preface, but not go on to the main text? I decided this would work.

[Solution]: Benjamin Smith Barton, New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, (Pennsylvania: for Benjamin Smith Barton by John Bioren, 1798), "Preliminary Discourse" (follows preface), xliv. https://archive.org/stream/cihm_42881#page/n75/mode/2up

It's an unconventional citation, maybe, but I think people could then find the page, whether via the link, or by looking it up in a paper copy of the book, if available.

This source was better than expected. The author, Benjamin Smith Barton (Wiki article) was a doctor, a naturalist, and a professor in Pennsylvania--and he seemed to be an expert in his field for the times, not a quack. But, times were less exacting (the Age of Enlightenment notwithstanding). Here's his quote:

 "The Cheerake tell us, that when they first arrived in the country which they inhabit, they found it possessed by certain 'moon-eyed-people,' who could not see in the day-time. These wretches they expelled. This curious fact was communicated to me by Colonel Leonard Marbury, a very intelligent gentleman, who has put me in possession of much important information concerning the southern Indians. Possibly, the moon-eyed-people scalp. The term hunter is left ambiguous (Barton xliv)." 

(It goes on). As far as the quality of the author's knowledge (taking the document image at face value, assuming that the book really is a period book scanned from an original in the Library of Congress): Barton was legitimately a Colonial-era professor, and was making an honest attempt at presenting a true history of the natives of America. He did make a technical error by saying "The Cheerake tell us..." when actually, Marbury told him that the "Cheerake" said it.

Since Barton attributed his own knowledge to a conversation with Colonel Leonard Marbury, I did a quick search on Marbury, to see what his knowledge might be; and I could see, by previous edits and citations, that I wasn't the first one to go this route.

My first attempt at identifying Marbury was Wikipedia (as it usually is, my favorite source for quick lookups); not much help this time. It appears that there is an argument among users as to whether Marbury merits an independent article.

Next, I tried a general search on Google. Most of the results looked like carbon copies of each other, but this hobbyist/historian's site had a historic marker for Georgia:

Historic Markers Across Georgia: Battle of Brier Creek - Mar. 3, 1779
Short URL: http://bit.ly/Lat34north_GA-Hist-Marker-Brier-Crk-1779

I've used it before, because it does have markers to some pretty obscure, local events and historic sites; which, though obscure to the rest of the world, are nevertheless important to the local historians, marketers, etc. Unfortunately, he doesn't distinguish between state-erected markers and privately placed markers; you have to judge by the photos. The structure of the site is difficult (navigational problems). I'm not happy with the long URLs, full of "%" and such like--so I shorten them using Bitlink. I'm always a little worried as to whether I've accessed a permalink or a temp. Also, the site or site host seems to be an offshoot of user pages on Waymarking.com (or maybe some of the users migrated from or merged into that site; I find broken links when trying to backtrack to a source).

But back to the subject, or rather, the offshoot of my original subject. It appears that Colonel Marbury was a colonel in the Revolutionary War. Now, having done lots of research in Civil War history lately, I've realized that colonels are lowish on the totem pole of official records (but do occasionally write up good reports); and are high in the esteem of foot-soldiers, who are likely to be under the immediate, direct command of colonels. And colonels are typically out there in the field; so quite likely, this Marbury (if the historic marker is correct) ran into a Cherokee or two during his field trips. The thing I like about colonels, is that you can use them to follow your particular soldier, if you're researching one. I mean, the general may be sitting up there in Chattanooga or Nashville or wherever, but the colonel is out there slogging through the mud in front of your guy. So... you can sometimes find out what battle your soldier may have attended, if you can track down his colonel.

Now, whether or not he's a reliable source as to what the Cherokee believed in 1797 is one thing. Who can know? But he is surely the source for how the "fact" (or myth) came to Barton, and Barton is the source who put the fact in print; and if nothing else, the whole thing proves that, once a thing is put into print...

Which reminds me of the saying, "It's not carved in stone"; which always makes me laugh, because of the numerous errors I've seen carved on the tombstones of ancestral ladies whose ages do not come anywhere near to the age that the earliest census records of their existence imply them to be...

Then I went back and tried to read Wikipedia's guidelines, but got tired of learning terms like "snowball," "sockpuppet," and "speedykeep." A lot of controversy seems to be generated over new article titles (though it never ceases to amaze me that Wikipedia has no objection to reams of trivia about why Elvis smeared peanut butter on his toenails, or whatever). That being said, Wikipedia is still my first go-to on every subject under the sun!

Then I was going to ask one of the guys who did edits on the delete page and invited comments, but I could figure out where to comment on his user page, or whether he was still inviting comments after three years, or whatever.

So... Now my curiosity is piqued and I'm eager to know whether this Marbury guy should remain in the Who's Who of anything at all. But if he was even a minor figure in the Revolutionary War, seems like someone here or there will be desperate to find some reference to him for whatever little project they've got going. And I've forgotten all about the moon-eyed people. The whole Marbury thing has become more important to me than the myth of the moon-eyed people, which can't ever (at this point) prove to be anything other than a myth (outside of DNA and anthropological studies).

And I'm wondering what kind of medium-sized animal just whapped up against the side of my house at 4:15 a.m., in what sounded like a probable struggle, though it made no cry of any kind. That was scary.

I had more thoughts, but... it's late, I'm tired, and I really need to get to my real work, typing up some stuff for a company which actually pays me. I have procrastinated long enough...

Let's pick this up again later...

Image Search Default: Lowest Common Denominator

Is it possible that, of seven billion people in the world, not one of them used the tag "mystique" for an image, other than those who tagged the word as a blue female comic-book-and-cartoon character? Or have I found the weak link in both Google Images and DuckDuckGo? It seems that both search engines must default to the lowest common denominator...

When I did an image search on Google for the term "mystique," a full page of blue females came up. This is happening more and more often, as I search common words, only to find that some film or cartoon character has hijacked the word. It occurred to me that this was merely a Google bias, so I tried DuckDuckGo. Same result (though fewer images). DuckDuckGo did offer alternates in the form of certain old black-and-white films.

I don't know if it's a true search result, or a sad sign of the intellectual limits of modern society, that no images are considered to be filled with mystique, but that the definition of "mystique" (if we are to go by image alone) is "blue female in skin-tight jumpsuit."

Windows 10 - my first experience with Windows Phone-Tech Support. Meh.

I took the plunge. I upgraded to Windows 10. The devil kept asking me to do it. And now, I've just had my first experience with Windows phone-tech support. Meh.

Microsoft products are notoriously user-unfriendly, perhaps because so many features are generic, and are intended to work over a variety of apps, instead of being designed for one app, with specific, intuitive features. I, a lover of computer technology (in theory) have grown to fear technology (in practice).

In spite of my lingering fear of technology ~ and perhaps because of my love for some Utopian idea of it ~ I accepted that twenty-fifth offer from the Devil Himself and upgraded to Windows 10. I actually did this because my niece kept bugging me to do it, saying, "It's free! You'd be crazy not to!" And because my late Daddy always said, "Dang, girl! You always take what's free. You take a b'iled monkey, if it's free!" (That's "boiled monkey," for those of you outside of Appalachia).

After installing Windows 10, my first impressions weren't totally negative, as they often are with Microsoft products. Still, I had some issues. Windows 10 claims to let you add multiple email accounts. That option really just lets you add aliases. Sounds good in theory; but in practice... The "aliases" don't seem useful. Only certain email addresses can be used, apparently. The app refuses to accept my main Yahoo Business account, or my Windstream (ISP) email account. It accepts and recognizes my GMail address, my Hotmail address, and an alternate Yahoo Business Mail address. Clicking on "Mail" doesn't actually give me the option of using an alias, though. It just takes me straight to GMail. When I click on a link for a different alias, it treats the alias as a mail recipient, not a sender. Why would I want to send an email to my own alias?!

I battled these aliases for awhile, but realized that creating them didn't solve my problem. So next, I used the "Ask me anything" thingy that Windows 10 provides. "How can I merge two Microsoft accounts?" I asked. The thingy took me to a forum. Answer: two Microsoft accounts cannot be merged. One tech wrote that they can be linked instead, but the instructions lead nowhere (literally and figuratively). His instructions must not be for Windows 10. I was discouraged, but not devastated.

I hated logging on with Hotmail (which I rarely use). Still, I knew I could log on that way, whether I wanted to or not, and just feel inconvenienced about it. Frustrating, Mr. Spock. But not fatal.

Being stubborn, I persisted. I even managed to change my log-on to my main Yahoo Business Mail address. I thought that solved the problem. Truly, I still thought the problem was one of log-on preferences.  I didn't realize the problem was one of accounts. As I've learned, I have two separate Microsoft accounts, under two separate email addresses. In changing my logon, I only changed what I have to type to get to my desktop. Yes, I do enter my favorite Yahoo email address to log on--but it still doesn't give me access to the OneDrive account associated with my old Hotmail address.

I also didn't realize that the problem would be compounded as apps were added to my machine. The real problem became apparent after my first restart. The restart required a log-on (my Yahoo Mail address). Trouble is, that logs me into my newer Microsoft account, established under that email/user name. At first log-on, up came the option to install OneDrive on my computer.

Glad to do it! Wait a minute. My OneDrive is empty! Where are all my files?! See, I have used OneDrive online for quite some time, but ~ you guessed it. OneDrive (online) is under my other, older Microsoft account, my Hotmail address. I suppose the second account would require a totally different logon, if such is allowed in Windows 10. (Ack! Flashback to nightmares of merged forums and newly unrecognizable logons and passwords!)

The problem has manifested itself in this way: I have my old online OneDrive at Live.com, which is full of files and backups. I now have a new, empty OneDrive app on my computer, which is pretty useless unless I want to spend the rest of my natural life backing up old files and adding new files to this new OneDrive. (I can still get to the old online Drive and my files, thank God ~ just not through the OneDrive computer app).

Back to forum. How do I merge Microsoft accounts? Again, they cannot be merged. What to do? Call Microsoft. Yes, for the first time ever, I used Windows phone support. It was a complete washout. At first, Support just disconnected me, perhaps by mistake, or perhaps with foreboding, because the pre-recorded voice guessed what was to come.

Not to be so easily quashed, I called again. The second time (after hold please, hold please, hold please and literally the worst canned music I've ever heard) I got a human being. I started my question as a problem about logging onto Windows 10. "I've created two separate Microsoft accounts by accident," I said. "My new logon for Windows 10 is linked to one Microsoft account, but not the other. I need both." Sorry...

When the first phone-tech guy couldn't answer my question, he transferred me to another tech. Hold, hold, hold. Human! Yay? Nay.  I had to start all over and describe my problem anew. That's when I made a critical error. I did not tell him that I was having problems with my Windows 10 logon. I told him that my OneDrive app won't let me access my online files, because I have two separate MS accounts. He dispensed with my problem immediately: "Microsoft does not provide phone support for OneDrive." Thank you, goodbye. He was actually nicer than that, and seemed sad that he couldn't help.

Now, it occurs to me that, if I had thought to re-frame my question as a problem with Windows logon, I might have gotten some help. And now for another question... why can't these techs read my mind? Okay, silly question. But, why couldn't this supposedly intelligent, experienced fellow realize that my problem could be described as a Windows logon problem? I'm not the first user to stumble into the sad realization that two Microsoft accounts exist, and that multiple complications will arise from this.

Later, in my "start" folder, I played around with account settings. I've found an option which seems to have allowed me to "link" two Microsoft accounts. We'll see. If I have solved the problem, it is without any help from Microsoft Support.

Oh, and by the way... after the tech call, and after the restart: that search thingy will not work for web searches anymore. No ideas, there. Perhaps I have inadvertently blocked Bing.

Mild-mannered rant over.

My advice is, don't accept a boiled monkey, even if it's free.

Back in the Olden Days...

“Back in the olden days,” I used to say to my nephews and nieces… and so began my story. It started out as tongue in cheek. Maybe they’d expressed surprise at one of our old-fashioned household gadgets, or lost the remote control. “Back in the olden days,” I’d say, “we used to have a TV with buttons on it. We would get up and walk over to it and push a button. Then the picture would appear and we could watch TV.” I’d also act as interpreter for one of Mom’s stories, since they predated mine by a good thirty years; but I’d heard them often, and could tell the kids what she meant. Her stories usually started out, “Back in them days,” or “Back when we lived on the mountain…” Sand Mountain, Alabama, really did seem like an olden culture, of a faraway kind that Rod Serling might have transported us to. So, when Mom started talking, I'd butt in with, “That’s another name for a mule,” or “it’s a coal-burning stove,” to help the kids when they got that distant, puzzled look. My poor mother is over eighty now, and life in the olden days really does seem olden now. Technology has passed her by, and nothing irritates her more than “them kids a-tweetin’ on their Twitters” all the time. One day, in the middle of my olden-day story, I realized that “olden days” was no longer ironic. My explanation of a thing had entailed two or three other definitions to back up the original one. This was many years after the date that my nephew had looked at me in surprise and said, “They had record players back then?!” (“Yes,” I had explained. “We used dinosaur teeth for the needles.”) I had not had to explain to him what a record player was, or a needle. We still had that frame of reference in common. My only consolation in knowing that I had crossed over some threshold into the truly “olden days,” was that my nieces were now carrying on the tradition. One day my 25-year-old niece came in looking bewildered. “You’ll never guess what my kids never heard of!” (talking about her classroom). That’s the day she began her first story with, “Back in the olden days…”

See, that's why I hate technology... !

A rather terrifying thing... I'd just spent half the night updating my blog labels ~ streamlining, deleting. Maybe I made my blog less navigable, but there was a gist to it. I thought I might switch gears, broaden the theme of the blog. Well, really ~ I just got tired of tech stuff. That was the theme of this blog: Internet history. Just my own personal history ~ the 'Net and all things tech-y.

At one time, I needed this blog. That's how it all started, as therapy. I wanted to tell how I started my first web page: all the trials and tribulations of building it. The frustration of not being able to make the Web do what I wanted it to do. I wanted to tell about brick walls and detours; the many things I've learned. I wanted a record, too. I was tracking down a memory, wasn't sure when I'd changed a host or somesuch.

I also needed to tell how a certain forum had impacted my life ~ in a good way ~ and how really rotten it was when the forum just... went away (back when About.com trimmed the fat off their list of topics and fired all those guides).

I guess the therapy worked. I got over it. I got side-tracked. The need to tell my story has faded away. It doesn't seem so important now. I grew tired of the theme. I'd been thinking, for some time, why not let the blog be about all things dinosaur-ish? not just tech.

And now to the terrifying thing...

I'd double-checked and deleted a couple of obscure labels ~ just cleaning up a bit. Then it happened. I clicked the "Posts" button. No posts appeared. "There are no posts," it said. No posts. 117 posts, gone in an instant. Into the twilight zone. That's what I thought. I clicked again. Nothing.

Well, if it had been a permanent delete, it wouldn't be the first time. That's how life is, in the Age of Technology. Thankfully, the posts were not gone. The blog was not wiped clean. It was just a gremlin, one of those bizarre little glitches, a momentary fluke. But it might have been truly terrifying. Not for the rest of the world, of course. Just for me. The Lone Blogger. I don't even know why anymore. Computers! How they've simplified our lives... (Ahem. How they were supposed to, that is.)