About California Settlers Pages

About These Pages and Contacts

Background

So far I have done little original research. These pages represent the work Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, to whom I'm grateful for sharing their information. Most the sources are listed under the source links at the bottom each family page. I have removed e-mail addresses for these people to shield them from the spammers, but you can send me a message and I can put you in touch with them.

I have pretty much exhausted existing sources of information from family members and the Web. Any help in doing original research to find misssing links would be greatly appreciated.

This started off as a project to supplement the Sikes/Sykes Families Association Web Page by including a history the California branch the family. It quickly grew to include related families who were also early California Settlers.

Apology

As we moved back in time, I made a common mistake amateur genealogists, which was to take information no matter what the source at face value. As a consequence I have added to the confusion that already exists with genealogy databases on the Internet. These pages should be considered as a guide to doing further research which will verify and document the information here. We will try to find a way to indicate the accuracy of links as we move forward. Please let us know if you see mistakes.
See: The Use and Abuses of Online Genealogy

Sources

We started with information gathered by descendants the California Settlers listed here. It ranged from handwritten notes to manuscripts with detailed genealogies done by serious genealogists. It generally covered the period 1800-1950.

As we extended it back in time we were lucky to find genealogists for most family lines who had information covering the period from 1613-1850. One went back to 1263. Most the sources are listed under the source links at the bottom each family page.
Some the information was taken from Web sources with unknown reliability. We hope to differentiate those in the future.

We also have pointers to information at the Family Search Web pages. These are less reliable and have know errors, but at the time were the easiest means extending these pages with web links. As they become available we are adding links to genealogies at other sites such as Family Tree Maker and Roots Web. We welcome corrections and additions and will pass them on the original information sources.

Web Server - Advertising

We are using free Web servers which unfortunately insert advertising we have no control over. I'm in the process of getting my own domain name so the address won't change when a web server service goes out of business as Netscape is doing. When the price of Web services comes down a little more (we are of Scotch ancestry) we will start using a fee based service to avoid the advertising.

Page Design

We've tested these pages on Windows 95/98 with Netscape 4, Internet Explorer (IE) 5 and AOL 3; on Windows NT 4 with Netscape 4 and IE 4; and on Macintosh OS 7 with Netscape 4 and OS 9 and X with IE 5. We've tested printing with several HP ink jet and laser printers.

We removed most the Style Sheet commands because problems with some browsers. If you have problems, please send us e-mail letting us know the name and version the browser (e.g. AOL, Internet Explorer, Netscape) you are using. We will do our best to fix it.

Printing

Printing is always a problem. Some printers and browsers have different margin settings which you may have to play with to get the pages to print correctly. Try:
File > Page Setup
or Properties after you get the dialog box following File > Print

The page headers inserted by the Netscape Site cause printing problems with our page headers in Netscape 4. You can use Internet Explorer. I can also send you a copy the pages in a zip file so you can install them on your own PC .

Contact us:
e-mail to
Donald McBride contact info.

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last updated 18 Feb 2001