Broken Links, The Ephemeral Nature of the Internet

 The previous post serves as perfect example of the ephemeral nature of the internet. Here one day, perhaps gone the next. Or perhaps gone next week Or maybe next year. Or perhaps in a few years. One thing is for certain, if you are reading it online today, the day will come when you will not be able to find it. Or, perhaps what you are looking for is just misplaced because the URL was changed. This is what happened with the BGD in 2018 after it was restored by RootsWeb  following a ten month or so state of being offline. Many URLs were changed when the site was reinstated. Here we'll address the problem of Broken Links. The Brouwer Genealogy Database (BGD) and this website, Brouwer Genealogy, are both plagued by broken links.

What to do about these broken links?

I could spend my time continuously scouring and checking each of the 751 posts (to date) for broken links, and then repair them. I'm not keen on doing that. That's not going to happen. I'm not going to spend time doing that. However, you the reader, can help to do something about it.

Fixing or replacing broken links on this website can be made a bit more efficient than having one person (me) check through every individual post. You can help by bringing to my attention any broken links that you might encounter during the course using this website. Please do this by using the Comments section of the post in which you encounter the broken link. If you do not see the "Post a Comment" field, just click on the "No comments" link at the bottom of the post. Leave a comment pointing out the broken link. Blogger will notify me via email of your pending comment. When I see it (I usually check email once a day), I will put through your comment online, find a new replacement link, and reply to your comment to confirm that the link has been fixed. I may also add it to the Replacement Links and More page on this website.

Fixing broken links on the BGD is an entirely different matter. The BGD has not been updated since early 2016 and cannot be updated today or at anytime into the future. It is now an Archive, and will remain so, in its present condition until the day that it eventually disappears from the ephemeral internet. A day which will come, we just don't know when. (Although we have been given a hint that it may well happen). This means that broken links on the BGD cannot be fixed on that site.

Back in 2018 I created a page for this website titled, "Replacement Links and More." It is listed in the margin to the right under Pages. It's the second one down from the top. We will use this page to list new links for links that are broken within the BGD. Should you encounter broken links on the BGD, what I would ask you to, using the comments section for THIS POST, is leave a description of the broken link and paste a copy of the URL for the page on which that link appears (unfortunately Comments does not except hyperlinks. I'll copy and paste the URL that you provide to find the page where the problem is found). I'll then reply and acknowledge your comment. I will add a new link to the Replacement Links and More page. You can then find it there. The links are listed alphabetically. Again, I cannot correct the link on the BGD itself. I prefer that you use the Comments section for this rather than contacting me directly through email, simply because doing will so will create a log of broken link replacements right here on the website. Thanks for you help here.

Some exceptions: One, is that I cannot replace links that connect one individual on the BGD to another on the BGD itself. That could only be done by updating the entire site, and as stated, I cannot do that. On the plus side, so long as the site is intact, few, if any of this type of link should be broken. 

A second is the "Brouwer Photos" page and the "Images Off Site" page. Both pages are recent casualties of the ephemeral internet. The photos were housed on Google, on Album Archive, a service which they just recently discontinued. I do have the photos. They are not lost. However, I am not going to place them online again unless they are used within the context of some new post written sometime in the future. Many of them are probably found within the pages of this website anyway.

Of the documents found under the headings of "Notes, Research, Reports," "Index Extractions, and "William B. Bogardus Collection," most still appear to work, although I did find a few which are broken. I looked, but have been unable to find replacement documents in my files offline. Some may have been links to other websites, in which case, if that site or page is gone, there is nothing I can do about it anyway. Just another example of the ephemeral internet.

I will place a link to this post in the margin at the right under the heading Brouwer-Brower-Brewer links, which is right under Featured Post. In that way it will be easier to find. Thank you for your help with this.

As I said above, here one day, gone the next. Have no doubt, the day will come when the BGD is offline for good. When that day comes, it will not be replaced. The same is true for this website. In fact it has happened once already. This site was started in 2008 on an Apple laptop using Apple's blogging program. This was before they were calling programs, apps. In 2011 Apple simply decided that they were done with maintaining the program and providing the online space in which users could post and so they killed it. Here one day, gone the next. I found blogger, then an independent company, reconstituted some of the 2008-2011 posts, but not all (they're gone) and continued. Blogger was soon bought by Google. Over the years Google has dumbed it down a bit. The tools available here are basic at best. There is no ability to use superscripts or subscripts for example, and there is no ability to use hyperlinks in the Comments. But it'll do. It is easy and it is integrated with one's Google account. But I have no doubt. The day will come, I have a feeling sooner than later, when it will no longer be in Google's financial interest to continue carrying or supporting Blogger. When that day comes, Brouwer Genealogy will be no more. When that happens it will not be reconstituted as another site elsewhere on the ephemeral internet. If the site is at all helpful to you, great, take advantage of it while it's here. Like everything else, it is not forever.

BGB 752

The Current State of the Brouwer Genealogy Database Website

 The Brouwer Genealogy Database (BGD) was first launched in 2008 and was last updated in late 2015/early 2016. This post also covers the current state of the other databases that I had placed online, namely Brewer of New England, Brewer-Lanier Database, Descendants of Alice Freeman Thompson Parke, Drake Genealogy Database, and Drake in Devonshire, the links for which can be found in the right hand column of this website.What is said below with regards to the BGD applies to these five databases as well.

If you will travel over to the BGD you will note the new banner headline altering us to the fact that "Hosted websites will become read only beginning in early 2024." In effect this means that RootsWeb, which has been owned by Ancestry.com for some years now, will no longer provide the authors and publishers of websites hosted by RootsWeb with the ability to update or in any way add to or alter their sites. The websites will remain "static" in their words. This, in actuality, is not new to the BGD. It has been "static" since April 6, 2016. I have not updated the BGD since then, and I have no intention of doing so in the future. Since then I have used this website, Brouwer Genealogy, to add new information and to correct errors in the existing BGD. Please note: RootsWeb has not stated in its notice that they will be removing the websites that they host. What they do state is that they are removing the ability for authors to edit or otherwise amend their websites. Having said that, there is a significant problem left behind after RootsWeb posted their banner alert.

You will note that the original introduction to the database that appeared on the Main Page has been severely truncated. It's in effect, gone. In addition, and this greatly effects the functionality and ease of use of the site, the indexes (Surname Index and Master Index) are empty. Users no longer have the ability to locate any particular or specific individual within the 744 pages that contain the individual profiles. There is nothing that I can do about this. Unless RootsWeb/Ancestry.com corrects this themselves, the Indexes are lost. In an email to their Support staff I have asked if they could address and fix this. While I have received acknowledgement that my inquiry has been received and have been given a "Case number," I have not yet received a reply. As of this writing it is still possible to access some individual profiles through the Charts, Progenitors, Unplaced, and DNA Analysis pages found in the space below the title. All and all, the BGD is very inefficient without the Indexes. However...

There is a Work Around

A work around to this problem is to use an internet search engine like Google or Bing to locate an individual within the BGD's pages. I first tried this with Google using a rather uncommon Brewer name, Elazerus Brewer. I entered Elazerus Brewer, Brouwer Genealogy Database on Google Search. The results were useless. Among them was the Brouwer Genealogy Databases' main page, but that doesn't help me get to Elazerus himself. I then tried "Elazerus Brewer" and "Brouwer Genealogy Database," both in quotation marks and separated by the word, and. The third suggestion down was Brouwer Genealogy Database - Person Page 101. That takes me to page 101 of the BGD and then I scrolled through the page for Elazerus. As I recall, I think that I had this set up for 100 profiles per page. This more precise search request did bring me to Person Page 101, and scrolling down, or using your browser's "Find in page" tool (I'm using a Fire Fox browser here) this work around does work. Using Bing, I pretty much had the same result. You need to be specific and use perimeters like quotation marks to narrow down your search. Keep in mind, with this test I did use an uncommon given name, Elazerus. Try this with say, John Brewer, Brouwer Genealogy Database, and you will have far more search results to consider. Here I would suggest adding more info to the search, such as a birth or death date, or by searching using the spouse's name (if known). This is all I can suggest with regards to finding an individual on the BGD. Should RootsWeb fix the index problem - great. Should they not - oh well, users will just have to trudge on without it.

The Bigger Issue

As mentioned, the BGD was first created and uploaded in 2008 and was frequently updated through the end of 2015. This was for me, a lot of work. The technical aspects of what was involved in creating the website and the reason why I created it were summed up back in 2008/09 in "About the Brouwer Genealogy Database." In 2017 RootsWeb was hacked and all of their hosted websites and forums were taken down. They were offline for, as I recall, ten months or so. See the post of June 9, 2018. Soon thereafter, by July 20, 2018, the BGD was restored by RootsWeb, although some stand alone pages that were linked to by this website, Brouwer Genealogy, remained lost. Also lost was my ability to manage the many files needed to create the BGD. That is to say, I lost the ability to replace incorrect information with replacement information or add new information to the pages already online. RootsWeb had taken away their free and easy to use upload tool. This meant that site publishers had to find and use a third party alternative, i.e. some FTP client software. I was not interested in doing this and simply decided that it was a good time to stop working on the BGD. As a result, the website you now find online is the same as it was back in late 2015/early 2016. It is in RootsWeb's words, "static," and has been for the past eight years. This final condition of the BGD includes the errors within the database and does not include all of the additional information that has been discovered and learned over the past seven to eight years since it went "static". Since early 2016  I have been using this website, Brouwer Genealogy, to point out errors, to correct profiles (see the recent post of April 6, 2023 for an example) and to add new names and info. This isn't how I envisioned this turning out way back in 2008 when I created the site. But, it is what it is. Unforeseen events often alter initial plans. It is the way things will remain with the BGD from here on out into the future.

There are other issues with the "static" BGD that I have but I will not go into them in detail now or here. In short, the flaws in it irritate me to the point that I would just as soon see the entire site taken offline once and for all and for good, and the time and effort required to maintain and update the BGD in the format in which it stands, is time and effort that I would prefer to spend elsewhere. I did, however, receive an email from Richard Brewer, the previous administrator of the Brewer DNA Project, in which he described the BGD, not as "static," but as "an Archive." This is perhaps a better way to think about the condition of the BGD. Think about it as an archive of the work done on numerous Brouwer/Brower/Brewer, etc., and associated families between the years of 2000 and 2016. In that light, I can live with it remaining online in it's present, and final form, errors, omissions, warts and all, for as long as RootsWeb is willing to host it. And for those who are persistent and willing to do a little extra work, the BGD can still be a useful tool. Looking at the BGD as an archive is the thing which stops me from taking RootsWeb's advise to use a FTP client tool to download my files from the RootsWeb server which would in turn remove the site in its entirety from the internet. If I did or do remove the files I would not reconstitute it online using another hosting provider. Having now said that the BGD is to a degree outdated, please keep that in mind when using it. The strength of this website is its numerous sited sources. Use them to check the work for yourself and please don't re-post any images or screenshots of profiles or pages elsewhere online, like in your Ancestry.com Tree, without first validating the content within said image or screenshot. So, to be clear...

RootsWeb tells us that, "website owners wishing to maintain their sites must migrate to a different hosting provider before 2024." That will not happen with the archival BGD. It will not be migrated to a new hosting platform, nor will it be altered from it's present, that is to say, "static" or "archived" form. I have contacted RootsWeb support and asked whether or not they intended to continue hosting websites, whether or not the websites would be migrated to Ancestry.com (as they did with World Connect Trees), and if so, would the pages have new URLs. My inquiry was acknowledged and I was given a case number, but I have yet to receive a reply. If I do not hear back we'll just have to wait until 2024 to see just how Ancestry.com handles the RootsWeb hosted websites that have not migrated to a different hosting provider. Perhaps when that is completed, or perhaps sooner as per my request, the banner notices on the BGD's site will be removed and the indexes will be restored. If they aren't, as I've said, users will have to get along without them.

BGB 751

 

Some BREWER Wills, Etc., In Kentucky: Mercer County

 Mercer County, Kentucky was formed in 1785 out of what was then Lincoln County, Virginia (and is now Lincoln County, Kentucky). Kentucky was admitted to the Union as a state, June 1, 1792. Harrodsburg, the county seat of Mercer County, was first settled in 1774. Below are BREWER wills and other probate records found in the books of Mercer County, Kentucky and available on FamilySearch.org, "Probate Records 1786-1865; General Index, 1786-1946," Kentucky. County Court (Mercer County).

1. Daniel Brewer.* 1791. 1:49. Will.

2. Daniel Brewer. 1799. 2:134. Guardian Account.

3. David Brewer. 1819. 6:214. Will.

4. David Brewer. 1819-20. 6:230, 232. Inventory.

5. Dilly Brewer. 1820. 6:333. Dower.

6. Daniel A. Brewer. 1822. 7:333. Guardian Account.

7. John Brewer. 1826. 8:324. Inventory.

8. David Brewer. 1826. 8:395. Settlement.

9. John Brewer. 1828. 9:113. Settlement.

10. Abraham Brewer. 1828. 9:137. Will.

11. David Brewer. 1828. 9:149. Settlement

12. Abraham Brewer. 1828. 9:151. Inventory.

13. David Brewer. 1833. 10:66. Settlement.

14. L. D. Brewer. 1851. 14:36. Guard. Settlement.

15. H. R. Brewer. 1853. 14:204. Guard. Settlement.

16. Robert Brewer. 1854. 15:36. Guard. Settlement.

17. Abram A. Brewer. 1858. 15:527. Will.

18. A. A. Brewer. 1858. 15:527. Inventory.

19. A. A. Brewer. 1858. 16:43. Exor. Settlement.

20. L. D. Brewer. 1882. 18:336. Will

21. Ethelinda Brewer. 1882. 18:339. Renunciation.

22. Ethelinda Brewer. 1899. 19:102. Will.

This post has been in the draft file for some months now. My original plan was to include an abstract of the above records. At this time that project would be too time consuming and is not possible within the foreseeable future, so rather than have this much of the post linger in the draft file, perhaps this can serve as a head start for anyone researching the Brewers of Mercer County, Kentucky.

*Daniel Brouwer/Brewer (1719-1791) is a great-grandson of Adam Brouwer of Gowanus, L. I. (Adam>Pieter>Abraham>Daniel).

BGB 750

A List of BREWER Deeds in Kentucky: Hardin County

 Hardin County, Kentucky was formed in 1792 from land partitioned from Nelson County, which itself was created from Jefferson County in 1784. Kentucky was admitted to the Union as the 15th State on June 1, 1792. Prior to that it was known as the Kentucky District and was within the jurisdiction of Virginia. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1774 by James Harrod at the site of present day Harrodsburg in Mercer County. On 4 March 1843, the southeast portion of Hardin County was set of to form LaRue County. 

The Family History Library has filmed and since digitized the deed books for Hardin County. Digital images can be accessed from a home computer at the FamilySearch.org website: Hardin County, Kentucky Deeds, 1793-1902; index 1795-1904. A list of deeds involving persons named BREWER.

1. Mark Brewer from Benjamin Chastee, G:71 (1819)
   
2. Mark Brewer from John Brewer, I:15 (1823)
   
3. Isaac Brewer from John Willett, T:385 (1841)
   
4. John Brewer to Stephen French, T:41 (1840)
   
5. Isaac Brewer from Edward Sutton, T:380 (1841)
   
6. Isaac Brewer to Nathaniel Whitehead, V:221 (1841)
   
7. Uriah Brewer from Henry F. McBride by Comr., Y:247 (1850)
   
8. John Brewer from L & N Rail Road Co., Z:388 (1852)
   
9. Uriah Brewer to Felix J. Fowler, 2:431 (1854)
   

This post has been in the draft file for some months now. My original intention was to abstract these deeds. Plans have changed, I will not be doing that at this time. Perhaps this list will serve as a bit of a shortcut to anyone who may be interested in the Brewer families of Hardin County, Kentucky.

BGB 749