HTML Instructions
Ok...simple as pie instructions to follow for converting your ship into html format. Don't panic...this is easy. The ship is transcribed, is typed in notepad or some other program that does not insert hidden formatting and is spaced out not with any use of the tab key please. Just follow these instructions line by line...don't look ahead just take it one line at a time. Don't go read anything about html, unless you want to do this for a living, just follow me step by step. Print this out and follow along while you are working in your html file.
I will send you myship.html or you can download from the Guild pages, download it and put it where you want to keep it. You will actually work in myship.html to create your masterpiece. To get to where you can work in it, click on it and your browser will open it. It will look just like the webpage. At the top you will see the word "view" and click on view. Then you will see the word "source" in the choices and click on source. OR, you can right click anywhere on the page, when the dropdown menu comes up select "view source" and when you click on that, the source of the page open. That opens the source and that is where you will do everything in these instructions...line by line.
The first lines you will see at the top of the page look like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>ISTG Vol 9 - SS My Ship</TITLE>
<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Your Name">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Immigrant, Ancestors, Ancestor, Ancestry, Ships, Transcribers, Genealogy, Guild, Passenger, Lists, manifests"></HEAD>
<BODY TEXT="#000000" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#0000EE" VLINK="#FF0000"ALINK="#004080">
The letters in these things < > is the html language. Do not change it, do not add anything to it. Where the words SS My Ship are typed above, take them out and type in the name of your ship. Either SS Name of ship, or Brig or Bark/Barque...whichever it is. Then where Your Name is typed...put in your name. Good, now go to the next few lines which look like this:
<CENTER>
<H1>Immigrant Ships<BR>
Transcribers Guild<P>
SS My Ship<BR CLEAR="all"></H1></CENTER>
<HR SIZE="5"></CENTER>
The only thing you do here is to put in the name of your ship again where SS My Ship is typed. Good, now go to the next few lines which look like this:
<CENTER>
Here you type the port of departure and the port
of arrival. It might read: Liverpool, England via Queenstown, Ireland to New York.
Be sure and put the country of departure, look it up if necessary.
</CENTER>
Repeat this step and instead of listing ports, type the date of arrival.
Then add this tag to skip one line. <BR>
<CENTER>
DISTRICT OF NEW YORK -- PORT OF NEW YORK
</CENTER>
If your ship does not have District of New York -- Port of New York ...take it out of here, you don't need it. Don't take out the html which is written between those < > thingys since the next ship you have may have District of New York -- Port of New York. So far...so good.
Now let's look at the next few lines which look like this:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I, H. P. Schu??han, master of the S. S. Pommerania do solemnly,
sincerely, and truly affirm that the following List or Manifest,
subscribed by me, and now delivered by me to the Collector of the
Customs of the Collections District of New York, is a full and
perfect list of all the passengers taken on board of the said
Pommerania at Hamburg/Havre from which Port said SS has now arrived;
and that on the said list is truly designated the age, the sex, and
the occupation of each of the said passengers, the part of the vessel
occupied by each during the passage, the country to which each
belongs, and also the country of which it is intended by each to
become an inhabitant; and that said List or Manifest truly sets forth
the number of said passengers who have died on said voyage, and the
names and ages of those who have died. So help me God. (signed) H. P.
Schu??han Sworn before me this April 30, 1878 (signed) R. F. Wyman, DC
</BLOCKQUOTE>
This is the sworn statement...see, you are almost half way done. You can copy and paste your sworn statement right over this one, just don't remove or copy over the words in the < > thingys...we need them.
Ok, you are doing great. Like I said, just one or two lines at a time. Let's look at what's next, and it looks like this:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
List or Manifest of all the Passengers taken on board the German S.S.
Pommerania, whereof H. P. Schu??han is master, from Hamburg-Havre
burthen 3381.78/100 tons.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
This little statement is in almost every passenger list so you will probably have one in yours. Just like you did above, copy your statement right over this one, or you can change the captains name, the name of the ship, the place it is from and the tons...it is faster to copy and paste over it. Once again, don't disturb those little sideways pointy things...we need them.
Now...don't look back, don't look way ahead...just look at the next few lines which look like this:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Columns represent: given name, surname, age, sex, occupation, country
to which they belong, country which they intend to inhabit,
accommodation.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
This tells everyone what the columns in your passenger list represent. If yours are the same you don't have to do a thing. If they are different columns, either paste yours over these, or change the ones which are different. Fabulous...now you are ready for the next line which looks like this:
<PRE>
This little <PRE> sign tells the computer you are going
to start pasting in the actual passenger part of your list
right under it. It will look something like this, only
longer. It also tells the computer that you have
already spaced it out not using tabs.
1 Landenberger, Louise 17 F Single Wurthenberg * United States Betweendeck
2 Tom, Emilie 22 F Single Prussia United States Betweendeck
3 Tom, Henriette 20 F Single Prussia United States Betweendeck
4 Malaska, Katharina 20 F Single Prussia United States Betweendeck
5 Boyder, Wamyu 16 M Workman Russia Poland United States Betweendeck
6 Schafer, Albertine 18 F Single Prussia United States Betweendeck
7 Siegel, Paul 24 M Coppersmith Prussia United States Betweendeck
8 Poppendiek, Robert 42 M Merchant U. States United States Betweendeck
(Signed) H.P. Schu??han -- your list might have a
signature like this one...or it might not. If it
doesn't, take this out or note that there was no signature.
Transcriber's Notes:
? = transcriber unable to read - please describe what you see.
If it is torn, too dark, too light write that here. When you
have ??'s in your list, it helps if you can see any part of the
letters to describe if they look like vowels, extend below the
line or above the line. For example, if you could not read with
certainty the "ppen" part of passenger #8's surname, you would
have typed it Po????diek. At this point those ??'s could represent
anything. So your transcriber's note would read:
#8 first two question marks represent letters that appear to extend
below the line, second two question marks could be en, in, or m.
# 13 and 18, Umlaut on vowel.
# 100, Line drawn through entry.
# 165, "Fe" crossed out, leaving "male"
* If there are no passenger numbers, please number your list.
</PRE>
You will notice that these numbers are not right up against the left margin because the number of passengers on this list is in the hundreds so I left room for typing double digit and triple digits. On some lists, you need to leave room for typing in four digits. Please try to limit the number of passengers on one webpage to about 150-200. If you need to make several webpages, the format is exactly the same and only the file name will change. A one page ship has a file name such as myship18430131.html. If there is more than one webpage, the file names become myship18430131_01.html, myship18430131_02.html and so on. The person to whom you sent your list, once you have formatted it, will link the pages together so don't worry about that.
You will have some transcriber's notes...paste yours in right over those above.
</PRE> This little sign tells the computer you are done with your list and your notes...make sure it stays on the left margin and directly on the line under your notes.
Ok, now you are doing great and you are almost done. Next you tell everyone where you got this list and to do that, look at what the lines are like here:
<CENTER><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT SIZE="-1">
National Archives and Records Administration, Film M237, Reel 415, List 234.
</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></CENTER>
The only thing you have to change here is the film number and the reel number if you know it. You may also be given a list number. If you know the list number, it follows the reel number. If you don't know it take out the numbers which are typed here. I usually put them in because it forces me to check this over.
Ok, here we go, next to the last thing you have to do. The next lines give yourself the credit for typing this list and struggling through all those names and occupations. The lines you see next look like this:
<CENTER><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT SIZE="-1">
Transcribed by <A HREF="mailto:youremailhere.com">Your Name Here</A>
for the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild
<BR>
put today's date here
</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></CENTER>
Where it says <.A href:="mailto:yournamehere.com"> type in your email address and don't disturb the quotation marks. If you have transcribed many lists, you will replace the entire link with <.A HREF="../../address/yourname.html">. Note that I have included a period (.) after the < so it will show up here; you will not see the period (I don't think) on the myship.html template. If you do, remove it. Where it says Your Name Here type in your name and make sure you don't leave any spaces between the >and the first letter of your name and make sure the</A> is butted right up against the last letter of your name, just like it is against the word the in the line above, and change the date.
Now, all you have to do is add our "includes" which is our copyright notice and other things of interest along with a link back to the main ISTG page:
<!--#include virtual="../revisedv9.txt"--> and it is followed by two very short lines:
</BODY>
</HTML>
and you don't have to do anything to them at all...you just need to SAVE THIS RIGHT NOW so you don't lose all your work.
Now after you SAVE IT you can close it. The ship on the screen will still look just like it did when you started. Once you "refresh" the page myship becomes your ship. Then you can right click again, select "rename" and rename the ship including the date, something like america17760704.html. Do not include the type of ship in the file name. So ssamerica17760704.html would be incorrect. Congratulations !!! Job well done !!!
Copyright 1998 by Patty McCormack for Immigrant Ships Transcription Guild (ISTG). Last updated on 31 January 2007.