Fun and Games
We have hadDomain Name Expired
If you tried to access TRP on Sunday 03 October between about 10h30CDT and 20h00CDT, the internet wouldn't have been able to find TRP - the registration of our domain name "TheReevesProject.org" had expired. Once alerted, Barry was able to very quickly re-register it for us and access was restored...Security Certificates
... Well it was if you were using a Windows desktop, but we then became aware of an unrelated issue affecting users of Apple devices...TRP has long made use of (free) security certificates issued by LetsEncrypt. They are valid for three months and Jonathan had kindly put in place a process to automatically renew them. That's worked well for us for the past several years. What we'd not been aware of was that a certificate that LetsEncrypt use to validate the certificates they issue was due to expire on 29 September 2021. LetsEncrypt had put in place processes to mitigate this issues and indeed anybody accessing TRP from a Windows device would have been unaware of this issue.
However, users of Apple devices have been seeing a warning message "This Connection is Not Private" which highlighted the fact that the TRP certificate was within its dates of validity, but that the superior LetsEncrypt certificate had expired. We've been scratching our heads over this for the past week and Jonathan has updated the TRP certificate several times hoping to resolve the issue. Yesterday (Saturday 16 October) he found the way to resolve this issue and users of Apple devices should now be able to access TRP without seeing a warning.
If anybody is still experiencing an issue please do let us know.
Virtual Server Outage
Just as we were breathing a collective sigh of relief that we'd put these issues behind us ... at about 20h25EDT on Sunday 17 October (01h25BST Monday 18 October) we were alerted to the fact that TRP wasn't accessible. The cause wasn't immediately obvious (particularly given the shenanigans of the previous two weeks) but it was eventually identified as an issue with the underlying virtual server and a ticket was raise with our hosting provider. They quickly worked some magic and the issue was resolved by 11h00EDT/16h00BST on Monday 18 October. Hopefully things will be stable now......Wiki Stats - End September 2021
The total number of pages in the Wiki (as at 1 October 2021) now stands at 11185 (previously 11110, 11074, 11048), an increase of 75 pages during the month. Of the total, 2189 pages (was 2161, 2155, 2154) begin with a number and are most probably a date related gleaning. We currently have 4873 wiki pages categorised as "People", of which 4362 begin with the letter "R".Community members should log in to see more.
TRP Users
We endedIf you are having issues activating your account or have simply lost interest, please do let us know. Please contact New User Admin by sending an email to TRP123 (at) TheReevesProject (dot) org if you're stuck and need help or have subsequently decided you don't want to join our community. If you are not yet a member and would like to contribute to our community, please complete our Join Us form to start the membership enrolment process.
Whether you joined TRP recently or a while ago, if you have yet to do so, please set a meaningful name for yourself as described in First Steps - Part 1. It isn't difficult and only takes a couple of minutes to do. If it helps, think of it as a name label badge; so your first name plus surname (or at least surname initial) would generally be a good choice. You'll find links to the remainder of the our six part First Steps as part of the FAQ - First Steps.
Reeves DNA Project - Quarterly Update
Its been another busy quarter here at the Reeves DNA Project. Don't get me wrong, we're always pleased to see new members joining even if that does involve some effort from our admin team. We try and respond to new memberships request within a couple of days but just occasionally one will sit pending for a day or two longer than usual, but we do get to it eventually :-) To put the dozen or so new membership request we see per quarter in context, over the same period I've received just shy of 900 notification e-mails of various types from FtDNA.In July we registered two new kits and welcome Barbara and Jan. We also saw one member leave the project, but they thankfully decided to rejoin. That was particularly significant since this was a Y-DNA test kit Donor. The activity in August was very similar, with three new members joining the project and one deciding to leave. We welcome David, Byran and John. Thus far in September we've also added three new members and welcome Catherine, Gary and Mark.
During the past quarter we've received the results for three new Y-DNA Donor members and the results for one other kit is pending.
Kit 823785 for John M Bartlett added to DNA Group 20
Kit 951918 for AS presently ungrouped
Kit 959374 for DR added to DNA Group 10
Kit B784120 for MP pendingWe are particularly grateful to John for sending his Donor Permission email allowing us to name him and would encourage the other new Y-DNA donors or their representatives to make contact and allow us to identify them within TRP.The Y-DNA test results for one of our new Y DNA Donors are currently sitting in the Project's ungrouped pool. Based on the information they provided when they joined the Reeves DNA Project, we strongly suspect they are a member of our DNA Group XX. Whilst we will automatically move Y-DNA matched results to the appropriate Project Group, we do not move unmatched results to DNA Group XX with out explicit confirmation to TRP from the donor or their proxy. If we can keep the ungrouped pool free of results we know should never expect a Reeves Y-DNA match then it makes life much easier for both the admins and those project members hoping to find a Reeves Y-DNA match. Please take a minute to read DNA Group XX's home page within TRP for information on how to provide consent. All it takes is a simple proforma e-mail as descried on the Home page.
During the past quarter we've seen no notifications for new Family Finder results (from a new at-DNA Donor) and no notification of the results from a new mt-DNA donor.
As of 30 September, we have 392 members in the Reeves DNA Project at FtDNA.
If you missed last quarter's summary the DNA Project Update for 2q2021 is available here.