How to use this site

All pages have a common width of 960 pixels and a browser window of at least this width is required to view them properly.

Pages have a common layout as far as possible, with a top navigation bar always accessible, even when scrolling down a page longer than the browser window; if it has scrolled off the top of the window, moving the mouse pointer to the top will pop it up again. This bar provides quick links to pages likely to be visited next from the current one, such as the next and previous pages, the contents page etc.

The names of the principals are presented in a different typeface (...as Edward and Ellen) to help them stand out.

In the text, links to locations within this website look like this: Fred Bloggs. By contrast, offsite links look like this: Edward Murphy. Place names, little-known ones like townlands in particular, are a special case. They may have offsite links attached to them, but these are not distinguished at all in the text to avoid visual clutter. Hover over any place name; if it changes to this colour, clicking on it will lead somewhere, otherwise not.

Minor annotations to the text (a few words at most) are indicated by a superscript asterisk. Hover over them to see the note, like this one*, for example.

Text is frequently accompanied by small pictures; these are placed as close to the relevant text as possible. Hover the mouse over such an image - if exploder appears in a corner, the image is a thumbnail, and clicking on it will take you to the full-size image on a page reserved for these. The caption below the full-size image is followed by a  ↩ character. Clicking on this will take you back to the text. The full-size images are chained together; clicking on successive images will cycle through them endlessly.

Small family trees occur at various places in the text. The name boxes have this colour for males:            and this for females:           . Each box is a link; click on it to go to the primary header or text paragraph for the person it references.

Name boxes link to the person's name in a header or text. These names link back in turn to the primary tree for that person, the tree in which they appear highest up.

When a person's name in a header or text links to a name box, the name looks like this: Attila the Hun. When the name is reached via the link in a name box, it temporarily changes its appearance to Attila the Hun to make it easy to find. Similarly, when a tree has been reached by a link from a person's name in a header or text, the name box for that person appears in a lighter shade, again for easy finding.

A person may appear in more than one tree. All their boxes will link to the same primary header or text for them. Clicking on that will link to the primary tree for the person. To get back to a different tree, use the browser's back button.