Melanie has been taking care of the database for several months now. She's done a great job, but now that I'm working on the code again, I realize two issues have to be taken care of... The first is Carroll's Island. Most Chessie lines can be traced back to this island and gun club. Unfortunately many Carroll Island breeding and owner records were lost, and later registrations with the AKC created duplicate names, muddying the waters even more. To address these two issues, here's what I've done:

• Because Carroll's Island is so significant, and many lines can be traced back to it, I've added "Carroll's Island" to the list Registration Agencies. The search page has also been improved recently to allow searches on multiple fields, like the Registration Agency, so a search could be run to list all dogs from Carroll's Island. As Melanie and I find more information on these dogs, I hope to complete the Owner and Breeder fields, along with a few pertinent notes for each dog.

• In the late 1800s, Chessies were not registered with an official agency like the AKC. Consequently, many Chessie dog names were later accepted by the AKC, which had already been used on Carroll's Island. Even on the island itself, there are several duplicate names like Belle, Duck, Duke, Jack, Zip, etc. When duplicate names are found, the year it was born will be added in parenthesis after the name. For example, "Belle (1888)" and "Belle (1890)". If the year of birth is not known, then a numerical increment will be used, like "Boatswain (N1)", "Boatswain (N2)", etc.

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