My Genealogy & Family History site

[MartinM]

I have been working for some time to develop a web site which deals with my family genealogy and with the more subjective area of the family and social history attached to my ancestors.

My site, like all such sites is under constant development, but I would like advice in particular about how I might add 'modules' relating to the social and community histories of the families. Does anyone know of any models out there?

Many thanks
Martin

[MarkJ]

Not sure what you mean by modules Martin. You could add extra web pages to your site and link them from the main page easily enough - or do you mean something more complex? Off hand I can't think of anything that would fit the bill, although I am sure such things will exist if we can get an idea of what you are after. It may be useful - if you are after something exotic - to know what your website runs on and what abilities you have on that server e.g Linux, Unix or Microsoft operating system on the server and do you have the access to run scripts such as .asp or .php?

Mark

[MartinM]

As you will see my site is constructed using 'the new generation' based on .php coding.

What I would like to do is to produce comprehensive sections looking at the working lives of my ancestors; Their contributions to community life; The lifestyles they would have enjoyed (or otherwise) etc.

In short I hope to develop a real family history site which 'brings the characters and communities back to life.' This is obviously a large scale task, and I don't know whether it has already been attempted?

Martin

[Peter_uk_can]

Hi Martin. I'm afraid I couldn't open your website via IE7. I will try again using Firefox.

Anyway as to your question, which I will admit to not fully understanding. I too, have a family website that I consider to be an article of history rather than a meere collection of names. It is constant work in progress and the main work is done during the winter months, so it can remain static for a while. My plan is creating webpages that are accessed from either the main index, much like a book, or by clicking on links within other pages.

So for instance if was writing about John Doe and I have a lot of info on his wife Jane Doe, then I would create pages for Jane which would fully describe her. References to John anywhere in the site would take you to his dedicated pages and the same with Jane, this way I can expand their biography, add pictures, family members, places etc etc without having to rewrite the whole history of the Doe family.

Peter

[ChrisKelly]

Martin,
Your site is based on TNG (like mine). As I recall the main TNG website has all sorts of links for customising the basic package. I think there's a dedicated TNG forum too.

[MartinM]

Thanks Chris,
I am in the middle of doing a complete rewrite of the site appearance, with help from members of the TNG forum. It should be available within the next few days.

My problem is that I want to broaden the site to include local and social history themes, and TNG is not really designed for that. What I want to do is find something similar to TNG which deals with these subjects and which I can 'bolt on'. If not, I will try and write something from the bottom up ( don't hold your breath!)

Anyone interested in genealogy sites would be well advised to look at TNG, it is a remarkable web tool and easy to maintain. Indeed it has replaced my genealogy software.

Regards
Martin

[Peter_uk_can]

Hi Martin I looked into TNG but found it a little restrictive for what I planned to achieve. I already had the database on Legacy and created my own pages for everything other.

TNG does produce a very elegant and well structured platform for genealogy, but as with so many things there is no perfect system.

[MarkJ]

I hadn't come across that TNG software before, so it was quite interesting. I use a php based program for my own family tree site (phpGedView). Like you Martin, I tend to work directly with that rather than via my PC based program in the main. As the TNG program is php based, it should be possible (but not easy I suspect!) to create and add extra functionality to the site. As with all things, I would test any scripts on a copy of the site before putting them online - just in case they do something unexpected!

Mark

[MartinM]

The flexibilty of sequel database with php is excellent for constantly changing information as in genealogy, but as you say can be interesting as far as development is concerned. That fits well as it means two hobbies in one!

My newly reworked site will be using e107 sat over the TNG code, giving the capability to customise much more, and to include features such as forums etc.

I guess I will just have to get down to some serious coding! The new elements will be much more complex to do than the feature pages I already have.

Watch this space!!!!!

Cheers
Martin

[MarkJ]

Sounds like a great idea Martin!
I am *almost* encouraged to dig out my lashed up search engine for one of my websites. I built it a while ago to theoretically allow people to search a large database by name and get the results displayed of all matching hits. It used php scripts and Apache/MySQL and worked as long as you entered a matching name. For some reason, despite my (admittedly dreadful) php, a non match simply resulted in a blank page - not the message explaining that no hits were found and a new search box. I did gaze through the code quickly at the time, couldn't see a reason for the failure and put the whole lot into my "to do at some point" directory on my file server.

The joys of computing!

Mark