I’ve been researching my family history for about eight years. It has been an on again, off again activity — never seems to be enough time to spend on it. I’ve corresponded with many cousins over the years and the one thing I’ve really come to appreciate is the overwhelming amount of information one can collect about one’s family. I’ve used several genealogy database programs on PCs and Macs, but they tend to be rather limited and static in what I could do with the information once in the program. I needed a way to share and collaborate with others researching the same lines without having to go through extraordinary efforts to export and import data.
I also wanted a way to access my research from anywhere, regardless of whether or not I had my MacBook with me or just a PC in a library. I’ve spent a lot of time on the Internet looking at how others have collaborated and shared their research. I realized that I needed several things to achieve my objective:
1) A secure, online database that supported most of the features of my favorite genealogy programs, Reunion and The Master Genealogist, and that was flexible, scalable, and customizable
2) A mechanism for cousins and other researchers to exchange ideas, data, and conclusions and to maintain an ongoing research log to help others researching our family lines
3) A forum for myself where I could post observations of general interest and entertain comments and feedback from cousins and researchers.
The end result is this Web site, riddickhome.net, and a set of low cost or open source tools hosted on my own domain that tie everything together in one place for family, friends, and researchers to come together to share family information and keep in touch with each other.
The domain and web site is hosted by GoDaddy.com on Linux, using MySql, PHP, and Apache Web server.
The genealogy database is The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (TNG) by Darrin Lithgoe built on MySQL and PHP.
The collaboration forums are maintained using the Simple Machines Forum (SMF), a free application built on MySQL and PHP.
My blog is maintained using WordPress, another free application built on MySQL and PHP.
I’m in the process of learning and integrating a Content Management System (CMS) to provide an overall common look-and-feel for all of these applications. The CMS I am using is a free application called Joomla! and is one of the most popular in use today.
So, you will see a common thread in all of these — readily accessible from any Web browser and from anywhere with Internet access.
As I complete the integration of these tools over the next couple months, I will send out notices to family and friends so that you can check them out and set up free accounts so that you can access and share the information on this site. I will also provide my thoughts about how it has gone, if this approach is workable, and how it might be improved so as to make genealogy research and data collection easier.
- Chris
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