WRITING PERSONAL GENEALOGY WEBPAGES

Once a researcher has collected a lot of information and stories about their family, they may wish to put the informaton online with their own design. This can be done by putting together webpages, and uploading them to their webserver, or using a web host.

• Rootsweb.com allows subscribers to put genealogy on their website for a minimal fee each each year.

Some commerical isp's also allow webspace with your internet account.

• Roadrunner offers different amounts of webspace with different account levels.

Advantages of Paying for Webspace

There are sites online that let you make webpages and post them for free; however their are advantages to using an independent web hosting site.

1. No advertising - When paying for webspace, pages often do not carry advertising. Family members can print out ad free pages for keepsakes.
2. Creative freedom - Researchers can design the pages the way they want them without using someone else's template.

Using HTML to Design Genealogy Web Pages

Learning to design webpages is easy using HTML. This is a simple programming language that is easily readable with browser software. HTML stands for "HyperText Mark-up Language". It adds tags to the text to tell the browser how to format your work. It allows addition of text, pictures and other features to the family webpages.

For my tutorial on HTML, please see: How to Use HTML to Design Webpages

For a more detailed tutorial for advanced users, you can also use: HTMLquick.com

Ideas for Family Web Pages

When writing more and more information about a family over several webpages, link the pages together. Linking by generation is an interesting way to do this. Each family should link to the parents generation, and to the families of it's own children. Links to places the family has lived, businesses the family owned or worked for, or sources for research add interesting and additional information for those researching the same family.

Ideas for Web Pages for Individual Family Members

Pages can also be written for individuals. Character sketches and brief biographies make interesting webpages about individual ancestors. Write these up chronologically and compare this ancestors life to those around him or her by noting this ancestors age when other family or historical events occured. This helps your reader understand who this ancestor really was, what their place in the family is, and what their place in history was.

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Return to:

• Table of Contents
  
• Collecting Family Documents

• Documents at Home
• Vital Records
• Government Records
• Publishing Genealogy Information

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This website written and designed by:
Sharon Marie Centanne,
Genealogy Research Instructor and Internet Trainer
Please direct any questions to:
Sharon.

This page updated April 21, 2008

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