Web Creation Instructions
December 9, 2007
Web Creation Instructions
My website Descendants of Richard Wright, Sr. of Rowan
County,
North Carolina
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~herbarkin/
encompasses 92,208 out of a
total database of 115,250 relatives. Direct descendants of Richard Wright,
Sr. include 41,996. A number of
people have asked about the method I use to create the website from my database.
I use Family Tree
Maker (FTM), not because it is the best, but it is the one I started with and I
have learned over the years that trying to convert the database into another
program always leaves out some data. That
is because I have used certain facts, multiple names and dates which are not
supported by GEDCOM, the standard used by the computer genealogy community.
While it is possible to use FTM to create a webage, I am not a fan of the
format.
Following is the
procedure I use.
- I have kept up
a list of ancestors of families directly related to Richard Wright, Sr. in
an Excel file Ancestors of
Richard Wright. I use the ancestors in this file to create a custom
report in FTM. I then export to
another FTM file these people in the report.
After privatizing that FTM file, I export the file to GEDCOM.
This is very important since it eliminates all information on people
over 100 years old who have not died. Just
about all programs have a privatizing feature. If not there are such
programs available.
- Since there
are certain elements of FTM which are not exported correctly, I run a
program called FTWGEDfx. This is
a freeware program which is available at http://west-penwith.org.uk/misc/FTWGEDfx.htm
which corrects such items.
- Finally, I use
GED2HTML to convert the program to the website format. It automatically
creates indexing, source and notes links. GED2HTML can be found at http://www.starkeffect.com/ged2html/3.6a/Welcome.html.
It is shareware, available for $20US and very easy to use.
- I use
Microsoft FrontPage to create my home page and links to data other than the
GED2HTML data. You can also use
Microsoft Word or other available programs.
FrontPage is very easy for me to use and you can usually find an old
version at greatly reduced prices.
- You will find
that, if you have a high speed internet connection, most ISPs offer up to
1gb of webspace free. They
usually also offer tools to upload your data. Rootsweb has kindly offered
free webspace to Genealogists. Go to http://accounts.rootsweb.com/index.cgi?op=show&page=freagree.htm
for information.
- As to
uploading the data I use BulletProof FTP Client.
It is very robust and will automatically reconnect
to the website during uploads to continue after interruptions. It is
available from http://www.bpftp.com/
costs $35. Since my website is over 320mb, it’s important that what I use
works well. Even with my high
speed connection it takes over 6 hours to upload.
One comment. I found that
when my file approached 100mb, I had to delete the file on the web before I
could upload a new version. I
also created a version number and listing. After updating, I send
information on the latest update to my email list.
This is getting harder to do. Since the advent of SPAM, ISPs limit
emails to 10 people at a time and you cant sent announcements to more than
one list at a time.