changes

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Kevin’s Portal now has a Blog and Guestbook

I have now added a Blog and Guestbook to Kevin’s Portal. The Blog is simply a news update Blog for the site, announcing changes to that site and comments on new links added to it and/or links removed from it.

http://kevinsportal.wordpress.com/

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Tracing our History: Website Renamed

I have now renamed the website to ‘Tracing our History.’ So this means that the Blog is named ‘Tracing our History,’ the community is named ‘Tracing our History’ and the main web site is called ‘Tracing our History.’ Hopefully this won’t lead to confusion – hopefully it will tie the three main sites together, with all three being part of the same online collaboration. At least that is my aim – hopefully I hit the target.

The forced changes to the site continue, with the recently begun updates to the site now having to be changed again. Why? Well, now Yahoo are dropping the Delicious bookmarking service, which is one of the social networking/sharing services I have started to added buttons to make easier sharing for site visitors. I will start to remove this button from today. As I update a page I will remove the sharing with Delicious button. It is disappointing, because I really liked the Delicious service. So Yahoo does it again – very poor Yahoo!

I am still working away at improvements and content additions.

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Site Updates

Just some minor news regarding the site and associated sites – yes, I have been doing a little work over there.

I have removed the old guestbook and several links to what are now obsolete portions of the site/other sites. These include the old guestbook which had been bombarded with spam and the Yahoo mail groups which are long gone. I have now incorporated a page on the ‘Tracing Our History’ Blog for use as a Guestbook.

There have also been some minor changes to various content on the main page, as well as the addition of various sharing ‘buttons’ at the top of the page, such as sharing on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter, posting to Digg, etc.

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Break is Over … Now Back to Work

I have always found with genealogy that it is hard to stay on mission as it were. Every so often I just seem to have this need to take a break from it all and then find it difficult to get started again. This is where I have been over the last few months.

Once I get started again, all moves along well for a time – usually 12-18 months, before I need to take another break – which will end up going for about 6 months and then the cycle begins again.

I now have a desire to get back into the work and to make some changes to the way I do genealogy. These are changes that have gradually been worked out in my mind (during my break and before it) and I now feel it time to implement. These are changes that I hope will prove far better in the long run for all concerned.

So what are these changes going to involve:

  • I hope to put the family tree itself (and the book on our family history) behind the secure walls of a password protected web-based genealogical application. This will allow the information contained therein to be more private and secure.

  • I also hope, by placing the family tree into a web-based genealogical application, to open up the possibility of increased interaction between relatives that barely (if ever) see each other and to allow a process of collaboration on our family history – after all, it is not just my family history that I am seeking to preserve.

  • I am also hoping that by doing the above, our family history will ‘be owned’ by many more individual members of our family than it currently is. There are just so many ways that we can work together to preserve our family history for our own families and for generations to come. I don’t think family history preservation should be left at a family tree, a book and some photos – it can also include documents, individual stories, local history, etc. All these things can come together and complete our family history, making it more meaningful for those who are yet to come.

  • I am hoping to further develop the Grou.ps community that I have already established, and also to eliminate the old Yahoo mail groups that I once used in conjunction with the website.

  • I would also like to get a family history newsletter for our family going again.

These are just some of the things I’m keen to get working on.

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IMPROVEMENTS TO WEB SITE

Every so often I feel the need to change the appearance of the web site and to try and improve it as much and as best as I can. I have once again arrived at this point – a few changes are coming and underway.

 

I don’t expect that there will be wholesale changes across the entire site, but I would expect that there will be some fairly noticeable changes, particularly to the home page. I’m hoping to get the site a little more interactive and to encourage visitor collaboration and participation in the compilation of my (our) family history.

 

Visit the web site at:

Kevin’s Family – Online History Site

 

The Tracing our History community is already in place – though I am the only member at the moment. This social network community provides a fantastic opportunity for family members to communicate and interact with each other, as well as contributing to our family history research.

 

Visit the site at:

Tracing our History

 

I am also hoping to set up a collaborative family tree site, which will allow visitors (members in a secure, password protected site) to provide updates and corrections to research already compiled. I hope to add this feature as soon as possible, but not until I have completed work on the gedcom file (which is still a little way off) with which I will create the site. I am heavily leaning toward either Geni or Famiva at this stage.

 

The front page of the web site will also contain an RSS feed of this Blog and news from other of my social networking sites, Blogs, Twitter, etc.

 

So please feel free to visit Kevin’s Family – Online History Site.