I have been doing a little work on the ‘History’ community associated with my website. Have a look at the community at:
Kevin’s Family – Online History Site
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:
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.
NEWSLETTER DISCONTINUED: BLOG REPLACES IT
The newsletter for ‘Kevin’s Family – Online History Site,’ known as ‘Kevin’s Mailout,’ will be discontinued. In fact, the newsletter’s last issue was back in 2004, so it could be argued that it had already been discontinued and this is a fair argument. I did begin another issue in 2008, but it was never completed.
With the emergence of this Blog, ‘Tracing our History,’ the newsletter seems to be somewhat superfluous, even though there are undoubtedly a great number of family members and friends who don’t have Internet access. Having said that, I don’t believe there was any ‘official’ circulation of the newsletter in hard copy anyhow.
Anything that I would have placed in the newsletter will now be placed on the Blog instead and will not have to wait (possibly years) for the next issue of the newsletter. This seems a far better idea to me and will save a large amount of work for me also. The energy used in putting together a newsletter can now be placed into actual research and web site development, which will also be a far better result I think.
The archives of the newsletter will still be available via the web site at:
http://particularbaptist.com/matthewshistory/newsletter.html
A CENTRAL MEETING POINT: Tracing our History
I am excited about this new Blog which I am hoping to use as a central meeting point for interaction between family members, no matter which actual means an individual family member or friend may use to get here. You may come via a Facebook group, a Yahoo Mail Group, the Blog itself or from the web site, yet hopefully this will be a means for communication and interaction with other family members, some of whom you may never have met before.
My family history research and publication of it via the web has brought me into touch with various family members from around the world, including England, Canada, the United States and Australia. Hopefully this Blog will increase my circle of contacts and also allow others in the family to enter into the fruits of my labour, as well as sharing their own.
The ‘Tracing our History’ Blog will provide a central meeting point for our family, no matter the surname, the distance between us or what side of the family you may be on. It provides an opportunity for getting involved to whatever degree you may be comfortable with.
Some further opportunities to increase our experience of familial communication, discovery and interaction are listed below:
Matthews Family Mail Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MatthewsFamilyMail/
This mail group is a means for members of the family on my father’s (Brian John Matthews) side to stay in touch with each other via email.
Lilley Family Mail Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LilleyFamilyMail/
This mail group is a means for members of the family on my mother’s (Edna Ivy Elizabeth Lilley) side to stay in touch with each other via email.
Kevin’s Family – Online History Site:
http://particularbaptist.com/matthewshistory/index.html
This is my family history web site where I maintain online my family history research. It is generally a bit behind what I have in hard copy, but I do try to update as regularly as I can.
The Family – Descendants of Mary Bagg (b1770): http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43863243859
This Facebook group is there for those on Facebook who are descendants of Mary Bagg (born in 1770) and Josiah Roberts (b 1770). Their children were Sarah Bagg (b 7/2/1796 – d 23/6/1799) and Joseph Roberts-Bagg (b 6/7/1801 – d 28/10/1882). Joseph married Ann Vincent (b 1799 – d 8/4/1874) on the 8/4/1822. Their children were Ann (b 1821), William (b 1822), James (b 1826), John (b 5/1828 – d 10/4/1900), Mary (b 1831), Eliza (b 1832), George (b 1/1/1835 – d 30/4/1916) and Charles (b 15/8/1838).
Kevin’s Family – Online History Message Board/Forum:
http://kevinsfamilyhistory.aimoo.com/
You may be familiar with message boards or forums – they provide an opportunity to raise questions and to discuss various issues. Feel free to contribute here.
About Tracing our History
Below is what I have added to the ‘About Tracing our History’ page on the Blog site:
‘Tracing our History’ exists for a whole range of reasons – informing, educating, entertaining, updating, sharing, etc. The Blog is concerned with a number of family surnames including Lilley, Matthews, Blanch, Randall, Bagg/s, Webb, Jenkinson, and quite a few more – in short, it will be relevant to any surname that is represented in our family history (as long as the person concerned is actually part of our family history).
This Blog exists for my family, as does my web site at:
http://particularbaptist.com/matthewshistory/index.html
I am of course the chief contributor to this Blog (and the before mentioned web site) and also the moderator of it. I do however welcome contributions from others in the family and will consider adding contributors to the management team of the Blog. This is something I would love to do. If you do want to add something please let me know.
I am hoping that this Blog site will further assist my research into our family history, as well as others who are pursuing the same goal and will therefore enable us together to trace our history both in Australia and abroad.
If you can assist us in tracing our history please contact us and share what information you have – be it documents, family trees, photographs, video, records, etc. It will all help to put together as comprehensive a family history as we can, in order to share it with others in the family today, as well as preserving our history for those who will come after us. In this regard we can put together something of a ‘cyber-museum’ if you like.
For about me visit either of the pages below:
http://particularbaptist.com/matthewshistory/kevins.html
http://particularbaptist.com/kevins/kevin.html
Thanks for visiting – come again and contribute if you can,
Kevin Matthews
Tracing Our History 