Just a short post to let everyone know that there have been a range of site updates across the site. The main change has been the removal of social networking links and buttons that required constant updating. I don’t think these are necessary anymore.
For more visit:
http://tracingourhistory.com/.
I have over the years tried to find a site that could be useful for housing something of a private family social network. They have usually proved to be less than suitable. It will probably be something I have another shot at as I get back into the family history research and work on the website again.
The site I’m probably going to look into a bit with the hope that it may assist in accomplishing the private social network side of things is Family iBoard. I only recently became aware of it, so I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to investigate at this stage. However, the article linked to below in which the site was reviewed by Mashable, does fill me with a lot of hope. The only real issue will be getting family members to join, especially given the fees involved. But at roughly $8.00 a year, it’s hardly a huge fee and could prove very useful.
What do others think of the idea? I’d be keen to know. It really seems like a very good site for this sort of thing.
View the Mashable article at:
http://mashable.com/2012/09/07/family-iboard/
I have been away from genealogy for far too long and have started to get busy again. I certainly don’t have the amount of time to put into it as I have had previously, but I do want to start spending some time on my family history again.
I guess the last 5 years have been more than a little slow in terms of my involvement in family history and this has been for a number of reasons, including a slow and painful recovery from a major car accident 4 1/2 years ago, which took a lot longer to recover from than I anticipated. Though I returned to work after about 4 months, the process of recovery took a lot longer than that and I found the effort required at work took some time to get over when I was away from work. It was a difficult time and it was 2 years after the accident that I was fully cleared from any lingering problems associated with the brain injury that I sustained in the accident. It also took about that long to become completely free of any pain associated from the other injuries I suffered.
Since then there have been other things to keep me away from genealogical interests, which have not completely disappeared and I am sure there will be other challenges that pop up from time to time. Still, I think I can now inject some time and effort into the family history side of things again. There is much that needs to be done and I would especially like to complete the book I have been working on for some time. An edition or two were published on the website in the form of PDF files, but this work needs to be replaced due to some errors that appear in it. I am reminded of these errors from time to time, but it has proven difficult until now to get back to the necessary work required to correct them with an updated edition. This will hopefully take place sooner rather than later, though there is much work that needs to be done.
So, back to work it is. This Blog will be the means of updating progress on projects and the like, as well as the Facebook page.
The link below is to a website that maps London according to the most common surnames of an area. Quite interesting and useful to genealogy.
For more visit:
http://names.mappinglondon.co.uk/
Two more family trees are now accessible on the Tracing our History website. These are the Bagg/s and Jenkinson family trees.
A username and password are required to view the family trees hosted on the site. These are issued to family members who are able to show their relationship to the family.
These trees can be found via the link below:
http://tracingourhistory.com/secure/tree.html
The first of a number of family trees associated with my family is now accessible via the Tracing our History website. A username and password are required to view the family trees hosted on the site. These are issued to family members who are able to show their relationship to the family.
The first tree posted on the site is that of the Lilley family, starting with William Lilley (Born 1624) and follows his descendants. The tree can be found via the link below:
http://tracingourhistory.com/secure/tree.html
I am working hard to get an updated version of the family trees onto the website as soon as I possibly can. There is a lot of work going on at the moment with additional information being added to the database that I have. There are now over 15 000 names in the database and some 4750 marriages – so you can see the extent of what is going on behind the scenes. I still have a lot of work to do and the names in the database will probably reach about 20 000 or so by the time I’m finished (it may even get to 25 000) and about 10 000 marriages.
It is possible that I’ll be able to add the family trees corrected to what I currently have in the very near future – however, an update for the book is some way off.
Have a peek at the new site at:
http://tracingourhistory.com
It has been a little while since the last Blog post here at Tracing our History – not a great deal has happened in that time. To be honest I’ve had a lack of interest in family history. However, my interest levels have risen again and I have to thank those who have sent emails to me over the last little while. My lack of interest was ‘sparked’ by bickering on one side of my family, but now the other has ‘refreshed’ my interest by their interest in familial matters. Thank you so much for that.
Part of my interest in family history over the last 10 to 20 years, has been to preserve what I can for future generations. Sure, I’ve been very interested in my past and my family’s past to answer my own curiosity, but I’ve also wanted to have something there for those who come after me. Our history is being lost and I want to be able to preserve as much of it as I can. I have also longed for this exercise to be a collaborative matter, with others in the family also taking part in the preservation of our history. Thankfully, there are a number of people on my mother’s side who seem keen to research that history from varying perspectives (all of which helps with the overall story) and who are also willing to share and collaborate in that research. This can only be good for all of us and for those that follow.
I am still looking at ways to make that process easier and more profitable for us all – to develop a sort of place that we can come back to time and time again, to just touch base, share our research, nut out issues we may have in that research, see if we can help each other, etc. To do this, I think I will have to develop a dual approach – tools for my mother’s side and tools for my father’s side. There is already a Matthews social network available on Geni (which I set up). I am hopeful that on my mother’s side of things the experience will be a far better one (and all indications seem to point that way).
Over the next couple of days I am hoping to get a social network site up and going for my mother’s side of the family, which would include such surnames as Lilley, Jenkinson, Blanch, etc. I want to try and tie this Blog, the social community I have already set up for family members, my actual website and a family tree social network (for my mother’s side) together, so that they kind of work together – there will probably be a few passwords needed (helpful for privacy and security reasons). Anyhow, keep a look at the Blog here – I will keep updating things via the Blog.
In my last Blog post I made some comments regarding Delicious, the online bookmarking social network owned by Yahoo. Things may not be as desperate as I feared in that area, so I am keeping with Delicious at the moment. Hopefully it will be sold and continued, as it is a very good service.
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.
Having Blogged about the ‘History’ community in my last post here, it wasn’t that long after that that it became necessary to remove the ‘History’ community, as well as other communities hosted at Grou.ps. The reason for this was that Grou.ps were quickly moving to adopt a more ‘premium’ model of service. I would have been happy to pay for a premium service if that service was in fact premium, but because it was still full of bugs and problems I opted out and decided to move my operations elsewhere. At the moment I have no ‘History’ community, which is fine. I will adapt a page or two on the site for that purpose in time to come.
The ‘Tracing our History’ community, which was aimed at family members, faced the same issues as the ‘History’ community. I have already begun the process of moving this community elsewhere. It can found at Spruz and is only in the early stages of development. If you are a family member, please get on board even now and be part of the community as it grows.
Visit the ‘Tracing our History’ community at:
http://tracinghistory.spruz.com/
I have also begun some further work on the main website itself. I am very tempted to rename the site as ‘Tracing our History’ and will probably do so very soon. This will keep the three main affiliated sites – the Blog, the community and the main site – all named the same. I think this works much better.
Improvements to the site are under way, including major reviews of the family tree and family history book. Both of these will soon be hosted in more secure locations.
Tracing Our History 