Phil Akers's Family Tree

<pre>
         FidoNet message             
         Subject:   Finding Tool
From: Charles H. Crookston
To: Gary Hoffman
Subject: Re: WWW Genealogy Project
Datum: 05-05-94 16:01
Area: Genesoft

 -=> Quoting Gary Hoffman to Thomas Johnston <=-

 GH> Please note the lack of control in the WWW Proposal for CyberRoots.
 GH> Anyone is free to publish their information electronically just as
 GH> they are free to publish  their information in book form today and
 GH> send that published book to every library in the country or sell it to
 GH> every genealogist in the market. The evaluation of correctness of the
 GH> content will be with its users.

Unfortumately, your system will only gives your end users a more rapid
way to reproduce and pass on incorrect information. This to me is
unacceptable!

If the producers of these databases are not held to some kind of quality
control, viz a viz the correctness of the information being accepted and
stored then their information is nothing more than a finding tool, much
as the LDS IGI and Ancestral Files have proved.

Ancestral File is close, if its not already there, to becoming a monumental
body of errors and mistakes. Information garnered from it has to be
considered a finding tool only and its contents checked carefully. Thousand
of unknowing genealogists gleefully access it every day and use it,
unfortunately as the final word.

Many, many Genealogists have spend their lives toiling to get genealogy
to a position of acceptance comparable to that of other field of historical
research by stressing the necessity of careful research and documentation.

Their efforts and work are about, its appears to me, to be thwarted,if not
destroyed, by the popularity and unbridled pursuit of the hobbist
genealogist and electronic technology.


... Two most common elements in the universe: Hydrogen & Stupidity.
--- Blue Wave/Opus v2.12 [NR]
 * Origin: Roots(SF!) San Francisco 415-584-0697 HST (1:125/30.0)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Christian Carey
To: Gary Hoffman
Subject: WWW GENEALOGY PART I
Datum: 05-06-94 17:57
Area: Genesoft

GH> The data in CyberRoots datafiles can be held in any codeset the
GH> custodian chooses. When it is transmitted to a browser, it has to
GH> comply with the seven-bit structure of the Internet.

That's what I was wondering about, whether or not everything had to map
to and from ASCII.

GH> However, this has not held back development of many specially coded
GH> ways of displaying Chinese and Japanese characters via Internet
GH> transmission. Mosaic on certain platforms (X-Windows can display
GH> Japanese HTML documents right now. I tried to link to the www server
GH> run by Nippon Tel & Tel, but my Mac Mosaic would not display its
GH> characters correctly even though I was running Apple's Japanese
GH> Language Kit. (Guess we'll have to wait for the next version.)

Have you seen the O'Reilly book on Japanese data processing? It's
presented very well, but it still shows that Japan is a _long_ way from
standardized character sets. YEESH!

GH> I don't think we need be constrained by any codeset restrictions.
GH> Maybe I have a lot to learn...<understatement>

You never know when they're going to pop up...that's why I've written
SEVENBIT, a program that translates the various code pages of DOS and
Windows into a network-transferable seven-bit equivalent. My original
purpose for it was to empower people to accurately send genealogical
data without having to squeeze into an Anglocentric data mold (e.g. not
having to strip cedilla, grave, acute, circumflex, and diaeresis accents
from French letters). It's available as 7BIT0020.ZIP from the NGS BBS,
or in a uuencoded format via Internet e-mail by request.

Take care,

Christian.
--- TBBS v2.1/NM
 * Origin: Nat'l Genealogical Society, Arlington VA 703-528-2612 (1:109/302)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Vernor Harris
To: Gary Hoffman
Subject: Re: WWW Genealogy Projec
Datum: 05-13-94 10:16
Area: Genesoft

GH>In a message dated 05-05-94 Charles H. Crookston wrote to Gary Hoffman:
  > CC> Many, many Genealogists have spend their lives toiling to get
  > CC> genealogy to a position of acceptance comparable to that of other
  > CC> field of historical research by stressing the necessity of careful
  > CC> research and documentation.
  > CC>
  > CC> Their efforts and work are about, its appears to me, to be
  > CC> thwarted,if not destroyed, by the popularity and unbridled pursuit
  > CC> of the hobbist genealogist and electronic technology.
 I agree with you that its value is
  >primarily a finding tool. And this is acknowledged by its
  >managers.
  >a drawback? Upon reflection, I agree with the Ancestral
  >File's managers that publishing incomplete information is
  >better than publishing no information at all.

GH>I, too, uphold a high standard of careful research and full documentation.
  >Still, who should be the judge of what is correct and
  >complete? I can't judge your work, nor can you mine. Only
  >when I publish my research will I be in a position to
  >defend it to the world. Then, when all who have an interest
  >in my research have looked at it, compared it with their
  >own, and pronounced it 'good', only then will it be 'truth'
  >in the academic sense: generally accepted by those
  >knowledgable in the field. Thus, any tool that facilitates
  >exposure of ideas to the buffetings of the 'marketplace of
  >ideas' will actually help create knowledge.

Gary, thank you for this posting! You have said some things that needed
to be said.  We have too many people that are ready to flame other
people's efforts at family research.  There seems to be a wave that you
are not "politically correct" if you do not meet someone else's
preconceived idea of what "proper and correct" is genealogical research.
This idea seems to have originated with some of the Eastern
Historical/Genealogical societies and spread from there.

If some of these people think that using the computer for genealogy and
seeking contact with others interested in the same surname, is so bad,
why are they using computers and sticking around on the network?

I have been searching for my gg-grandfather's parents for over 27 years,
and I would be very happy to find them listed in the Ancestral File. It
would at least give me a lead and some clues for confirming research.

Now, I will go put on my asbestos suit :-)>

___
 X QMPro 1.51 X V.G. Harris-4022 Brookmoor Dr. Arlington, TX 76016

--- Maximus 2.01wb
 * Origin: Southern Crossroads * METRO 817-481-8984 * 19.2K ZyXEL (1:124/4115)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Daniel Greer
To: Vernor Harris
Subject: WWW Genealogy Project
Datum: 05-15-94 09:53
Area: Genesoft

I'm impressed with many of the points made recently by you and
others concerning electronic databases such as the Ancestral File and so
forth. One thought:  if the databases would be structured to allow the
sources of data to be quoted in addition to the names and dates
themseleves, users would be more able to evaluate the quality of the
data.  Although not a frequent user, it seems to me that Ancestral File
doesn't lay out specific sources for each data point (i.e. Jackson
county marriage book, 1878, p. 346, LDS microfilm roll XXXXXX).  It
only provides you with the name of a person who submitted the info (I
think.)

Perhaps whoever is developing the WWW project might consider structuring
it to allow this sort of data to be included.  Then the user could go
back and recreate this information himself.  And certainly, when you see
that the source was "Aunt Molly told me," you can take it with a grain
of salt. <g>.

Regards, Dan.

 * SLMR 2.1a * *

--- PTQWK 1.05 (Reg.)
 * Origin: Default origin line (1:112/59)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Vernor Harris
To: Daniel Greer
Subject: WWW Genealogy Project
Datum: 05-16-94 13:30
Area: Genesoft

 One thought:  if the databases would be structured to allow the
  >sources of data to be quoted in addition to the names and dates
  >themseleves, users would be more able to evaluate the quality of the
  >data.  Although not a frequent user, it seems to me that Ancestral File
  >doesn't lay out specific sources for each data point (i.e. Jackson
  >county marriage book, 1878, p. 346, LDS microfilm roll XXXXXX).  It
  >only provides you with the name of a person who submitted the info (I
  >think.)

Dan, the two points you make above are very good, and I agree that some
degree of source citation would be highly desirable.  Just how
extensive the source citations should be is a matter of debate, and I
will leave that to others.  Full citations for each event might be too
space consuming for the intent of the Data Base.  If we assume (a bad
word) that each individual will have the birth, marriage and death
events, for a data base of 1000 individuals, this "could" involve more
that 3000 source citations which would be three times as large as the
data base of individuals.  This would be desirable, but is it
practical?  I don't know.  I am afraid this would discourage many
individuals from participating in the data base.  Some will say "good,
they should not be contributing non documented data anyway!" I differ
with that mind set, because even undocumented material may give a clue
for further research.  I have found in my research that many family
traditions have proved to be true, some of them haven't been.  But when
I found a William Smith in court records that had killed his nephew, I
knew I had found my 3g-grandfather.

I have heard rumors and this is UNCONFIRMED, that eventually the
Ancestral file will offer more than just the name of the submitter.  I
do not intend to try to hold my breath until that happens :-)>

DG>Perhaps whoever is developing the WWW project might consider structuring
  >it to allow this sort of data to be included.  Then the user could go
  >back and recreate this information himself.  And certainly, when you see
  >that the source was "Aunt Molly told me," you can take it with a grain
  >of salt. <g>.

Again, I agree, but as I said above, even family tradition ("Aunt Molly
told Me") may be useful later in developing your own proof.

Thank you for your comment, we need more unemotional discussion like
this on the echo.
___
 X QMPro 1.51 X V.G. Harris-4022 Brookmoor Dr. Arlington, TX 76016

--- Maximus 2.01wb
 * Origin: Southern Crossroads * METRO 817-481-8984 * 19.2K ZyXEL (1:124/4115)

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          Monday, May 23, 1994 8:55:38 PM
          Message
  From:           SatelNET SysAdmin,root@sefl.satelnet.org,Internet
  Subject:        genealogy web
  To:             Gary Hoffman
I really like your html genealogy database concept.  If you haven't
already, I suggest you get rid of the CyberRoots name, though.

The "Cyber" prefix has been so abused that is now completely devoid
of any meaning.

I suggest something containing the term "web" after www, the technology
base used.  Something like "The Web of Roots" or "GenWeb" (patterned
after such concepts like FinWeb, BioWeb, etc)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Tuesday, May 24, 1994 8:20:15 AM
          Message
  From:           Gary Hoffman
  Subject:        Re: genealogy web
  To:             SatelNET SysAdmin,root@sefl.satelnet.org,Internet
Dear_____,
Yours is a very good suggestion. I like GenWeb, or maybe GeneWeb. I'll put it on the net and get some comments.
Thanks for your comments, _____________, stay in touch.
Cheers,
Gary
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Tuesday, May 24, 1994 8:23:54 AM
          Message
  From:           SatelNET SysAdmin,root@sefl.satelnet.org,Internet
  Subject:        Re: genealogy web
  To:             Gary Hoffman
> Dear_____,

Oh.  Yanek Martinson.

> Yours is a very good suggestion. I like GenWeb, or maybe GeneWeb. I'll put

The latter may be confused with genetics.
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          Tuesday, May 24, 1994 8:16:32 PM
          Message
  From:           Yvonne M. Karsten,yvonne@IC.Mankato.MN.US,Internet
  Subject:        WWW Genealogy Page
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Mr. Hoffman:
What a neat idea!  It's terrific that you shared your idea and took the
time to make it more real.  Your sample raised all sorts of
possibilities... Has anyone contacted you regarding the options for storing
these files on dedicated servers?  Many genealogists (and internauts in
general) are operating on dialup connections or don't have TCP/IP access
that would support having round the clock access for html links- but they
may be able to send their files to a respository that would agree to
provide the storage space and maintenance.  Some possibilities:  historical
societies, LDS libraries, local universities, freenets, community network
access providers, libraries, extension services, others...
Just a thought...

--
Yvonne Karsten
Internet Connections, Inc.
P. O. Box 205
Mankato, MN  56002-0205
**************************
Voice:  (507) 625-7320
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

          Wednesday, May 25, 1994 10:26:49 AM
          Message
  From:           cecil martin,csmartin@afit.af.mil,Internet
  Subject:        Genealogy
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Mr Hoffman,
            I just took a gander at your setup on WWW. May I 
commend you, I like it. The concept is great, I can't find 
fault with any of it and at this point I don't have any 
suggestions to improve it. If there is any way I can help I 
would like to try.

My main agenda is to petition the Gov't to put resources 
such as census CD-ROM's and the SS Death Index on line for 
research purposes. They already have a WWW site, Gopher and 
FTP access, and BBS access. And they SELL the CD-ROM's, it 
only makes sence to put them online when they already have 
the tools to do it.
                                                  Cecil

*******************
Mr. Cecil Martin
Computer Specialist
Novell LAN Manager
Air Force Institute
of Technology.
CSMARTIN@AFIT.AF.MIL
********************
     DISCLAIMER
The views expressed
herein are those of
the author and do not
reflect the official
policy or position
of the Department of
Defense or the U.S.
Government.
******************** 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

          Wednesday, May 25, 1994 11:57:16 PM
          Message
  From:           Phillip Akers,freyr!pakers@netcom.com,Internet
  Subject:        HTML Family Tree Chart (WIDE)
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Gary...
Here is the family tree chart...

<TITLE> Phil Akers's Family Tree Experiment</TITLE>

<H1>Phil Akers's Family Tree</H1>

This is an experimental HTML file for genealogical documentation.<P>

<PRE>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg1.html">Thomas Akers</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg1.html">Jim Akers</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg2.html">Tennessee Haggard</A>
                               <A HREF="g1.html">Donald Akers</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg3.html">Hosie Evans</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg2.html">Effie Evens</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg4.html">Ida Mulnax</A>
              <A HREF="f1.html">Jimmy Akers</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg5.html">Will Mathews</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg3.html">Audie Matthews</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg6.html">Alice McMinn</A>
                               <A HREF="g2.html">Emma Matthews</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg7.html">William Terry</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg4.html">Romie Terry</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg8.html">Daisy Pruitt</A>
<A HREF="s1.html">Phillip Akers</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg9.html">William Freidenberg</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg5.html">William Fridenberg</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg10.html">Nathalie Keine</A>
                               <A HREF="g3.html">Upshaw Fridenberg</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg11.html">Soloman Brown</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg6.html">Nellie Brown</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg12.html">Amanda Pollard</A>
              <A HREF="m1.html">Sara Fridenberg</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg13.html">Samual Stevenson</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg7.html">William Stevenson</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg14.html">Winnfred Turnage</A>
                               <A HREF="g4.html">Ida Stevenson</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg15.html">William Day</A>
                                                 <A HREF="gg8.html">Sarah Day</A>
                                                                    <A HREF="ggg16.html">Martha Johnston</A>
</PRE>

Back to Phil's <A HREF="pakers.html">home page</A><P>

<ADDRESS>
pakers@netcom.com
</ADDRESS>

-- 

 Phillip L. Akers
 pakers@netcom.com
 freyr!pakers@netcomsv.netcom.com
 wa4dde@wa4dde.ampr.org (44.4.30.74) 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Wednesday, May 25, 1994 11:57:46 PM
          Message
  From:           Phillip Akers,freyr!pakers@netcom.com,Internet
  Subject:        proposal.html...
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Gene...
Just looked at your proposal.html tonite and wanted to say
I think you have hit the nail on the head... I started some-
thing very close to this about 2 months ago but it is not
as polished as what you have done... I think this is the per-
fect way to pull a family history together... my parents have
been doing genealogiy research for about 20 years now but I
did not get really interested till about 2 months ago when
I was setting up my homepage and could see the possibilities...
what you have put together is very much along the lines of
what I have done but better :-)  I have built my documents
around a family tree chart (which I will send for you to 
take a look at)... each name on the chart can be clicked
on and will take you to that persons page... I hyperlinked
to parents, spouse and children in the personal page the same
way you did (I knew the idea was so good it had to be obvious)...
I also really liked your idea of the autobiographical sketch...
I have never gotten too excited about the programs that my
parents used... the information was just too cut and dried...
with autobiographical and biographical sketches it makes 
everything much more than just names, dates and places... the
sound bite was great too...

Phil
-- 

 Phillip L. Akers
 pakers@netcom.com
 freyr!pakers@netcomsv.netcom.com
 wa4dde@wa4dde.ampr.org (44.4.30.74)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Thursday, May 26, 1994 1:22:57 PM
          Message
  From:           Dennis J. Nicklaus,nicklaus@violet.physics.wisc.edu,Internet
  Subject:        www genealogy demo
  To:             Gary Hoffman
pretty cool concept.
How much thought have you given to how the indexing and lookup of
a specific name would work?
I mean, having the data is one thing.  Being able to search for
and find a specific person is quite another.
My only example is the LDS AF s/w and CD database.
There you give a name and approx. date, and it shows you
similar matches in its data bases (although I really
can't say that the AF interface is ideal, it is at least
a reference point.)
Sorry, I don't get/follow gedcom-l, but I have been following
soc.roots/roots-l lately.

Dennis
nicklaus@wishep.physics.wisc.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Thursday, May 26, 1994 3:30:00 PM
          Message
  From:           Gary Hoffman
  Subject:        Re: www genealogy demo
  To:             Dennis J.
  Nicklaus,nicklaus@violet.physics.wisc.edu,Internet
Aye, there's the rub. You have pointed out the weakness in my
plan.
If the data is/are distributed all over the place, we will need to
use a system like Archie or Veronica to search for ancestors.
But once you find the one you want, you just establish a link
there and don't have to find them again.
There is a lot of work to be done in this regard. Are you
volunteering?
If you are interested in this project, please subscribe to
gedcom-l. If there is enough interest, we'll establish a new list.

Thanks for posting your note.

Gary
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Friday, July 1, 1994 8:11:08 AM
          Message
  From:           Vic Abell,abe@vic.cc.purdue.edu,Internet
  Subject:        Re: GEDCOM to HTML Experiment
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Gary,

In message <1994Jun30.182529.281772@irpsbbs.ucsd.edu> you write:
>
>My hat's off to you. I thought we would not have this type of program
>running for months. You have produced just the application we need to
>translate all those GEDCOM files into HTML so that we can build the
>world-wide genealogy database. 

Well, I don't think I've done anything quite that revolutionary.
My few night's worth of effort did show me some things to avoid,
and also an approach that seems to work.

>I caught the same vision that you did and articulated it in a document I
>sent out to the genealogy community in April. The latest version is
>available at this address, and I invite you to read it.
>  http://irpsbbs.ucsd.edu/gene/genedemo.html

This is an impressive collection of information.  I see I'm going
to have to find time to look at the GEDCOM files on issl.cs.byu.edu
-- I've gotten behind the revisions of the specification.

>Since then, I have been trying to work on a GEDCOM to HTML converter on the
>Mac, using Hypercard. What you have done in unix is terrific and a step
>beyond what I was even working on. I asm humbled to be in the presence of
>genius.

You're too effusive, I'm afraid.  What you see is more the result
of my accumulation of 35 years of computing practice than any
genius.  Frode Kvam gets a lot of credit for the spark that started
me.  Unix tools -- C and perl -- are particularly good for quick
experiments like this.

If we want to go on, I know that the C program needs work to make
it more robust in the face of the varying quality of GEDCOM data.
I was sent a GEDCOM file from a distant cousin, written by Family
Tree Maker for Windows, and I had a lot of trouble converting it
to WWW with my C program.  I realized I needed an update to my
GEDCOM specification from LDS (I have 4.0 and 5.3 is now available);
and I bought a copy of FTM to see what it was doing and to have a
right to complain about its GEDCOM.

>I have spoken to the GEDCOM gurus in Salt Lake City and they are excited
>about this WWW project. Don't expect them to move as fast as we are going,
>however; they still don't have an Internet connection into Church
>headquarters. The idea of a network makes them nervous about intruders.
>("Them" being the Church officials, not the programmers.)

They probably have the resources and the will to make this project
succeed.  The volume of genealogical data is enormous, and I am
borrowing resources from my institution to do the experiment.  If
the experiment expands, it will need a more formal sponsor.  LDS
could be that sponsor.  I would be willing to talk to the Salt Lake
City people, if that would help.

>I have proposed to the WWW conference in Chicago in October to give a
>presentation/paper about genealogy using WWW. After seeing your work, I
>don't feel worthy to do this alone. Perhaps you would like to participate
>with me?

I will give it some thought.  I don't think I have done nearly as
much as you have, but I would be willing to talk about what I've
done.  Perhaps together we could talk about where this experiment
might lead.

>I had hoped to set a goal of converting all the world's GEDCOM files to
>HTML by the year 2000. Your work tells me that this is too pessimistic.
>This could be done in mere months instead of years.

Oh, I don't know.  It will probably take years to get genealogists
to part with their GEDCOM files.  :-)

Certainly a system with 10 or 20 gigabytes of data, a reasonable
processor, and a good Internet connection, could handle a lot of
GEDCOM data and queries to it.  The processor that supports my
experiment is a RISC/System 6000, model 570 -- considerably more
powerful (and expensive) than a PC or Mac.

One thing I can't predict is what will happen when the experiment
goes beyond simple GEDCOM data to the kind of images and sound that
you show in your demonstration.  The storage and network resources
that will be needed then will be much larger.

Another thing to ponder is how all the GEDCOM files could be linked
together.  Right now my experiment isolates each GEDCOM contribution
in its own compartment.  Some of those compartments have linkages,
but I'm not sure how to make those.

>The latest version of GEDCOM has room for pointers to external data sources
>built into the GEDCOM structure. This could accomdate picture, sound, or
>video files or links to external documents. I hope the URL is adopted as
>the link structure.

I haven't seen this part of the standard, but I don't imagine I
would have much trouble incorporating these links into the data
I'm now generating.

>Whew... I think this is the beginning of a new genealogical era. Thanks for
>your work. Now what are we going to do with it?

Good question.  :-)

I think I've already accomplished one thing that I set out to do
-- stimulate discussion by people who are interested in doing this
task.  You're certainly one of them.

If we join forces, I think our job is to find other people who are
also interested, and find a sponsor with sufficient resources to
expand the experiment.  I'm willing to do that, and to contribute
my computing skills as well.

Vic
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Tuesday, July 5, 1994 2:29:03 PM
          Message
  From:           Stefan Karlsson,stefank@math.chalmers.se,Internet
  Subject:        GenWeb
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Hi.

I ran onto your WWW-page on genealogy as HTML documents.
I have myself started to make my pedigree in that way.
I decided after some thought to record children just
in the mothers record, mostly to avoid ambiguities when
changing or correcting the records.

Be welcome to take a look at:
http://knaster.math.chalmers.se:8080/geneologi/ego.html

It's in Swedish, but I think it can be fairly understood even
for a foreigner. (I saw that your great grandmother
was Swedish (or Scanian...) so you should have no problems I guess :-))
A little dictionary could perhaps be handy:
Fo"dd    - Born
Far      - Father
Mor      - Mother
Gift     - Married
Bostad   - Residence
Do"d     - Dead
Referenser - References

The references are mostly from the birth and census books held 
by the vicar in the home parish.

There are just a few branches which goes further than two
generations yet, but the all paternal branch goes six generations back
and the all maternal five.

All persons in the record, except for ffmf Johan Eliasson, was by the
way born on my home island, Orust, on the west coast of Sweden.
(Johan Eliasson was born on the nearby island Tjo"rn.)
For a map, see:
http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map/5.0X=1/ht=0.010000000000000000208/iwd=256/lat=58.17/lon=11.71/wd=0.72
At the given magnification (500.0X) Orust is the big island in the
middle and Tjo"rn the slightly smaller south of Orust.

Our computer system will be down from July 15th until
22th so try it before that.

--
Stefan Karlsson

| Matematiska institutionen     |  Hogenskildsgatan 19  |
| CTH/GU                        |  416 57 G|teborg      |
| 412 96 G|teborg               |                       |
| nat 031-772 35 80             |                       |
| int +31 772 35 80             |  031-84 21 99         |
| fax +31 16 19 73              |                       |
stefank@math.chalmers.se
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Friday, July 22, 1994 1:32:21 AM
          Message
  From:           Anders Andersson,andersa@Mizar.DoCS.UU.SE,Internet
  Subject:        GenWeb proposal
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Hello,
I stumbled upon your demonstration, and I like the concept.
I have a few comments on the "Security and Privacy" section.
I consider computer system security and personal privacy to be
two separate issues, although they are often interrelated.
Since you have mixed these issues under a common headline, I
find the proposal somewhat unclear.  I understand that you have
PAF as a reference when writing this, but I'm not too familiar
with PAF, and your comparisons mean little to me.  Your points:

1. Technical security issues.  Looks OK to me.
2. Privacy issues. Passage unclear to me, although I believe
   you are saying that records on living persons would not be
   distributed publicly on the Web.  Fine.  I'm not sure I agree
   that "genealogical interest in living persons is limited to
   immediate family", as that's up to the individual researcher
   to decide.
3. Same privacy issues.  I find "difficulty of maintenance" a
   poor argument for convincing me that privacy will be upheld.
   Computers exist to eliminate the difficulties, and I expect
   that software will be designed to automatically establish
   links in both directions.  Such software will have to take
   into consideration whether a record is public or private, and
   refrain from adding certain links.
4. References to arbitrary properties of LDS Ancestral File tells
   me little about GenWeb privacy.  What in GenWeb corresponds to
   those "four generations"?  You have a good point about the
   difference in distribution policies.  Is that security or privacy?
5. Privacy.  OK.
6. "Gaps" may exist in terms of software security flaws as well as
   careless distribution of records not intended for publication.

I'd like to mention that as the laws are in Sweden, I'd probably need
permission from the Data Inspection agency in order to publicise
personal data in this manner.  Those laws weren't written with
networked amateur genealogical research in mind...

I note that you, like a few million other Americans, have ancestry from
Sweden.  However, as the links to the Malmo people didn't work, I couldn't
check them out.  In any case, my ancestors lived further north in the
country, so I don't expect any close relationship between us.

HTML: Tim Berners-Lee of CERN has some good advice regarding how to
write proper HTML, and I agree with most of his opinions.  I'd suggest
that you don't try to enforce a particular layout of your pedigree
trees by such unorthodox layout of unnumbered lists.  I suppose all
present browsers produce the kind of output one would expect, but I
can imagine that some structure-analyzing program might get upset.
However, maybe I'm just a purist... ;-)

There are a few errors in your HTML code, such as a missing </UL>
immediately after the list of contents in the proposal document.
As all this seems to be under development, I won't spend much time
looking for such errors, as you'll probably find and eliminate many
of them yourself soon anyway.

Regards,
Anders Andersson, Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University
Paper Mail: Box 325, S-751 05 UPPSALA, Sweden
Phone: +46 18 183170   EMail: andersa@DoCS.UU.SE
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          Tuesday, August 30, 1994 11:48:11 PM
          Message
  From:           Bill Minnick,svpafug@rahul.net,Internet
  Subject:        Re: HTTL Server for Home Page Access via Mosaic
  To:             Gary Hoffman
Gary,
     To your knowledge, has anyone written a GEDCOM to HTML translator?  If 
not, we at Silicon Valley PAF Users Group plan to do so, so we can get that 
global interlinked data base started.  I'm in the process of putting together 
a demo of genealogy pages which are compliant (or reasonably compliant)  with 
the new GEDCOM standard which is in the process of approval.
    Please give me any advise you can as we begin to act on your suggestion of 
a global interlinked HTML based genealogy data base.  
    Regards,  Bill Minnick, VP, Silicon VAlley PAF Users Group
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          Wednesday, August 31, 1994 9:05:04 AM
          Message
  From:           Gary Hoffman
  Subject:        HTTL Server for Home Page Access via Mosaic
  To:             Bill Minnick,svpafug@rahul.net,Internet
Bill,

Thanks for your note. I have been concentrating on a major written and oral
presentation of this GenWeb idea over the past couple of weeks. I am presenting
GenWeb to the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego at the Sept 19 meeting and
I have a large writeup in the COMPU.GEN newsletter to accompany it.

Meanwhile, there is some significant activity on the WWW front. Steve Wood has
been maintaining a WWW Genealogy Home Page with a good summary of genealogy
activity in the World Wide Web. If you reach his home page (URL
http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/~saw/genealogy.html), you will be able to see all of
what's happening.

Look for the link to "HTML and WWW" and you will find me and others working on
this project. The most active is Victor Abell at Purdue. He was written a GEDCOM
to HTML converter that seems to do well on pres v. 5.3 data. No Notes yet, but a
good indexing feature. You can reach his page at URL
http://www-rcd.cc.purdue.edu/~abe/. It is possible that Vic and I will be making
a presentation at the upcoming WWW convention in Chicago in October.

Take a look at what others have done and let's powwow about what should be doing
at this point. I think there will be a need for lots of programs, including some
kind of searching agents that prowl through databases looking for possible links
to report back to their sender.

BTW, I just read Mike Andrews' article in the SVPUG PAFinder newsletter. He does
acknowledge this work on WWW and Mosaic, but if you examine his proposal, we are
already in his Phase III.

Cheers,

Gary


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