Wednesday, July 12, 1995 9:39:44 PM GenWeb Item From: Tim Doyle,tdoyle@netcom.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb On Wed, 12 Jul 1995, Kent A. Peterson wrote: > Another possibility (not free, unfortunately) is to locate an > Internet Service Provider who includes storage space for your web > page along with your access account. For example, there are at > least two providers here in Milwaukee who offer 2 meg of space > for your web page with a $12/month Internet access fee, and 4 > meg with a $20/month unlimited access account. The current rate that my site charges is $10 per meg per month. This rate is designed for business accounts, and I am looking into the possibility of providing a reduced rate for genealogical related materials. I wish that I could give space away free, but I am currently paying for an SGI computer to run the site, various other pieces of hardware, fees to connect to the internet, ISDN phone line charges, electricity, etc. Putting a (decent) site on the Web isn't cheap. Please let me know at what point you would consider paying to make your data available. $10 per meg per month? $5? $2.50? Don't bother to respond if your answer is 'free'. I know you'd all like that (as would I) :) Tim Doyle / tdoyle@netcom.com / tdoyle@doit.com WWW homepage: http://www.doit.com/tdoyle/ ftp directory: doit.com pub/tdoyle Thursday, July 13, 1995 12:33:36 AM GenWeb Item From: Judith Carol,jcarol@amanda.dorsai.org,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb How does one get a list of the FREE WEB sites throughout the country? JC Thursday, July 13, 1995 2:25:42 AM GenWeb Item From: Brian Tompsett,B.C.Tompsett@dcs.hull.ac.uk,Internet Subject: Free Web sites directory To: GenWeb see: Thursday, July 13, 1995 5:32:27 AM GenWeb Item From: JohnR238@aol.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb Tim Doyle asked earlier what a fair price for a parking space would be... I think about $5/meg per month is a fair price with some kind of package say 5 megs for $20, 10 megs for $35.00. My bosses' initial response was "sure - put it out there" when I asked about ftp space for the census project, but 1 month into the project, I'm already starting to hear grousing about the number of people hitting our site. I'd be much more comfortable myself it I KNEW I wasn't subject to losing my site because the boss had a bad day. We've got the real issue to face of who is willing to pay for this info. on line, not just what they will pay. Should the charges rest on the provider, the receiver, a corporate sponsor (i.e. advertising), or the service provider? We have examples of all of these in the marketplace now. My personal thoughts are that ultimately the expense must be borne by the consumer (receiver) of the information. Public libraries exist with limited gen. materials now, (paid for by the taxpayer), but the better collections are in private member only libraries which people pay $20 - $50 per year. We have a unique situation as genealogy "vendors" in that the Mormon's dominate the industry with "free" info. albeit with their own agenda and purposes for providing the info. (no flames please - I'm strictly making an observation). If providers are going to "compete" witht he FHC's, they must do so (1) more convenience (2) better documentation (3) more organized - you get the picture; in some way that adds "value" to the "free" information. We must then be compensated by the ones we serve. Well, enuf of my soapbox for now. Your comments and feedback appreciated. JOHN RIGDON "Your Genealogy Super Store" EMAIL johnr238@aol.com Thursday, July 13, 1995 5:47:23 AM GenWeb Item From: Mickey Lane,MLANE@csi.compuserve.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb Tim Doyle sez: >Please let me know at what point you would consider paying to make your >data available. $10 per meg per month? $5? $2.50? Don't bother to >respond if your answer is 'free'. I know you'd all like that (as would >I) :) Hmmmmmmm......The ROOTSBOOK server is currently consuming 408 Mbytes. ...and that's just for the web stuff. The software, notes, databases, included files and so on eats up another 300. Lemme see ... at 2 bucks a meg per month... Naaa... I'll keep my day job. Thursday, July 13, 1995 6:51:59 AM GenWeb Item From: Scott McGee,smcgee@microware.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb Here is a page that has links to lots of places where you can get a free web page. Many have restrictions, but it's worth checking out if you don't have anything else. http://metro/turnpike.net/J/JonsPage/freepages.html Scott Buttered bread always lands butter side * Would YOU mistake these as down (Unless it sticks to the ceiling!) * anyone`s opinions but my own? Email: smcgee@microware.com (Scott McGee) Web: http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sam8644/homepage.html Thursday, July 13, 1995 8:28:32 AM GenWeb Item From: Mary M. Chaddock,chaddock@nicanor.acu.edu,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb I am new to this list serv, and after reading a few of the posts, I have one quick question. Is the on-line project of which you have been referring, a profit or non-profit project? On Thu, 13 Jul 1995 JohnR238@aol.com wrote: > We've got the real issue to face of who is willing to pay for this info. on > line, not just what they will pay. Should the charges rest on the provider, > the receiver, a corporate sponsor (i.e. advertising), or the service > provider? We have examples of all of these in the marketplace now. ----------------------------------------------- Mary M. Chaddock, Systems Administrator Abilene Christian University - Abilene, Tx. ( chaddock@nicanor.acu.edu ) Thursday, July 13, 1995 8:44:18 AM GenWeb Item From: C Daniel Chase,cchase@cecasun.utc.edu,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb Has anyone talked to Michael Colley at Genealogy OnLIne? He offers FREE linux accounts for anything genealogy related. I am sure some arrangement could be made. Attached is some info from his system about it's use and obtaining an account: FROM EMCEE.COM: ________________ Account Information Persons having telnet and/or full FTP access can subscribe to and have an account at Genealogy Online. Businesses pay a $35 annual fee plus disk usage above a daily average of 5 megabytes per month. Subscriptions are free to genealogy-minded individuals and non-profits. Every user will receive a login and password. You will be given access to emcee.com for email and virtually all other Internet services. You may maintain a publicly accessible directory of files -- even if they amount to nothing more than a tiny-tafel or small text file about your research. You can moderate a mailing list (JOHNSON-L, anybody?) or create a Web page. Virtually anything is possible - as long as it is genealogy-related. (There will be exceptions made regarding subject matter for persons in the Santa Cruz area.) For more details about the site, please download pub/WhatItIs.txt or send a message to info@genealogy.emcee.com. That file will describe the procedure for activating a subscription. Michael Cooley, System Administrator ___________________________ -Dan -=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=- C. Daniel Chase cchase@cecasun.utc.edu 2288 Gunbarrel Rd Ste 111-151 Marsville Coordinator-Polk Co, TN Chattanooga TN 37421 NASA F-18 SRA Facilitator (615) 870-8128 Roots-L Error Response Team -=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=--=++=- Thursday, July 13, 1995 10:56:58 AM GenWeb Item From: Mickey Lane,MLANE@csi.compuserve.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb >Would you please explain to me Rootsbook? I am currently doing research and >have need of all the access areas I can get my not so little fingers on. >Thank you, >Bonnee Caplan ROOTSBOOK is a genealogy software package I wrote some time ago. It does linked databases, among other things. ROOTSBOOK on the web is a www server accessing a bunch of ROOTSBOOK databases containing 350,000 folks. The info was translated from GEDCOM files uploaded to various services and/or sent directly to me. Anyone who would like to contribute can mail a GEDCOM file to me at mlane@csi.compuserve.com or upload it to CompuServe and tell me where it is. http://mlane2.inhouse.compuserve.com:8000/GenWeb.html Mickey. Thursday, July 13, 1995 1:32:40 PM GenWeb Item From: Matt Soffen,matt@aai.com,Internet Subject: Obituary;Canadian; for SOFFAN July 1995 To: GenWeb If someone could, I'ld would greatly appreciate a copy of the obituary of Ohlmaza (Almazza ?) Soffan (I believe thats the spelling). It may be under Soffen. If listed, her father was Mohammed Soffen of Springfield MA in USA. I don't know where she was when she died. I belive that her death was the during last weeks of June or early in July. Her age was believed to be in her eighties. Thanks for any assistance in advance. -- Thanks Matt Soffen (matt@tuxie.aai.com) ====================================================== "Repeat to yourself it's just a show, you should really just relax" Mistie #52123 - Theme to 'MST3K' - Thursday, July 13, 1995 1:40:28 PM GenWeb Item From: JohnR238@aol.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb Is the on-line project of which you have been referring, a profit or non-profit project? I wasn't referring to any particular project, but to the concept of accessing genealogical material generally. I'm sure the same questions apply to the access of ALL research materials. My current project which is in the talking stage of bringing the census transcriptions on line - is just that - in the talking stage. Personally, I think the project it too large for a non-profit organization to manage, but I don't know that we can attract the sponsorship of a commercial entity. The whole of "genealogy research" on line is now at the benevolence of various entities, and subject to becoming unavailable as the demands on the systems grow. As an example, look at the ordeal ROOTS-L had in finding a new sponsor, and the fact that one of the key parts, the searching of the archives may be unavailable come August 1st. John Rigdon EMAIL JOHNR238@AOL.COM Friday, July 14, 1995 5:20:44 AM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Cross-referencing and indexing To: GenWeb Disclaimer: I'm new to this, so the following may be incorrect.... GenWeb started with a proposal for a standard format for distributed genealogical data and a request for input to improve the format. The intent apparently was to develop a "seamless" web of genealogies with a "consistent user interface". The result is a plethora of genealogy sites, each formatted as the owner wishes, with a few formats being used more than others. Whether good or bad, this sort of cooperative anarchy is the nature of the Net. It is inevitable that attempts to create a standard indexing scheme will end up the same way. Persons making indexes available will do it the way they want. Those that are the most useful will get the most use. I propose only three "standards" which IMHO are simple, easy, and reasonable, and I welcome comment on them. 1. If you are going to produce an index, announce what format you desire input and where to send it. Index only what people send you--don't go out and get it. (Exception: by "send" I include giving you a URL so that you can retrieve it manually or automatically.) 2. When you offer data for indexing, provide HTML HREFs for people finding an index entry to link to your data at the place YOU feel is appropriate for the particular person, marraige, family, event, whatever. Indexers SHOULD (but its their choice) display a search result in the form of an anchor to that HREF. 3. For GEDCOM, how about a new (OPTIONAL) tag "HREF" that can appear at any level, and consists of the URL/HREF for a link to SOMEONE ELSE's data which "matches" yours. Since the link is in YOUR data, YOU decide whether the other person's individual, marriage, whatever is the same as yours. Since the destination is the other person's data, THAT PERSON should decide and give to you the exact string to use. (Either by direct communication or by putting an anchor in their HTML which you can point to.) GEDCOM to HTML conversion systems could put such links into their output in whatever format the author sees fit. Friday, July 14, 1995 11:50:46 AM GenWeb Item From: Mickey Lane,MLANE@csi.compuserve.com,Internet Subject: More ROOTSBOOK bonepile problems. To: GenWeb Here's an interesting one. The father shows marriages 1, 2 and 3. The 1st marriage has father 244 and mother 245. The 3rd has 'em reveresed. The date of marriage (which I deleted) was identical for marriage #1 and #3 so not only is marriage #3 bogus but it screws up an indication of who was male and who was female. 0 HEAD 1 SOUR FTREE 10.1 1 DEST FTREE 1 DATE 5 MAR 1994 1 FILE LACY 0 @F71@ FAM 1 HUSB @I244@ 1 WIFE @I245@ 1 CHIL @I91@ 1 CHIL @I276@ 1 CHIL @I277@ 1 CHIL @I278@ 1 CHIL @I279@ 1 CHIL @I280@ 1 CHIL @I281@ 1 CHIL @I397@ 1 CHIL @I401@ 0 @F72@ FAM 1 HUSB @I244@ 1 WIFE @I283@ 0 @F73@ FAM 1 HUSB @I245@ 1 WIFE @I244@ 1 CHIL @I282@ How do you code to watch for this? Friday, July 14, 1995 2:17:12 PM GenWeb Item From: Scott McGee,smcgee@microware.com,Internet Subject: GENDEX.txt To: GenWeb Gene, Could you post the format for your GENDEX.txt file? I seem to have misplaced what we were discussing on it. Scott |- I never actually SAID that! -|- email: smcgee@microware.com -| |------------ http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sam8644/homepage.html ------------| Programming in assembly language is a lot like digging a post hole with a teaspoon. Of course, you DO have complete control over every bit of dirt! Friday, July 14, 1995 6:37:04 PM GenWeb Item From: Irwin Greenwald,irwin.greenwald@mogur.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb My Home Page is on emcee. Michael Cooley has been very co-operative and most helpful On 07-13-95, CCHASE@CECASUN.UTC.EDU wrote: C>Has anyone talked to Michael Colley at Genealogy OnLIne? He offers C>FREE linux accounts for anything genealogy related. I am sure some C>arrangement could be made. Attached is some info from his system C>about it's use and obtaining an account: Internet: irwin.greenwald@mogur.com --- *CMPQwk 1.42-R2 #933 Friday, July 14, 1995 7:11:31 PM GenWeb Item From: Gene Stark,gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu,Internet Subject: Experimental GenWeb Index To: GenWeb A first cut at my experimental GenWeb index can now be perused via my home page: http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~stark For those who weren't tuned into this list, this is an automatically updated index that makes use of a special-purpose "GENDEX.txt" file provided by the owner of each database. My "ged2html" program will generate such a file from GEDCOM source, along with the HTML pages it generates. Currently, the index consists of a list of surnames, where each surname is linked to a file containing links to all individuals having that surname. The index is updated automatically every 24 hours, but new copies of the GENDEX.txt files are only fetched after the current copies are 3 days. This means that if you change your GENDEX.txt, the changes will be reflected automatically in the index within three days. There is also a page consisting of links to the "Welcome" pages of each of the sites being indexed. Currently only four databases are being indexed, two of which are mine, but I would like to get more. There are instructions in the index welcome page that tell you what to do to get your database into the index. - Gene Stark [NOTE TO: Annelise and Scott - Sorry to make you guinea pigs, but the GENDEX.txt files created by GED2HTML failed to meet my own formatting specifications. I have worked around this a bit for now, but it means that some of your birth and death information will not be shown in the index page. I have uploaded a new copy of my program. When you get a chance, if you just update your GENDEX.txt file the problem will correct itself automatically. - Gene] Saturday, July 15, 1995 1:46:40 PM GenWeb Item From: Annelise Anderson,ANDRSN@HOOVER.STANFORD.EDU,Internet Subject: Unsubscribing GENWEB To: GenWeb So, you want to unsubscribe GENWEB? You're not interested in the efficiency of sorting algorithms, the problems of indexing millions of names (and associated information) in varied (and ephemeral) databases, workarounds for the problem of the case- sensitivity of UNIX? HTML, DNS, YACC parsers, CNAMES and host aliases? Kibitzing as most of the people in the world who are both expert with computers and interested in genealogy debate genealoyg on the Internet? Ah well. Entirely understandable. All you wanted to know was where your great grandfather's parents were born. The languages that interest you are French and German, maybe even Arabic, but not C or C++. You're in the wrong place and you don't know how to get out. You got a message about unsubscribing when you first signed up, but you had your mail program in "eyes only" (delete after reading) mode and you no longer have the message? Or it's simply lost in some directory on some computer and you have no way to find it? Or it got zipped, tarred, mimed, uuencoded, pgp'd or whatever, and you cannot undo what you did so you can read it? This message explains and evaluates the likelihood of success of three alternative approaches to getting your name off this list, including whether and how quickly these methods may work and associated advantages and disadvantages of each method. SAVE IT! If you don't need it now, you may need it later. Method I Technique: Using Method I you send a message to the mailing list using one of the commands that usually gets you out of what you're in--unsubscribe, quit, exit, stop, cancel, bye, end, off, out, //disc, enuf, Ctrl+X,Y,Z, Alt+F X, Alt+X, so long, arrivederci, auf wiedersehen, thanks but no thanks, ave atque vale. (Each of these can be preceded by "please" or "help.") Advantages: Easy to send using the "reply" key. All alternatives work equally well (or badly, as the case may be) alone or in combination. Disadvantages: The entire mailing list sees your messages, which have no information value and about which none of the readers (with one exception) can do anything. Although the people on this list may well be the nicest and most courteous people on the Internet, they may get annoyed enough to do something like forwarding old messages to you. Things could get worse before they get better. Evaluation: This method doesn't work because the message, whatever it says, is going to the wrong place. Method II Technique: Send an e-mail message to Gary Hoffman asking him to take your name off the list. You may want to beg and plead a little, explain why you deleted/lost/trashed the message explaining how to unsubscribe, apologize, and express appropriate contrition and remorse. Evaluation: Will it work? I don't know. I can't speak for Gary Hoffman. I assume he's a busy person, with the usual professional and family responsibilities in addition to the volunteer avocation of GENWEB. Then there's the San Diego zoo, the ocean, all that California stuff. (Everything you've heard about the California life style is true.) Disadvantages: You probably don't have Gary's e-mail address; any messages from him probably got trashed along with the others. You'd have to wait until he sends another message to the list, which may or may not happen soon. Do I have Gary Hoffman's e-mail address? Yes. Will I give it to you? No. Advantages: It may work. Eventually. (Am I going to tell you how to unsubscribe this list, or is this sort of like Lucy holding the football for Charlie? Hang in here.) Method III: Send a message to: genweb-request@ucsd.edu or: listserv@ucsd.edu Include in the body of the message: unsub your.e-mail.address genweb Or unsub genweb You will note that there are two possible addresses to which to send the message, and two possible messages, for a total of four possibilities. Call the address respectively 1 and 2, and the messages a and b. (As far as I know none of this is case-sensi- tive, but then there's a lot I don't know.) Evaluation: One of these, and perhaps all four, will probably work. But then, who knows? Programs and their commands change, addresses change, stuff is moved around from computer to computer. Maybe there are some typos. As of early March 1995 option 1a was recommended; as of May 1995, option 2b was suggested. If I were you, I'd try 2b first. Advantages: Very likely to work virtually immediately, especially 2b. Does not require human intervention. Annoys no one. No retaliatory responses. No need to confess your inadequacies or express remorse or contrition. The fact that you are only 62.9 percent computer literate and perhaps not entirely literate even in the conventional sense remains your own secret. This is definitely the way to go. Disadvantages: You have to type in an address rather than just hit the reply key. But the advantages here outweigh the disadvantages. Summary: To unsubscribe GENWEB, send a message to: LISTSERV@UCSD.EDU with the message: UNSUB GENWEB That's all. Good luck. Annelise Sunday, July 16, 1995 2:18:53 PM GenWeb Item From: Anders Andersson,andersa@Mizar.DoCS.UU.SE,Internet Subject: Re: Cross-referencing and indexing To: GenWeb Wesley Groleau writes: >GenWeb started with a proposal for a standard format for distributed >genealogical data and a request for input to improve the format. I don't think there has been a single proposal for any particular standard format yet. If you have seen one, please give us a pointer to it. >The intent apparently was to develop a "seamless" web of genealogies >with a "consistent user interface". Well, user interface consistency may be a valuable feature of the distributed database, but I don't think we should state that as a requirement for anything GenWeb-related, at least not at the start. I believe we have a good deal of interface consistency already by employing the existing standard of HTML. >The result is a plethora of genealogy sites, each formatted as the >owner wishes, with a few formats being used more than others. This is not the result. It's just part of the work. A number of people are trying out different designs, and their experiences and efforts will be useful when carving out the details of the GenWeb. >It is inevitable that attempts to create a standard indexing scheme >will end up the same way. It's a matter of defining goals and working towards them. Nobody has defined the goals behind the present plethora of genealogy sites, and that's why they can't be called "the result" of the GenWeb project. I think proposals for actual standards are best accompanied by working implementations. That's a good way to help people verify that those standards might actually work and serve the expected purposes. -- 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 Sunday, July 16, 1995 7:01:10 PM GenWeb Item From: Isaac E. King,iking@remus.ultranet.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb I believe the success of the "genealogy research" project will always be at the benevolence of various entities. I have a hard time visualizing a commercial self supporting venture for many years to come. Maby when the data base becomes extensive enough for joe public to look up his grand ma ma, some level of pay per access commercial support could be viable, 2025. What to do. A single mule for the entire data base looks out of the question given the low probability of government intervention and support. Therefore, why not try to find individual www homes by sirname only with a central home for the index/directory/catalog-name dejure. This arrangement could be made to work if sirname site allocations were administered by a central clearing house. The major nit in this approach is implementing site access controls. A method for individual contributors to add personal records to the appropriate sirname site is required. But the site must also maintain the intregity of existing data. Perhaps a new data field with the contributors URL/Password/eMail ??? could be used to limit edit access. No matches would be restricted to read print download only. A duplicate record algorithm is also needed to prevent "impared individuals" from downloading records, making changes, and submitting data as originals. My two cents. Over priced but what isn't. Ike Sunday, July 16, 1995 11:17:24 PM GenWeb Item From: Dallan Quass,quass@DB.Stanford.EDU,Internet Subject: GenWeb indexing To: GenWeb My understanding of the ideas recently proposed for indexing genealogical is that some subset of on-line genealogical data should be replicated at a common site (which might be mirrored at many sites) to facilitate searches across sites. Which fields to replicate, especially whether or not to replicate link information between individuals, is still open. Also open is the format of the index exchange files: gedcom or 1-line-per-individual. Everyone agrees that some reference to the source (URL and/or other address) is necessary. One concern that seems to underlie much of the discussion is the size of the combined index at the central site and whether the index search program could withstand the strain of possibly many searches. Has anyone considered storing the index information in a relational database at the central site? This would require a conversion at the central site from the index exchange file format to a format suitable for import into a relational database, which involves denormalization since gedcom is more flexible than the relational model. But since we are only storing index information perhaps it would be possible. One _possible_ schema is the following. I am hesitate to propose a schema because I don't want to get sidetracked into what should and should not be included. I do this only toward a "proof of concept" for whether the indexing information could be adequately normalized. Individual(indiv_id, surname, given_names, birth_day, birth_month, birth_year, birthplace_1, birthplace_2, birthplace_3, birthplace_4, sex, child_of_family_id, source_url, submitter_id) Family(family_id, husband_id, wife_id, marriage_day, marriage_month, marriage_year, marriageplace_1, marriageplace_2, marriageplace_3, marriageplace_4, source_url, submitter_id) Submitter(submitter_id, submitter_name, postal_address) In order to allow for missing and approximate information, all data fields would have to be variable-length strings and be null-able. The id fields would be internally-generated by the central indexing site. Why do this? Using a relational database has several advantages. Relational databases routinely handle millions of records. They are available on a variety of platforms. Database indexes can be built on one or more of the more commonly searched fields to speed up searches. I realize that relational databases can be slow at joining information in several tables but probably only complex searches will require searching more than one table. I know that at least one relational database vendor is planning to incorporate their database directly into a web server. This will allow them to keep data files open and keep data cached between searches, which is more efficient than loading and executing a CGI script that has to re-open the index files every time a search is performed. Instead of (in addition to?) an SQL interface, people could search using HTML forms where they are allowed to specify one or more search fields. This kind of ad-hoc search capability is starting to become common among web sites that present searchable databases. Having a relational query engine could permit the specification of complex searches. For eample, you could search for all individuals married to a Jane Doe between 1800 and 1850 with a child named John. I'm still fairly new here, so any feedback would be appreciated, especially on the feasibility of converting the index data into a normalized form suitable for importing into a relational database. -Dallan Monday, July 17, 1995 4:37:21 AM GenWeb Item From: JohnR238@aol.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb One of the major problems I have at this point is that I KNOW there are duplicate - matching names in my collection of GEDCOM files, and that is in fact the reason for collecting them, but once I find a match (most GEDCOM match queries yield 3 or 4 now), I have no way of reconciling them. I'm not even sure if I as a librarian/repository should have any part in consolidating/purging/verifying data. I like your idea of indexing sites for surnames only. The overall index will be smaller, and the actual researchers can then take the responsibility of verifying the source and reconciling conflicts. Monday, July 17, 1995 5:46:51 AM GenWeb Item From: Gene Stark,gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu,Internet Subject: GenWeb indexing To: GenWeb >Has anyone considered storing the index information in a relational >database at the central site? This would require a conversion at the >central site from the index exchange file format to a format suitable >for import into a relational database, which involves denormalization Seems to me that a relational database would clearly be a good thing. However, at the moment, we're still at the "how to we arrange to collect the data to be indexed" stage. Once we get index(es) that are big enough to put any strain at all on the host systems, then it will be worth the effort to use some sort of database system. So far, response to my experimental index has been underwhelming. All that is necessary, for someone who built their HTML pages with my GED2HTML program, is to rerun the current version of the program to create the GENDEX.txt file, and E-mail me a couple of pieces of information. Instructions can be found via: http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~stark I suspect it may be necessary for me to go through the list of sites from Tim Doyle's home page and send personalized invitations, as perhaps many of those people are not bothering with this list. - Gene Stark Monday, July 17, 1995 7:05:56 AM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb >From: JohnR238@aol.com >One of the major problems I have at this point is that I KNOW there are >duplicate - matching names in my collection of GEDCOM files, and that is in >fact the reason for collecting them, but once I find a match (most GEDCOM >match queries yield 3 or 4 now), I have no way of reconciling them. I'm not >even sure if I as a librarian/repository should have any part in >consolidating/purging/verifying data. If you can do messy-dos, Genealogical Information Manager (GIM) has an EXCELLENT method for analyzing two databases, making recommendations on possible duplicates, and performing a merge with the user having full power to veto and/or modify each proposed duplicate. GIM also allows merging two individuals in the same database, but the user has to know who they are. In the works is a means of applying the inter-database evaluation to recommending merges WITHIN one database. Shareware: check your favorite FTP site for gim311.zip (numbers may be higher by now). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- W. Wesley Groleau (Wes) INTERNET: wgroleau@lear.mitre.org The MITRE Corporation VOICE: 908-389-6596 (-6732) 145 Wyckoff Road, Room 325 FAX: 908-542-3679 Eatontown, NJ 07724-1842 TEMP. HOME: 908-389-4800 ext. 311 ( or P.O. Box 90, Eatontown, NJ -- wa795@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, July 17, 1995 9:28:14 AM GenWeb Item From: Gary Hoffman,ghoffman@ucsd.edu,Internet Subject: GenWeb Archives To: GenWeb Dear GenWebbers, The GenWeb mailing list has achieved 400 subscribers. I'm gratified that interest in the GenWeb concept is growing. If you want to read past messages sent to this list, you are welcome to visit the GenWeb Discussion Archive at URL http://demo.genweb.org/genweblist/genweblist.html. I finally caught the archives up to date all the way to the end of June 1995. Cheers, Gary *************************************************************************** *Gary B. Hoffman, Computer/Language Lab Director e-mail: ghoffman@ucsd.edu* *Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS)* *University of California, San Diego (UCSD) voice: (619) 534-7733* *9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA 92093-0519 USA fax: (619) 534-5727* *************************************************************************** Monday, July 17, 1995 1:36:03 PM GenWeb Item From: Irwin Greenwald,irwin.greenwald@mogur.com,Internet Subject: Experimental GenWeb Index To: GenWeb CC: GENE@STARKHOME.CS.SUNYSB. genweb@ucsd.edu G>Currently, the index consists of a list of surnames, where each G>surname is linked to a file containing links to all individuals having G>that surname. The index is updated automatically every 24 hours, but G>copies new of the GENDEX.txt files are only fetched after the current G>copies are 3 days. This means that if you change your GENDEX.txt, G>the changes will be reflected automatically in the index within three G>days. Gene: I'm preparing a fairly large database (about 1450 entries) to participate in your experiment. One question: what happens to the "central" index when more than one researcher is researching the same name. For example, I note the name "Spencer" in the current index and I have a host of Spencers in my database. Will there be more than one entry for Spencer in the main index? Irwin Woodland Hills, CA 07/16/95 @ 5:34PM Internet: irwin.greenwald@mogur.com --- *CMPQwk 1.42-R2 #933 Monday, July 17, 1995 2:06:43 PM GenWeb Item From: mavrogeorge@genealogysf.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb indexing To: GenWeb Dallan - thanks for your proposed list of data fields. My two cents worth is that centralized automatic indexing of individuals is -not- a preferred approach. IMHO we would be better to create a hierarchical index with the central site having only surnames and info about the range of research for that surname and the url - also that the central site have collections of surnames that were submitted to it by the participating url's. The central site passively reflects what has been sent does not actively seek out information. So for example you might consult the cenrtal site to find that I have information on Bonners from 1776-9130 in PA, OH, IN, and IA. You click on my link and access an index at my site that contains the individuals. Centralized schemes, IMHO, bring with them associated problems of processing, maintenance, size, and some implied authority. My bias is towards decentralized solutions. Tuesday, July 18, 1995 4:59:10 AM GenWeb Item From: Gene Stark,gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu,Internet Subject: Experimental GenWeb Index To: GenWeb >I'm preparing a fairly large database (about 1450 entries) to >participate in your experiment. One question: what happens to the >"central" index when more than one researcher is researching the same >name. For example, I note the name "Spencer" in the current index and I >have a host of Spencers in my database. Will there be more than one >entry for Spencer in the main index? No. Duplicates are removed when the surname index is generated. What I expect eventually will happen is that the list of individuals under a particular surname will become inconveniently long. At that point, I'll have to use a less simple-minded technique for indexing the entries. Looking forward to adding your database... - Gene Tuesday, July 18, 1995 7:50:14 AM GenWeb Item From: Gene Stark,gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb indexing To: GenWeb Brian Mavrogeorge writes: >My two cents worth is that centralized automatic indexing of individuals is >-not- a preferred approach. IMHO we would be better to create a hierarchical >index with the central site having only surnames and info about the range of >research for that surname and the url - also that the central site have >collections of surnames that were submitted to it by the participating url's. >The central site passively reflects what has been sent does not actively seek >out information. I view the scheme I am trying as a kind of middle ground between the kind of "aggressive indexer" (perhaps like what Bill Minnick has suggested) that actively attempts to trace out and index all available data by content, and a completely passive, decentralized scheme in which the only information in the index is that which is explicitly sent in by the database owners. I see at least two advantages of my approach over the completely passive approach: (1) The database owner does not have to remember to send in new versions of their index information, as the indexer will retrieve it automatically. I know that, personally, I have enough of a problem keeping my pages on local web sites consistent, and I don't need the added bother of having to remember which indexes I sent what versions of what information to. I just update my local index and it gets reflected in the central site(s). (2) Any sort of indexing scheme that requires repeated, active participation by the database owners is going to run afoul of the problem that people are just not going to bother to do it. I claim that any feasible indexing scheme will require that the user supply some sort of standardized information that can be processed automatically by the indexing site. My experience so far with my GED2HTML program is that most people who want to put data on the Web want something "out-of-the-box" that they don't have to think about too hard or understand the intricacies of. Getting through the process once is difficult enough, and they are not likely to repeat it or perform complicated additional steps to generate and update index information. Or, worse, instead of not bothering to do it, people are going to do it wrong, which will require extensive manual intervention. I can already see with my experimental indexing scheme that I cannot rely on users sending me exactly the URL's, etc., that I requested. Rather, I will have to go verify the URL's myself and possibly reconstruct the information the users should have sent me, rather than what they did send me. This takes time that I am willing to spend once, but I don't want to keep spending it over and over again for each database being indexed. I think other index maintainers will feel similarly. >Centralized schemes, IMHO, bring with them associated problems of processing, >maintenance, size, and some implied authority. My bias is towards decentralized >solutions. Yes, there are these problems. Maintenance can be limited by making it automatic. As far as size and processing is concerned, so far I have seen that under the simple scheme I have implemented so far, there is a basic storage cost of between 100 and 150 bytes per individual indexed (this is for the index line for each individual -- at the moment I actually keep 2 copies of each line, plus the HTML in the actual data pages). The basic index files are highly compressible ASCII text, and storage cost could be reduced by a factor of about 4 using data compression. I don't see any reason why I cannot easily process 100MB index files with the simple hardware (486/66 running FreeBSD Unix) and naive processing scripts I have right now (though I might have to clear some stuff off the disk to make space). That means I should easily be able to index up to 1M individuals right now. Somewhere between a few hundred thousand and 1M individuals it will likely be worthwhile to introduce special purpose database and processing programs to speed up generation and maintenance of the index. - Gene Stark Tuesday, July 18, 1995 12:16:04 PM GenWeb Item From: Scott McGee,smcgee@microware.com,Internet Subject: New genweb site To: GenWeb I have recently aquired an account on the Grand Rapids Freenet. I just have also been working on a LifeLines program to generate a set of HTML files for a selected set of people from a lifelines database. I have a fairly good version of it right now, (needs a little polishing before posting, but works well) and have just used it to extact a custom set of people from my database of about 2000 people. The set I extracted contains my cousin, his wife and kids, my brother and sisters, and their kids, me and my kids, and all the direct ancestors of my kids. Since there are a lot of siblings and such in my database, this reduces the number of individuals in my set to about 250 people. I had the program write these people into HTML files 20 at a time so that I ended up with 15 HTML files with people, an INDEX.html, and a GENDEX.txt in Gene Stark's format. Since the program extracts the info from the full database, not just a GEDCOM file of it, the resulting HTML files contain the names of spouses and children who are not on my direct line (but no individual page for them, hence, no link). The program also accepts references to pictures in my proposed EXTL format, and if found, will insert an inline reference to the picture. The GENDEX.txt file will allow Gene's experimental indexing system to add this data to it's genweb index. If you would like to see my experimental results (Which I plan on leaving in place, but I may re-generate the data, so don't bookmark the individual pages. You can bookmark the index or the genweb page.) go to the URL: http://www.grfn.org/~smcgee/genweb/genweb.html (Gene, the GENDEX.txt is at http://www.grfn.org/~smcgee/genweb/GENDEX.txt, and all the references in it are relative to the base URL of: http://www.grfn.org/~smcgee/genweb/) For those of you using LifeLines, but not able to use the CGI based methods, this may provide a good method for easily generating HTML files for your genweb site. There are still a few features I want to add such as hierarchical indecies, descendant and ancestor charts, and such, but it works well as is. The data on this site is unedited output from my program. I'll make the program itself availible in a few days, (write if you want it earlier), probably after adding some of the above features. Meanwhile, I would greatly apreciate it if you would stop by and look at my work and let me know what you thing. Suggestions and questions eagerly sought! Scott |- I never actually SAID that! -|- email: smcgee@microware.com -| |------------ http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sam8644/homepage.html ------------| Programming in assembly language is a lot like digging a post hole with a teaspoon. Of course, you DO have complete control over every bit of dirt! Tuesday, July 18, 1995 3:07:59 PM GenWeb Item From: DR DOC BEGNAL-YOUNG,XCEE48A@prodigy.com,Internet Subject: Indexing To: GenWeb -- [ From: D.R."Doc" Begnal-Young * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] -- Hi, I have received someting regarding indexing of databases. I am interested in the indexing of documents and gedcom files. Possibly a program the can find by surname and index with/by name, date & place? I also have heard there is a program that will convert gedcom files into html pages for the web. Do you have any information or can send me in the right direction? My Web pages; Genealogy Lineage Newsletters http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/ Ancestral Photo Scans http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/xcee48a5.html C.I.N.E.M.A. (Modeling) http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/cinema.html International Association of Fire Fighters http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/fire.html D.R."Doc" Begnal-Young, Pereira, Belasco, Wilson One city from hell in Holtville, CA @ 100-115 degrees Tuesday, July 18, 1995 5:55:04 PM GenWeb Item From: mavrogeorge@genealogysf.com,Internet Subject: indexing To: GenWeb On Tue, 18 Jul 1995, Gene Stark wrote: >I see at least two advantages of my approach over the completely passive >approach: > >(1) The database owner does not have to remember to send in new versions > of their index information, as the indexer will retrieve it > automatically. I agree with that advantage. I am not sure though how often an index will actually change. But who knows, we are just starting here. >(2) Any sort of indexing scheme that requires repeated, active participation > by the database owners is going to run afoul of the problem that > people are just not going to bother to do it. My experience with the Tafel Matching System is that indeed people do update their tiny-tafels when they have new information or want to emphasize other matches. My take on it is that if there is demonstrated benefit then people will keep their information current. But again my only frame of reference for this is the Tafel Matching System which was the beginning of an indexing scheme. > I can > already see with my experimental indexing scheme that I cannot rely > on users sending me exactly the URL's, etc., that I requested. > Rather, I will have to go verify the URL's myself and possibly > reconstruct the information the users should have sent me, rather > than what they did send me. This takes time that I am willing to > spend once, but I don't want to keep spending it over and over > again for each database being indexed. I think other index > maintainers will feel similarly. I didn't follow this. I think what you are saying is that people are submitting incorrect information to you which you then must correct. The Tiny Tafel Matching System rejects your information if it isn't correct. Again the burden is on the submitter not the indexer. If you want it included then you must prepare it accurately. Why don't you just reject the bad index and ask the person to correct the URLs? Again a difference in philosophy - decentralized the responsibility lies with the submitter. The other way the indexer is assuming responsibility to correct errors. > >Yes, there are these problems. Maintenance can be limited by making it >automatic. As far as size and processing is concerned, so far I have seen >that under the simple scheme I have implemented so far, there is a basic >storage cost of between 100 and 150 bytes per individual indexed >(this is for the index line for each individual -- at the moment I actually >keep 2 copies of each line, plus the HTML in the actual data pages). >The basic index files are highly compressible ASCII text, and storage cost >could be reduced by a factor of about 4 using data compression. Thanks for that information. We are very close to agreement - in fact close enough that the difference doesn't make any difference . You did not deal with the issue of an individual index versus a surname index. What are your thoughts on that? <---- End Forwarded Message ----> Tuesday, July 18, 1995 8:26:50 PM GenWeb Item From: SEKnoblock@aol.com,Internet Subject: Ged2Html To: GenWeb Hello Gene, I ftp'ed your Ged2Html program, and the windows version ran smoothly on my Gedcom file. I wnat to thank you for posting such a timesaving program free. I had made a small series of pages on individuals by hand. And while, for "articles" I may continue to assemble some genealogy pages by hand. But for the big charts I will use your program. I'm glad to see it outputs source info. However, it seems that imitating traditional footnotes in hypertext is something that should be avoided in our new media. In my hand assembled pages, I have links to a single page of notes, pointed to by named links. I'm sure this could be cumbersome in a large genealogy, because of the notes page becoming so large, but for small ones it seems better. I wonder if you point me in the right direction for info on using the ISINDEX function of Html. I would like to create a searchable database of names on my page. Best Regards Steve Knoblock SEKnoblock@aol.com Tuesday, July 18, 1995 8:49:24 PM GenWeb Item From: quass@DB.Stanford.EDU,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb indexing To: GenWeb >> Gene Stark writes: >> >> So far, response to my experimental index has been underwhelming. >> All that is necessary, for someone who built their HTML pages with my >> GED2HTML program, is to rerun the current version of the program to >> create the GENDEX.txt file, and E-mail me a couple of pieces of information. >> Instructions can be found via: >> >> http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~stark I am quite impressed by how easy Gene has made it for people to submit indexing information to a central index site. What about people that are not using GED2HTML? I agree with Gene that preparing indexing information must be fast and simple, especially if more non-technical genealogists are to get involved. It seems that people are making their genealogy available using at least GED2HTML, hand-coded HTML pages, Tim Doyle's Indexed Gedcom, and Cliff Manis' LifeLines. Also, ROOTSBOOK has many entries. Are there other formats? Indexed Gedcom and LifeLines access gedcom files directly. Would it be possible to write a program to convert gedcom files to GENDEX.txt file format? The main issue is determining the URLs from the gedcom file. Is there enough information in a gedcom file to generate an appropriate URL for each individual for either the Indexed Gedcom or LifeLines format? If people with gedcom data in those databases want to create GENDEX.txt indexes, I will volunteer to create a conversion program. But you will need to let me know the correct format of the URLs to generate. A limitation of the approach is that the conversion program I create would probably be a perl script. I know people using Indexed Gedcom can run perl scripts, but what about LifeLines platforms? Regarding the discussion on what information to retain in the index -- whether to index surnames only or to include link information between individuals, or somewhere in between: I think if we come up with a standard index exchange format as Gene has begun with GENDEX.txt, then indexing sites can choose which fields to include in their index, and submitters can choose which fields to submit. I wouldn't mind an index that only allowed lookup by surname if I was looking up the name Quass because that already narrows down the field considerably. But for Jones I might want to search an index that allowed me to specify additional fields like given name, year of birth. Also, I think making the indexing procedure as automatic as possible is going to result in the highest usage. For example, most people's home pages are indexed in Lycos because Lycos went out and got them. That approach is perhaps considered invasive for genealogical information, but consider that most genealogical information in the form of HTML files is probably already indexed in Lycos. An alternative web index is AliWeb: http://web.nexor.co.uk/public/aliweb/aliweb.html They request that you create an index file and register the URL of the index file with them, very similar to Gene's proposal. They then regularly retrieve this file. Here's how they deal with errors: It is likely that your index file may contain errors, especially if you produce the records by hand. ALIWEB will correct some common errors, but other errors may result in part of the record, or even the entire record, not being indexed. For that reason it is important to regularly check the processed index file on the overview of index files That certainly puts the burden back on the submitter. Another alternative would be to e-mail records with errors back to the submitter. My .02 -Dallan Wednesday, July 19, 1995 5:52:13 AM GenWeb Item From: Becky Bonner,f307@REX.RE.uokhsc.edu,Internet Subject: Re: Indexing To: GenWeb I created my web pages using Gene Stark's ged2html program. You might check out my site and see if you like it. There is a pointer there to How did I create this which gives ALL the details and a hyperlink to Gene Stark's home. It's not hard - Gene has made this very simple. My recent update of my family file on Jul 18 used the new 2.3a version and I modified the individual template because my husband thought the pedigree would be better at the end. for some reason I haven't yet determined, the link to download my modified template isn't working yet. I have sent a message to our webmaster and waiting to hear why... will fix it as soon as I know how to. Having search a hundred or so web sites for my surnames, I think the indexing is a GREAT idea. Many thanks to Gene Stark. becky bonner www: http://binger.uokhsc.edu/~rbonner/index.html >-- [ From: D.R."Doc" Begnal-Young * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] -- > >Hi, I have received someting regarding indexing of databases. I am >interested in the indexing of documents and gedcom files. Possibly a >program the can find by surname and index with/by name, date & place? I >also have heard there is a program that will convert gedcom files into >html pages for the web. > >Do you have any information or can send me in the right direction? > >My Web pages; > >Genealogy Lineage Newsletters >http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/ > >Ancestral Photo Scans >http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/xcee48a5.html > >C.I.N.E.M.A. (Modeling) >http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/cinema.html > >International Association of Fire Fighters >http://pages.prodigy.com/CA/xcee48a/fire.html > >D.R."Doc" Begnal-Young, Pereira, Belasco, Wilson >One city from hell in Holtville, CA @ 100-115 degrees > > > Becky Bonner email: f307@rex.re.uokhsc.edu WWW URL: http://binger.uokhsc.edu/~rbonner/index.html Wednesday, July 19, 1995 1:26:58 PM GenWeb Item From: mavrogeorge@genealogysf.com,Internet Subject: Indexing To: GenWeb Gene I have two separate genealogies online. How will your process find them? Do I need to name the indexes in a special way. Right now one is index.html and the other is INDEX.html -- Wednesday, July 19, 1995 4:44:17 PM GenWeb Item From: Irwin Greenwald,irwin.greenwald@mogur.com,Internet Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places To: GenWeb CC: WGROLEAU@LEAR.MITRE.ORG genweb@ucsd.edu On 07-19-95, WGROLEAU@LEAR.MITRE.ORG wrote: W>From: wgroleau@lear.mitre.org (W. Wesley Groleau) W>To: irwin.greenwald@mogur.com W>Date: Wed, 19 Jul 95 07:51:32 EDT W>Subject: Re: GenWeb Parking Places W> W> W>On 07-13-95, CCHASE@CECASUN.UTC.EDU wrote: W> W>C>Has anyone talked to Michael Colley at Genealogy OnLIne? He offers W>C>FREE linux accounts for anything genealogy related. I am sure some W>C>arrangement could be made. ... W> W>They gave you (Irwin) as the contact point. I am interested in the W>above, but need to know rules, regulations, rights, and W>responsibilities. W> W>Thanks I don't know who "they" is; I posted a message saying that Michael Cooley (emcee@genealogy.emcee.com) had been most co-operative and helpful to me in establishing a HomePage at his site. I am _not_ the contact point; Michael is! I suggest you go to: http://genealogy.emcee.com read the information there about the free pages, and then contact Michael with any remaining questions. Hope this helps! Irwin Woodland Hills, CA 07/19/95 @ 09:39AM Internet: irwin.greenwald@mogur.com --- *CMPQwk 1.42-R2 #933 Wednesday, July 19, 1995 8:26:22 PM GenWeb Item From: frank hathorn,102111.2642@compuserve.com,Internet Subject: gedcom file hathorn, turnage collins ball byrant To: GenWeb I am new on internet, trying tosend you a gedcom file. If you get the gedcom file I would appricate if you let me Know. THANX frank Wednesday, July 19, 1995 9:12:47 PM GenWeb Item From: Gene Stark,gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu,Internet Subject: Indexing To: GenWeb >Gene I have two separate genealogies online. How will your process find them? >Do I need to name the indexes in a special way. Right now one is index.html and >the other is INDEX.html -- If you give different names to the GENDEX.txt pages (call them anything you want, I don't care) and tell me the URL's, I think everything should be OK. If the individual files for the database are not all mixed together under the same top-level directory where the GENDEX.txt files are, then I need to know the URL of the root directory for each database. I construct full URL's for individual pages by concatenating the URL of the root directory with the paths of the individual files relative to the root. - Gene Thursday, July 20, 1995 4:43:37 PM GenWeb Item From: Irwin Greenwald,irwin.greenwald@mogur.com,Internet Subject: Experimental genweb index To: GenWeb CC: GENE@STARKHOME.CS.SUNYSB. genweb@ucsd.edu TO: GENE@STARKHOME.CS.SUNYSB.EDU Gene: The surname index pages look great and - at least in my case - work great. The one problem I foresee is the size of the index. Even now, it takes a while to access it with a 14.4 modem. Irwin Internet: irwin.greenwald@mogur.com --- *CMPQwk 1.42-R2 #933 Thursday, July 20, 1995 7:50:13 PM GenWeb Item From: Scott McGee,smcgee@microware.com,Internet Subject: extract_html.ll To: GenWeb What follows is the first official version of my extract_html.ll program for lifelines. It allows you to custom select a set of related people from the database and create html files with them. It allows multiple people per HTML file and creates an index and GENDEX.txt files. This program can also be obtained at http://www.grfn.org/~smcgee/extract_html.ll Please send all comments and questions to smcgee@microware.com Scott /* extract_html.ll Version 1.0, July 19, 1995 by Scott McGee (smcgee@microware.com) This program allows the user to select a group of individuals from a database and generate a set of HTML files for them. It allows writing multiple people per HTML file, and will create an index file and a GENWEB.txt file for genweb indexing of the resulting data. Before running this program, you will want to customize some global values for your site. In the original release, they are set as follow: set(db_owner, "Scott McGee") set(owner_addr, "mailto:smcgee@microware.com") set(use_image, 1) set(genweb_image, "genweb.gif") set(use_page, 1) set(genweb_page, "genweb.html") set(page_name, "genweb page") which specifies me, Scott McGee, as the database owner and my mailto URL, mailto:smcgee@microware.com, as the contact url to contact the database owner. It also says to put an image at the top of each HTML file and specifies that the image is called genweb.gif. Next, it specifies that a link to my base page be added to each HTML file, that the location of the base page is genweb.html, and that the text for the link be "genweb page" The program, when run, will request a person to start with. Careful selection of this person can decrease the effort needed to specify the rest of the people to be included. For instance, you will later be asked if you want to include all of this person's ancestors. Since I wanted my own ancestors, and those of my wife, plus some of my father's siblings and their descendants, as well as my own siblings and their descendants, I chose my daughter as the first person. This way, I only had to specify my own ancestors high enough to get the desired aunts and uncles (which leads back down to their descendants) and specified none of my wife's family. Then, when asked, said yes, I wanted my daughter's ancestors, and it got all the others for me. For each person asked about, you will be given some information on them to aid in deciding if they are the one you want or not. This is similar to a person display when browsing with LifeLines. (Thanks to Tom for this code and the picker code too). Note: This program will assume that you have a directory called genweb in your output directory (as specified by LL_REPORTS) and will write all output files in that directory. If the genweb directory does NOT exist (at least, with LL302) you will be prompted for the name of each output file. Be aware that if you use this to name the files diffently, the references within the files will NOT be changed to reflect the new file name! Future Enhancements (Let me know if you want to do one of these for me!): A hierarchical index would be a nice option. Need to add descendant and ancestor (pedigree) charts. Scott McGee */ /* customization globals - customize values assigned in main */ global(db_owner) /* name of database owner */ global(owner_addr) /* url of database owner (mailto or homepage) */ global(use_image) /* flag to indicate whether to use genweb image */ global(genweb_image) /* name of genweb image to place on each page */ global(use_page) /* flag to add link to genweb page or homepage */ global(genweb_page) /* URL of base genweb (or homepage) web page */ global(page_name) /* name of base genweb (or homepage) web page */ global(LDS) /* display LDS Ordinances? (1=yes 0=no) */ /* other globals */ global(found) /* external file to inline image found flag */ global(per_file) /* number of people per file to write */ global(first) /* first person shouldn't be asked about */ global(RVAL) /* ?? (part of borrowed code) */ global(last_surname) /* last surname in index - used for anchors */ global(first_indi) /* starting person */ proc main () { /* customize these globals to customize the output to your site */ set(db_owner, "Scott McGee") set(owner_addr, "mailto:smcgee@microware.com") set(use_image, 1) /* 1 to use image, 0 to not use image */ set(genweb_image, "genweb.gif") set(use_page, 1) /* 1 to use link to page, 0 if not */ set(genweb_page, "genweb.html") set(page_name, "genweb page") /* might change to "my homepage" */ set(LDS, 0) set(per_file, 1) getindi(indi) if (indi) { set(first_indi, indi) call doit(indi) } else { print("No one identified -- terminating\n") } } proc doit (indi) { list(w) /* working list */ list(o) /* output list */ table(t) /* table of seen persons */ indiset(us) set(first, 1) enqueue(w, indi) while (indi, dequeue(w)) { if (not(lookup(t, key(indi)))) { insert(t, key(indi), 1) if (askabout(indi)) { enqueue(o, indi) if (j, father(indi)) { enqueue(w, j) } if (j, mother(indi)) { enqueue(w, j) } families(indi, f, s, n) { if(s) { enqueue(w, s) } children(f, j, m) { enqueue(w, j) } } } } } set(msg, concat("Do you want all the ancestors of ", name(first_indi), " added to this set? (y or n) ")) getstr(answer, msg) if(eqstr(lower(trim(answer, 1)), "y")) { set(m, 1) addtoset(us, first_indi, m) if(us) { set(anc, ancestorset(us)) if(anc) { forindiset(anc, j, n, m) { enqueue(o, j) } }else{ print("nobody in ancestor set\n") } }else{ print("nobody in 'us' set\n") } } call html_out(o) } func askabout (indi) { if(not(first)) { call showinfo(indi) set(s, concat("Do you want ", name(indi), " in your output files? (y or n) ")) getstr(a, s) return (eqstr(lower(trim(a, 1)), "y")) }else{ set(first, 0) return (1) } } proc showinfo (indi) { print(name(indi), "\n\n") print("Father: ", name(father(indi)), "\n") print("Mother: ", name(mother(indi)), "\n\n") set(f, 0) set(s, 0) families(indi, fa, sp, n) { if (eq(1, n)) { set(f, fa) set(s, sp) } } print("Married: ", long(marriage(f)), "\n") print("Spouse: ", name(s), "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n") } proc html_out (o) { set(s, concat("There are ", d(length(o)), " people in your list, how many per file?")) getstr(a,s) set(per_file, atoi(a)) if(not(per_file)) { set(per_file, 1) } set(loop_count, 0) set(file_count, 0) forlist(o, i, n) { set(indi, i) if(eq(loop_count, 0)) { incr(file_count) call write_head(file_count) } incr(loop_count) call genhtml(indi, o) if(or(eq(loop_count, per_file), eq(n, length(o)))) { call write_tail() set(loop_count, 0) } } call do_index(o) } proc write_head(count) { set(filename, concat("genweb/genweb_", d(count), ".html")) print("Writing ", filename, "\n") newfile(filename, 0) "\n" " genweb_" d(count) ".html \n" "\n" if(use_image) { "\"\"

\n" } } proc write_tail() { "
\n" date(gettoday()) "
\n" "Database maintained by " "\n" db_owner "
\n" "\n" } proc genhtml (i, o) { print(" ", fullname(i,0,1,300), "\n") "\n" "

" set(vn,givens(i)) set(vn1,save(vn)) givens(i) " " set(nn,surname(i)) set(nn1,save(nn)) nn1 "

\n" set(path, get_picture(i)) if (found) { "\"\"

\n" } if (e, birth(i)) { "Born : " long(e) "
\n" } if (e, baptism(i)) { "Baptised : " long(e) "
\n" } elsif (e, bapt(i)) { "Baptised : " long(e) "
\n" } if (e, death(i)) { "Died : " long(e) "
\n" } if (e, burial(i)) { "Buried : " long(e) "
\n" } if(LDS) { /* LDS ordinances */ set(started, 0) fornodes(inode(i), node) { if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "BAPL"))) { if(not(started)) { set(started, 1) "
LDS Ordinances: B " } } /* determine if endowed */ if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "ENDL"))) { if(not(started)) { set(started, 1) "
LDS Ordinances: " } "E " } } /* determine if sealed to parents */ set(fam, parents(i)) if(fam) { set(val, concat("@", key(i), "@")) fornodes(fnode(fam), node) { if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "CHIL"))) { if (eq(0, strcmp(value(node), val))) { fornodes(node, next) { if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(next), "SLGC"))) { if(not(started)) { set(started, 1) "
LDS Ordinances: " } "SC " } } } } } } } "
\n" if (p, father(i)) { "" "Father : " set (path, get_href(p, o)) if(found) { "" } if (t,title(p)) {t " "} fullname(p,0,1,300) if(found) {""} "
\n" } if (p, mother(i)) { "" "Mother : " set (path, get_href(p, o)) if(found) { "" } if (t,title(p)) {t " "} fullname(p,0,1,300) if(found) {""} "
\n" } families(i, f, s, n) { "

" "Spouse" if (gt(nfamilies(i), 1)) { " " d(n) } " : \n" if (s) { /* family has a spouse */ set (path, get_href(s, o)) if(found) { "" } if (t,title(s)) {t " "} fullname(s,0,1,300) if(found) {""} "\n" } if (e, marriage(f)) { "Married " long(e) "

\n" } if(LDS) { fornodes(fnode(f), node) { if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "SLGS"))) { "
LDS Ordinances: SS\n" } } } "
    \n" children(f, c, nn) { "
  1. " set (path, get_href(c, o)) if(found) { "" } if (t,title(c)) {t " "} fullname(c,0,1,300) if(found) {""} "
    2. \n" } "
\n" } call print_notes(i) "
\n" /* Insert code here for Pedigree and Descendant charts if(parents(i)) { "Pedigree Chart
\n" } if(nfamilies(i)) { set(hasChildren, 0) families(i, f, s, n) { if(nchildren(f)) { set(hasChildren, 1) } } if(hasChildren) { "Descendant Chart\n" } } "
\n" */ "
\n" "[" "Index to database]
\n" if(use_page) { "[" "Return to " page_name " ]
\n" } "

\n" } func get_href (indi, outlist) { set(found, 0) set(path, "") set(loop_count, 0) set(file_count, 0) forlist(outlist, element, number) { if(eq(loop_count, 0)) { incr(file_count) } incr(loop_count) if(eq(element, indi)) { set(path, concat("genweb_", d(file_count), ".html")) set(found, 1) return(path) } if(eq(loop_count, per_file)) { set(loop_count, 0) } } return(0) } func get_picture (indi) { /* Note: this code assumes a tag sturcture I use to represent external files. It looks like: 1 EXTL 2 FILE pics/scott.gif 2 FORM GIF 2 DATE Jul 1989 1 EXTL 2 URL http://www.intele.net/~toddm/toddpic.gif 2 FORM GIF where the first defines an external file stored on the same file system and gives the path in the FILE record and the type in the FORM record. The second defines an external file stored on another site and provides a URL for referencing it. I have proposed this as an extension to GEDCOM, but nobody said very much. */ set(found, 0) set(path, "") fornodes(inode(indi), node) { if (not(strcmp("EXTL", tag(node)))) { set(m, child(node)) if (not(strcmp("FILE", tag(m)))) { /* files on local system */ set(path, value(m)) set(o, sibling(m)) if (not(strcmp("FORM", tag(o)))) { if (not(strcmp("GIF", value(o)))) { set(found, 1) } elsif (not (strcmp("JPEG", value(o)))) { set(found, 1) } } } else{ if(not(strcmp("URL", tag(m)))) { /* files on remote system */ set(path, value(m)) set(o, sibling(m)) if (not(strcmp("FORM", tag(o)))) { if (not(strcmp("GIF", value(o)))) { set(found, 1) } elsif (not (strcmp("JPEG", value(o)))) { set(found, 1) } } } } } } return(path) } proc print_notes(indi) { set(first, 1) traverse(inode(indi), node, l) { if (not(strcmp("NOTE", tag(node)))) { if(first) { "Notes :
\n" set(first, 0) } "

" value(node) "\n" fornodes(node, next) { value(next) "

\n" } } } } func bapt (indi) { fornodes(inode(indi), node) { if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "BAPL"))) { return(node) } if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "BAPM"))) { return(node) } } return(0) } proc do_index(indi_list) { set(last_surname, "ZZ") list(RVAL) indiset(index) forlist(indi_list, person, pnum) { addtoset(index, person, pnum) } namesort(index) print("Writing INDEX.html\n") call create_index_file(index, indi_list) print("Writing GENDEX.txt\n") call create_gendex_file(index, indi_list) } proc create_gendex_file(index, indi_list) { set(fn, save("genweb/GENDEX.txt")) newfile(fn, 0) forindiset(index, me, v, n) { set(path, concat(save(get_href(me, indi_list)), "#", key(me))) path "|" surname(me) "|" givens(me) " /" surname(me) "/" "|" if (evt, birth(me)) { date(evt) } "|" if (evt, birth(me)) { place(evt) } "|" if (evt, death(me)) { date(evt) } "|" if (evt, death(me)) { place(evt) } "|\n" } } proc create_index_file(index, indi_list) { set(fn, save("genweb/INDEX.html")) newfile(fn, 0) call html_header("Interactive Genealogical Server Index", 1) "\n" "\"\"

\n" "

INDEX

\n" "
    \n" forindiset(index, me, v, n) { call href(me, indi_list) "\n" } "
\n" call write_tail() } proc href(me, indi_set) { if(me) { call print_name(me, 1) if(ne(strcmp(upper(surname(me)), last_surname), 0)) { print(" ", upper(surname(me)), "\n") set(last_surname, save(upper(surname(me)))) "\n" } "
  • " set (path, get_href(me, indi_set)) if(found) { "\n" } pop(RVAL) if(found) { "" } " -" if (evt, birth(me)) { " born " short(evt) } else { if (evt, baptism(me)) { " baptised " short(evt) } else { if (evt, bapt(me)) { " baptised " short(evt) } } } if (evt, death(me)) { " died " short(evt) } } } proc html_header(str, isindex) { "\n" "\n" if(isindex) { "\n" } " " str " \n" "\n" } proc print_name (me, last) { call get_title(me) set(junk, pop(RVAL)) push(RVAL, save(concat(fullname(me, 1, not(last), 45), junk))) } proc get_title (me) { fornodes(inode(me), node) { if (not(strcmp("TITL", tag(node)))) { set(n, node) } } if (n) { push(RVAL, save(concat(" ", value(n)))) } else { push(RVAL, "") } } proc rjt(n, w) { if (lt(n, 10)) { set(d, 1) } elsif (lt(n, 100)) { set(d, 2) } elsif (lt(n, 1000)) { set(d, 3) } elsif (lt(n, 10000)) { set(d, 4) } else { set(d, 5) } if (lt(d, w)) { set(pad, save( trim(" ", sub(w, d)))) } else{ set(pad, "") } push(RVAL, save( concat(pad, save(d(n))))) } func bapt (indi) { fornodes(inode(indi), node) { if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "BAPL"))) { return(node) } if (eq(0, strcmp(tag(node), "BAPM"))) { return(node) } } return(0) } Thursday, July 20, 1995 8:34:31 PM GenWeb Item From: SEKnoblock@aol.com,Internet Subject: Genealogical Sources To: GenWeb My first attempt at a hypertext descendants chart was using Word Perfect's hypertext facility. It allows the placement of bookmarks in files, linked to hot text. This worked well and was encouraging. The format was easy to use---no need to understand or follow complicated genealogical numbering systems---just click on the names. One chart I made used the register-record style with Henry numbers. To replace the traditional footnotes, I made a file of all my sources. Each source has a bookmark. WP then allows you to access the named link in another file similar to the # in html. For instance if a person's record mentioned "their birth was recorded in the family bible," then the words "family bible" were made hot and linked to the source on the notes page where the reference or text from the family bible was placed. Now that I am moving to html, I would suggest that a like "notes" page be maintained for at least the smaller genealogies. A seperate page, it might be produced and function like the current index.html produced by ged2html. As connections to the net get faster the potentially large size of a notes page would be a diminishing problem. Any comments are welcome. Steve Knoblock Arlington, Va SEKnoblock@aol.com Friday, July 21, 1995 3:07:21 PM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Character sets. To: GenWeb From my reading so far (not only in this group), it seems to me that HTML, GEDCOM, and most genealogy software are not very friendly toward ISO Latin 1 and other common character sets. Since a huge number of genealogists have connections to non-English European locales, and since the HTML character escape sequences are recorded in Switzerland, this seems very odd to me. Friday, July 21, 1995 4:04:46 PM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Re: extract_html.ll To: GenWeb Are there any Unix, Mac, or MSDOS programs that can EASILY do the following? (The closest I know of is GIM) define a "link" as one of the following relationships: spouse, son, daughter, parent define "relational distance" between two people as the number of links to get from one to the other via the shortest path. in a very large genealogical database, select a person and all ancestors and/or all descendents. add to the selection all other persons within a specific number of links from any person in the first selection. remove those not selected (or create a new database from the selection) Friday, July 21, 1995 8:08:26 PM GenWeb Item From: T.T.Wetmore,ttw@beltway.att.com,Internet Subject: Re: extract_html.ll To: GenWeb From the log (>): >W. Wesley Groleau, wgroleau@lear.mitre.org, 21 Jul 95 >extract_html.ll >Are there UNIX, Mac, or MSDOS programs that can (maybe GIM?): >o Define a "link" as one of the following relationships: > {spouse, son, daughter, parent} >o Define "relational distance" between two people as the number of links > to get from one to the other via the shortest path. >o In a large genealogical database, select a person and all ancestors > and/or all descendents. >o Add to the selection all other persons within a specific number of > links from any person in the first selection. >o Remove those not selected (or create a new database from the selection) Wes, I can't resist. This is a simple job for LifeLines (program attached). I would be impressed if GIM or any other program comes close. This is a 20 line program that took 10 minutes to write. And you can get it all for free. LifeLines kicks, dude. Tom Wetmore - - - - /* LIFELINES PROGRAM THAT MEETS REQUIREMENTS: o Select a person with all ancestors and all descendents. o Add to selection all other persons within a specific number of links from any person in the first selection. o Generate GEDCOM file for the selected set of persons. WRITTEN BY TOM WETMORE, 21 July 1995 */ proc main () { /* have user provide start person and link distance */ getindi(i, "Please identify start person.") if (not(i)) { return() } getint(n, "Please enter link distance.") /* create set with all ancestors and descendents */ indiset(s) addtoset(s, i, 1) indiset(a) set(a, ancestorset(s)) indiset(d) set(d, descendentset(s)) set(s, union(s, union(a, d))) /* create set of additional, linked-to persons */ indiset(t) set(t, spouseset(s)) set(n, sub(n, 1)) while (gt(n, 0)) { set(a, parentset(t)) set(d, childset(t)) set(b, siblingset(t)) set(c, spouseset(t)) set(t, union(t, union(a, union(d, union(b, c))))) set(n, sub(n, 1)) } /* create final set of all selected persons and generate their GEDCOM */ set(s, union(s, t)) gengedcom(s) } Monday, July 24, 1995 5:53:30 PM GenWeb Item From: Anders Andersson,andersa@Mizar.DoCS.UU.SE,Internet Subject: Re: Character sets. To: GenWeb [GenWeb project groups: User Interfaces, Engineering] Wesley Groelau writes: >From my reading so far (not only in this group), it seems to me that >HTML, GEDCOM, and most genealogy software are not very friendly toward >ISO Latin 1 and other common character sets. Since a huge number of >genealogists have connections to non-English European locales, and >since the HTML character escape sequences are recorded in Switzerland, >this seems very odd to me. HTML actually supports ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1, to be precise). You may be referring to the SGML entities indicated by "&", which are used as an additional means of encoding certain characters in a possibly 7-bit-oriented environment (for instance to enhance the chances of successfully transferring an HTML document via another transport mechanism than HTTP, such as vintage electronic mail software). HTML browsers are expected to understand the full ISO 8859-1 character set, whether encoded with 8 bits or SGML entities. (I wouldn't say HTML character escape sequences are "recorded" in Switzerland; they are originally SGML character entities, a subset of which has been selected for HTML use, and the W3 organization has since long taken over the development of HTML from CERN where it started.) Unfortunately, support for characters beyond ISO 8859-1 seems to be lagging behind in HTML, though I hope the problems will be solved soon (there is clearly room for adding character set information in HTTP headers, though I haven't seen anyone use it yet). Meanwhile, Russian and Japanese WWW servers employ various ad-hoc solutions where the end users have to tailor their software to correctly display the character sets chosen by those servers (I'd like to stress that I don't consider this a satisfactory solution for production use). I believe that GEDCOM supports ANSEL (also known as ANSI Z39.47-1985), which is an 8-bit character set that is different from ISO 8859-1, though it is (or at least will be) possible to specify alternative character sets. However, we should keep an eye on developments here. We don't need a plethora of more or less well-defined character sets to handle. Rather, I'd like to see Unicode or something essentially equivalent employed for genealogical use, allowing us to create pieces of text containing letters (or even ideographs) from just about any living written language. You do want to be able to quote a Korean birth notice in the middle of your main commentary in Arabic, don't you? ISO 8859-1 = ASCII/Latin-1 = languages of western Europe ISO 8859-2 = ASCII/Latin-2 = languages of eastern Europe ISO 8859-3 = ASCII/Latin-3 = languages of southern Europe ISO 8859-4 = ASCII/Latin-4 = languages of northern Europe ISO 8859-5 = ASCII/Cyrillic ISO 8859-6 = ASCII/Arabic ISO 8859-7 = ASCII/Greek ISO 8859-8 = ASCII/Hebrew ISO 8859-9 = ASCII/Latin-5? (Turkish etc.) ISO 8859-10 = ASCII/Latin-6? = replacement for ISO 8859-4 There is considerable overlap between the different Latin-X sets (for instance, the Scandinavian languages are supported entirely by 8859-1 as well as 8859-4/10). However, no 8-bit set can possibly cover all variants of the Latin alphabet, and it's not reasonable to punish those genealogists who happen to have ancestors in France and Hungary at the same time. We could pick any scheme we find technically feasible, but the internal specifics of the encoding chosen must not affect the user's ability to store arbitrary text. -- 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 Tuesday, July 25, 1995 8:49:01 AM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Who said that ? To: GenWeb I've heard it said that "Genealogy is the nation's third most popular hobby" 1. Please help me identify the source of that comment, or reliable evidence for its accuracy. 2. If the above is a hopeless cause, does anyone know (as opposed to guess) what are first and second? Tuesday, July 25, 1995 10:10:52 AM GenWeb Item From: steele@census.works.ti.com,Internet Subject: Re: Who said that ? To: GenWeb >I've heard it said that "Genealogy is the nation's third most popular..." Stamp and coin collecting are #1 & #2 The source? I've heard it quoted so often, but no one seems to cite a source :-) Jeri Tuesday, July 25, 1995 11:05:59 AM GenWeb Item From: Steve Houtz,RSH1@PSUVM.PSU.EDU,Internet Subject: Re: Who said that ? To: GenWeb In answer to the second question, I think that I have heard collecting coins and stamps come in ahead of collecting ancestors/relatives. Tuesday, July 25, 1995 2:01:19 PM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Another curiosity., To: GenWeb When I send something to GenWeb, it is hours before I see it. Yet I see responses, if sent to GenWeb, almost immediately (before the question). When the reply is "To:" me with "Cc:" to genweb, the message forwarded through genweb arrives long before the direct message. Not important, but wierd. Wednesday, July 26, 1995 12:34:44 PM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Re: Cross-referencing and indexing To: GenWeb Normally, I don't quote large volumes, but since it's taken me so long to respond... Wesley Groleau writes: WG: : GenWeb started with a proposal for a standard format for distributed WG: : genealogical data and a request for input to improve the format. Anders Andersson answers: AA: I don't think there has been a single proposal for any particular AA: standard format yet. If you have seen one, please give us a pointer AA: to it. Wish I could. Maybe I misinterpreted what I read: I stumbled onto a Web site that seemed to state the aforementioned "proposed standard," requested help in refining it, and then offer links to files on the progress of this refinement. Those links turned out to be genweb archives, from which I figured out how to subscribe. WG: The intent apparently was to develop a "seamless" web of genealogies WG: with a "consistent user interface". AA: Well, user interface consistency may be a valuable feature of the AA: distributed database, but I don't think we should state that as a AA: requirement for anything GenWeb-related, at least not at the start. AA: I believe we have a good deal of interface consistency already by AA: employing the existing standard of HTML. WG: The result is a plethora of genealogy sites, each formatted as the WG: owner wishes, with a few formats being used more than others. AA: This is not the result. It's just part of the work. A number of AA: people are trying out different designs, and their experiences and AA: efforts will be useful when carving out the details of the GenWeb. I wasn't trying to malign what is happening, merely to describe it and suggest that it is inevitable. So, for "The result" let me substitute "what is actually developing" WG: It is inevitable that attempts to create a standard indexing scheme WG: will end up the same way. AA: It's a matter of defining goals and working towards them. Nobody has AA: defined the goals behind the present plethora of genealogy sites, and AA: that's why they can't be called "the result" of the GenWeb project. AA: I think proposals for actual standards are best accompanied by working AA: implementations. That's a good way to help people verify that those AA: standards might actually work and serve the expected purposes. I agree, but I still believe that there will never be ONE standard indexing approach nor ONE standard data approach. Approaches that meet the needs of a sufficient number of people will grow in acceptance, others will die out. This is not necessarily bad. Unless maybe it results in X - Y unique approaches, where X is the number of genealogists and Y is the number of those without computers :-) So what's the point? I will now bluntly state the decision I was hoping readers would come to on their own: By all means, make suggestions for new approaches and/or improvements on existing ones. But don't do it in a way that sounds like a condemnation (however mild) of any other approach. Wednesday, July 26, 1995 2:00:51 PM GenWeb Item From: Rik Vigeland,rikv@wv.MENTORG.COM,Internet Subject: ONE Standard? To: GenWeb Wesley Groleau writes: WG: The intent apparently was to develop a "seamless" web of genealogies WG: with a "consistent user interface". Anders Andersson answers: AA: I don't think there has been a single proposal for any particular AA: standard format yet. If you have seen one, please give us a pointer AA: to it. WG: The result is a plethora of genealogy sites, each formatted as the WG: owner wishes, with a few formats being used more than others. AA: This is not the result. It's just part of the work. A number of AA: people are trying out different designs, and their experiences and AA: efforts will be useful when carving out the details of the GenWeb. Now, I say: What I have seen so far in a number of the web sites is an admirable set of genealogies, and a lot of neat ideas for presenting the information. What would I like to see in a perfect world? (No flames - this is wishful :) 1) An index to get me to a starting point; there has been plenty discussion about how that is set up; 2) Once I find an entry point, I would like to produce a pedigree chart, ahnentafel, descendency chart, etc., and NOT CARE how many databases I have to cross. Maybe I am just plain lazy, but even if all of the databases are linked, it might take me several hours to visit each web page (ancestor or family), view it, understand it, then find the right place to point and click just to get the NEXT generation. This may be true even if the pages are all standardized. What would be nice instead of/on top of a standard look and feel might be a standard set of SERVICES, along the line of function calls, such that I can write or use a script which, for example, recursively searches out ancestors without regard to databases, then produces, say, a GEDCOM of the results (with source references) so that I can peruse it with whatever interface I like, whenever I like, while not necessarily plugged into the web. This is essentially what you get when you use the current Family Search at the LDS libraries. Put in a request, let it run batch mode, view the results. Now, if Lifelines happened to be the engine running at each site, then I know that I could do this! I think this method is going to give the most benefit to the most less-than- computer-literate users who want to join in. Rik Vigeland rikv@wv.mentorg.com Wednesday, July 26, 1995 2:39:29 PM GenWeb Item From: Todd Fries,tfries@umr.edu,Internet Subject: ONE Standard? :Re To: GenWeb > Now, I say: > 1) An index to get me to a starting point; there has been plenty discussion > about how that is set up; > 2) Once I find an entry point, I would like to produce a pedigree chart, > ahnentafel, descendency chart, etc., and NOT CARE how many databases > I have to cross. > This is essentially what you get when you use the current Family Search at > the LDS libraries. Put in a request, let it run batch mode, view the results. > Now, if Lifelines happened to be the engine running at each site, then I know > that I could do this! > I think this method is going to give the most benefit to the most less-than- > computer-literate users who want to join in. I can understand what you are saying perfectly, and would like to voice my support for such a venture...however difficult it would be to setup. With the upcoming 'HotJava' applications that will be available in web-browsers, this could be a reality sooner than you would at first believe. -- Todd Fries...tfries@umr.edu Thursday, July 27, 1995 7:05:55 AM GenWeb Item From: Ray Sears,lrsears@halnet.com,Internet Subject: SEARS Family Web Site To: GenWeb Hi: Thanks to Michael Cooley we now have a Web page on line at: http://genealogy.emcee.com:80/pub/genealogy/surnames/SEARS Using Gene Stark's GED2HTML I converted the first 8 generations of Richard SEARS, Plymouth Colony, circa 1639 from my PAF database. This gave pointers to almost 13,000 people and a few megs of HTML files. GENWEB spins another strand! Thanks to Janyce for the wonderful instructions on how to use GED2HTML and get all the files FTP'd to the HTML server! There are also scanned images of Richard's Family Tree and an alleged portrait of the "Pilgrim" himself! Other SEARS information like newsletters and trees from VA and KY to follow. Ray lrsears@halnet.com 2027 Stoneridge Ln Duncan, OK 73533-1027 Thursday, July 27, 1995 11:04:47 AM GenWeb Item From: Art & Ann Bearce,genealogy@maine.com,Internet Subject: Maine genealogy To: GenWeb Arthur B. Bearce, M.A. Genealogical and Paralegal Research 31 Gore Road, Raymond, ME 04071 (207) 655-4075 genealogy@maine.com 27 July 1995 Need help on a line in Maine? My wife and I are both teachers and certified paralegals, and we've been doing genealogical research in Maine for many years now. The main sources here are the State Archives in Augusta and the Maine Historical Society in Portland; but also very important are the Probate Courts and Registries of Deeds in the sixteen Maine counties. That's where our paralegal experience can save you time and money. We charge $20/hour, with a $50 minimum; but we don't charge for travel south of Augusta, ME. If you're interested, e-mail, call, or write. Often Ann or I can give you ideas for your own continued research, or we'd be glad to lend a professional hand. Friday, July 28, 1995 7:04:47 AM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: HTML GEDCOM To: GenWeb Anyone heard of an HTML version of GEDCOM 5.3 ? (Wait 48 hrs) If no one identified any, I'm thinking of converting it. On a scale of zero=what an incredible waste of time! to ten =the lack of such has kept me awake for weeks anyone who rates it less than two or greater than eight, please say why. thanks --------------------------------------------------------------------------- W. Wesley Groleau (Wes) INTERNET: wgroleau@lear.mitre.org The MITRE Corporation VOICE: 908-389-6596 (-6732) 145 Wyckoff Road, Room 325 FAX: 908-542-3679 Eatontown, NJ 07724-1842 TEMP. HOME: 908-389-4800 ext. 311 ( or P.O. Box 90, Eatontown, NJ -- wa795@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, July 28, 1995 7:48:31 AM GenWeb Item From: Todd Fries,tfries@umr.edu,Internet Subject: RE: HMTL GEDCOM To: GenWeb > Anyone heard of an HTML version of GEDCOM 5.3 ? > > (Wait 48 hrs) > > If no one identified any, I'm thinking of converting it. > > On a scale of zero=what an incredible waste of time! > to ten =the lack of such has kept me awake for weeks zero...definately. Anyone who wants web pages from gedcom should check out lifelines. ftp://hoth.stsci.edu/lines There are ample report programs for it that will dynamically create web pages galore. Don't make it hard on yourself! Take advantage of UNIX's flexibility! (And Tom's program LifeLines, which is free...) -- Todd Fries...tfries@umr.edu http://www.cs.umr.edu/~tfries Friday, July 28, 1995 11:06:08 AM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Re: HTML GEDCOM - clarified To: GenWeb I need to avoid misunderstanding of my recent post on GEDCOM 5.3 to HTML conversion. I was considering making a Web version of the Standard, i.e., the document that defines the format. I did not mean to suggest Yet Another database formatter. I am forced to edit the standard a little anyway, because the lines are too long and every printing method I've tried either chops or wraps lines--both are hard to read. If you're saying, "What is he talking about?" here is the previous: Anyone heard of an HTML version of GEDCOM 5.3 ? [the Standard, that is.] (Wait 48 hrs) If no one identified any, I'm thinking of converting it. On a scale of zero=what an incredible waste of time! to ten =the lack of such has kept me awake for weeks anyone who rates it less than two or greater than eight, please say why. thanks --------------------------------------------------------------------------- W. Wesley Groleau (Wes) INTERNET: wgroleau@lear.mitre.org The MITRE Corporation VOICE: 908-389-6596 (-6732) 145 Wyckoff Road, Room 325 FAX: 908-542-3679 Eatontown, NJ 07724-1842 TEMP. HOME: 908-389-4800 ext. 311 ( or P.O. Box 90, Eatontown, NJ -- wa795@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA ) Friday, July 28, 1995 11:51:03 AM GenWeb Item From: Mickey Lane,MLANE@csi.compuserve.com,Internet Subject: I need some C code To: GenWeb Hi, I'm trying to spruce up the ROOTSBOOK server. I'd like to add some statistics to each book page that show how well the prediction routines are working, among other things. Does anyone have a pointer to some code that accepts one (or more) arrays and produces a GIF (or whatever) file that contains an image of a standard graph? Mickey. PS - the ROOTSBOOK server will have an entirely new look on Monday thanks to a suggestion by Pat Boren. It'll also have about 450,000 entries in it. Friday, July 28, 1995 2:21:53 PM GenWeb Item From: quass@DB.Stanford.EDU,Internet Subject: Re: HTML GEDCOM - clarified To: GenWeb I, for one, have a need to read the GEDCOM standard soon, so I would appreciate it if you made it available in an easy-to-read format. -Dallan Friday, July 28, 1995 2:57:11 PM GenWeb Item From: steele@census.works.ti.com,Internet Subject: [quass@DB.Stanford.EDU: Re: HTML GEDCOM - clarified ] To: GenWeb Dallan & Wesley, >I, for one, have a need to read the GEDCOM standard soon, so I would >appreciate it if you made it available in an easy-to-read format. I think its a generous offer for Wesley to want to put GEDCOM 5.3 on a Web site, but its a copyrighted document and I think you need to get permission from Jed Allen or Bill Harten at the FHC before you do that. Secondly, people like you Dallan that may NOT be familiar with the previous versions maybe under the impression that 5.3 is the current standard. 5.3 is a DRAFT specification! You should also get permission to post GEDCOM 4.0 Specifications because these are the last officially release spec. There's far too much history involved in when, why, and how GEDCOM specs are in this state and besides that's a topic for GEDCOM-L. Jeri Saturday, July 29, 1995 6:58:01 PM GenWeb Item From: nferg@unix.ieway.com,Internet Subject: HOFFMAN ND To: GenWeb I'm hoping to exchange information with someone on the NICHOLAS HOFFMAN family from GRAND FORKS, GRAND FORKS, ND. He lived there with his family: wife, ISABELLA, children, JOSEPH, HENRY, ISABELLA, and one other daughter. The family was there in 1880 census. Nicholas was 41 at the time. Isabella immigrated to ND in 1850 which is about when I believe she was born. They had a servant living with them Gregoin Casper. Nicholas died by 1897 and the rest of the family can be found in the city directory. Joseph married ANNY HANSON daughter of GUNNERUS HANS HANSON, in 1905 in LARIMORE, ND. Joseph and Anny moved to Spokane, WA where Joseph had been living and working on the railroad. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Nancy Ferguson nferg@unix.ieway.com Monday, July 31, 1995 8:50:49 AM GenWeb Item From: Herbert Stoyan,Herbert.Stoyan@informatik.uni-erlangen.de,Internet Subject: object oriented features in GEDCOM To: GenWeb For many purposes it would be convenient to have object oriented features in Gedcom. Look for example to the source problem: I have a gedcom file which contains 5000 people. all of the come from source X. Should I copy the source info 5000 times? I I could introduce a special individuum, say 0 @source@ INDI 1 NAME /SOURCE/ 1 AUTHOR name of author 1 TITL title of source... 1 PUBL bibliographical data ... This would work fine (in LL). I could have local sources and global sources at the same time. A person could have a different source field. If it is not available, we use the global source individuum. A datum at a person can have a source field again. If a data of a person has a different source, we can overwrite the global/the person source again. In this way we have inheritance from global to person and to date. Now, it often occurs that a file contains some person sets which stem from different sources. For this it would be nice to introduce person sets somehow. At present, the only way to define person sets is by family. You are not permitted to have a set-family because each person can be the child of one family only. That is bad. Lifelines (LL) permits you to convert strings into persons. If you know the persons indices before one could encode a person set description. Are there other possibilities? Any comments? Monday, July 31, 1995 11:36:07 AM GenWeb Item From: W. Wesley Groleau,wgroleau@lear.mitre.org,Internet Subject: Re: object oriented features in GEDCOM To: GenWeb >From: Herbert Stoyan >For many purposes it would be convenient to have object oriented features in >Gedcom. Look for example to the source problem: > >I have a gedcom file which contains 5000 people. all of the come from source >X. Should I copy the source info 5000 times? The GEDCOM Draft 5.3 describes a technique of having a "tree" of source records, in which leaf nodes are very specific and attached to a single event or person. Going up the tree, one finds less and less specific citations until reaching a "root" record which identifies a particular book, census, probate file, whatever. I don't know whether LifeLines supports GEDCOM 5.3 to this level of detail. The following is a SMALL PART (the first 20%) of the discussion of this technique. The whole thing should be read for the full impact, ESPECIALLY the example structure. If you can't find an online copy of the draft, I can send it to you directly, rather than posting it to the list. (I can't remember where I found it.) Copyright þ 1987,1989,1992,1993 by Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This document may be copied for purposes of review or programming of genealogical software, provided this notice is included. All other rights reserved. ..... SOURCE_STRUCTURE The source structure represents the submitter's basis (justification) for the opinions asserted in a lineage linked transmission. This information is used by other researchers to (1) determine how much confidence to place in the associated assertions, (2) compare new evidence to old evidence from prior research, and (3) locate and examine the evidence to make an independent evaluation of it. If a source is not explicitly cited for a given context, the source is by default ascribed to be the personal opinion of the submitter, with no further basis for its credibility. The justification takes the form of a description of the source from which the evidence was obtained, and may include a machine-readable representation of the evidence itself, such as an image of a document or an extract of its contents. A given source may be the basis for many different assertions. Thus, much of the information is the same for many different citations of that source, such as the publisher information; and yet, some of the information varies from one citation to the next, such as the page number for a specific item. Consequently, the SOURCE_STRUCTURE includes a sophisticated mechanism for sharing general source description information that is common across multiple citations, while at the same time allowing more specific information to be more directly associated with individual citations. All tags within the SOURCE_STRUCTURE participate in this approach. To implement the mechanism, the SOURCE_STRUCTURE includes a SOURce pointer that refers to another SOURCE_STRUCTURE containing more general information to be included in the citation. This forms a chain of records, beginning within an individual or family record and ending in a source record that does not contain another SOURce pointer. ..... Monday, July 31, 1995 1:18:38 PM GenWeb Item From: Anders Andersson,andersa@Mizar.DoCS.UU.SE,Internet Subject: Re: object oriented features in GEDCOM To: GenWeb [GenWeb project group: Engineering] Herbert Stoyan writes: >I have a gedcom file which contains 5000 people. all of the come from source >X. Should I copy the source info 5000 times? >I I could introduce a special individuum, say > 0 @source@ INDI > 1 NAME /SOURCE/ > 1 AUTHOR name of author > 1 TITL title of source... > 1 PUBL bibliographical data ... > >This would work fine (in LL). > >I could have local sources and global sources at the same time. >A person could have a different source field. If it is not available, we use >the global source individuum. A datum at a person can have a source field again. >If a data of a person has a different source, we can overwrite the global/the >person source again. In this way we have inheritance from global to person and >to date. I don't know the details of the present (4.0?) GEDCOM specification, but the 5.3 GEDCOM draft introduces a sophisticated SOURCE_STRUCTURE to address the specific problem you mention: To implement the mechanism, the SOURCE_STRUCTURE includes a SOURce pointer that refers to another SOURCE_STRUCTURE containing more general information to be included in the citation. This forms a chain of records, beginning within an individual or family record and ending in a source record that does not contain another SOURce pointer. A given tag may appear in more than one record along the chain. In this case, the tag occurring in one link (source record) of the chain is said to shadow or supersede the same tag found in subsequent records of the chain. A program looking for a particular tag (or tags) in the citation starts looking in the first record of the chain and continues looking in each subsequent record in the chain for the appropriate tag, succeeding when the tag is found or failing when the end of the chain is reached. In effect, a complete logical source citation is the set of all tags of all records within the source chain, excluding shadowed tags. Thus, here you get inheritance only by explicit reference to more generic records. I think this is more useful than a two-level approach with only "individual" and "global" source information. As for inheritance of default information in general, I think it could be implemented in a similar fashion, i.e. via explicit reference to other records with more generic data. I don't think implicit inheritance of data for missing entries is a good idea, since you need some way to indicate that the missing items indeed represent information that you don't have (i.e. unless you state that you found John Brown's birth date in the parish record, your software shouldn't assume that you did so just because the file indicates that you usually find birth dates in the parish records). The same should be valid for any other kind of data that may be common to several individuals (dates, places, family names). Your software may supply shorthand commands or even defaults (with your consent) to make it easier to enter long sequences of identical data items (say, source citations for a family of twelve found on the same page in the census record), but those defaults should not be left active in the resulting database intended for distribution. Explicit inheritance consumes a few more bytes per record than does implicit inheritance, but I consider that insignificant compared to the problems introduced by adding new semantics to the act of expanding a GEDCOM file with preexisting defaults to cover a number of additional records. >Now, it often occurs that a file contains some person sets which stem from >different sources. For this it would be nice to introduce person sets somehow. I agree. For example, I might want to indicate membership in a club or something. I don't find anything directly applicable in the 5.3 draft. However, the EVENT_STRUCTURE seems close, although it's primarily designed to cover family events such as marriages and adoptions. Just as the FAMILY_RECORD allows an arbitrary number of children, the EVENT_RECORD allows an arbitrary number of event participants with indication of their roles in the event. A ROLE_TAG of MBR (or MEMBER) is provided, though without any mention of appropriate use. I guess you could use it to represent arbitrary groups of individuals. >Lifelines (LL) permits you to convert strings into persons. If you know the >persons indices before one could encode a person set description. Are there >other possibilities? Any comments? Just for the record (:-), I'd like to inform you that I don't understand what you are saying here. You were asking for a way to describe groups of individuals in GEDCOM, right? How could a string manipulation routine (in LL or elsewhere) possibly be of any help in this respect? Lifelines can have any features its author decides to include, but it can't add its own kinds of data to a GEDCOM file without violating the current GEDCOM standard (the 5.3 draft does in fact allow "user defined tags", so perhaps the above restriction will cease to exist in the near future). (I'm not a Lifelines user myself. Your mileage may vary...) -- 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 Monday, July 31, 1995 8:36:58 PM GenWeb Item From: mavrogeorge@genealogysf.com,Internet Subject: source documentation To: GenWeb Aynone out there have a solution to including source citations in HTML pages? I have used Gene's program to convert the GEDCOM to HTML but it is not properly handling the source citations. So the nice part is that I was easily able to do the conversion and get the genealogy on line, the bad part is the HTML pages lack any documentation of source citations altho there are many. Having drawn attention publically to our need as genealogists to give equal weight to the basics of good research and the application of technology, I'm a little chagrined to have such a public example of using the technology to get information accessible and having the information "cite-less" . Monday, July 31, 1995 10:25:09 PM GenWeb Item From: Tom Cousins,tcousins@cycor.ca,Internet Subject: Re: source documentation To: GenWeb On Mon, 31 Jul 1995 mavrogeorge@genealogysf.com wrote: > Aynone out there have a solution to including source citations in HTML pages? > > I have used Gene's program to convert the GEDCOM to HTML but it is not properly > handling the source citations. So the nice part is that I was easily able to do > the conversion and get the genealogy on line, the bad part is the HTML pages > lack any documentation of source citations altho there are many. Sorry I am still using DOS and never had any conversion problems..ever. You should be able to scribble a small program to look for the sources in a seperate file and use file numbers for the " if x = ??? then print con" or something similar to that. I am not a programmer . Monday, July 31, 1995 10:57:11 PM GenWeb Item From: Herbert Stoyan,Herbert.Stoyan@informatik.uni-erlangen.de,Internet Subject: Re: source documentation To: GenWeb I just installed a first approach to source citations. You know that I use scripts directly on Lifelines and not the Gedcom to HTML converter. At present, it's a file-wide global source. I intend to implement source links at each level. Monday, July 31, 1995 11:44:25 PM GenWeb Item From: Scott McGee,smcgee@microware.com,Internet Subject: New version of my data on Grand Rapids FN To: GenWeb On my Grand Rapids Free Net account, I have just installed a new set of html files for my genweb stuff. This is done using the latest version of my extract_html.ll program. It consists (this time) of nearly 400 individuals (dates back as far as 1120) in a direct line of ancestory from me, plus a lot of spreading at my own end too to include many cousins, my siblings, and all our children. Some of the new features I am experimenting with this time are LDS ordinance info displayed, and better note displays. The URL to see what I have done this time is: http://www.grfn.org/~smcgee/genweb/genweb.html Please look at it and let me know what you think (Gene, replace genweb.html with GENDEX.txt and you have the url to the file for your indexing. I think you already index this and the new GENDEX.txt is in the same location as the old so it should update automatically) While I could use some work on hierarcical indexing, I am more interested in adding ancestor (pedigree) charts and descendant charts, and links to history or journal info so I don't know for sure which will come next. Many of the ideas I am adding to this stuff is also being added to my cgi based genweb stuff too. I have some hopes of being able to make that publically availible in the not too distant future. Oh, please note that all of these files (except genweb.html and lifelines.html) are automatically generated by extract_html.ll and have not been edited. Write if anyone wants a copy of the latest version! Scott When in danger, | If it has my name on it, it must be MY opinion! or in doubt, |______________________________________________________ run in circles, | Email: smcgee@microware.com (Scott McGee) scream and shout! | Web: http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sam8644/homepage.html