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This article first appeared in the May 1997 issue of the Journal of Online Genealogy
Continuing the previous article's theme of great genealogy Web sites, this article highlights two personal home pages which stand out above their peers.
We've all visited dozens and dozens of personal home pages in the online quest for our roots. Have any of them really grabbed your attention and held it? Do you visit most of them, scan the surnames, and quickly forget you've ever been there? Creating a memorable home page is a challenge. As genealogists, our basic task is to convey our family information on our home page. As web page designers, our basic tasks are to make the purpose of our home page instantly clear to the visitor and to make navigation of our site as simple as possible. As both genealogists AND web page designers, we face the difficult task of making our home page stand out in the mind of the visitor to ensure return visits. We know that our visitors' researches may turn up new surnames in the future and that these new surnames may match our own. We want them to return to our home page again in such cases.
One example of a personal home page which has met these challenges with notable success is The Atkinson and Bass Family Tree (http://users.quicklink.net/~atkinson/) maintained by Richard Atkinson. Richard has created a visually pleasing, well organized, and - most importantly - a highly informative personal home page. Since Richard's page is truly memorable, the various elements of his success deserve attention in detail.
When you first visit The Atkinson and Bass Family Tree home page, you can immediately determine what the site is about. A photograph of a group of Richard's ancestors sits atop a large title for the page. There is no question but that this is a genealogist's home page. The home page is short and to the point. The page does not require scrolling down further in order to read its intent. It has a picture of the ancestors, a easy-to-read title, and a frame at the bottom with navigation buttons. While I am not a big fan of frames, Richard has used them to good advantage here. Nestled in the small frame at the bottom are navigation buttons with titles that all genealogists will understand: Information, Surnames, Group Sheets, Photographs, and E-mail. A simple and effective division of information types familiar to all of us. Notice that Richard has used matching black & white graphics for the navigation buttons. These buttons match other decorative elements on his pages and go well with the black & white photographs of his ancestors. Is a good looking site important? Only if you want visitors to remember your site and return to it.
Click on the Information button and view Richard's Information page (http://users.quicklink.net/~atkinson/info.htm for a frameless version). Here is a narrative of Richard's interest in his family's history and some details of previous generations. His narrative is not just names and places. It includes family stories, migration patterns, and other information of interest which help put "meat" on the family "skeletons".
Thumbnail versions of family photographs adorn the Information page. The reduced size of these photographs is a courtesy to visitors since the larger versions of the same picture take longer to load. If a visitor wants to see a picture in more detail, they can click on it for a full size graphic. Scroll down on the Information page and read the left hand column in red text. This is one of the most outstanding features of Richard's pages. Quite simply, he uses this column to provide source information for his family history research. Many genealogy Web page designers overlook providing source information for their material. Richard has clearly indicated what types of sources he used and the notation he uses to indicate that he has independently verified family information given to him by others. This tells you that Richard is both serious and careful in his research of his Atkinson and Bass family trees.
Richard's Surnames pages are the modified output of the GED2HTML program reviewed in March's Transforming Your GEDCOM Files Into Web Pages article in the Journal of Online Genealogy (http://www.onlinegenealogy.com/mar97/online.htm). His Group Sheets pages were built using Rob Jacob's Gedpage software (http://www.frontiernet.net/~rjacob/gedpage.htm).
Click the button to go to the Photographs page (http://users.quicklink.net/~atkinson/photos.htm for a frameless version) and you'll see a real treat. Richard has put up 10 family photographs in thumbnail form complete with identifying titles. Below the photographs, additional information on each picture is provided. Clicking on any photograph enlarges it for more detail. This page gives the Atkinson and Bass Family Tree a very human face. Richard Atkinson has successfully created his genealogy Web page by providing a quickly identifiable purpose for his page, simple navigational tools, and clear communication of his family's information. Richard can be assured of many return visits to his memorable page.
A truly amazing look at the human face of a family can be found at Alex Glendinning's The Family Face (http://user.itl.net/~glen/FamilyFace.html). By displaying the photographs of two different branches of his family over three generations, Alex shows the uncanny resemblances between the generations. Take a moment to ponder the features of each face and then compare it to those of the next generation. It is very easy to see what each new generation received as a physical inheritance from the previous generation.
Should you think that Alex's genealogy Web site is merely for looking at genetics in action, visit his Alex Gledinning's Home Page (http://user.itl.net/~glen/index.html). Surely Alex has one of the most eclectic mixes of genealogy research information on any personal genealogy home page. Besides his own family information, Alex provides useful articles on a variety of genealogy topics. His own personal research has lead him to write a Frequently Asked Questions article on Channel Islands Research, an article on Family History in Hungary, information on The British in Singapore and Malaya complete with original source material, and much more. Why is Alex Gledinning's a memorable site? Because he provides useful information for other researchers. How-to articles, FAQs, and original records give researchers a reason to re-visit Alex's excellent site. These repeat visits will no doubt lead to successful research connections for Alex.
What both Richard and Alex have shown us are several ways to make your genealogy web pages memorable and remarkable. These techniques translate into repeat visits by other online genealogists. Repeat visits increase your chances of making connections with others working on the same lines. And isn't that why we put up our genealogy home pages in the first place?
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