Sign up for Genealogy Pointers »

With the World Wide Web growing at a furious pace, spreading its tentacles into every nook and cranny of the genealogy world, the appearance of this book on web publishing is as timely as it is welcome. Over the past few years genealogy web sites have been proliferating at such an incredible rate that the web now provides the best opportunities for locating source materials, contacting other researchers, sharing family information, and publishing the results of your research.

Not only does it provide a means of locating an infinite array of how-to sources, reference materials, and resources of almost every type imaginable, including research centers, genealogical organizations, archives, repositories, and databases, but it also offers an ideal way to publish special-interest material that would never find a traditional publisher but might yet command a wide audience. As a low-cost medium accessible to millions of readers, the web offers unlimited potential for genealogists to publicize the results of their researches, their surname interests, transcripts of original source materials, and anything else of a genealogical nature.

The aim of this book, written by Peter Christian, the editor of Computers in Genealogy and webmaster for the Society of Genealogists, is to look at what is involved in publishing your genealogy on the web and to offer some guidance in how to get started. In plain English, Mr. Christian explains what the World Wide Web is, why the web is especially useful for genealogists, how web pages work, what you need for web publishing, and the process of web publishing itself. Then, as simply as possible, he discusses HTML and other web-authoring tools, as well as text editors, word processors, GEDCOM conversion tools, and genealogy software.

At the center of the book he includes a lengthy section on web site design, explaining what to include, how to organize your information, HTML "tags" and basic page design, the difference between good and bad web design, and the legal and ethical issues surrounding web publishing. He makes ample use of computer screen shots to illustrate how to use a text editor to create simple web pages and demonstrates the type of page layout and design facilities that are available. Two final chapters explore advanced web facilities--style sheets, image maps, frames, and access control--and how, finally, to publish your web pages and lure visitors to your site.

Rounding out the book is a glossary of web terminology; a bibliography of books, articles, and online resources; a subject index; and--you guessed it--a web site that is full of supplemental information pertaining to the book!

RELATED BOOKS:
Netting Your Ancestors
Cyndi's List: A Comprehensive List of 70,000 Genealogy Sites on the Internet
The Complete Beginner's Guide to Genealogy, the Internet, and Your Genealogy Computer Program
Genealogy on CD-ROM
Genealogy Software Guide


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"He offers clear explanations and practical advice on using web page editing and other Net tools as well as providing copious references to online sources for more information on all his topics. His recommendations on using HTML-enabled editors and word processors are excellent . . . . This is an excellent, concise and tailored presentation of home page development and tools for the genealogist."--NGS/CIG Digest (May-June 1997)

"...this slim book is a superb introduction for anyone interested in creating a website for their genealogy..."--THE NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD, Vol. 131, No. 3, p. 29.

"This is a goldmine of information and should be considered a standard reference work for this time period."--BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES (Summer 2000), pp. 186-187.