Genealogy Freebies: Website, Tutorials, Graphics

Family History Research brings up the word "Genealogy". If you get the bug, you'll be chasing them bones hither and yon, burning the midnight oil, trying to put the pieces together for current living family members, and those elusive ancestors. Building a family tree can be done with pencil and paper, or learning how to use one of the Family Tree programs. Your endless hours are now bearing fruit, and you're ready to share it with the world. Your work should not be kept a secret from others. Whether it be printed versions to share with other family, or an online presence, an objective of this time consuming work is to get it into the hands of as many people as possible, which will be preserved for future generations. The next person interested in the family history may be your great-great grandchild. Give them a legacy to go on.
Being interested in sharing prompted the title of this post. Printing stuff was easy, but I wanted an online presence. Finding FREE methods fit the budget just right. The following are intended to help you discover ways to share/improve your data. All FREE.

1) Database: If you would like a database program to store and create family history, consider the one you can download from LDS (familysearch.org) . http://www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/
It is totally FREE. Quite simple to learn, you'll have a professional database in no time.

2) Online presence. I found ROOTSWEB/ANCESTRY which offers FREE web space. Which is unlimited web space for genealogy purposes. Simple (like me), or hog wild (with graphics), its your choice. It's called FREEPAGES.
http://accounts.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index.cgi?op=show&page=freagree.htm
Read the simple rules, but take your time to create a NAME for your site. Select your account name carefully as names of accounts can NOT be changed and you may not close an account and open a new one.

Check your own ISP. Many of them do provide free web space to customers. Mine offers 10MB free. More than enough to create a web site.

COLLATERAL SITES: If you have cemetery/gravesite/tombstone information, consider FIND-A-GRAVE website to share your data. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gs&LGaction=li&
FREE, registration is required. Easy to link your deceased ancestors together, include obits, and make a link to your website. Search the site for people others may have posted to help your research.

2) BUILDING A WEBSITE
Your "free space" does not mean a website of your data will magically appear there. You first have to "create" a web site.. This could mean taking time to learn HTML, the computer language. Using some of the FREE tutorials, and NOTEPAD (on your computer), you'll master this quite quickly. I still use Notepad, and less than a dozen commands, to build my websites.
Tutorial 1: http://www.boogiejack.com/html_tutorials.html
Tutorial 2: http://www.htmldog.com/guides/
Tutorial 3: http://www.pagetutor.com/html_tutor/index.html

3)FREE "EDITOR" to create a website. Too lazy to learn HTML?  One of MANY free editors to download and create a website is Kompozer: WYSISYG.
 http://download.cnet.com/KompoZer/3000-10247_4-10655200.html?tag=contentBody;pop
 DO NOT, DO NOT, DOT NOT, DO NOT EVER use WORD to create a website. YUK!!!!!!!

4)BONUS FREEBIES:
Most of us like to fiddle with graphics (photos, images, documents, self created, etc.) Here's some FREE graphic editor downloads that will do more than you need.
The original PSP v3.12 version, offered as a 30 day trial (clever thinking) , it NEVER expires. A powerful tool to do more than what you need. Mine is now 7 years working.
http://www.pagetutor.com/downloads/psp312-32.html

IRFANVIEW is another free graphics editor to be impressed with. Download from:
http://www.irfanview.com/

Hope some of these have helped you in your Genealogy adventures.
Thanks for stopping by.






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