Family Records

Yes, I admit it - hands up, give in and agree... the Family Records are not that big as yet. That's the point of only adding a link last posting - we have to start somewhere and this is it for the records. They are in a wiki space so you can add to them; how good they end up depends on you more than me!

I also admit its mean not to have given an email address to get in touch. Only people who had my address could send comments without them being on the journal. Rest assured, those who passed on my personal address will not get told off, but I've corrected that now so please use the new link in future.

For the moment, the posting link is a rather horrible "click me and I will use your own email software" link over to the right at the bottom of the other site links. I particularly hate links like that because I don't like to trust your PC any more than I trust mine and because I don't trust the good intentions of everyone who looks at the site. There are, after all, some not-very-nice-people out there on the internet. Unfortunately, that is what the blog host offers so - until I have a nice little email form set up somewhere else - I will have to make do with it, but rest assured that I will provide a nice little email form in due course!

Ok, personal sulk over, now to get on with the posting.

In the Journal

So far, most readers of this journal are in the UK with a scattering around the world - though I've still not heard from our Alaskan reader(s) if you're out there. I have, on the other hand, heard from a New Zealand reader whose visit did not show up in the Google logs when I last looked, so it was a double pleasure to hear from the antipodes!

For that visitor, the answer is that yes, we do know about Captain Preston and his less than entirely peaceful relationships with the Maori but there are other members of the House who know a great deal more about our Australian and New Zealand connections than I do. This is exactly what the Family Records section of the pages is for - you people out there in the Land of the Long White Cloud could and should know much more of our history in the Antipodes than I can possibly do from here in the UK. So get yourselves together, work out the family links and write up the history! Add it to the records on the website - that is precisely what it is for.

In the Family Records

For the Family Records, the story is very different from the Journal - two thirds of visitors are Australian and one third American, with us poor British members of the House hardly getting a look in at all. While the journal gets almost a hundred readers a month, the records only get around ten a month, so its possible those using the records already read the journal. This month I've put links in the journal to point at the records and in the records to point here, so hopefully both sets of readers will start using both sets of pages.

That link makes for a potential problem that I have heard about from users of the records: the pages are not yet complete enough for readers to know how to best use them. This seems to be as much a problem of readers wondering what the hell a "wiki" is and why I chose that for the records rather than a journal. Now, I really, really do not want to try giving a quick course in basic computer interactivity on the world wide web right here and now - and not only because if I did then it would be out of date in next to no time.

Instead, I will use the journal as a quick introduction to the records so that any new readers will know how to handle it. Existing readers who also read the journal might get a quick reminder of what can be done - I hope!

Family records pages

As mentioned, the records are in a wiki web site and offer things you don't get in a journal like this. For one thing, each and every page has a discussion you might want to join in with - and the whole point of those discussions is to talk about what is on that particular page. Each one also has a history to show you what changes were made to the page so that we can track down who it is that thinks uncle Jack never actually married auntie Vera (no, don't look for them - I made them up).

What seems not to have been spotted is that before you can even join in with a discussion you need to be what we refer to as a Talker - that is, you need to join the wiki provider. So far, I have had only one message from someone asking to be allowed to be a Talker, even though no such permission is needed. All you need to do is join Wikispaces by clicking the "Join" link at the top right of the Family Records page. Just to make life easier, you can also click the link I just wrote here as well - and that will let you join the discussions too.

Over the next month or so I should finish updating the example family record for the database which will mean my own little branch of the family, from my grandfather down to my children, will be made available and searchable in the records.

Not a lot, I know, but it should be enough to show you how the records work. Essentially, they are easy - write up everyone you can think of who was born in a particular century and link them together as the family. Send it to me to be checked and then I will approve you as a Writer for the records so that you can write your information onto a web page.

Its that simple. Once you are a Writer, you can add more and more records as you find them. That is the whole point of that section of the site - you, as the biggest part of the House, should be able to write the biggest part of the data. My job is really just to make it possible for readers to be able to find what you have written. Unfortunately, that does mean I may not write as much in the Journal next month, since I hope to be busy with the records and, to a lesser extent, with the main site that will link everything together.