First Family Page

I've been spending so much time working out how to record family details I've had very little for the Journal. In fact, I've spent more time making them easy to store and search than doing the records themselves! After a lot of work, I've sorted out a method and made notes to remind me while I got down to the hardest bit.

Slogging through the "Help Pages" of the wiki site I've been finding out how to easily manage space, create templates, use fancy editing features and all the bits of otherwise useless information to make life easier for once I have it all in place. It was almost a welcome break to settle down and link the different pages together so we have one single site for everything!

House Preston pages

As you can see from the picture at the top, the main page is updated and links to the various bitsin use all tied together in one place.... you know, when I started all this, I was sure it was going to be easier!

Anyway, its all done now and we can - I hope - start to see people using the set of sites to investigate the family and to record their own genealogy information for us all to see. There is to be some concern about putting details on-line, but I hope the Help Pages included in the records offer some fairly explicit advice.

I've had a couple of questions about the Creative Commons licence used for the pages - and some asking why I've not included it on all the pages. Since the second question is easiest, I start there and then explain the reason for the licence itself.

What it comes down to is simple - some sites, and Google, which runs these blog pages, is a particular example of it - have their own licence agreements written into the permissions to use the features they offer. These can and sometimes do mean that the Creative Commons can't be added to the site without permission and that is precisely why they currently don't have the licence added: I don't yet know if I am allowed to.

As to the licence itself, it is what is known as a "copyleft licence" (rather than a copyright licence). It works pretty much, but not quite, the same way as normal copyright, but means you don't need to get in touch with me to use bits unless you are intending to do what is not allowed - in the case of these sites, that means sell it, steal it or keep it private. Pretty much anything else goes.

Journal readers

Unfortunately, all this has meant that the journal readership has dropped like a stone! Over the last month, it hit the skids with very few visitors dropping by - and all of them from the UK, which is also a big change. We seem to have lost our Australian and New Zealand readers and since I asked them to get in touch there has been no response and no connection from our once regular reader from Alaska.

Of course, I blame myself, and will also blame myself if it doesn't improve, since I will be getting ready for the next year's courses over the next month as well. I will make every effort to get the August posting done and posted though knowing me I will either forget to do it or will write it and forget to post it - I do get forgetful at this time of year! It does, however, explain why very few bothered with the latest poll, so I will just remove it and leave the page as it is for now.

All I need now to make the last month complete is for someone to tell me the Alaskan reader is that idiot Sarah Palin and my misery will be complete.