Appease the Ancestors and Shake the Family Tree ...

If your long dead ancestors could see you now would they be proud? If your answer is "affirmative" then you should document your lineage as an online tribute to the fine genes your ancestors passed on to you. If your answer is "negatory" then you had better document your lineage in an attempt to make the ancestors happy. Who knows, it might be nice to have some grateful ancestors to look out for you when you join them in that place called Eternity.

A website is perfect for creating a family tree - family trees are about the linkages between people, and websites are perfect for creating links. Instead of a dry old document with a bunch of confusing lines joining the generations you can use high-tech hyperlinks! Doing it with a website can be easy and fun.

Do you really just want to create a traditional family tree that you can give to the kids for Christmas? If so your best bet is to get a good software package that makes it very easy. The program I linked above will allow you to print out all kinds of interesting reports - it's pretty cool but it's not a web site. I like websites.

The reasons I think using a website for a family tree is so appropriate are as follows - in no particular order:

Incredibly flexible - the website approach puts no limits on the amount of info you can include. Put as much as you're able for each ancestor. You can include maps of where they lived. If Great Uncle Billy-Bob was a poet you can include his poems. If Auntie Mable collected post cards you can scan in and include her collection. The info won't "clutter" up the tree because it would be organized using links to the supplementary stuff. That stuff is still important.

It's published - your website will be readily available to your relatives for their immediate enjoyment. They'll always have access to your most up-to-date work. You could start a mailing list to regularly inform them of updates and make requests for information.

Encourages collaboration - because the information is so accessible, its easy for your second cousins and such to see what info you don't have on their dear old mum. They can easily get it to you via email or by submitting a form on your site. They can become part of the process - You are their Editor and Chief.

The power of links - information on your site can be linked in numerous ways. Say you had a picture on each ancestors page. A "family gallery" can also link to those same pictures. Conversely gallery pictures can link back to the pages of each individuals. Each individuals page could have links to the immediate generation that preceded them as well as the generation that followed. Of course you'd also have links to all the siblings.

Published globally - your website can be seen my people all over the world. You might find distant relations you never knew existed. Example: my fathers uncle went to the Klondike gold rush. He died in Alaska. Nobody in our family knows if he married or had children. I could have hundreds of distantly related Macintosh cousins in Alaska. It would be nice to know because I've always wanted to go back there but I don't yet have a place to stay! If I had my family tree online, eventually some Mac in Alaska would recognize their great grandfather's name and make contact. My tree would grow larger and I'd have alot more places to stay ...

These are just some of the advantages. I'm sure there are alot of other good reasons. I don't need any more reasons - I'm convinced using a website is ideal. I've thought about putting some of my mother's "DeGeer" family history on the web. What prevents me is that at this time in my life, DesignStop.Com uses all my hobby time. I'd need alot of time to devote to the DeGeers - her tree extends back to year 1050 AD !! ( really ).

I hope this page has given you some ideas and some encouragement. If it has with your site's URL, I'd like to climb your tree.

PS. One last piece of advice. I think if I was going to do a serious online family tree I'd still use software like I noted above. I'd use it to help me assemble much of the information into a form that I'd then adapt to my website. Here's another link to that software if you didn't check out its impressive capabilities already.