The Family Web: Optional Information

Optional Information

While a Family Web only requires hypertext links to the web pages of the genetic parents and children, there is a host of other, optional, basic data and relevant information that you could (and should) include. These suggestions are entirely optional and will not necessarily be scanned in by any automated programs that search for data on Family Web pages. Feel free to use any format, established or otherwise, that you want if you think it will be useful in customizing the individual's Family Web page with relevant information. Please remember to use hypertext links to pictures or detailed histories instead of placing them directly in the individual's Family Web page so that the main Family Web can be traversed quickly without waiting for lengthy downloads.

If you have additional ideas and suggestions for this list, please be sure and let me know via e-mail at croft@alumni.caltech.edu .

Suggestions

• You may want to start by simply copying an existing Family Web page and using the additional information that it uses. An example can be found at http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~croft/familyweb/David_Wallace_Croft.html .
• After the "GENETIC PARENTS" and "GENETIC CHILDREN" sections (required), create an additional, optional "OTHER RELATIONS" section for siblings, spouses, mates, adopted children, etc. This section can contain links in a family tree that are somewhat redundant. For example, if you did not list a sister here, the sister could still be found by going up to a Family Web page "GENETIC PARENTS" link and examining the "GENETIC CHILDREN" of a father.
• Name(s): legal, married, maiden, nicknames, etc.
• Birth date: use the International Standards Organization (ISO) format for dates. It has the form yyyy-mm-dd such as 1968-07-17.
• Birth place
• Death date: if the individual is currently alive, provide that information such as "alive as of 1996-05-25".
• Grave site: I'm actually considering renting a hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) unit to include the exact latitude and longitude as some of the grave markers are becoming buried by time in fields.
• Contact: if the individual is still alive, this could be an address, phone number, e-mail address, or web page link. If otherwise or the contact information is not available, this could list a point-of-contact who might have further information.
• Significant events: marriages, graduations, retirements, etc.
• Sources of information: censuses, court records, family Bibles, word of mouth, etc.
• History: use an optional hypertext link if excessively detailed.
• Pictures: use an optional hypertext link to reduce download time.
• Voice clips: reference an optional hypertext link to a text transcript with sound.
• Movies: use an optional hypertext link and indicate the size of the file in bytes.
• Add other information as you see fit using hypertext links where appropriate. More is better!