About the study - Managing the data and the site

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				www.glenister.org
				Family history and one name study

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GG2008 - Glenister Gathering - 28-30 Mar 2008 - Victoria, Australia - More

About the study

How the data and the site are managed

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What's here

Structure, assumptions, corrections
From database to web site
Managing the data
Managing the site

Structure, assumptions, corrections

The raw data is recorded, classified, analysed and structured into family trees. For example, the GRO records of birth show the mother's maiden name, and the records of marriage show the spouses name. So sometimes it can be easy to identify to which marriage the children belong. Also GRO records of death show the age at death, or the date of birth. So again it can sometime be easy to match the records of birth and death.

I try to ensure that data is accurate, but occasionally I do make mistakes, and I am always ready to receive corrections to the data. Typical causes of errors are confusing two or more people who share the same name, or in connecting children to the wrong parents when there multiple marriages to spouses with the same surname.

Of course, I am also pleased to receive additional information related to any aspect of the study.

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From database to web site

The data is moved from my main database to the web site, where it is made available to the world. The database is usually updated very soon after fresh information is received, and the web site is updated later, so there is perhaps a delay before the web site catches up.

As I update the web site, I make a note in the site's news pages, so visitors can keep track of what's happening.

The web site's search facility is based on an index which is updated every week, very early on Sunday mornings. This index may also be updated after I have major change to the web site which affects a significant amount of data.

The news page and all the family tree pages have a 'change detection' facility which visitors can use to be notified by email when I make a change to a page in which they are interested.

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Managing the data

Keeping control of all this data can be difficult. I keep most of the data on my home computer and manage it with a number of different tools.

Access 2002 to record raw data
PAF 4.0.4.18 to record data which has been structured into family trees
Descend 3 Version Beta 4g to produce descendancy charts
FrontPage 2002 to produce and manage web pages

I also have a mountain of paper records which I manage with paper clips, staples, envelopes and folders!

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Managing the site

The web site is the means of presenting the Glenister family history data to the internet, and needs to be managed to ensure that the information is available for visitors.

The site comprises four main elements:

a hosting service provider
a host operating platform
a web server
the web pages themselves

The site is hosted by Seem Internet Services, a UK company based in St Albans. They provide the elements of the host operating platform and the web server.

The host operating platform software is Microsoft Windows 2000.

The web server software is Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) version 5.0.

The web pages are Active Server Pages (ASP) coded in a combination of HTML and VBScript.

The database are in Access 2002 format

I also use other web based services to deliver and manage the site.

The site search facility is provided by Atomz.com and is one of the easiest and most flexible search tools available.

The guest book facility is provided by Lycos and is also one of the easiest and most flexible tools I have found.

I use the site monitoring service from internetseer.com to alert me if the site is not available. Internetseer checks the site every hour, and sends me an email if the site is not available.

In June and July 2005 the site was receiving about 30 "real" visitors a day, and about 15 "other" visitors - search engines etc.

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Last modified 2005 Jul 19 15:01:21