Publishing my research

[alison300]

For years I have been researching my family 'tree' but then decided to go further and research a local WW1 memorial.  I would now like to publish this and have created a 'blog'.  Have found this really difficult - can anyone recommend a website/idiots guide that can teach me how to amend/tidy up what I've created? 

if you click on the link below you can see it:
www.WW1memorialStGeorgeintheEast.blogspot.com

[andrewalston]

A good idea, and your research is paying off.

I found the text a bit small. If you stack some of the fields on the left side of the list, you could use larger text and have a wider column for the text on the right.

You could have the forenames under the name as seen on the memorial, and the service, rank and service number, probably in that order, in another column.

Because the text on the right occupies multiple lines, the table length would not change much.

Maybe embolden the name from the memorial?

I'm afraid you have now acquired a new hobby - tinkering with web pages!

[alison300]

Thank you for your great comments which I am going to start working on right away! 

[Mike Morrell (NL)]

Hi Alison,

You've done a great job so far! Creating and formatting tables for (free) websites/blogs is a big challenge and IMHO you've done really well. It looks good on mobile (Android) too. I have more experience with Wordpress but I took a quick look at Blogger too. As far as I can see, Blogger (like most free version blogs/websites) has no built-in, user-friendly function for creating and formatting tables. There are various 'Table Creation' programs that can generate HTML that you can copy and paste to a website/blog. Is this how you went about it? Or did you figure out how to write the HTML for tables? Just curious

Good tips from Andre and I agree with all of them. Just a personal preference: I don't much like alternating row colours in tables. I'd just prefer (black/grey) lines between rows. The font size is now 15 and you should be considering at least 18 for the 'keywords' (names, dates, service, etc.) and at least 16 for the details. In general, website fonts are getting bigger.

The choice of font-types is an art in itself. At the moment it seems you have 3: Roboto and Helvetica in the intro (sans-serif) and Times New Roman (serif) in the text. You might want to experiment with different fonts to see what looks best. In general, "data" (the table) might be easier for users to scan in a sans-serif font like Helvetica.


There are a couple of other points I can offer:
- Making your research available via internet is a big step. Have a think about who might search for this information and how they might find it. The more accessible your information is, the more valuable it is. How are people able to find the information from genealogy websites? The WW1 memorials site?
- Your research is published as one blog 'post'. Are they going to be (new) posts? If not, consider publishing the information as a 'page' rather than a ' blog post'.

Hope this helps (and doesn't lead to despair  )

The main thing is that your research is  now available to everyone on the planet!

Mike

[alison300]

hi Mike - thanks for your reply.  i'm very much a notice with this sort of thing.  I had thought about a website but that costs and I am working on another couple of memorials and would like to put them on a blog/website as well.  my table is in excel and I simply copied & pasted it and thought I could update as and when I have more info.  however, I've just tried to upload an amended version and can't seem to remove my old data.  so, i'm going to see if my daughter's friend (who is taking IT at uni) can help me.  I'm now thinking blogspot wasn't the best medium to use

I will look into Wordpress and try to understand it. 

I like your idea too about make the names larger etc - I hadn't thought of that.  my font type is actually Frutiger in excel which is strange.  So lots more work for me to do this weekend!  Thanks for your help and suggestions. 

[iluleah]

hi Mike - thanks for your reply.  i'm very much a notice with this sort of thing.  I had thought about a website but that costs and I am working on another couple of memorials and would like to put them on a blog/website as well. 

They don't have to cost, there are many free ones and lots with many template pages that would enable you to write a blog, add photos and all and any of your information and a website address is then easy for others to find you and the information you have researched...such as webs.com and there is no cost whatsoever, all of it is free

Just by some searches for FH ones these are some http://chrisroughan.webs.com/ http://longfamilyofwiltshire.webs.com/  http://familytimeline.webs.com/ which might give you some ideas

[Midase]

There are plenty of free website builders where you can build a website and host it for free. Take a look at https://www.weebly.com/uk which is just but one. You will have to buy a domain name though.

[Mike Morrell (NL)]

Hi Alison,

Before you put a lot of work into publishing your research via a different blog or website, I suggest that you first consider how people who might be interested in your research are going to be able to find it. That often determines where and how you publish it. There are millions of personal blogs and websites that are virtually impossible to find via a search engine (google). The only way is via a direct link (URL)published somewhere else, for example Rootschat.

IMHO the most obvious approach (to start with) would be to publish and update your research via a website linked to either WW1 memorials (https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/18033) or St George in the East (http://stgeorgeintheeast.withtank.com/). Maybe either or both of these organisations would be happy to publish your research (and updates) on their own websites. If not, it might still be worth checking whether they have preferences for external sites to which they might provide links.
Just a thought,
Mike

Have a think about who might search for this information and how they might find it. The more accessible your information is, the more valuable it is. How are people able to find the information from genealogy websites? The WW1 memorials site?
Mike