[Ldsoss] Recommendations for family history site tools

[Jesse Stay]

I just use Mediawiki for my family, and it has worked great.  I set  
up a good howto page in the help section so people could learn how to  
post stories and other articles themselves, and set up access  
rights.  I also loaded an extension that protects pages from being  
viewed by non-members if desired.

For the genealogy parts, you may want to look into PHPGEDView.  I use  
Mailman for one mailing list, and Yahoo groups for the other.  I'm  
also considering writing a genealogy extension for MediaWiki that  
knows how to read GEDCOM files and render on the page.

Jesse

On Oct 28, 2006, at 9:50 AM, Shawn Willden wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm setting up a new family history collaboration site for, and I'm  
> looking
> for tool recommendations.
>
> What I want to do is set up a web site that can be managed by the  
> people
> leading the research efforts about my family.  In the past, I ran  
> the site
> (big pile 'o HTML) and made all the changes, but it's clear that  
> I've become
> a bottleneck.  Obviously, I need some sort of a content management  
> system
> that makes it easy for non-technical users to manage their own  
> information.
>
> There are three primary types of data that will be posted:  Text  
> (histories,
> journals, letters, etc.), images, and genealogical data (the stuff  
> in a
> GEDCOM).  In addition, it should be possible for others to attach  
> comments to
> each item.  Search features are good, too, and we need an easy way  
> to link
> images, text and genealogical data together.
>
> The site needs to be divided into sections for each of my great  
> great great
> grandfather's (Charles Willden) children, since that's the way the
> descendants have organized themselves.  We haven't decided how to  
> categorize
> the information about ancestors of Charles Willden.  Each section  
> should be
> managed by a leader, but that leader will probably delegate
> responsibility/permission for parts or all of their section to  
> other users.
> The permissions management obviously needs to be both flexible and  
> easy to
> use.  Since there are around 200 people who want to get involved, I  
> don't
> want to have to manage these permissions; I have to be able to  
> delegate
> nearly all management to the group leaders -- and most of them are
> middle-aged to elderly women with just enough computer literacy to  
> use email,
> browse the web, operate PAF, etc.  They are, however, quite motivated.
>
> Oh, and there are also be a number of mailing lists, which I'm  
> currently
> managing manually (i.e. /etc/aliases).
>
> I have a Linux Virtual Server running Debian Etch (I want it to be  
> on Stable,
> but I don't see any point in setting it up on Sarge right now when  
> Etch is
> inches from release) hosted at rosehosting.com.  Great folks, BTW,  
> highly
> recommended.
>
> So far, I think my best option is a combination of Plone for the  
> main site,
> and Geneweb for the genealogy data.  I know Geneweb well, having  
> used it for
> several years now, but I'm new to Plone, and not entirely certain  
> about it.
> I have no question it can do the job, but I'm not sure if it's the  
> easiest
> way to get the job done.  I'm considering Mailman for the mailing  
> lists, and
> there's a Plone plugin that provides a web interface for mailing list
> management.
>
> Has anyone done anything similar?  Are there any purpose-built  
> tools out
> there?  Any recommendations to make my life easier, both in setting  
> up the
> site and in managing it on an ongoing basis?
>
> Any and all suggestions welcome,
>
> Thanks,
>
> 	Shawn.
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