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First of all if you received my last post ok, then you are receiving
messages from the list ok. However, as I stated in my last post - if you
feel that you aren't getting messages as you should there are several
reasons why this may be so:
1. no one is writing to the list
2. problems at Rootsweb
3. problems with your ISP
4. you've been unsubbed for some reason.
For the first 3 reasons I have no solution other than for the number 1 in
which you could post some info to the list - please don't post though to
see if the list is working. For reason 4, send me a private email and I'll
check to make sure you are subscribed in either mail or digest mode.
Several of you have asked if the list is archived and if so how one could
look at previous messages posted to the list. The list is archived and is
viewable. If you don't want personal details world viewable don't put it
in list mail but send it privately to who you wish to let know such
information.
To view the archives of this list go to:
http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl and for the listname
input: GAGEN and select which year you wish to view and any keywords you
wish to use.
If you have questions regarding the use of that form let me know.
Tim
Don, so happy you will be hosting Pulaski County. You were always a
wonderful contributor and volunteer and now I know you will be a great
County Coordinator. Welcome and best wishes, John and Gloria
To the contrary of a message Dec. 7, 1999, the Url for Dooly and Dodge
County has not been changed. Vickie Ashley has adopted Dodge County from
Gloria Holback and will soon be announcing a new URL for that county.
Dooly has not been adopted out and is still being hosted by Gloria
Holback but will have a new URL as reported to Virginia Crilley,
Assistant State Coordinator, GAGenWeb Project. The new URL for Dooly and
Dodge Counties will be announced by Virginia Crilley and staff. Thanks,
Gloria Holback, County Coordinator Ben Hill, Dooly and Irwin Counties,
and resigning Regional Coordinator - South Central Georgia
I haven't been "reviewing" the messages for Surnames, but now I realize
their importance, and will take the extra time to go back and ADD them as
this note is suggesting.
I had not realized how important the SURNAME list was. In fact in some of
my early posts, I had interpreted that to mean "surnames other than the one
in the Subject line". This isn't true.....you need to list the Subject
Surname AGAIN in the Surname Box.
======================
JYoung6180(a)aol.com wrote:
>
> Just another little note about Surname Helper Indexing on the boards. I had
> a visitor to a board ask me recently about a particular case where 3 queries
> appeared for a surname when they did a search on the board using the
> searchbar.
>
> Yet when the visitor did a search for that same surname using Global Search
> or Surname Helper is showed no listings for this surname. The visitor asked
> me why.
>
> I went to the board and was able to recreate the scenario they presented.
> The surname didn't appear on Surname Helper or Global Search since the
> posters of the messages didn't include the surname in the Surname Box on the
> board.
>
> Keep in mind that those 2 search engines ONLY index the surnames included in
> the Surnames Box. Only the blue searchbar will do an every word search of
> the board itself.
That's why I automatically add the surnames if someone forgets. I
don't ask, I merely add them when they hit me for review. I figure
that's WHY they come to me for review.
And active boards that I've inherited, I've been going through and
adding missing surnames, too. I want searchers to be able to FIND
those precious posts!
Virginia
Please welcome Don Brown buster(a)southwind.net as the new Pulaski County
Coordinator.
He's already worked closely with Gloria and John Holback and has transcribed
one of the Census which is on-line for that County.
Don plans to move the site to Rootsweb, and is working on this right now.
In the meantime, I know all of you welcome him to our group and will help
out in anyway he might need.
Don, don't hesitate to address questions to this list. We have lots of
experience....all levels!!
Virginia Crilley
Rotational ASC GAGenWeb
Virginia
Sorry I am running a test to see where all I am bouncing from. Only got 270
pieces of mail and should have been over twice that. Must be bouncing all
over so am testing all the lists I am currently subbed too.
Laura
If you're like me, you are always needing to pass along "how-to" things and
find yourself typing the same message over and over again. Also keeping up
with all the passwords, etc.
I've tried several different things, i.e. keeping URL in my address book to
be handy (created and ADD name); copying from my Netscape bookmarks
But....here's a great tip from Megan, that I wanted to pass along to you for
all those things you need to remember and save for future references...
=====================
you don't *upload* it to anywhere. (I stole this idea from Nancy
some time ago, and now I live by it.<g>).
You just make the page.....then you set your browser's DEFAULT home page to
display it. For example, the url for my page is:
c:\htmlstuf\homepage\home.htm
Essentially the same process you use to view a webpage you're in the middle
of creating that hasn't been uploaded yet.
It's absolutely invaluable: mine has my passwords, links to all my list utility
pages, GC boards, and the account info for all my webpage accounts in case
ws-ftp turns stupid and forgets a password, as well as all sorts of links to
things I use constantly, sort of a "Piglet-specific Cyndi's list"........and
to make it pleasant to look at, it has an animated Piglet gif on the top of
the page "saying" "Good morning, Piglet!"<vbg>
Megan "Piglet" Zurawicz piglet(a)rootsweb.com
Virginia
The United States Digital Map Library, a project of the USGenWeb Archives,
is now under the coordination of Kelly Mullins and Mary Ann Hetrick. Please
take a moment to browse through it at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps/. As with all Archives projects, this
one is dependent on both volunteers and contributions. Many states are
currently in need of coordination, and map contributions are very much
needed and appreciated.
Kelly Jensen-Mullins, Coordinator - maps(a)qworld.net
Mary Ann Hetrick, Assistant Coordinator - MHet703234(a)aol.com
United States Digital Map Library: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps/
Just a quick report to let you know that as of this evening we have 116
subscribers to this list including 110 in list mode and 6 in digest mode.
One thing I'd like to ask members to do though. If you feel you may be
unsubbed from the list because of problems with your computer or provider
or haven't seen many messages of late - please send me an email asking me
to check it out for you. Otherwise I'll get a message of some sort from
the server saying you are already a subscriber. If there is a problem with
your address receiving list mail - this will be the fastest way for me to
assist you - otherwise it may get buried in the 850 reject messages I
currently have...
In my next email, I'm going to share with you a little of what else I do in
case you might be wondering. If this is old hat to you or you get
duplicate copies - please forgive me.
Tim Stowell
Georgia State Coordinator
This is not intended to be a comprehensive discussion of all the ends and
outs of search engines, but more as an overview and listing of some of the
specific features I have incorporated into the new Georgia Genealogy Search
Engine.
I express some opinions here, and I don't intend to turn this forum into a
discussion of the pros and cons, but my choices have necessarily influenced
some of these design decisions.
1. Most search engines use a "spider" to go to a site and grab index
specific information for incorporation into their index. Some grab more /
others less, but I think that LATIGIDY (the name of my search engine) is
pretty typical.
When the spider visits a site, it first looks through the entire page and
grabs all the links on the page as paths that it will follow for finding
related information. Thus one visit may generate a dozen or more additional
pages which need to be visited, so the spider essentially never stops its job
unless terminated. One of the things which happened several times while
indexing the Georgia pages was that the spider wandered off onto unrelated
sites and other state USGenWeb Project sites because of links various people
had on their pages. Thus over the week or so it was doing its thing, I
periodically stopped it and browsed through the "to do" links and put the
spider back on track. That is also why you'll see some unrelated links in
the current search results.
Once a page is accessed, the spider looks for three meta tags: (TITLE,
DESCRIPTION, and KEYWORDS). The title tag, if found is hacked at 70
characters. Otherwise the title is given "NO TITLE" in the data base. The
Description metatag is limited to 400 characters. If no description metatag
is found, the first 400 characters of the body of the page is incorporated
into the description. This is why you'll see so many cryptic descriptions on
the page. The keywords metatag is also limited to 400 characters, and like
the title, it is ignored, if no metatag is found.
Thus, if you want to get truly relevant hits in LATIGIDY or any other search
engine, you need to have these tags in your pages. I must admit that I have
been quite sloppy about this myself in the past.
Now, traditional search engines miss several key elements we need for
Genealogy pages. 1. We need to search the entire page, because every word
can be important, and 2. We need to do soundex searches, and last name,
first name searches, etc. to be most effective.
These functions can only be attained by having a "managed" index. Some of
the big guys such as ABOUT.COM are now kicking around the word "Portal" as
their designation of managed search results which simply means that once the
spider has done its work, a person has looked at the results and massaged
them for content and relevancy. We have somewhat accomplished this with the
GEN-FORUM boards, but all of our county level pages contain essentially
unstructured data which cannot be completely indexed by the spider.
To address this issue, I have designed the underlying structure of LATIGIDY
to use ACCESS formatted files and created a CLIENT program for managing the
data base. This will allow you to be very detailed in creating search engine
results, but it will require some maintenance. I plan to add a GEDCOM and
GED2HTML import feature shortly, and other import type functions to make this
process easier.
Now, Victoria asked how my search engine differed from Roots Web's. Some of
these things are technical, but one of the biggest differences is LATIGIDY
runs on an Windows NT server, where the other is Unix based. This should
open up a lot of additional servers which can host the search engine, and it
also enables the fundamental functionality of the CLIENT program to run on
your Windows PC for maintaining your own search engine data base. Secondly,
my spider follows all links on a site. Most of the "freebie" search engine
spiders and indexers I've seen, limit the indexing to a single domain or
"intranet." Thus I can index all the sites in the state regardless of where
they are located and regardless of whether they are under the USGenWeb
Project "umbrella." Indeed, I have focused on finding and indexing these
sites, since Rootsweb is already somewhat more organized than the other sites
which are out there.
The biggest difference however, is not yet apparent. The current data base
on line is the results of the unmanaged spider's work. I will shortly be
incorporating the GIWWW database which I have worked on for the past couple
of years which will contain first and last name information and will
automatically do soundex searching for near matches on spelling. This will
help you to zero in much better on specific individuals and the resulting
search results will look somewhat like what you see with the Mormon FHC
search and Family Tree Maker, et. al.
Hope I haven't bored you too much with these details.
John Rigdon
I have put a search engine on line which focuses on Georgia genealogy and
history sites.
http://www.researchonline.net/gaindex
If you want to put just the search box on your page, here is the snippet of
HTML code.
<table width=100% cols=4>
<td>This Search Engine focuses on Georgia Genealogy Resources. Questions or
comments should be directed to John Rigdon at JohnR238(a)aol.com.
<!-- LATIGIDY Search HTML for Georgia Genealogy Research -->
<form action="http://167.196.224.17/cgi-bin/gaindex.exe?">
Search for: <input type="text" name="search" size="25" value>
<input type="submit" value="Start Search">
<input type="reset" value="Clear"></form>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
I can also peal off a search engine for your site only. If you're interested
in it, drop me a note and I will send you the HTML code and set up the data
base on my end.
Enjoy!
John Rigdon
Thanks, John for this great new device....and especially for supplying the
codes for me to use.
I did a quick testing, and saw how important it is to have the TOP portion
of the page very complete for contents/surnames, etc. so the Search Engines
will pick it up.
Could you also help us understand the differences between your Search Engine
and the Rootsweb one?
http://seeker.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/htsearch
They seemed to pull up some of the same, but some different sources.....
Rootsweb had 15 matches.....and yours 3.
Could you also give us some HINTS about how to make our pages MORE
compatible to Search Engines?
Thanks....
At 11:03 AM 12/08/1999 EST, you wrote:
>I have put a search engine on line which focuses on Georgia genealogy and
>history sites.
>
>http://www.researchonline.net/gaindex
>
>If you want to put just the search box on your page, here is the snippet of
>HTML code.
>
><table width=100% cols=4>
><td>This Search Engine focuses on Georgia Genealogy Resources. Questions or
>comments should be directed to John Rigdon at JohnR238(a)aol.com.
>
>
><!-- LATIGIDY Search HTML for Georgia Genealogy Research -->
><form action="http://167.196.224.17/cgi-bin/gaindex.exe?">
>
>Search for: <input type="text" name="search" size="25" value>
><input type="submit" value="Start Search">
><input type="reset" value="Clear"></form>
>
></td>
></tr>
></table>
>
>I can also peal off a search engine for your site only. If you're interested
>in it, drop me a note and I will send you the HTML code and set up the data
>base on my end.
>
>Enjoy!
>
>John Rigdon
>
>
>==== GAGEN Mailing List ====
>USGenWeb's motto is ** Volunteers dedicated to free, online information **
>
>
>
Virginia
Hi,
I am in the process of changing the file structure for the counties that I am
responsible for to the following:
.../ga/county/county.htm
As I progress in this project, I will let ya'll know the counties which have
been changed. In this way, if you have links you can change them.
I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you. It is easier for me to
have nice neat packages for each county.
The following counties have had a file structure change:
Bibb, Chattahoochee, Clayton, Clinch, Dawson, Dekalb, Dodge, Dooly, Douglas,
Dougherty, Echols, and Effingham.
Thanx :) G
Hi Everyone,
I have a Xmas present for you.....an expanded version of our Union Co.,
GA 1850 Census.
Go to our Census page at: <http://www.rootsweb.com/~gaunion/Census.htm>
and look for a "New" version. The old one is still there for your
comparison.
What I have tried to do is help everyone by consolidating data about
each family such as:
1. Alternate spellings of their surname
2. Where were they BEFORE 1850 & where were they AFTER 1850. This will
include prior census data and HH#s if they were in Union or Fannin Cos.
3. Who their children married, date of marriage & HH# after they
married and possibilities of where they went if they didn't stay in our
NE GA area. Who were the parents of Head's of Household & parents for
his wife if known.
4. Civil War Military data.
5. A few extra webpage addys for your further research.
6. Obvious corrections to spellings of surnames and ages.
Many times, we overlook helpful clues that the census gives us because
we all have trouble interpreting them the normal way they are
transcribed as well as bringing in all factual information from lots of
other resources to get the big picture and make an informed, factual
interpretation. This is my work in progress and the first step towards
creating for us an on-line "gedcom" database in the year 2000.
I stuck to some simple rules when I gathered this information. All of
the data was taken from already on-line sources at Union Co. GAGenWeb
such as census, military, tombstones & marriage data. Some
marriages that we don't have on-line were taken from Viola Jones'
published and copyrighted marriages that go thru 1897. Still others
came from published marriages such as Marriages to 1825 in NC &
Marriages to 1850 in GA, etc.all found at Ancestry.com. Where folks
were before & after 1850 was researched at Ancestry.com primarily from
census indexes if they weren't in Union or Fannin Cos. You'll see a lot
of them as being in Towns Co. by 1860 which came from these on-line
indexes. Thus, all
sources were simple & factual omitting interpretations and should be
reliable clues. If there was a doubt,
I did nothing so we could keep assumptions to a minimum. Obviously some
names, such as John Davis, would be so time consuming that they were
omitted from any further research.
I hope that this will give us all a solid framework so that our research
stays on track AND we can build a huge on-line database throughout next
year by sharing what we all have with each other and the rest of our
genealogy community similar to what Old Pendleton Dist., SC has done.
My sincere, warm wishes to all of you for a Happy Holiday Season!!!
CAT
Union Co., GAGenWeb CC
--
Carol Ann "Cat" Tindell
Jacksonville Beach, FL
C.A.T.'s Southern Genealogy: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~catinjax/
Researching: AKINS, BERRY, BOWERS, BROOKS, DANIEL, JOHNSON,
ROBERTS & WOOD{S}
Hi Everyone,
I have a Xmas present for you.....an expanded version of our Union Co.,
GA 1850 Census.
Go to our Census page at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~gaunion/Census.htm
and look for a "New" version. The old one is still there for your
comparison.
What I have tried to do is help everyone by consolidating data about
each family such as:
1. Alternate spellings of their surname
2. Where were they BEFORE 1850 & where were they AFTER 1850. This will
include prior census data and HH#s if they were in Union or Fannin Cos.
3. Who their children married, date of marriage & HH# after they
married and possibilities of where they went if they didn't stay in our
NE GA area.
4. Civil War Military data.
5. A few extra webpage addys for your further research.
6. Obvious corrections to spellings of surnames and ages.
Many times, we overlook helpful clues that the census gives us because
we all have trouble interpreting them the normal way they are
transcribed as well as bringing in all factual information from lots of
other resources to get the big picture and make an informed, factual
interpretation. This is my work in progress and the first step towards
creating an on-line "gedcom" database in the year 2000.
I stuck to some simple rules when I gathered this information. All of
the data was taken from already on-line sources at Union Co. GAGenWeb
such as census, military, tombstones & marriage data. Some marriages
that we don't have on-line were taken from Viola Jones' published and
copyrighted marriages that go thru 1897. Still others came from
published marriages such as Marriages to 1825 in NC & Marriages to 1850
in GA, etc.all found at Ancestry.com. Where folks were before & after
1850 was researched at Ancestry.com primarily from census indexes if
they weren't in Union or Fannin Cos. You'll see a lot of them as being
in Towns Co. by 1860 which came from these on-line indexes. Thus, all
sources were simple & factual omitting interpretations and should be
reliable.
I hope that this will give us all a solid framework so that our research
stays on track AND we can build a huge database throughout next year by
sharing what we all have with each other and the rest of our genealogy
community.
My sincere, warm wishes to all of you for a Happy Holiday Season!!!
CAT
Union Co., GAGenWeb CC
--
Carol Ann "Cat" Tindell
Jacksonville Beach, FL
C.A.T.'s Southern Genealogy: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~catinjax/
Researching: AKINS, BERRY, BOWERS, BROOKS, DANIEL, JOHNSON,
ROBERTS & WOOD{S}