Subscribe FAQ Terms of Use
Certificates Courses Course Calendar Packages Registration Consultation Appointments
My Briefcase Help! How Do I? Talk to Someone
Virtual Learning Room Links Forms Comments by Students Scholarships
Faculty & Consultants Graduates Contact Us Our Background Galleries We Need Your Help
 

            Courses            
Electronic Resources: Creating Family Website-Updating
Description
Register (Fees/Dates)
Packages
Supplies
Other Info
 
This course is designed to provide you with all the skills necessary to build genealogical web pages, from the basics of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the language of the web, to the details of making pages look appealing and easy to navigate, mounting them on the Internet for others to see and inviting the world in to visit.

The Internet has become one of the major tools for assisting family historians with their research and a personal genealogical web page allows a genealogist to take advantage of this electronic medium for disseminating information. It is often quoted anecdotally that genealogy is one of the three biggest uses of the Internet. This kind of potential audience is simply unimaginable for a paper-based family history.

By the end of the course, each student should have a web page or a series of web pages written, coded, and uploaded to a web server and accessible to the public.

The overall assignment for the course is to produce and mount a web site on a server that is available to the public. The web site may consist of just one main page or a series of pages. The course itself is four weeks long, but you will have six weeks to complete your web site.


Course Content

Module 1

Reasons To Choose The Web
• What You Will Need to Build Web Pages on the Internet
• A Computer & a Modem
• An Internet Service Provider
• Word Processing Software
• Family Tree Software
• File Transfer Software
• Web Space
• How the Internet & the World Wide Web Works
• Various Components of a URL
The Language of the Web: Hypertext Markup Language
• The Basics of HTML
• Essential Tags on a Web Page
• HTML Tags for Presentation
• HTML Tags for Dividing or Placing Elements on a Page
• Lists
• Links to Other Pages or Resources
• Hyperlinking to an Email Address
• Special Characters in HTML
• Backgrounds & Colours
• Planning Your Web Site
• What Kind of Content is Useful on a Genealogical Web Site?
• Storyboarding Your Web Site
National Genealogical Society - Genealogical Standards
• Guidelines for Publishing Web Pages
 

Module 2
Producing HTML
• Building A Page "By Hand"
• Word Processing Software
• Netscape Composer
• HTML Editors
• More Advanced Web Authoring Tools
• Learning HTML
• Principles of Good Web Design
• A Consistent Look
• Navigation
• How Long Should Your Web Pages Be?
• Design Your Pages for Usability
• Design Your Pages for Search Engines
• The Title of your Web Page
• The First Sentences of a Page
• The Entire Page
• Meta Tags
• Writing for the Web
 

Module 3
Images In A Web Document
• Graphic File Formats
• Producing Your Own Images
• Using Images Others Have Created
• Controlling the Placement of Text & Images on a Page
• Tables
• Nonbreaking Spaces
• Transparent One-Pixel Images
• Frames
• More Advanced Web Page Construction
• Cascading Style Sheets
• Dynamic Web Pages
• Forms
• JavaScript
• Java
• Putting Genealogical Data on the Web
• HTML Output from Your Family Tree Program
• GEDCOM to HTML Converters
• The WorldConnect Project
• Exporting in Other Formats from Your Family Tree Program
• Coding Your Own Family Tree Data

Module 4
Additional Options For Your Web Site
• Web Page Counters
• Guestbooks
• Mailing Lists
• Web Page Tracking Service
• A Search Engine
• Getting Your Site Ready for the Web
• Uploading Your Site
• Getting Yourself Noticed on the Web
• Maintaining & Updating Your Web Site
• A Step-by Step Guide for Building a Web Site: Using Netscape Composer, Rootsweb & the WorldConnect Project
• Plan your Site
• Set up your Web Server Space
• Gather Together all the Information You Plan to Use
Begin the HTML Coding of your Pages
• Check Your Web Pages
• Uploading Your Files
• Test Your Site Immediately
• Sending your GEDCOM files to the WorldConnect Project
• Advertise Your Site
• Selected Books & Web Sites
• Learning About the Internet
• Finding Software
• General Resources for Web Page Developers
• Learning HTML
• Tools for Creating HTML
• Tools for Validating & Checking HTML
• Images & Colour for Genealogy Web Pages
GEDCOM
• GEDCOM to HTML Convertors
• GEDCOM Privacy Tools
Family Tree Programs
• Family Tree Tools
Web Design
Additions to Your Web Site
Advertising Your Web Site
Glossary
 
 

   Copyright © 1999-2022, National Institute for Genealogical Studies. All Rights Reserved.   
1-800-580-0165