* Putting your research online on your own website.

[Valkrider]

I know that Family Historian will create a website but the site it creates is limited and when data has been updated then the site has to be regenerated and uploaded again. Several members use alternatives for getting their research online, TNG being popular. There are other alternatives.

Yesterday I received an email from Genealone saying that as a Christmas present they are giving their software away free until 31st December. I confirmed with them that I can share this email. I am not in any way commercially associated with Genealone I am just a happy customer (my personal genealogy site runs Genealone under Wordpress).

====
Hello,

Genealone provides two great tools for publishing family tree or any genealogy data online: fully-featured website builder (Genealone) and genealogy plugin for WordPress (Genealone WP). We now offer full license keys for both products absolutely free. There are no strings attached, no hidden fees, just one condition: you need to install Genealone or Genealone WP with the free license key before January 1st.

Free full license keys:
Genealone: 90368152485578614188
Genealone WP (WordPress plugin): 70328241901788414530
Download page: http://genealone.com/download

With this license keys, you can upgrade Genealone to the newest versions during 1 month and the initial installation. If you decide to upgrade after that, you will need to purchase upgrade license for $12. However, upgrade is not needed and you can run Genealone for free for life.

Merry Christmas!
--
David Nebesky
Genealone.com

[tatewise]

Colin, I was fascinated by that freebie.

Is your website in links:index|> Member Web Sites, and if not, why not?

It would be interesting to see its capabilities.

[Valkrider]

Mike

The link is in my signature. I will update my site details in the KB.

[brianlummis]

Thanks for sharing this information and I will certainly give Genealone a try. My one concern with a program that uses MySql and PHP is that I will no longer get contact from those people who find a relative on my website. My understanding is that they cannot be found with a Google search as the names only exist in the database and never in the HTML, and that is a big drawback for me.

[NickWalker]

My one concern with a program that uses MySql and PHP is that I will no longer get contact from those people who find a relative on my website. My understanding is that they cannot be found with a Google search as the names only exist in the database and never in the HTML, and that is a big drawback for me.

Most sites on the Internet don't exist as static HTML pages and are generated when the page loads using PHP, ASP, etc. loading data from MySQL, SQLServer, etc. databases. This includes the FHUG website and the BBC website. Search Engines like Google have software that visits a web page indexes it and then follows links to other pages. So as long as there are links to follow (e.g. an index page of all of your individuals) then Google will find all the individuals in your tree. The fact they are stored in MySQL and use PHP is irrelevant.

[brianlummis]

Thanks Nick for the reassurance - I had obviously been misled

[tatewise]

As an illustration Brian, check Who is online at the bottom of the FHUG Forum web page.

All those suffixed with [Spider] and [Bot] are Search Engine web crawlers that are indexing the FHUG web page contents.

[jimlad68]

Just had a quick check out of this. Am I right in saying that whilst offering the free website builder, you then have to host it somewhere, presumably they hope you will choose their Genealone Hosting.

And/or can you then download the "build" and use it in the same way that a FH CD/DVD production would.
Are there any advantages of this over the "FH + improve cd/dvd plugin", on first looking it does not seem as good?

[Valkrider]

Jim

If you want to put your 'website' on a cd/dvd no this will not work. This is intended for having a website on the internet. There are many cheap or free webhosting companies available. Some of the cheap ones, $1, a month will be adequate for some people, remembering you get what you pay for, of course.

If, however, you are doing research and regularly adding people and data then yes it is much quicker. Each time you have to update your data in a programme like this all you have to do is reimport your Gedcom whereas in Family Historian you have to regenerate your project and upload all the files again to your webserver.

[tatewise]

Colin is essentially correct, but uploading the many FH web files to your website only needs the changed files to be uploaded, which is usually a small subset, unless you put today's date on every page!
That is handled automatically by the FTP Website Manager Plugin.

[jimlad68]

Thanks Colin, Mike for the illumination, if I ever get around to attaching my "media" this will be good food for thought, in the meantime without media I think I am just as well off with Rootsweb trees and/or other similar upload sites. You never know, Ancestry might create a system where you can upload images with Gedcom, I have requested it, but then I think there are other sites like TNG for that.

[tatewise]

A new kid on the block is http://www.zoompast.org/ that does not auto-upload images yet, but is an interesting and free option.

[Nick792]

Can anyone recommend a web hosting company that supports PHP and MySql in a way that allows TNG to be implemented as per TNG's instructions?

I am finding that many web hosting companies that say they support PHP and MySql impose complex importing procedures, or assume one is creating a database from scratch. My own current web hosting company use MariaDB, a form of MySql, but I have found it is not possible to upload the TNG software...

[Valkrider]

@Nick

One of my dev sites uses MariaDB and my TNG test instance runs happily on that. You may be better off reaching out to TNG support for some advice, they do offer a hosting package which does support TNG but you may pay more than you need to for that.

[ColeValleyGirl]

I'm very happy with https://www.a2hosting.com/ although I don't use TNG.

And this site (and the KB) is hosted at https://krystal.io/

[Nick792]

Hello Colin and Helen

Many thanks for your replies and recommendations. Colin, can I ask re MariaDB - did you have to import TNG or were you able just to FTP the TNG files direct to your site?

I've tried both on my website - on importing into the MariaDB function, I receive an error message to say the TNG file is too large; and if I just FTP the files to my website (as per TNG's instructions), I get an message when attempting to set permissions, which just says 'Please wait, attempting to process...' and nothing happens.

I really want a reliable UK hosting service with PHP and MySql support where I can just FTP the files across and follow all the subsequent instructions as set out by TNG. It would be really helpful to know which hosting providers FHUG members who run TNG are using.

Nick

[Nick792]

I meant to add that I have been in contact with Darrin who has confirmed that TNG runs on MariaDB. I've now asked him about the specific difficulties I am having in implementing the database.

Nick

[Valkrider]

Nick

I just did a TNG install and then an import of my FH Gedcom. IIRC I just used the cPanel File Manager to copy the TNG zip file to the root folder and then used it to extract the files direct. The database I created using the cPanel option. It just worked.

I did use Krystal for one of the sites that i look after but found issues with the database I wanted to run on their servers. Their support is excellent, however, for me they could not resolve the issues so I switched to a different US based host. Krystal are excellent hosts if your site runs OK, I know several large organisations who use their services.

[Nick792]

Thanks Colin.

According to Darrin of TNG, one problem is that the PHP server on my website has an incorrect time zone setting. I've asked my hosting service to correct it. However a couple of other FHUG TNG users have given me some alternative hosting providers to consider should I continue to have difficulties with my current provider.