Welcome
The objective of this site is to record both genealogical facts and stories about Joe and Helen (née Farman) Stewart’s parents, grandparents and earlier ancestors. The guiding premise that I’ve adopted is that while the past need not dictate the future, it is important in understanding the present. In perusing my objective many other people who are siblings, aunts, uncles, partners and so on, are included in the family tree. The earliest listed people date from about 1800 and they were mainly located in Ireland, Scotland and England. Their descendants are recorded six generations down and reside in various countries throughout the world. The site currently has more than 300 individuals listed in 100 family names and records over 400 life events.
Naming the site
Although the site is named “Family Tree Site of the Stewart’s, Honnan’s, Farman’s and McArdle’s” it includes many more significant linked names. The choice of title is, at this time, the most appropriate name I could think of; other suggestions for a title are welcome.
Creating the site
The site's author is Joe Stewart and I am displayed as the root person when the Pedigree view is selected. RootsMagic’s genealogy software was used as the compiling tool and the web files are created from within RM. I have amended the generated code by addiding additional pages and features before uploading the site to the the RM server.
Design, Navigation and Help
While the site doesn’t feature some of the more elaborate display capabilities of family tree sites like “Ancestry”, the compensation is that access to it doesn’t require a subscription and there is no sign-in or sign-up procedures. In fact, the site's simpler interface allows, in my view, a better way of displaying genealogical data and will be more compatible with older hardware and software. A minor downside in my design approach is that “responsive views” are not supported so that, when viewed on small screen devices, you will need to zoom-in and out.
Navigation to the core genealogical data is via the Name Index or Pedigree pages. When these pages load you can view Family or Individual Details, or revert back to any other page. The Pedigree view only shows direct linkage up to parents, grandparents, etc. and down to children, grandchildren, etc., it doesn’t show a the total hierarchy to siblings and beyond. You need to select the "+" or the "Family View" to view full family details. See the Help page for further explanations on how the navigation system works.
Webtags - Sources
For many people in this family tree there are “Webtags” included as part of their Individual View. The “Webtags”provide additional information such as:
• links to other sites where the genealogical source data is available
• scanned extracts in pdf format of genealogical source data from site where viewing the records
requires a subscription
• linked pdf documents that contain stories about people, places, events and location maps
Privacy Issues
All the genealogical data contained within this site is stored in XML files and they are “called into” the HTML files on demand. As such, the data will not be generally found by search engines. Images of people are likewise dependent on the XML files and won’t be found by general search routines.
Further privacy for individuals listed on this site is achieved by excluding any information that may identify their current location and, dates for life events do not include day details. The sites HTML files have nothing in the head “meta tags” to help search engines locate the content. Overall, the main way the site will be found is by sharing the link.
Feedback
The validity and completeness of content in any family tree ultimately depends upon input from family members. Searching for and compiling details from Genealogical Sites has its limitations and there may be errors, notable omissions and missing details from what is herein presented. If you think that something needs to be corrected, added or omitted please contact me. You can send an email via this link, or use the Feedback page, which contains a structured feedback form.
Final words
At the outset of this project my aim was to recorded and preserve as many facts and stories about our parents, grandparents and more distant ancestors. I always wished that I asked my parents more questions about their past which now can’t be done. As my generation now reaches the “older age” bracket all of the family history that can be remembered or ascertained should be recorded for future generations.
------ ENJOY ------
Created with RootsMagic, additional code by WinDesign.com.au