Publish Your Data

One of the most important parts of doing Genealogy research is to publish your findings and allow others to benefit from what you have found and also to share your information on family connections. This is a must, even when you are starting as sometimes with only as few as five persons in your database, when published you might find another person who is also searching the same family line and BINGO you have a researcher who is maybe one of your relatives. This happen to me when I was helping a man with his genealogy program and after we had entered 5 names into his database then I showed him how he could publish this information. Within a few weeks, he had an email from a lady in California who had seen his names and since she was writing a book on this family and had very little information on this particular branch contacted him and now they share information. They helped each other to find information so they both benefit.

Publish:  How to publish your data to WorldConnect.

The steps required to publish your results are:

1. Make a folder on your C drive called GED2WWW. This folder must be at the top level so that it is easy to find and the name is one of the best as it indicates the purpose of holding a GED file that is going to be published to the World Wide Web(WWW). Once you have completed this do the next step

2. With your genealogy program active (Family Tree Maker or any other genealogy program) create a GED file of your entire database.

   • In FTM this is done by clicking on the "File" label at the top of the screen. A window opens then select "Export File"

   • A secondary window opens. Select "Entire File" Click on this icon and a "New Family File" window opens.

   • Select the Save in window and click on the expander icon on the right had side of this window. A new drop-down window opens, select C: When the list of folder names at the top level on your C: drive opens then select the Ged2www folder that you created previously. This will be the same folder that you will use any time that you wish to an update publish. Click on this folder.

   • Near the bottom of the screen is a box called "Save as type", click on the expander icon and a drop-down window opens. Select the item called GEDCOM(*.GED) As soon as this is selected the default file name is the same as the name of the database that you have open in FTM. Use this default name.

   • Click on the "Save" button

   • If you are doing the save for the first time the following box is not shown. However, if the file already exists in the folder then you are asked if you want to replace the existing file. Respond by clicking on the "Yes" button

   • A new window "Export to GEDCOM" opens. Just select the "OK" button.

   • A progress window opens and indicates how much of your file has been processed. When it is completed  a new window opens called "GEDCOM Export Finished". Click OK

   • Exit from your Genealogy program.

3. The next steps are related to the actual publishing of your GED file to WorldConnect.

   • Using your browser, go to the following WorldConnect location. When this page opens the select the link called "Start Here" if this is the first time that you are publishing as you have to apply for an account. When the new screen opens enter the User Code that you would like to use for your account. My suggestion is to use your initials followed by some numbers that you can recall very easily. Don't use something that will be hard to remember or difficult to enter. I have seen cases where people have made their codes so complex that they cannot remember them and as a result have numerous accounts and they cannot remove them.  Select a Password that is easy for you to remember but not so complex that you will have difficulty entering it. After you have entered these two items then click on "Standard" and answer the questions on the form provided. The steps shown below have an item shown at the beginning of the line that is of the form (S, A). S is that this item is shown in the Standard setup and A is that is in the Advanced setup.

   • (S,A)The main Display Options are: Title -- select whatever title you want shown for your webpage. This will be shown on every page of output.

   • (S,A)Uppercase Surnames: select No unless you want all names in upper case.

   • (S,A)Page Header: Just enter the word Header when you are setting up your page. By doing this it is easy to see what you want here rather then the word Header.

   • (S,A)Page Footer: do the same here by using Footer. You can change these very easily when you look at the results of your first published results.

   • (A) Allow HTML in GEDCOM: This is a very important item and allows the use of hyper-links within the notes of your database to link to further information from either your pages or someone elses database that has information. The format for this is the use of the following HTML code: <a href="URL of the page that you want to link to, I use copy and paste to get the exact data"> text that will be underlined showing the link </a>   If you want the link to open in a new screen then some additional HTML code is added between the <a href= to make it <a target="_blank" href= . Make sure when you use this code to download your GED file and check the results to see if they work as anticipated as any small error will prevent the code from working properly.

   • (S,A)Gedcom Download Options: If you want to allow others to download segments of your GED file. I prefer the "No" response for this as your notes are your work and others should be able to use the data which they can see from the results on the output screens.

   • (S,A)When you are asked for the location of your GED file then use the "Browse" option to find the folder on your C: drive that is called GED2WWW. Open the folder and select the filename that is your GED file so that name appears in the File name window then click on the "Open" button.

   • (S,A)Living Individuals: This is a very important option and is used to provide security of information on living persons. I use the "Remove" option so that no information is given for anyone living.

   • (A)Cutoff Year: Set this value so that anyone older then 92 years is shown. I use the vaule of 1913 or 93 years old.

   • (A)Process Descendants as Living: Set this option to "Yes". This prevents descendants of living from being shown even if they are deceased.

   • (S,A)Remove Notes: Remove the notes for "living" persons as your notes are very useful as part of your documentation. These notes are only available on an individual person and can be printed. However if one wants the descendants of that person which can be selected by using a "Register" output then the notes are not printed.

   • (S,A)Remove Sources: Only remove sources for "living" persons as your sources should always be included for your work so that others can check where you got your information and verify that it is correct.

   • When filling in the blanks for the questions when you are getting started don't be afraid of making any errors as these can be corrected the next time you go to the page where you started your WorldConnect account. To check on how your page will look after it is uploaded there will be a link that indicates "Go there Now" Click on that link and you will be taken to your page at WorldConnect. Bookmark that page in your browser so it is easy to find. View how your page looks and if you want to change anything then go to the WorldConnect page as indicated in the first step shown above. Just click on the link that is directly below the "Start Here" that you used when creating your account. This link is called "Also, go here to update or correct your existing Family Tree". You will be asked for your account name and password.

   • When all of the form has been filled in then click on the "Upload/Update" button at the end of the form. It will take only a few seconds for a small GED file to be transferred and processed. I can publish my complete file in less than 15 minutes with over 130,000 individuals.

   • When the file is transferred a new screen opens that gives you the link to your WorldConnect page. Go to this page and view the results. This link is important as it allows you to check how your database will look to others and allows you to check for any errors that are sometimes not seen previously.

4. When you view your page you may find that certain features need to be changed like the sections where you put "Header" and "Footer". To make these updates just repeat the same thing as you did in the section above and make the changes to the entries in the form where you want to make the change. No need to download the GED file again as it is already been sent. Keep cycling through is until you get the desired results. Use the "Advanced" button when you wish more control over the format of your page. This form has 36 items that can be modified.

5. There are buttons at the bottom of the main screen of the WorldConnect page that show the following:

   • Upload/Update: This is the button you press to either upload your GED file or to make the changes to the options for your webpage.

   • Remove/Account: Don't press this button unless you wish to remove your account or have made two accounts and wish to remove one.

   • Remove GEDCOM: This button allows you to remove your GEDCOM file from the database at WorldConnect. Your account remains.

   • Retrieve GEDCOM: Allows you to copy the GEDCOM file at WorldConnect back to your computer if you have lost hour own database. Watch this as it will only have those GED features that are exported and may not have the additional features present in your genealogy database. For example books in FTM are not exported so would not be part of the new file produced from the GED file that you import back from WorldConnect. However, if you have lost your database to have the data without the books might be the best alternative to reentering all your data again.

   • Reset: Don't press this button unless you want to reset all the options in the form. If you do this then you will have to enter all of them again.

    

6. After you have added some more information to your genealogy database then it is a good practice to republish this new data so that you can see what the process is to doing a new publication and refresh in your mind what the process is. Just follow the steps shown in 2 and 3. It is as simple as that. So you thought publishing was hard. Using this method it is as simple as 1 2 3.

7. NOTE:: After you have published your data to WorldConnect, the easiest way to locate your webpage is to go directly to the page using the link provided in the page that comes up when the upload is completed. The best thing to do is to bookmark this in your browser. If you don't have this bookmarked then go to the page that you used to link called WorldConnect as shown in step 3 above. When you are on this page you enter the name of your database in the widow and go directly to your database. Now make sure you bookmark the page. Look at the results of your published data and if it is not what you desire then go back to step 3 and do the same process as when you published your data and make any changes to the form so that you achieve the desired results. This may take several iterations until you reach your desired results. Normally this only is when you are starting and not required on subsequent times when you publish.

8. If you try to find your data in the Global Index it will not be present for up to 4 days after publishing so keep checking to see when the Global Index is updated. When you update your GED file and publish this by using the method outlined above then the old GED file is overwritten and replaced by the new one and a new Global Index will be available in a few days. However, in the meantime, the old Index is used and it directs users to the data in the new and updated database.

9. If you want to include Hypertext in your published data at WorldConnect then the option#17 to Allow HTML in GEDCOM must be enabled in the form when you publish. This will allow you to have links to other documents, photographs, etc. When you want to include the link to a location then the following segment of HTML code, between the [] brackets, is included in the notes: [ <a href="URL"> TEXT TO SHOW THE LINK </a> ]. This small segment has the sections in Yellow replaced by the actual URL of the page where you want to continue.  The best way to do this is to use your browser to find the desired page then use copy and paste the contents of the Address location that shows URL and use this to replace the Yellow URL segment. The other section in Yellow is the text that you want to see underlined as the link to the desired location. When you publish this to WorldConnect then you will be able to see the desired effect. An example of this is shown below: See explanation shown above (high-lighted in Yellow) for how to make the link open in a new screen.

Example of a link in published data

 Last updated: 26 July, 2009