Genealogy web sites are proliferating. It seems like everyone is uploading the results of his or her genealogy research to RootsWeb.com or to a personal home page hosted elsewhere. I see hundreds of such sites every month. Many of them are very attractive although a few are less so. If you are "HTML challenged," you might want to see what tools are available to automate the process of creating web pages in HTML (hypertext markup language) suitable for uploading to your personal home page.
If you have a modern genealogy program other than Family Tree Maker, you probably can create standard HTML files directly from that program. However, you may not like the way it creates web pages; perhaps you want to experiment, using features not found in your genealogy program. You also might be using an older program or Family Tree Maker, incapable of creating standard HTML pages.
NOTE: Family Tree Maker can create web pages, but only in a specific format used only on FamilyTreeMaker.com. It will not make industry-standard HTML pages that can be uploaded and viewed on other hosting services.
Mike DeBacker has created a Windows genealogy program that may be exactly what you are looking for. With the cute name of UncleGED, his program will:
Extract genealogy data from standard GEDCOM files and produce beautiful web pages to share with your friends and family (or with the entire World Wide Web).
Compile your web pages to a compiled HTML file (.chm) for enhanced viewing and portability.
Use a cascading style sheet (.css) to further customize the look of your web pages.
UncleGED is freeware. This means that this software is being given away for free. What's the catch? There is none. There is no charge, no advertising, and no "beg screens" suggesting that you pay money for it. Mike DeBacker is giving the program away and is not asking for payment.
UncleGED does not produce GEDCOM files, nor does it modify the original GEDCOM file in any way. It simply reads GEDCOM files produced by other programs. It can easily handle files of more than 10,000 individuals. UncleGED has been tested with GEDCOM files produced by the following software:
Personal Ancestry File (PAF) 5.0
Family Tree Maker 7.0
Legacy 4.0
Family Origins v.9.0
The Master Genealogist (TMG)
In order to use UncleGED you will need to provide a GEDCOM file from another source. You can use almost any modern genealogy program to create a GEDCOM file. See your program's user’s guide for the exact instructions. Once you have a GEDCOM file stored on your hard drive, you use UncleGED to convert the GEDCOM data to HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the standard format for displaying information on the World Wide Web. The newly-created HTML files are then also stored on your hard drive by UncleGED.
Once the HTML files are stored, you will need to upload the files to your personal home page using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or whatever file transfer method your hosting service requires. For assistance with transferring the files to your personal home pages, you will need to contact the company that provides space for those pages.
To see some examples of web pages created by UncleGED, go to http://gatheringleaves.org/uged/examples/uged_exam.htm. Notice there is a wide variation in colors, fonts, and layouts. You can create any of these as well as many more variations. To see some screenshots of the program in operation, go to http://gatheringleaves.org/uged/examples/uged_exam.htm.
UncleGED requires Windows 95 or later. It also requires about two megabytes of disk space for the program plus enough room to store the HTML files that are generated.
UncleGED is an excellent program for converting your genealogy data to HTML format. Such data can then easily be placed on your own home pages, visible to everyone on the World Wide Web. It is easy to use and creates attractive Web pages. Best of all, the price is right: free.
Mike DeBacker is to be commended for giving a free gift to genealogists. For more information about UncleGED, or to download the program, go to http://gatheringleaves.org/uged
Does UncleGED allow photographs to be included in the web pages it creates?
Thank you very much.
Posted by: Eldon J. Edgin | November 15, 2004 at 02:05 PM