A few days ago, I wrote and published an article of Peer Review of Open-Source Books: An Opportunity for Genealogists? I proposed a free and open review of new and old genealogy books be created online. I envisioned it would operate as a mix of CyndisList, eBay, and the University of Minnesota online catalog of open-source books. However, it would be strictly limited to reviews of genealogy books. You can read the entire article at http://goo.gl/Du7sC.
I was delighted when Robert Barnes of FamNet not only volunteered to construct such a service, he actually built it and placed it into operation! It is available TODAY to the genealogy community. You can access it now.
The following announcement was written by Robert Barnes:
Many individuals and organizations have some structured data that they want to make available on their website: lists of emigrants, burials, newspaper notices, etc. They can of course place a spreadsheet of this data on their own website but a flexible alternative is to have FamNet host the data for you: then they only have to paste a URL on to their own website to get all the advantages of having their data as searchable database tables with none of the hassles of managing SQL on their own site.
Daryl’s Wexford and Clare emigrant databases are run this way: click this link and you’ll see his Wexford table directly from this newsletter, even though you haven’t logged into FamNet. This link could be put on Daryl’s own website, or the County Wexford Library’s site. As with data in the GDB, the owner retains control and all rights, while gaining access to very flexible and powerful data management facilities that can handle images and documents as well as tabular data in almost any format.
We can set up new tables in an hour or so, while new sections of existing tables – for example another cemetery – can be added in minutes. We can easily add further fields to existing tables if necessary.
To learn more about FamNet data hosting, click here. To see the facilities that FamNet can provide you can read these Help pages:-
Creating and Administering General Resource Databases
Searching and Updating General Resource Databases
Or you can log into FamNet and explore what is available under the General Resource Databases tab.
The “Click Here” link gives you a lot more details. In case it doesn’t work, it takes you to
http://www.famnet.net.nz/Help/FamNet%20can%20host%20your%20data%20for%20you.htm
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