I am working on a genealogy site that has pages that were initially generated by a genealogy program (what a mess). The program names pages with interesting names like 1.html, 2.html, 3.html, etc.

If someone reports a problem, additional information, or corrections they will likely say something like "Here is the birthday for Joe Bob Smith." With the potential for having a hundred pages, I am wondering how to setup this site so pages can be found?

I thought about using initials, but my Grandfather was William Thomas, my Dad was William Theodore, I am junior, my son is III so initials obviously have a problem.

I am open to anything at this time (only 16 pages setup) and can change to any system that will work and that I can understand (understanding may be the hard part).

Name the pages by Social Security numbers, that's distinct. There's no security threat there, right?

I take it RobersonWilliamTheodoreIII.html is too much work? Do you plan on the site growing out of hand, or to a certain extent in the family? Of course, you're smart thinking ahead. I almost start thinking "Hey, how about tying in a database," but that might be overcomplicating things.

Bill, I think I saw a sample of your ancestry pages some days ago in another discussion here. Am I right in that you are using the prog. Legacy? (I use the same, and I thought I recognised some of the graphics.)

The numbers of the pages correspond to the RIN numbers in your prog, so that if your father has the RIN number 2, then he will be found on page 2.htm. But he will also be on the page names2.htm, and if it is a correction of birth or death dates/places, it will have to be corrected in the alphabetical list too, and that may be a lot of work if you have many corrections/additions. Therefore the thought is that you make your corrections in the genealogy programme itself, and then regenerate the web pages.

There are genealogy progs that make use of a database, among them 'Ged2web' which is free. I have never used it, though, so I don't know if you can enter new info into the DB directly, or if you have to compile a new .ged file for every change.

Adam,

Some Social Security Numbers are freely posted on the web (SSDI site), but for those still alive, it might not be a very good idea.

As for the growth of the site, my wife has information going back to the 1600's (I think), and if I include the wives of my sons, and the husbands of my daughters, and their families, etc. I suspect the site will get very large. I guess I could keep a conversion page printed out with with everyone's last name and the RIN, but somehow that just grates me.

Inger,

Yes, I am using Legacy7, and the code generated by that program is not as bad as what is generated by MS Publisher, but it is not even close to correct. I found many cases of <p> without any closing </p> and that is only one example.

I will check Ged2web and see if I like it. I have created my own pages, and just used the Legacy7 graphics and look. One thing that bothers me is that every time you make a change in teh program, then every page gets generated again. I will be checking to see if I can get it to just change the pages with changed information.