(this helpme article updated 7/14/05) 

What's the purpose here?

The purpose of this document is to have a BOOK about the family, with a CHAPTER for each of the 11 siblings and SUB-CHAPTERS for their children and so on.  This creates a central collection place where information can be added by:

1. Current descendants where there may be two or three generations contributing, and
2. Others who remember information and interesting stories about YOUR ancestor and maybe even about YOU.  Now that's truly scary.

This section will provide a hierarchy within which to document the entire family tree from A.B. and Jane downward.  As an example, I'll do my tree (Guilford).  This is not intended to be a replacement for a program such as family tree maker or ancestry.com but rather to be a place for collecting facts, stories, historical info, etc.

An important usage of this page will be to add the historical information about not only the original 11 brothers and sisters and their parents, but the progeny following them right down to yourself.  After all, you will one day be someone's ancestor! 

How is this organized?

This "family tree" info is organized like a book with a chapter for each of the 11 brothers and sisters (generation 1).  Then, for each child, there is a sub-chapter for each of their children (generation 2); and for each generation 2 child, a sub-sub-chapter for each of their children (generation3), and so on.

Using my grandfather as an example, here is the organization:

1. Guilford
1. Margaret Lee Jones Haynie
1. Josephine Haynie
2. Jane Jones Merriman
1. Michael Merriman
2. Jeannette Merriman Scott
1. Liesl Scott Keeter
1. Hanna Keeter
2. Scott Keeter
2. Amy Scott Fortenberry
1. Emma Fortenberry
3. Guilford, Jr.
1. Guilford Jones, III
1. Russell Todd Jones
2. Melissa Jones
3. Patti Kelly-Jones Cryer
1. Mattie Cryer
2. Tess Cryer
4. Sheila Jones Bullard
1. Davis Bullard
2. Brooke Bullard
2. Janet Jones

And if you go to the "Guilford" Chapter (click here) on the site and follow it through you will see a chapter, sub-chapter and so on that mirrors the above outline.

What Information can be posted in the "tree?"

 Most of it will be text in a "chapter" of the book. But you can also attach documents or scanned documents and photos. You can make an album in the Photo Galleries and link to individual photos. For example, here is a link to a picture in my album of the ancestral memorial.

How do you add your family members and write about them?

One thing is for sure, you can't break anything here. And if your chapters don't end up aligned correctly the friendly webmaster can fix that!  So jump in and be fearless.  You can print out these instructions (click printer-friendly version at the bottom and then print from your browser) and have them beside you if that helps.  You can also open this document in a browser window and open the tree in a second browser, which you can do if you hold the CTRL key while clicking on the link to the family tree info.

 Open the Family Tree book by clicking on the link Family Tree which appears in the top menu. There you see this document, now scroll down and you see the parents, A.B. and Jane.

Click on that link and you see one or more of the 11 brothers and sisters -- they will be added as users come along to add them and write about them.  I can't add them all myself or you would not be able to edit them.

To see a full hierarchy, click on Guilford and work through it. You see his three children. Click on one of them to see their children, and so on.  As you click around in the Guilford line, look at the breadcrumb trail at the top of the content area.  That tells you where you are in the hierarchy and clicking on any part of the trail takes you right back there.

Now click on A.B. and Jane to get back to the starting point.  Now that you are looking at their page you are ready to add your ancestor.  Look at the menu items at the bottom, add child page.  Gee, that's intuitive (by accident) because you are adding a child of A.B. and Jane, right?  Let's focus on adding that one child of A.B. and Jane, your ancestor. In my case it was Guilford Jones.  Click on the add child page link. Now let's walk through that page for what it is you need to fill in and do.  I will use my family line in the examples.

• Title: Fill in the name (e.g. Guilford Jones)
•  Parent:  Make sure it still says A.B. and Jane.
• Main Topics: click on your ancestor. That will tie to the taxonomy so that anyone selecting that ancestor from the Main Topics list will see this page that you are now creating.
• Files: Skip -- n/a
• Body: Here's where you write about the person.  Look at the Guilford example which I repeat here for your reference:

Guilford Lavendar Jones was born Nov. 25, 1877.  He was the youngest of the 11 brothers and sisters. He was married to ??? from whom Margaret Lee (Aunt Maggie) was born.  She died and Guilford re-married my grandmother, Jeannette Thomas, in ??? when Aunt Maggie was about 12.

Guilford and Jeannette had two children, Jane and Guilford, Jr.

More about filling in the body -- see below. 

• You can forget input format, log, weight, and all the file upload/attach stuff.
• Click on preview to see what your page looks like.
• Make changes as needed.
• Preview again if desired.
• Click submit when you're happy with it.

You can always edit the page later.

Now about filling in the BODY of the page

 You will notice controls very similar to Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect to bold, center, make a bullet or numbered list, insert a table, etc.  You probably don't need to do much other than an occasional bold for emphasis or make a bullet list.  It's like a min-word processor.  You can even do CTRL-B and CTRL-I like in a word processor instead of having to click on the icons.

One caveat:  You can edit the "book" pages, including those created by others.  I've turned on this option but ask that everyone be respectful of what others write.  Stick within your family to do edits.  If you have additional information about another family member you can add that to their tree using a comment.

Now add more children

 To add another child of that person you can navigate there one of several ways:

• Click one generation up in the breadcrumb trail
• At the bottom of the current page, click previous
• Or also  at the bottom, click up

Any of those choices will take you back to that parent.

Now add grandchildren

You've added the ancestor, one of the 11, and all the children (generation 2) of the ancestor.

Navigate back to the ancestor page and you will see his/her children listed. Click on the first child (they'll be in alphabetical order, not birth order).  For example, my next one was Guilford, Jr. (my father). While looking at that page, click on add child page to add the first child of that person, a grandchild of the ancestor and a member of generation 3.  

The process of adding those is identical to adding the original ancestor as far as the information that is essential.