יִזְכּוֹר אֱלהִים נִשְׁמוֹת זְקֵנַי וּזְקֵנוֹתַי דּוֹדַי וְדוֹדוֹתַי, אַחַי וְאַחְיוֹתַי שֶׁהָלְכוּ לְעוֹלָמָם בַּעֲבוּר שֶׁאֲנִי נוֹדֵר צְדָקָה בַּעֲדָם וּבִשְׂכַר זֶה תִּהְיֶינָה נַפְשׁוֹתֵיהֶם צְרוּרוֹת בִּצְרוֹר הַחַיִּים עִם נִשְׁמוֹת אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקב שָׂרָה רִבְקָה רָחֵל וְלֵאָה וְעִם שְׁאָר צַדִּיקִים וְצַדְקָנִיּוֹת שֶׁבְּגַן עֵדֶן - וְנאמַר אָמֵן׃
Yizkor
Contact
If my research has been helpful in any way,
or if you have something to add, or a photo to share,
or any other comments or corrections,
I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Rationale & Approach
Over the past few years, I have spent a considerable amount of time working on my family tree. I've learned a lot about my family, uncovered wonderful and terrible stories, met many beautiful cousins, and gradually pieced together a puzzle that has not always been obvious.
Most of my research is stored in a public tree at Ancestry.com. (Public means you can view it if you have an active Ancestry subscription, or else, free of charge with an invitation. (Feel free to ask for an invitation.) I have "painted with broad brush strokes," working to craft the story of my family, my wife's family, and some connected families, over the course of many generations. My desire has been to recover a legacy that I can share with my children, and also with you.
Publishing online offers some distinct advantages over print, or even a PDF document that can be shared. For one thing, this work is made available to a larger group of people, especially cousins, who may not otherwise discover it. What I publish here can offer a richer experience than print—I am thinking of hyperlinks, of course—but also the inclusion of media and resources that would not be practical to include in a book format. I also find working with html easier than futzing with styles in a Word Processor.
Recent generations are omitted for the sake of privacy.
Source citations are selective.
More information may be available by request.
Everything is a work in progress.
Site structure
The backbone of the website is the ahnentafel index. The aim of this index is to present a full "canonical" list of all known ancestors.
For each generation, there is a calculation of the number of ancestors possible versus the number found, the number of "end-of-line" ancestors whose parents have not been identified, and the date range of that generation.
Clicking on an ancestors name will open up a list of their descendants and ancestors, and also highlight descendants (in yellow) and ancestors (in green) so that their line may be more easily traced through the entire list.
In the sidebar, there is an option to "filter names" — this is a way to quickly collapse the list and focus in on a particular person. (Remember that women are listed under their maiden rather than married name(s).)
The option to "Pin #" filters not by name but by ancestral line. For example, typing "3" here will show only the maternal lines, while typing another number will hide everyone except the indicated person and their ancestors.
Binary numbers, links, and tags can be toggled on or off.
The binary numbers are there mostly as a debugging tool, since many of the calculations depend on the properties of the binary ahenentafel numbers.
Markers may show when a person is end-of-line, when questions remain, or if that person has been flagged as a brick wall.
The elipsis at the end of each name is a link to the associated family group sheet. The family group sheet is where you will find more detail about that individual, their spouse(s), and children.
Other features & Tools
The last modified date at top of page shows when a page was changed. This is helpful to see if you there is a new version.
A table of contents is automatically generated from headings on the page.
When you click a note reference, the corresponding note is highlighted.
You can easily search the site from the homepage. (This just refers you to a site-specific search on Google.)
Tags and family group notes help delineate constellations of ancestors.
Some images make use of the "OpenSeaDragon" open-source viewer. This allows zooming and panning, and also higher-resolution versions of an image to served as an image is enlarged.
Tools at the top of each page may include:
- · This always takes you to the home page
- · Enable highlights.
This allows you to create highlights that can be shared (by copying the URL) or printed.
To activate the highlights, click the button or press SHIFT + SHIFT. - · Toggle notes.
This reveals (or hides) all notes on a page with one click.
To print a page with all notes displayed, sources, make sure to toggle them open before printing.
You can also use the left ← or right → arrow key to toggle these open or closed,
or click on the arrow to open an individual notes section. - · Invert colors.
It is occasionally useful to view documents black-on-white. - · Return to Previous page or section.
This may be helpful after clicking a footnote or a header in table of contents menu.
I've tried to design the website so that pages are easily and neatly printed. If you'd like all the notes printed with the text, make sure they are expanded before printing, otherwise they will be hidden.
Acknowledgements
Many, many people have helped with this work in many ways. Thank you!
Colophon
This website was built with Django, HTML, CSS, and jQuery (not all features will be supported in older browsers). SQLite, ArchieML, YAML, and Markdown are used for data. It is hosted with nginx, uwsgi, and Debian on a Linode VPS.
Type is set in »Vollkorn« by Friedrich Althausen (vollkorn-typeface.com) and FontAwesome for icons.
The website also makes use of a variety of open source projects including: Photoswipe, Masonry, OpenSeadragon, Ben Crowder’s Emperor.js, and a customized version of Emphasis.js from the New York Times.
It also make use of some icons from the Noun Project by Housin Aziz, Emily Haasch, Zlatko Najdenovski, Creative Stall, and Ralf Schmitzer.