Genealogy in Hertfordshire
Web Master's Report
The site continues to grow and the site currently contains about 2,700 accessible web pages. The represents an increase of about 250 so far during 2008, most of the increase being related to reorganisation and rationalisation of overlarge pages, etc., when adding menus. There are now about 4600 pictures and the increase of 450. Most of the additions are postcard images but the increase includes over 200 thumbs, which are being used more extensively. There are about 40,000 internal links between pages and 1250 external links, an increase of over 300 in the last six months. This last figure is growing faster than previously because of the increased use of direct links to information on Wikipedia, Geograph and Google Maps.
The site gets a variety of genuine emails including messages sent by Tell Me and Ask Chris, messages sent directly to the site, notifications of updates on other web sites, advertising from other genealogy sites and messages relating to the use and maintenance of the site. These total perhaps 4 or 5 a day. Some need email replies, some mean updates to the web site, while some can be binned without action after reading them. The following table shows the total number of messages sent FAO the Web Master or the Genealogist each month.
| March | April | May | June | July | |
| Total | 25 | 23 | 20 | 19 | 15 |
As Genealogy (at least in the northern hemisphere) tens to be a winter activity the above decease suggests that most people spend less time on the computer during the bright summer evenings. In addition to the proper mail the site is currently getting about 200 spam a day. While about 98% are captured by the email filters, the chances of a genuine message being deleted in error has increased. Messages sent using Ask Chris and Tell me automatically get through, but if you are replying directly to an email from me please reply with the title of the message I sent you or include (Hertfordshire Genealogy) in the title to reduce the chances of the message being accidently deleted by the spam filter.
There has been the usual round of minor maintenance activities. In addition there some significant changes involving new menus.
Key Web Sites has been produced which provides direct links to selected web sites, together with a main page which includes a brief summary of what can be found on that site, together with a link to any relevant pages on this site. The change involved three new pages and about 30 pages have new links (both in and out). This was added at the end of June and you are now able to interact with other web sites - such as Ancestry or familysearch without loosing your place on this web site.
Family Events have also been given their own menu - which should help beginners to find the information they want.
Eventually all the towns will get individual menus - and so will some of the villages - to make finding related pages quickly and easily. (See Tring and Barley for examples). By far the biggest problem is that of St Albans and changes will be carried out on an incremental basis. As part of these changes new menus have already been set up for biographies of brickmakers and for the talk The Brickmakers of St Albans.
Behind the scenes there has been some progress in sorting out the image files which have become very untidy over the years and every month some pictures will be relocated and in some cases rescanned, as some of those added to the site five or more years ago are substandard. This will have no significant effect on the average visitor to this web site, but if you have direct links on your site to pictures on my site you will may need to change them.