GenePool Genealogy Resources & Commercial WebRing

The original GenePool WebRing which has been in existance for a number of years was intended for amateur genealogists and family history researchers - the main criteria for membership being the presence of some form of family history information being made freely available on the website, ie. personal family trees, surname lists etc.

The above criteria ruled out those sites that did not contain personal family history, but instead offered some type of genealogical service to the public, whether such information were offered free of charge or not. Your website could consist of simple genealogy 'links' pages (I've had to turn down a lot of these sites in the past), software pertaining to genealogy, research services, heraldry sites etc.

• Your website must contain information related to genealogical resources or services; ie link or 'tip' pages, genealogy software, research services etc.
  
  
• You must have a site that is well maintained.
  
  
• Your site must be 'child proof' - no adult content please!
  
  
• Please do not register if you do not intend to post the coding to your web site!
  
  
• Please add the coding as soon as possible after registering as the queue is checked daily (some folks seem to forget about posting the info if they don't do it right away). If you fail to add the coding to your site within 2 weeks, your site will be dropped from the queue due to inactivity.
  
  
• Post the GenePool ring html fragment to either your home page (index page) or a clearly marked genealogy 'ring' page; preferably a straight-forward, uncluttered, 'low-tech', easily accessible and fast downloading page. This isn't the place for unnecessary 'bells & whistles', music, animations or flash technology etc. You want researchers to be able to enter your site and determine if your services are any of value to them, as quickly and easily as possible!
  
  
• If you do use a separate 'ring' page, don't forget to include a link to your home page (which will have a link back to the 'ring' page of course) - I've been to some sites where you have to 'hunt' for the main site - many of your visitors may leave your site instead of searching around for what you have to offer!
  
  
• Please do not use a javascript driven 'splash' page if that is the only access to your site - many genealogists on-line do not have the technology to deal with javascript and even surf on-line with graphics disabled.
  
  
• Do not use a 'redirect' url - the page we are trying to access should be on your website.
  
  
• If your page also contains 'Yahoo' type ring navigation bars, please post the ring html fragment above the navigation bars (they can sometimes cause download problems due to the javascript they consist of).
  
  
• You agree to keep your web site and e-mail addresses up to date through the ring edit page. (If for some reason your web site is discontinued, please remove your site from the ring through the edit page). Both of the above situations result in 'broken links' in our ring!

Please!:


• No sites with servers such as MyFamily.com that require a password to enter your main web pages.
  
  
• No static 'splash' pages (a simple one page site with a minimum listing of surnames only).
  
  
• No sites that are not easily accessible (if I can't access your site with my MSIE and Netscape browsers version 3, then your site is probably not accessible to many of the researchers on-line. See the paragraph below on 'technology'.)

More do nots! please: (sigh!)

• Do not link to the graphic on this site (in addition to possibly delaying downloading of your page, linking of graphics is considered 'bandwidth theft' and can be costly for the site that you have linked to.). Please download it to your own hard drive and then upload it to your server.
  
  
• If your site is 'technogically advanced'; consider those of us that do not surf using the most up to date browsers and equipment, or just dislike frames, java script, excessive graphics or music etc. You should not expect to be able to request folks to download different browsers or other types of software just in order to access your website. Consider including alternate 'no frames' pages, 'plain' html pages versus advanced scripting, options to turn off the music etc. (If your site is so far advanced that ONLY the most modern systems can access your pages, there is a chance that you may not be added to the ring if you do not provide alternate pages!)

4.  Read this:

The above form does not admit you to the ring yet.
You have to send an e-mail message to the ringmaster once you have the ring html fragment and graphic posted to your web page.

Shortly after registering you should receive an e-mail message containing your 'customized' html fragment (that means that your site ID number is already coded into the fragment). Simply 'cut and paste' this fragment into your editor (with the 'word wrap' function turned off) and then post it to your web page. Particularily, if your website is a commercial one, I am assuming you have the expertise to properly post an html coding fragment (the majority of amateur genealogists do not possess that knowledge and have to be coached through the process - I do not expect to have to do so with this webring!). The ring 'setup' or fragment, after being posted to your html document, should appear on your webpage similiar to the one below:

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The Ringmaster reserves the right to refuse admittance of sites to the ring
and to remove sites from the ring at any time, at his descretion.

GenePool Genealogy Resources & Commercial Site WebRing
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kellykin/genepool.htm
Ringmaster: M.A. Kelly
[email protected]
since 2001


last date modified: 11 Nov 2001