Logo Our Family Tree
 Welcome

Forums

What's New?, 444 Threads

List of new features added. If you have a question or comment about an item here, reply to it! For potential new features, check out the list and add your votes.

Click message to read more or reply
ThreadStart DateLast PostMessages
Selecting places7-12-2014 by Ray Gurganus7-12-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
Minor update when selecting places.  In the place dropdown list of states and countries, you've always been able to type the first letter(s) to skip down to a desired state.  So "N" goes to the first "N", "Nebraska", or typing "Nev" goes to "Nevada", etc.  But this gets tedious if you want to select New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, or New York.

So I added a few custom key combinations here -- typing "NH", "NJ", "NM", and "NY" will select these four states wihtout further complications.
New Buttons7-6-2014 by Ray Gurganus7-6-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
For some people when there are many events entered, with many event notes, their page can get some what cluttered.  To help see through the clutter, there are a couple new buttons at the top of the page.

Each of these buttons below, located at the top of the page, will show or hide options on the page.
= Source footnote numbers
= Event notes, showing lines after each note, when notes are entered
= Events in the middle, between birth and death.

For each, the button shows with a green background when there is data available, whether or not the option is selected to appear.  For each, the button shows with a black border when the option is selected, whether or not there is data available.

Selecting or unselecting a button should be remembered as you move from person to person.

Note that when the browser window gets really narrow, these buttons disappear altogether to save room on the row with the buttons and search boxes.
Philadelphia - Wilmington Area6-26-2014 by Ray Gurganus6-26-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
I added a new regional search -- at the bottom of the list of states & countries is a choice "(Phiila - Wilmington Area)" which will select people with any of these places, all at one time:
  • Chester, Delaware, Philadelphia Counties in PA
  • Cecil County in MD
  • New Castle County in DE
  • Salem, Gloucester Counties in NJ

They're all close and have had boundaries to shift.  So searching for a family over all of these might give you better results than searching only one.

Note that anyone who has only a state (without a county) won't be found... and of course those with no place at all won't be found either, which is why it's always good to define a place where possible!
Virginia Independent Cities6-11-2014 by Ray Gurganus6-11-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
The list of Virginia counties is updated to include the remaining independent cities that weren't there before.  Please use where appropriate.  Also, remember that Richmond is NOT in Richmond County, and Fredericksburg is NOT in Frederick County.  Thanks.
Normandy6-6-2014 by Ray Gurganus6-6-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
In honor of the 70th anniversary, I found and linked three on the website who are known to be among those at the landing at Normandy (one of whom is Eisenhower). I'm sure there are others here, just not identified. If you know of any, you can link them. Go the + button at the top, to "Historical Event".

Here's the list:
/historical.php/landing-at-normandy
Showing all spouses5-29-2014 by Ray Gurganus5-29-2014 by Ray Gurganus1

New feature added:  For anyone who has multiple spouses (and children with each spouse), in the dropdown list of spouses, there's now a "Show All" option at the bottom of the list. This will list all spouses with all children, all on the same page.

The order is chronologically by marriage date (if defined), and then secondarily by the order they are added.  The information below the children (pictures, sources, etc.) still only applies to the first spouse.  To see this for other spouses, you still need to switch to the other spouse.

The next step is to enable an option that will default to this setup for those who would want it as the default, but I'll hold that for another day.

Notable descendants5-8-2014 by Ray Gurganus5-8-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
Added a new feature...  There already was an option to count the number of descendants of a person, and this stored the total number into the person's notes for future reference -- under His/Her > Descendant Count.

Now added to this, it will collect lists of notable descendants of that person, and list buttons on that person's page to show those people.  Here's an example.  /browse.php?fid=286182

Without this, would you have known that Cole Porter and Nancy Reagan are descendants?

Note that this is NOT updated if new descendants are added, or if branches are removed, but it will update if you or someone comes to this person and goes to Descendant Count again.

If you do not want this to show for one of your people, just edit their page, go to the Notes, and remove it from the bottom of the notes.
Find-a-Grave update1-28-2014 by Ray Gurganus5-4-2014 by Edwin Poor2
The Find-a-Grave field is updated to accept any kind of information, so that if you search Find-a-Grave and find that a person is not found, you have the option of typing in "unknown" or "not found" or whatever you want.  Only a number will result in the tombstone icon linking to the find-a-grave page.  Anything else will not show anywhere, unless you edit the record...  but having this there will stop the person from showing if you do a search for "Find-a-Grave is blank".

Down the road you can then search for "Find-a-Grave Equals Unknown", and search again for these people, as new records are always being added to Find-a-Grave.
Data error messages9-22-2013 by Ray Gurganus5-1-2014 by Jopeonarope2
Working on changing how data error messages are displayed.  Rather than in a little popup window, they will now show with a yellow background and red lettering at the top of the page.  If you scroll down the page, the messages should stay visible at the top of the window -- so there's no chance to escape. :)

Any previous popup error messages that are not yet updated will be soon.
New Feature - Historical Events4-28-2014 by Ray Gurganus4-28-2014 by Ray Gurganus1
I have started setting up a new feature to define historical events, and attach people related to that event.  The two examples I have started so far are the US Civil War Battles of Gettysburg and Anteitam, and have attached a few people to each.  This also shows up on each person's page as a new event, linking back to the main event page.

To add a new event or see the existing ones, go to View > Historical Events.  It is setup to allow anyone to edit an event, but if you're not the person who added it originally, your editing access is limited to adding new people.

Unless you're the original person who added the event, there's not currently a way to edit or remove people you added.  For this, contact the person who added, or me (genealogy@gurganus.org)

I'm sure many changes will be coming as the number and types of events grows, and as the numbers of people attached to each grows.

Feedback and questions are welcome.