Hi everyone!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I just purchased an upgrade to the TNG database software.  So if you find the database unavailable during the next few days – don’t panic – I’m still here.  The upgrade should go smoothly, but Murphy’s Law sometimes kicks in

2009 has been a busy year for me so far. I’ve neglected my website a bit.

Beginning of January I was on pins & needles waiting on a phone call for a job interview – I’d applied back in November.  Meanwhile, one of my previous employers wanted me to work for her. I knew that she needed me badly for the next few weeks as the accountant was due to take some time off & there was no one else in the office experienced to cover for him.  Seeing as I hadn’t gotten my phone call, I took the job.  A month later, mid February, I got the call I’d been waiting for. I was offered the job, started it March 2.  So for the past 3 weeks I’ve been getting used to a new work environment. I’ve also been doing some web design/desktop publishing projects on the side.

Tonight, I’m making backups of my computer (badly needed-I’m behind) as I’m hoping to upgrade from XP to Vista – and hopefully solve a video driver problem I’ve had for the past 6 months.

The little bit of genealogy research I’ve been doing has been attempting for find death/birth information on Johann Judas.  It’s been a struggle that hasn’t resolved itself yet.  I’m hoping the information, once I find it (fingers & toes crossed), will connect my Judas branch with Elaine Lloyd’s branch in Australia.  I’ll post any updates here and on my social site at http://estacaille.ning.com

Since my last post, Geni.com has revised the limits on how many generations I can see.  It has been upgraded from 3rd cousins to 4th cousins.  That means I can easily see cousin Delphine’s information again! That’s great as Delphine is an Estacaille cousin, orginally from France, who has probably as much interest in contacting family as me!

I’ve posted on my blog at http://estacaille.ning.com but wanted to share right here what is going on.

If you’re a regular visitor to my site, you probably read about my uploading the database to www.geni.com back in January 2009.  As a free user there were a couple of restrictions – one being that the automatic links for activity updates/photos I could easily see, was restricted to 5th cousins and closer.

That was fine by me as the most “distant” cousin I’m in contact with is Armin, Delphine & Maite – 3rd cousins once removed or 4th cousins.  It’s been my hope that using Geni would help increase the chances of breaking through some of my brick walls on the Judas and Dingwell branches.  Plus it allowed other cousins doing research to easily upload their data & merge it, upload photos and videos. And family members could easily add photos, videos, make date/location changes, etc.

Geni, has been slowly eroding these free features. Citing privacy changes, the latest change is the highest default for each persons family group setting is reduced from 5th cousins to 3rd cousins. (each user could restrict their profile more to no blood relatives, 1st cousins, 2nd cousins even limit in-laws which is at its maximum inlaws out to 1st cousins)

Now in my list of photo albums I no longer see the photos uploaded by 3rd cousin, once removed Delphine.  I can no longer send emails through Geni to Delphine, Maite, Armin (or their 1st cousins, descendants). They no longer appear in my tree list. Yes, I can still view their tree & photos/videos by finding our common ancestor, viewing that ancestor’s tree and following the branch till I find them – a more labour intensive search.

Time will tell how much these new limitations affect my tree life on Geni. I may just revert to using my estacaille.org website as my one database & work more on marketing the surnames I’m searching for.  And inviting more researching cousins to post copies their GEDCOMs/photos/documents here.

Geni online family tree

I started off my 2009 by uploading my entire Estacaille database to the free online tree site at www.Geni.com. (This upload included all the new Schmudlach info, which I haven’t uploaded here yet as of today)

I’ve since been busy sending email invitations to cousins, asking them to join and claim their leaf in the tree.  I’ve also been busy uploading family photos and linking them to individuals in the tree.

Members can share family news, upload photos and videos, send emails to other family members, start family discussions.

Response from the cousins has been fantastic! Almost all the invites I’ve sent out so far have been accepted.  The one major drawback we have at the moment is that the site is only in English. Our German and French cousins are having problems translating all the various labels.

If you are a cousin of mine, would like to join but haven’t received an invitation from me – email me with the email address you’d like to use as a member and I’ll send you a sign up message.

The database move is complete! You can find the link under the tab “Searchable Database” or click here to go directly.

There are a couple of bugs that I need to fix.

First, the links from the photos/histories/documents to each person has disappeared.  I will have to set each one manually (again, sigh!).
The list of users and passwords also didn’t transfer over.

Welcome to the new home of Estacaille.org!

I’ve just finished moving the site to a new server and I’ve installed the front portion in a WordPress theme.  Not all the pages from the old site will appear here.  In the next few moments I’ll create a link to my database as well as some of the my external websites.

I will be slowly gathering some of the old info I want to import from the former site.  Watch here for new developments!

Suzette