This site will be different than a lot of the ones you normally see. This is due to a couple of distinguishing factors. First of all, it is located on a decentralized blockchain and not hosted by one company. This is a good thing because it cannot be censored or removed by anyone but me. Secondly, posting to this blockchain is totally free, so I do not have to pay hosting fees. And finally, this blockchain is configured to cater to bloggers, so instead of HTML, CSS, most other website languages someone might use to create the site you see, this is written using a language called Markdown. While it is not as robust as some of these other languages, it is easy to learn and easy to use. This is important to me because I would like to be able to train others to create their own Family History collection like this, so easy is definitely better.
Since Markdown is simplified and used more for blogging, it does not inherently provide ways to control the layout of each page. You can put things on the page (like text, photos, links, etc.), but there is currently not much available when it comes to making the page look pretty. In my case, that is not really a factor because I am more concerned about the information I am making available (stories, pictures, videos, etc.) than I am using fancy menus and cascading style sheets.
Since I am using Markdown with its limited capabilities, I am having to improvise on the site layout and menu structure. Therefore, there is no site map. With the fluid nature of the information being continually added to this "site", it would just be too hard to keep up to date. On all pages except the main page, there will be a link in the upper left corner and another one on the left side near the bottom that will go back to the page that you came from. All of the links from the main page should be to people, events, or locations. I will refer to these pages as Tier 2. Links leading away from Tier 2 pages should always be story (or Tier 3) pages. The links on Tier 2 pages should refer back to the main page. The links on Tier 3 pages should refer back to the Tier 2 page that originally linked to it. In addition, Tier 3 pages will also have a second link beside the first at the top and bottom of the page that refers back to the main page.
In order to keep all of the names and relationships straight, I have had to devise an organizational structure in which to contain my information. With this in mind, here is what I have come up with.
I will start from the main family member the "site" is based on and work back in introducing ancestors. I will put a prefix before each person listed utilizing the Ahnentafel Numbering System used by some people that work in genealogy. Ahnentafel numbering begins with the starting individual (in this case, me), who is given a number of 1. From then on, an individual's father is assigned a number that is two times the number of the individual. The mother is assigned a number that is twice the individual's, plus 1. If you are number one, your father is 2, your mother is 3, your father's father and mother are 4 and 5 and your mother's father and mother are 6 and 7 and so on. The child of any person always has a number that is one half the number of the father. If a person is missing, their number is skipped, so Ahnentafel numbers will be skipped for great-grandparents, etc. for whom you have not entered any information.
For example:
1 - Me
2 - My father
3 - My mother
4 - My father's father
5 - My father's mother
6 - My mother's father
7 - My mother's mother
The main drawback of this system is that it only numbers direct ancestors (no aunts, uncles. or cousins). Therefore, I have modified it slightly by adding a letter following the number of any siblings of that person that are referred to. The capital letters will be assigned in birth order skipping the letter for my direct ancestor. If I need to refer to their spouse, I will use a lower case letter instead. In the case of multiple spouses, I will include parenthesis containing a number of the order they were married to the ancestor or sibling. For instance, the second wife of my father's oldest brother would be listed as 2a(2).
For example:
1 - Me
2 - My father (the youngest) [Would have been 2D if not my direct ancestor]
2A - My father's oldest brother
2a - The wife of my father's oldest brother
2a(2) - The second wife of my father's oldest brother
2B - My father's next oldest brother
2b - The wife of my father's next oldest brother
2C - My father's sister
2c - The husband of my father's sister
3 - My mother (the oldest) [Would have been 3A if not my direct ancestor]
3B - My mother's sister
3b - The husband of my mother's sister
3C - My mother's brother
3c - The wife of my mother's brother
Finally, on the slight chance that I want to refer to the spouse or offspring of one of these siblings, I will add lower case Roman Numerals after the letters. The first two characters should always be from the sibling and not the spouse, so the format will always be:
{n}{X}{xxxxx} where
{n} is a number
{X} is a capital letter
{xxxxx} is a lower case Roman Numeral
NOTE: There should never be a letter attached to one of your direct ancestors (father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, etc.). Also, even if one is mentioned in a story, I will not be tracking any person beyond the child of a direct ancestor or their sibling. I will also not track the spouse(s) of a child.
I don't know that this will happen, but I want to be prepared for it, just in case.
For example:
1 - Me
2 - My father (the youngest)
2A - My father's oldest brother
2a - The wife of my father's oldest brother
2a(2) - The second wife of my father's oldest brother
2Ai - The son of my father's oldest brother
2B - My father's next oldest brother
2b - The wife of my father's next oldest brother
2Bi - The son of my father's next oldest brother
2Bii - The daughter of my father's next oldest brother
2C - My father's sister
2c - The husband of my father's sister
3 - My mother (the oldest)
3B - My mother's sister
3b - The husband of my mother's sister
3Bi - The oldest son of my mother's sister
3Bii - The middle son of my mother's sister
3Biii - The youngest son of my mother's sister
3C- My mother's brother
3c - The wife of my mother's brother
3Ci - The oldest son of my mother's brother
3Cii - The next oldest son of my mother's brother
3Ciii - The youngest son of my mother's brother
3Civ - The daughter of my mother's brother
Hopefully, this will cover the gamut of giving people unique identifiers and make it easy to keep them in some kind of order. If someone new is discovered, It shouldn't be too difficult to assign them a number without having to renumber the entire list. For each person that has had a Tier 2 page created, their name will be a link. If the name is not a link, there have not been any stories associated to that person yet.
Hopefully, this was not too confusing. You may have to read it a time or two for it to sink in. However, it is not critical for you to have this information in order to enjoy the stories. It will just help you understand the relationships of those involved.
Be sure to check out the Family History Community!