New website for Cyndi's List

Cyndi Ingle Howells has been providing great genealogy resources on Cyndi's List site for some 15 years. Now, she's launched a new website with many improvements.

Here's some of the press release:

Cyndi's List is proud to announce a newly upgraded web site. With improved navigation, a custom database, and a custom administrative interface, the upgrade means that everything will be quicker and easier for both visitors and for the site's owner and administrator, Cyndi Ingle Howells. The upgrade has been done by fusionSpan of Maryland. Their staff worked closely with Cyndi to make improvements and to implement new technology and new ideas designed specifically for Cyndi’s List and for the genealogical community.

Part of the upgrade - 20% - was made possible by donations from generous users of the site. Donors have been listed on the web site.

What's new:

• The front page of the Cyndi's List site has a rolling genealogy news feed and a link to The Cyndi’s List Daily, a daily dose of family history news as tagged in Twitter and Facebook. Start each day with the front page of Cyndi's List and read the current genealogy news stories.
• The links are now contained within a database and pages will be dynamically loaded on each visit.
• The custom database and administration interface means that maintaining the link list will be much easier for Cyndi, which ultimately benefits the user with faster and more frequent updates.
• The new interface means that the backlog of uncategorized links can be processed much faster. The goal is to get the entire backlog done by the end of this year.
• New links will be reviewed, approved, and categorized within 24-72 hours after submission by visitors.
• Updates made to Cyndi's List will be immediately available to the public.
• Previous to the upgrade, the "What's New" page and mailing list post contained only new links submitted by visitors. The new "What's New" page and e-mail will contain those, as well as links added to the site during the day by Cyndi, *and* existing links that have been updated throughout the site (new addresses, updated descriptions, etc.).
• Across the site links have been labeled with graphics as "new" or "updated" when appropriate. With the upgrade these will now be text-based notations (easily spotted in green), which means that you can search on a page for "new" or "updated" with the Edit>Find function in your web browser.
• Now sub-categories within a category heading each have their own page. And each page displays 20 links, with pagination in place to go to the next page and so on. This means there will be a lot less scrolling through long pages as in the past. Shorter pages mean faster load time in the browser as well.
• Intuitive navigation at the top of the category makes it easy to find your way to previous category headings.
• The number of links within each category/sub-category is displayed at the top right on each page.
• Each of the U.S. counties (more than 3,100) now has a designated page of its own.
• URLs (addresses) for the pages have changed so bookmarks, favorites, and links to Cyndi's List will need to be updated.
• Opportunities to shop, support, or donate are highlighted on each page.

What's the same:

• The category and sub-category names are all the same.
• Related Categories are highlighted at the top right on each category.
• The layout and format of the links are the same.
• The policies, procedures, and disclaimers for maintaining the link list are the same.
• The Cyndi's List Mailing List will still distribute a daily What's New e-mail and a daily Link Activity e-mail. However, the What’s New e-mail will contain information about all new and updated links.
• You can still follow Cyndi's List on Facebook and Twitter.
• The purpose and intent of Cyndi's List is to be a free jumping-off point for your daily genealogical research.
• Cyndi’s List remains free for everyone to use just as it has for the past 15 years.
• This is still just a one-woman show!

About CyndisList.com

CyndisList.com is the world's largest one-woman family history resource, with more than 300,000 categorized links for genealogical research. For more than 15 years Cyndi's List has helped hundreds of thousands of people with their online journey to trace their family history. The site averages 275,000 unique visitors and 5,000,000 page hits every month. Cyndi's List has won numerous awards and consistently remains one of the top genealogical portals for beginners, intermediate, and veteran researchers.

Cyndi has long been on Tracing the Tribe's "go-to" list. The upgrade will make it much easier and more relevant for both researchers and suppliers of relevant information.

A site of interest: Jewish Ideas Daily

Jewish family history links to all aspects of culture. We may well find clues in articles on many sites offering interesting articles.

Tracing the Tribe frequently enjoys stories on Moment and Tablet, and calls its readers' attention to those relevant articles.

Another good site is Jewish Ideas Daily.

What is it?

This is their "About Us" page:

Jewish Ideas Daily aims to be the premier aggregator and originator of Jewish ideas on the web. Each day, an original feature piece focuses on an issue of contemporary interest and enduring relevance. In Today's Picks, we draw on sources ranging from daily opinion pages to weekly and monthly magazines, academic journals, books, blogs, think-tanks, universities, and online learning sites. Many of our postings are up-to-the-minute; others are classics from the near or distant past. In brief, we hope to offer a one-stop source of the best that has been and is being thought and said by or about Jews.

Several good original stories and links to those in other media sources can be found on the homepage.

You might want to sign up for their daily email alert.

Twitter revamp: Geneablogger impact?

It's the way of the world - improvements, changes, tweaks.

What will the widely-touted Twitter revamp mean for geneabloggers?

It sounds like it will be a richer experience, with more features. I've heard the term "iPod look with Facebook functionality."

In any case, no one wants to miss out on what might be the next best thing.

Not yet following Tracing the Tribe on Twitter? Click the birdie to join our flock of followers. Make sure you are tuned in and tuned up.


Tracing the Tribe
"Tweet, Tweet" from Tracing the Tribe!

New feature: More accessibility for readers

Tracing the Tribe is now more accessible to readers with vision problems.

Thanks to Thomas MacEntee at Geneablogger, I learned about a new feature that may prove very useful for those readers.

Readers do not need to download the toolbar onto their own computers, but can merely click the new icon - directly above Tracing the Tribe's logo - at the top of the right sidebar. It looks like this:

Click the icon at the top of the right sidebar and, in a few seconds, a toolbar will appear on the top left of the blog page.

You can zoom in and out on the text, change the text page style (white, black, yellow text on different backgrounds), convert a whole page of (or selected text) to audio (with what seems a Scottish accent!), or even change the font.

I'm interested in hearing from readers who have tried it.

The University of Southampton, School of Electronics and Science provides the JISC TechDis ToolBar. Click on the site to try out the demo (see the left sidebar link) and understand more about it.

Thomas also informed the geneabloggers about this post at makeuseof.com, which offered more information.

Those with vision problems may download the toolbar to their own computers.

Thank you, Thomas, for providing new opportunities to help us learn and to help our readers.

Tracing the Tribe: Mirror site activated

Tracing the Tribe has reactivated its mirror site, http://tracingthetribe.wordpress.com, while the Blogger.com glitch producing access errors with Internet Explorer continues.

If you are in the category of readers having error message problems, click on the mirror site above. All the posts are there, although not all comments, etc. have been loaded.

Many blogs have been impacted by the problem, and everyone hopes that it will be fixed as quickly as possible.

Happy reading!

Glitch fixed: Listen now to Tracing the Tribe

Tracing the Tribe is happy to report that the glitch in audio recording the entire text of each post via OdioGo is now fixed!

At the top of each post, you will see the Listen Now icon to listen or download that post to iTunes, an MP3 player or click "more" for options such as Juice, Zune and additional possibilities.

You can also subscribe to the podcasts - Just hit the Subscribe to OdioGo icon in the right sidebar and select your favorite device or system.

While most words are correctly pronounced, it is not yet completely perfect in pronounciation. However, like all such technologies, improvements are made frequently.

Try it out and do comment on your experience and let me know if you have any problems.

New blog feature: Star ratings

Today seems to be tech day, which isn't as easy as it seems for this very non-tech blogger who is definitely not in the category of Thomas, Randy, Jasia and some others in our geneablogging community.

However, there are great sites with excellent information.

After struggling with the Blogger star ranking widget and getting nowhere after all kinds of potchke-ing (Yiddish, fooling around with details) with code, etc., I gave up and looked for something less difficult.

I found it in Outbrain.com, an Israeli website based in Netanya and New York.

Tracing the Tribe has just added Star Ratings from that site. The widget was very simple to install (automatic, nothing to fool around with), the report feature seems to provide good reports and it is very easy to manage.

When I had a question about a function, I wrote to Outbrain.com's CEO Yaron Galai, who had signed the welcome email. I'm very happy to report that I received a very quick and personal response from him with the solution.

Bloggers can also enable recommended posts (a longer list, a short list or none). I had that up for a short time, but felt the suggestions were not really appropriate, so I set it to none.

At the bottom of each post, readers will see this:

Tracing the Tribe hopes that this rating system will help those readers who are too busy to write comments to still participate in informing the community.

I've also enabled the Top Posts feature, but it will take some time for that to properly report.

Of course, Tracing the Tribe would love to see this:

While I really enjoy reading the comments of readers who take the time to personally respond, I know there are many more out there who don't feel comfortable with written comments. I hope that more readers will participate now.

Try it out!

New blog feature: Following Tracing the Tribe

Tracing the Tribe has just added Followers Friend Connect on the right sidebar:



We know you're following Tracing the Tribe, so why not sign in and add yourself to our community?
Sign in with Google or Yahoo or AIM.

New blog feature: Comments made easier!

Here's an easier way to comment on Tracing the Tribe's posts.

At the bottom of each post, click "Add your comments here" and you will see all previous comments as well as a handy-dandy field for entering your new comment.

Try it out!

Now you can listen to Tracing the Tribe

The next new feature of Tracing the Tribe is OdioGo.

Look on the right sidebar for this OdioGo Subscribe button:


Subscribe and download full audio texts of Tracing the Tribe's posts to iTunes or other platforms.

Why did Tracing the Tribe decide to do this?

The new mantra seems to be that the web isn't just for viewing, but also for hearing.

After a few private comments from longtime readers and my own experiences, I believe that this new feature may help readers who are either very busy and do not have the luxury of sitting at their computers for hours (like bloggers!), or who may experience visual impairment or reading disabilities.

Now you can listen to Tracing the Tribe on your iPod or a mobile device as you take a walk, exercise, commute, do laundry, cook a huge holiday meal for family and friends or simply sit outside on a nice day enjoying fresh air and nature. You won't have to be glued to your computer to access the blog's resources.

As we celebrate the Passover holiday this week, we remember that our ancestors trekked out of Egypt and walked around for 40 years. It might have been easier on them if they all had iPods. Sounds like a great cartoon: All the Israelites marching out of Egypt with iPods tuned to Tracing the Tribe. At times like these, I wish I could draw!

The idea of providing better accessibility means that many others may be able to access the information contained in the blog's posts. And there's also the question of genealogy demographics - providing adaptive technology is good for everyone. We never know when we may need a little extra assistance to continue with our favorite interests.

Try it out, although it may a few hours to get the listen icon fully functioning for each full post, instead of the short feed.

I'd really like to know how you feel about this new feature, and look forward to your comments.

New: Searching Tracing the Tribe!

Readers have been asking for a way to search Tracing the Tribe's many posts.

If you go to this blog's homepage and scroll down to just below the tag cloud, you will see a box with the words "search this site." Put in the topic or keyword, hit the button and the relevant posts will pop up.

Do let me know if you experience any problems with this search.