Holidays have slowed my response. I do appreciate your attention to my question. I had written a more detailed description of the project but here is the crux of it. This is a genealogy project. As such, the core group organization is not set by voluntary interests but by actual family tree relationships. It is a worldwide study and participation would be in the hundreds. The problem I have is organizing and identifying participants so they can plainly see who is related and how. The Beasley Surname Study is organized by DNA related groupings as discovered by Y chromosome genetic types. Within those types are distinct Patriarch Trees, that is, an early patriarch of the Beasley name and all of his descendants. Because of YDNA testing we know which trees are connected genetically. If people can easily see both their near relationships and the scope of the entire study, it would greatly help in collaborative research.
Fortunately, these YDNA groups, known as Haplogroups, are identified by color names (e.g. Blue Group, Yellow Group, Green Group) which helps graphically. For years, I have had more than 100 registered participants but from the outset, they rarely log in. That is because there is nothing engaging to see. Originally, I figured content would be the draw but working alone creating content is slow and tedious. Besides, content exists all over the place so the more important step is to help people link up, find that content and work together building it.
The registration process is designed to identify ancestral information, interests, skills, and contact information to encourage collaboration in an organized way. Since the whole study is organized by genetics and there are specific methods for researching and identifying connections, people need to learn how the system works. For example, if a volunteer was to help in a library, the would need to understand the Dewey system.
I also need a vibrant and integrated forum to discuss and record information. Generally speaking, genealogists communicate all the time. It's just that it is by email. A Forum is much better, but people resist because email is so much easier. Even if the communication is organized through a forum, folks need to have a reason to change habits and use it.
I would like to send out invitations to hundreds of people I know, but without a means for them to be drawn into the system, such invitations would be premature. Whatever it is, it needs to be planned for as much automation as possible because I become bogged down in managing all the people.
Genealogical workspace is all over the Internet, so I don't need to recreate it, I need to link it and build those links into the website so that all the work happens "out there" and never to be found and lost to others who need to build on past work.
The problem I have is that I'm not good at Website building and I never will be, both by aptitude and having so many research and communication issues to attend to. I just don't have a plan for how all the Joomla and CB tools can best fit together. If it is beyond me to get it fully set up, I would at least be able to communicate a general plan if I need to hire someone.
The website is at
beasleygenealogy.net
. I have CB admin credentials available if you would suggest how to send it. Some of the other notable locations that need to be linked are here:
www.familytreedna.com/groups/beasley/about
(main page, managed by me as FTDNA project admin)
www.familytreedna.com/public/beasley?iframe=yresults
(genetic groups by color)
www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Beasley_Name_Study
(Project page for an important collaborative site which is lacking a means for organization and communication for a surname study.)
www.wikitree.com/wiki/Beezley-12
(my profile page, each study participant is encouraged to have an account here.)
beasley.one-name.net/
(A project archive managed by me using the premier online genealogy project platform
known as TNG. It is hosted by the Guild of One-Name Studies. It can be built in any way I please. In my case, it is Joomla containing TNG. Eventually, we will want to merge the two sites.)
There are other important sites to link such as Ancestry.com where all the 120 existing Project trees are located.
Once again, what I'm asking for is a strategy for using CB to bring it all together.
Doug
krileon
