Net Wit; 5.26.98
by Larry Mike Garmon
mgarmon@intellisys.net
"I grew up not knowing anything about the Trude side of my family."
For Tom Trude, wanting to know about his family was more than just mild curiosity -- it became a quest for knowledge that evolved into the title of "unofficial gatekeeper" for an entire world-wide family -- distant and otherwise.
It began in 1979 when Tom, then stationed with the Air Force in Florida, decided to find out more about his grandfather and the family that, because of a family conflict, had been shielded from him.
He found his grandfather in Chelsea, OK, along with step-aunts and step-uncles he didn't know he had. His grandfather helped to satisfy his curiosity with family stories and history.
Tom retired from the Air Force in 1989, returned to Altus, and took up genealogy as a hobby, "pumping my relatives for information -- with phone calls and letters," he admits. He even got his brothers interested in the family history.
But something was missing. Something that, when found, would propel Tom into the forefront of being the family archivist. That something came from his brothers, both of whom were connected to the World Wide Web.
Tom bought a computer and the rest, to paraphrase a cliché, was family history.
Tom's web site is dedicated to the Trude family genealogy. It's one of the best family sites I've seen and is worth looking through even if you aren't a Trude.
The strength of the site is the amount of information found concerning three generations, which, Tom says, he will expand to four. Pictures, provided by an uncle in Chelsea and a long-lost relative in California, puts a human face to the family. Tom had the photos scanned at a photo store in Oklahoma City and then posted them to his site.
Tom began working with Microsoft FrontPage Express 2.0 but found the format was too simple for his needs. As with many web page designers, Tom learned HTML to give his page more sparkle and "borrowed" HTML code lines and files from other sites to adapt to his site.
Borrowing to adapt to your site is an acceptable practice on the Net, but, Tom says, "it's polite to ask before you steal." Other web page designers are happy to let you "borrow" and will even help you if they have time. Tom also suggests learning JAVA, another web code that allows you to do some very magical things.
One of the most frustrating but eventually rewarding exercises for Tom once he posted his site was letting others know it is up and they can visit.
Advertising costs and the best way is to post your site to a search engine. If you have the money, many listing services will do this, but if you're like Tom and I, you have to do it yourself.
"I had to go to each search engine and fill out endless forms," Tom said, "then wait while they checked my site. Some of them are automatic, but make one little spelling error (like 'sirname') and you have a real headache trying to fix it."
So, why go through all this trouble of filling out the forms and then suffering the headaches?
A better question would be, why spend hours building a web site if you don't want anyone to visit it? It defeats the purpose of web sites.
Tom's search for family history didn't end with what he had learned from his grandfather and others: it continues to this day. His site was the first Trude genealogy site on the World Wide Web, and he has received responses from people from all over the United States and Australia. He is in touch with a distant relative in Pennsylvania who is compiling a Trude history with over 2,000 biographies and who let's him use some material on his site.
"They give me new information, which is the main goal of my site."
Tom's site is an honest, no frills site. No spinning animation or giant art works.
"The more art and animation you have, the longer it takes for the page to download," Tom said. "Some people have slow computers and will not put up with web sites that take forever to download."
It's also easy to read: a nice maroon background with yellow letters that don't blind you. There's also an easy-to-use site map that leads you to biographies, stories, links, and even to "The Legend of Frau Trude" found in the Brothers Grimm Kinder-und Haushmarchen (fairy tales).
Tom's site has a lot of information but only takes up one megabyte (MB) of space on the five free MBs he receives free from his internet service provider. He said that adding the fourth generation will double his site.
The Trude Family Genealogy web site is a prime example what the World Wide Web was designed to do: provide basic information and bring people together that otherwise might never have made contact. Genealogy is one of the most popular uses for web pages, and the Trude site, thanks to Tom, is an enjoyable one and valuable by many people around the world.
Want to visit it? http://www.intplsrv.net/tltrude is the address.
I've never met Tom or even talked to him. I visited his site and then sent him some questions via e-mail and he replied. If you have a site for consideration as a feature, e-mail me with your address. If you have any questions, send those to me, too.