FAMILY CD-ROM and DVD: INTRODUCTION [1] About the creator [2] Hardware and software needed to use this disk [3] History of this genealogy project [4] Information content of this disk [5] How to view high-resolution photos [6] How to use this disk when the technology used to create it becomes obsolete [7] How to modify or add to this record [8] Locating the original paper documents and printed photos ******************************************************************************************** [1] About the creator This CD or DVD was created after 1 October 2006 by Tom McFarland (email mcfarlat@uww.edu), 626 Gately Terrace, Madison, Wisconsin, Ph 608-238-9888. I am a math professor at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, Wisconsin, married to Susan De Vos, legally separated in December 2005, with one daughter, Diana Marie, and one grandson, Jesse Landis McFarland-Ward. ******************************************************************************************** [2] Hardware and software needed to use this disk This CD or DVD does not function in a DVD-player used to play movies with a TV set. To use this CD or DVD, insert it into the CD or DVD drive of a PC or Apple/Macs. This action should call up the browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) automatically, and from then on, you can treat what you see exactly as a web page. Most PCs now use Internet Explorer or Firefox (which is similar to NetScape). Microsoft Internet Explorer versions will likely be available automatically on any PC through year 2020. This CD uses freeware called BROWSERCALL (enclosed) to automatically display the web file FamilyAlbum.htm located in the root directory/folder of this CD. However, if for any reason this page does not appear automatically when you insert this CD in a CD-drive or DVD-drive, then you should use the following procedure to find and open FamilyAlbum.htm. (For PCs) Using Windows Explorer, search this CD for the file FamilyAlbum.htm. Double-click (or click) on the icon for this file [FamilyAlbum.htm], which should be visible alongside this readme file. When your browser opens [FamilyAlbum.htm], you will see a cartoon icon for the file in the folder also on this CD. Clicking (or double-clicking) on this icon should then display the main menu (Home page) for this album as the web page . If your PC does not have a default browser, you may be prompted to choose one: see next paragraph. If future technology prevents seeing the file as the intended web page, you can probably still make sense of the menu when you view it in the way you are viewing this page. (for Apple/Macs) When you insert this CD in your CD drive, an icon for the CD will immediately appear on your monitor screen; double-click (or click) on it. You will then see a README.TXT file, the [family album] icon, a folder FAMILY, and perhaps other folders containing current image-processing software used to create this CD. Click (or double-click) on the [FamilyAlbum.htm] icon. This should invoke whatever browser you have preferred on your machine. Note: It is possible (but unlikely) that you must actually install a browser on your hard drive to run it. For newer PCs, this step is done at manufacture, but you can re-do it anytime. Once you open the file FamilyAlbum.htm, you should be able to navigate to whatever family tree or picture you wish by choosing on-screen options, exactly as you would navigate a web-site. As of October 2006, this CD re-creates the web-site at http://math.uww.edu/~mcfarlat/pictures. The above website will be continuously updated until my old age prevents this, probably around the year 2020. The address of the website has been stable for several years, but if it changes, it will probably remain associated with my name (McFarland) and with the university where I teach (University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, Wis.) ******************************************************************************************** [3] History of this genealogy project The author of this album became interested in family history in the 1960's during conversations with his grandmother, Adele (Nenno) Landis. When Adele Landis died in 1980, she gave this writer an old picture album created by Emeline E. Cox in 1890 (here called the Cox Album), but the album remained merely a curiosity, since none of the people who were pictured in the album were identified. In the year 1999, however, this album became a "puzzle" to be solved, and with the help of many relatives, public servants, and other records, most of the pictures have been at least tentatively linked with specific people. A similar album with many of the same pictures was found in the home of Dorathy McFarland in June 2001. Furthermore, in December 2003, with help from Jim Downey, a third similar album (Potter Album) was discovered in Montana, kept by John Vermilye Potter, Jr., who is a great-grandson of Phoebe (Davids) Vermilye. A fourth similar album is owned by the widow of Thomas C. Weir, and it may be possible to add this album to this CD about 2007 through his neice Stephanie. Much additional family information was discovered while studying these albums, especially the Potter album, whose images were identified and written in the album by Kate Potter. This digital album was begun in 2000, and was envisioned as an easily reproduced genealogical record, rather than a grandiose family picture album. Each person was to be represented by times and locations of birth, marriage, residences, children, death, and burial, together with 3-4 pictures showing changes in appearance from childhood to old age. In a few cases, most of them closely related to me (Tom McFarland), a more elaborate album-like record was made. Copies of the HTM and JPG files have been widely circulated on CD and DVD to insure against loss of these records. ********************************************************************************************* [4] Information content of this disk This CD or DVD includes the following features: [a] Ancestors of Hannah Landis which include English, Scottish, and Norse royalty [b] Pictures and info from Pat Stephenson, great granddaughter of Marie (Cox) Adams [c] A collection of items from William Jandt, descendent of Henry S. Davids [d] Information on the descendants of Calvin Davids McKay from Linda Cox and John Eck [e] Old pictures from the home of Dorathy McFarland in Phoenix [f] 2 Nenno Family histories, written by Emily Roscoe in 1981 and Betty Wilson in 2003 [g] Nenno family trees back to 1520 researched by Don Gentner of Palo Alto [h] Pictures and information from the John J. Nenno family [i] Photos and video from Eileen Jurgenson of Minnesota, granddaughter of Lala Nenno [j] The Roscoe Album and 1988 video courtesy of Emily Covert Roscoe of Billings, Montana [k] Pictures, movie clips, and other data from Don Anderson in Phoenix [l] Old pictures and video from the collection of Alberta (McFarland) Horan in Montana [m] Information on Eileen Burdick (later Sharon Griffin) and family from Barbara Johnson [n] Pictures from Joyce Keller (Alberta Horan's daughter) in Seattle [o] Old pictures from the collection of George De Vos and Georgina Van Steyvoort [p] Pictures from John and Jim De Vos, grandsons of Cesar De Vos [q] Pictures and data from the Olsen family in Norway [r] Old pictures from the home of John Vermilye Potter, Jr. [s] Pictures from the Joe Allyn family, contributed by Kari McCormick in Phoenix [t] Pictures and data from descendents of Matilda and Caroline McFarland [t] Movie clips, as space permits, chosen to suit the recipient family. When time permits, updates of this CD will be sent to anyone who asks for one. Currently, the families most likely to see updates are descendents of Albert and Vinnie Adams, Alberta Horan, Henry S. Davids, Julianne McFarland, and Eileen Burdick (later Sharon Griffin). You can add to this CD by sending information and/or pictures (prints or digital on floppy disk). Short movie clips in MPG format are included as space permits: these are big files, and the particular MPG files on this CD or DVD were selected with the recipient in mind. As of June 2006, video clips are available for the Anderson, De Vos, Downey, Horan, Illian, Jurgenson, Lambert, McFarland, Ramage, Roscoe, Salyer, and Wilson families. In June 2006, the total size of all HTM and JPG files was 95 MB, the total size of all BMP files was 3300 MB, and the total size of all video clips was 30,000 MB. Thus, when a CD or DVD is created for person X, many video files are excluded. For a CD, enough BMP files are deleted to bring the size down to 700 MB; for a DVD, all BMP files are included, but enough MPG video files are deleted to bring total size down to 4.7 GB. The deleted files are individually selected to be of low interest to person X. ********************************************************************************************* [5] How to view high-resolution photos Most picture files are stored in 2 formats: *.BMP format is used for high-resolution photos, and *.JPG format is used for lower-resolution display in web pages. Each "HTML" web page with pictures has been written so the the JPG image is a link to the BMP image. Thus, clicking on the JPG picture sends you to the BMP image. In most cases the BMP image has much greater detail, but to see the detail, you may want to use an image viewer outside of the browser, so that you may magnify the image. The browser will give you a fair amount of detail also, but to see this detail, you must adjust the browser to NOT RESIZE IMAGE TO SCREEN: for Internet Explorer 6, image-resizing is done from TOOLS/INTERNET OPTIONS/ADVANCED/MULTI-MEDIA, and within MULTI-MEDIA, you can UNcheck the box entitled "enable automatic image resizing". Microsoft PAINT is an adequate image viwer, as is PHOTOSTYLER (copied to this CD or DVD). Many others exist. BMP image files are large, however, and thus most have not been stored on a server for viewing over an internet connection: you must have the CD or DVD. ********************************************************************************************* [6] How to use this disk when the technology used to create it becomes obsolete The programs I used to create JPG (picture) files are PHOTOSTYLER, LVIEW PRO, and sometimes PAINT, copied to this CD or DVD in folders and . The program PHOTOSTYLER works like ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, which bought PHOTOSTYLER in the early 1990s and incorporated many of its ideas into PHOTOSHOP. The original BMP "bitmap" files are stored in the folder , since they are more accurate copies of original photos, and more likely to be still readable in future decades if evolving compression techniques make the current JPG format unreadable. Starting about the year 2000, images from digital cameras are increasingly a part of this album, and were converted to BMP format without ever being converted to print form or scanned. To restore this CD or DVD when the technology to display JPG images used on this CD is obsolete, you would then create new picture files from each BMP file. These BMP files are considerably better images than the JPG files used in web pages, and will give you a nice close-up of your ancestor's face. However, these high-resolution BMP files also retain any blemishes on the original photos, which were sometimes carefully removed before converting to JPG format. For any given image, the HTM , JPG , and BMP filenames are similar or identical except for the suffixes; therefore, the ASKII text (source) of the HTM file will tell you which picture file(s) were matched with the ASKII file. For example, a picture of the Emma Adams family is named "adams6.jpg" and "adams6.bmp", and is described in a web page named "adams6.htm". The ASKII text will likely be readable for several decades after current web technology goes extinct. As of October 2006, BMP files consume 3.3 GB, so that some must be omitted on 700 MB CDs, but all BMP files are written to DVDs. The display of all information uses HTML for websites. Each file has suffix HTM, and can be edited using notepad or a similar editor. Editing with WORD is possible if you save each document as plain text without any formatting or embellishment. Links to pictures in this HTML would have to be re-written if the image files were re-named or re-located. ********************************************************************************************** [7] How to modify or add to this record If your computer hard drive could easily hold another gigabyte, first copy this entire CD to your hard drive. Make alterations there, and write the entire altered package to another CD. There are two general ways to make alterations. I have tried to describe these ways in simple non-technical language, but if the language intimidates you, invite your local teenagers over for pizza and ask them to explain this stuff to you, or do it for you. (A) Learn enough about web page writing to make additions look like this record (B) Create additions in some other style, perhaps using web-writing software, WORD, notepad, or styles yet unborn in 2006, but package the new and old together. (A) A relatively painless way to do (A) is to find a page in the existing web style which you would like to alter. View the "source" of the page using NOTEPAD or another ASKII text editor, which (in WINDOWS on PCs) is done by clicking VIEW at the top of the INTERNET EXPLORER window, and then clicking SOURCE from that menu. Now type in anything you wish, anywhere you wish, but when you save the document, make sure you have a copy of the original form, in case you don't like what you did. To create an entirely new page in the style (A), find a page the looks much like the one you want to create (let us say its name is oldpage.htm), look at the source as in the above paragraph, and then SAVE YOUR WORK with a different name (let us say you choose "newpage.htm"). At this point you have two pages which look alike but with different names. Now alter newpage.htm to your liking, as in the above paragraph. You will then want to create a link in newpage.htm which takes you to some other page (let us say relatedpage.htm) in the old pre-existing album, and vice versa. To do this, alter relatedpage.htm as in the previous paragraph by adding the following text: GO TO MY NEW PAGE The words "GO TO MY NEW PAGE" will appear blue in relatedpage.htm, and will link to newpage.htm Finally, in your newpage.htm, add the following text somewhere in its "source" (done as above): GO TO RELATED PAGE The words "GO TO RELATED PAGE" will appear blue in relatedpage.htm, and will link to relatedpage.htm There is a fair amount of art to writing web pages, even with purchased software, but a great deal can be learned by merely copying what another has done, and modifying to your tastes. (B) Writing additions to the family album in some other non-web format like WORD will be easier in the short run, and perhaps best in the long run, depending on future technology. However, you will have an immediate problem of cross-linking the two formats. If you take this path, you will probably want to re-write the web-based album entirely into the new format. If this pleases you, go for it, but save the original format as a back-up reference. Also, you should have a game-plan for the day when some other person in your extended family presents you with his/her different album style, and together you face the task of merging the records. Thus, when picking another format, you should pick one with wide accessibility. Today, in 2006, the web page is probably the most widely accessible format. Tomorrow, who knows. ********************************************************************************************** [8] Locating the original paper documents and printed photos Original photos, documents, and videotapes will be given to my daughter Diana Marie McFarland, or if she predeceases me (unlikely) may be sealed in an above-ground crypt near my burial site. This CD or DVD will be widely distributed, and it is likely that someone in 2050 or later will possess a working updated version of this electronic album. Other persons possessing original material are Alberta (McFarland) Horan, Carroll (Illian) Flood, Kari (McCormick) Fong, Pat Stephenson, and Emily Roscoe, and Mary Lou Nenno, Grace Wachowiak, Norita Carlson. Happy viewing........Tom McFarland 27 October 2006