The service allows people to build, maintain, and share their family trees online and to protect data privacy. Members (website owners) have entered more than eighty million names and two million photographs.
Online Family Tree Websites and Features
These are the main features available to members of Tribal Pages:
- Ancestor, descendant, and family charts for each name in members’ websites
- Direct importation of previously created family trees
- Privacy protection for living persons’ information
- Photographs uploaded to websites
- Heritage searches through use of research section
- Protection of website owners’ content
- Availability to others for viewing
- Capability of linking to other websites
- Forum for discussions and assistance
- Communication with other members whose family trees may be linked
Free or Annual Fee
Tribal Pages offers limited web hosting for free upload. Many of the excellent features are available for all members. On the free sites, up to fifty photographs and five hundred words of text for each individual can be entered. Standard sites ($1.95 monthly) can have up to 250 pictures and 1,000 words. Premium sites ($2.95 monthly) allow storage of 1,000 photographs and 2,500 words. Deluxe websites ($3.95 monthly) can have up to 5,000 pictures.
The payments are one-year annual fees that are not automatically debited to members’ cards every year. A comprehensive chart pertaining to the fees and additional services is available on the website.
Visitors, Members, Passwords, and Directory Listings
Visitors and members can search for names. Where the directory listing option is set to allow searches, each site that contains that name will be listed. The results are ranked with Premium sites first, Standard sites second, and Free sites third. Website owners (members) determine who can see or modify their family trees. Several privacy settings are available for control. Family members and friends who have access can, by invitation, update the information.
Valuable Data Backup Protection
As recommended on the Tribal Pages website, make a backup copy of valuable research data. Backup files can be restored to members’ websites, although “This feature is not available to "Free Sites" but is enabled in Standard and Premium upgrades. Backups are GEDCOM (a standard genealogy format) text files which you can import back into Tribal Pages or any of the several applications that accept GEDCOM files”.
With so much work involved in searching and documenting information, it’s always a good idea to secure backups in removable media form and hard copy on paper. It is also a good idea to confirm or disprove information received.
Source:
Kathleen Airdrie - Kathleen has thirty years' freelance writing experience covering history, biographical profiles, environmental and social issues
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