Before the Internet, sharing the fruits of all your hard genealogical work with relatives and fellow researchers meant lugging pedigree charts to family reunions, printing books, photocopying and even using something called a mimeograph. If you wanted to show your family tree to someone across the country, you needed plenty of postage stamps. Today, however, you can post pedigrees online for free, for others to access in the blink of a modem.

Personal genealogy pages have sprouted faster than you can Google for Poindexter family history. Homegrown sites have helped make genealogy the second-most-popular topic on the Web, behind only pornography.

But just like porn sites (presumably), there are good homemade genealogy sites and there are bad ones. Since bad sites make it harder for the rest of us to share the results of the creators' research, we thought we'd see what could be learned from the good personal genealogy Web sites. From the best sites, in fact㬆 of them, selected by scouring the Web until our eyes ached and our mouse-clicking fingers cramped.

DIY dos and don'ts
As we searched for stellar family tree sites, we were reminded of some Web-design dos and don'ts. Whether you're planning your first site or remodeling an existing home on the Web, keep these tips in mind:

• Do include a title for your Web site, a mission statement or paragraph outlining the site's content, links to your main categories and contact information. If visitors know a little background about your research and what information you've made available from your family history findings, it piques their interest in browsing your site and gives them some direction in their search. They might discover you share a common ancestor! You also want visitors to be able to contact you in case they too have research information about your family line. Including a link to your e-mail address on the home page and the subsequent pages seems to be the most common approach used by successful Webmasters.
• Do organize your site in an easy-to-navigate manner that will guide visitors rather than confuse them. Clean, uncluttered page design always works best. Provide a link to the home page on each page of your Web site, too. Remember that not every visitor will enter your site via the home page.
• Do make sure your links work. Personal Web sites are works in progress. Every link may not be active, but the ones that are should connect to the proper pages. Nothing frustrates Web surfers more than being unable to access the information they click on.
• Don't design a circus. Putting together a personal Web site allows you to be creative. The computer screen is your canvas. But refrain from posting animated icons and musical sound bites that play continuously. Sure, you want your genealogy Web site to stand out. You want visitors to recognize the hard work and creative thought you've put into each page. But sometimes less is more. A Scottish roots site can show ethnic pride without a plaid background that makes it impossible to read the text on top. If your home page has a Southern theme, a repeating rendition of "Dueling Banjos" will likely repel more visitors than it entertains. Dancing trees aren't a requirement for a visually appealing family site—they'll only detract from the family history data you're trying to showcase.
• Do keep it simple. Use easy-to-read fonts that stand out from your background. Cursive or blocky typefaces are often hard to read, and italics should be used sparingly.
• Do keep photographs small to minimize download times; you can use thumbnails, linked to larger versions of the images, to efficiently present a gallery of pictures.
• Don't overload your home page, but make it a welcoming gateway to the rest of the information your site holds.
  

Finally, before your Web site goes "live," look at it on other computers. Appearance varies by browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer or AOL), operating system (Mac or PC) and monitor size. Just because you have the latest and greatest computer on the market and a cable modem doesn't mean your fellow family historians do. Keep those older computers and pokey dial-up connections in mind when designing your site.

The 10 personal genealogy Web sites featured here are the cream of the crop. Take some time to visit them. They might inspire you to clean up your existing family history site, or to put your own fascinating family story online.

An American Adventure
www.phillipsplace.net/genealogy

Butler Family of Cromwell, Connecticut
www.cromwellbutlers.com

Diane's Den
members.tripod.com/dianewhittaker

Doyle Genealogical Database Master Index
www.gentree.com/databases/Doyle

Genealogy In England
www.genealogyinengland.com

Hackley's X Roads
members.cyberrealm.net/rockfish

McColloch Family Heritage & Genealogical Research Site
www.mccolloch.com

Minerd-Miner-Minor Family Web site
www.minerd.com

The Wainwrights of Penistone Parish Yorkshire, England
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wewain/Wainwright/Wainwright.htm

Wayne Coffey Genealogy
www.mindspring.com/~wcoffey/coffey/coffey.html

Crystal Conde is assistant editor of Family Tree Magazine and editor of our weekly e-mail update. Sign up for this free newsletter on our Web site at www.familytreemagazine.com/newsletter.asp.