Genealogy Hosting - getting started with your genealogy website
Welcome to GenealogyHosting.com. If you are visually impaired and would like to check the availability of a domain, make a purchase, or just have questions please call us at (480) 624-2500. You may also email us at support.secureserver.net to request a website service callback.  We are currently in the process of implementing more accessibility for our visitors so feel free to check back in the near future. Thank you for your interest in our company.
GenealogyHosting.com
ICANN • My Account• What's New• Getting Started• About Us• FAQ• Support: (480) 624-2500Logout
 
• Sample Websites• Articles• Our Books (via Lulu)• More Reasons • e-Mail List Signup
WARNING!

Genealogy information contains personal information by its' very nature. Here are some rules for putting your information on the public internet.
Mother's maiden name:
Be very careful about revealing your mother's maiden name. This is often used as a password hint.
Your Children or Grandchildren:
Never put any information about living underage children on the internet.
Living People:
Never put any information about living people on the internet unless they have given you permission.
 
Announcements

Just Published -
New Book!

"Getting Started on Your Genealogy Website"

Click Here
(via Lulu.com)
 
Follow These Easy Steps to Get Started on Your Genealogy Website
Here is the sequence of things to do to get started on your genealogy website. Just click on the title of each item to be taken to the corresponding web page to complete that item.
Create an Account (Click Here)
If you haven't done so already then start by creating an account with us. There is no obligation. Your information is protected and we will never sell or abuse your e-mail address or your account information.

Obtain A domain name: the www address (Click Here)
This is the website network name that people will use to access your website. You might select a non-commercial domain name such as www.yourfamily.org for your genealogy website. Once you obtain your domain name, it's yours for life (all you have to do is pay the nominal yearly fee.)
 

Note - Free with Every Domain (Click Here)
When you register your domain name, you get many free services including free ad-supported websites (both a regular website and a blog website).   These free versions of the website products listed below are a great way to get started for the small yearly fee of a domain name!

Once you get your feet wet and learn the basics of website technology, you may not want to continue to have an ad-supported genealogy website since this may not send the message you want (after all, genealogy is a serious, scholarly avocation).  At that point, you can easily upgrade to a regular website by paying a small monthly fee.
Obtain a website (Click Here)
If you prefer to not have an ad-supported website, you can pay a small monthly fee for a regular website. There are two ways to go when obtaining your website depending on how involved you want to be with the technical implementation.  For minimum technical involvement, you can select our Website Tonight tool®.  This website product provides a template-driven website authoring service to build a website using friendly dialogs. Then, behind the scenes, all the technical implementation of your website is taken care of automatically. This is the perfect way to get started. With this product, you can build the structure of a professional website in a few hours and you don't need to know anything about building websites to use this tool.

Or you can have a standard standard hosting plan. This is the form of website that is typical of most websites on the internet . You will be responsible for all technical aspects of the website but this has the advantage that you are in total control of your website. Our standard hosting plans come with a lot of useful features such as more e-mail accounts as well as much more disk space.  It's actually not that difficult to build and maintain a website using a standard hosting plan.  In fact, you can build your site using Microsoft Word which you probably already own and know how to use as discussed next.

Obtain a Website Authoring Application
If you choose a standard standard hosting plan for your website (i.e., instead of our Website Tonight®. websites) then you will need to obtain a website authoring application to construct your website. You purchase the website authoring application separately. The author of the website uses the website authoring application to design each web page which is then generated into HTML by the website authoring application. The best known website authoring applications are Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression Web, or Microsoft FrontPage (which has been replaced by Microsoft Expression Web but is still popular).
 

Note - You may already have a usable
Website Authoring Application:

Microsoft Word:
If you don't already have a website authoring application, you can get started with Microsoft Word.  Microsoft Word can work in HTML as an alternative to its standard ".DOC" format. Not only is Microsoft Word probably already installed on your computer, but you probably already know how to use it.  This means you can put off for the time being purchasing or obtaining a “real” website authoring application. Using this strategy, you would initially just focus on the content of your genealogy, website and use Microsoft Word to “rough” it in. Later, once you have your feet wet, you can obtain and learn how to use a proper website