1. My Genealogy on the WWW Mike Sheldon AAA www.drmikesheldon.com www.sheldongenealogy.com

2. AAA  Like most of us I have spent many hours visiting libraries and record centres to examine original documents.  There is an issue about the accuracy of on-line information – and how can you check it?  But the future has to be on the www as it is not practical for most people to go back to the original resources – but someone needs to, and make an accurate record of what is there – at a fair price!  These 3 attributes are the most important reason for building a personal web presence.

3. So where should my information go?  SoG library – preferably as a DVD  Put all my papers in a box and in my will pass them on to someone else  Most of us now use computers to record and keep data  Put up my tree on commercial web sites  Have my own web site – or even in cooperation with other researchers

4. The SoG welcomes our research

9. The Internet Generation  We are the past !  Paper will soon cease to be available.  The SoG library will soon be all electronic  How accurate are resources on the web?  A story about indexes.  Ancestry.co.uk

10. Help from the 1841 census ?  Name Index at Ancestry.co.uk is flawed  Looking at the actual pages, what I saw as Sheldon in the images, appear in the index as –  SkeltonSkeltonaSheldenSkeldon  ShddnShelanShelley  AlphenCanstand

11. Ancestry.co.uk  Although the indexers may have got it wrong, at least the original image of the census was also there.  This is a good lesson for always having both – an image of the original and an index of the contents.  So one of my valued items on my web site is the Bigland pedigree.

12. The value of seeing the original sources  Bigland Pedigree story  Book about the Sheldon’s by Barnard. Now out of print but I photocopied most of it.  In it he mentions a full pedigree of the Sheldon’s held by Mrs Warriner of Weston Park.  I visited Warwick library and there I saw an entry for the Bigland Pedigree

13. Bigland Pedigree – my on-line copy

17. AVALIABLE

19. Valuable Resources placed on line  Anyone in the world can see them.  You can update and correct information at any time  Web sites can be archived and so saved for the future.  Other people can contact you with information they have recorded.  An international community of Sheldon researchers can be linked together.

20. The Fosbrook Family

23. More resources I want to record  There is an out of print book about the famous Sheldons by EAB Barnard.  I have a photocopy of it so does Ancestry.co.uk – but they charge you to look at any pages.  I want to put it up for free

25. The Dilemma  Is it better to give your information to a commercial web site and then pay to have access to it.  Or create your own web site (and pay for it) and keep it up to date?  Either may be appropriate – I chose to go my own way.

26. How to make a web site  As it was a few years ago I started I had to study quite a bit about computers first.  Today it is a lot easier.  OU course on web design, and then learned how to use Dreamweaver.

27. Dreamweaver

31. mgsheldon.org

33. Using Search Engines  DONT put – Mike Sheldon – in the box – well down the page as there are so many Mike Sheldons in the world.  DO put – “Dr Mike Sheldon” – comes up at the top after the adverts

52. Any Questions ?