Instructions

How to register?

Your first task is to register yourself as a user. At the moment this can only be done by you using the “Contact Us” link to send me a request by email.  Please introduce yourself and suggest a user name for yourself, I will register you and email you back your login details and password, I hope to streamline this process soon.

Upon entering the site, you may change your password by clicking “My Profile” and entering and verifying your chosen password to something more easily remembered and meaningful for you. Please make this password one with considerable strength and consider making it 8 characters long with perhaps some upper and lower case shifts and including numerals. Each time you Log In you will be taken to the data entry page.

Please take the time to add some details in your profile. Contact phone number and other details are especially helpful if it becomes necessary to check with you about some changes you have made to the data.

The adding of a single triangle

Firstly, it is easiest to set your parents in place. You can do this by “finding” them with a search. PLEASE NOTE – it is very important, and to save a lot of restoration work, that you are very careful not to add an entry if it already exists. This is the reason that you must do a “FIND” first. A successful Find (and VIEW) will place your family member in the recently viewed column on the right of the screen and once featured there, their names will be presented to you conveniently when clicking them into place in your triangle as your parents.

See FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for hints on searching for success. Basically, the rule is to widen the search by requesting the shortest string of characters in their name. You can place an * before or after this string to let you see all possible spellings. e.g. car* will find Carl, Carly, Carol, Carolyn, Caroline, Carolina, Carolynne and many more first names, but if you search for “Caroline”, you will not be offered any alternative spellings and may miss your mother’s entry, if it was entered as “Carolyn”.

Then you need to find your own entry. Do not assume you have not been entered. Many people will be added by others, especially your own children who may have created their own triangle which of course includes you. When you find your own entry, please feel free to correct any errors and add any other important information. After all, you alone are the most important expert about facts for you.

After a “find”, the selected record sits at the top of the screen in a convenient panel. If you wish to make any changes at all, you simply need to click to Edit.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT – No changes will be made to the database unless you remember to click “Save Changes” after any adjustments are made to your records. So after making any changes to your data panel, remember to save before moving to the next step.

Each panel records the vital information designed to uniquely identify this person. It is known as a UPI or Unique Person Identifier. The first two fields are for the person’s name as in the official record such as a birth certificate. So females who subsequently marry will use their maiden (born) name here. This section has room for three (3) fields and these can be used for First Name, Middle Name and Family Name (Surname at Birth). One technique is to use Middle Name to include your father’s first name in ( ). So Leonard John Norman son of Jack and known as Len Norman, may enter the following and the other fields are self-explanatory.

Details for          Edit Details

First Name Leonard
Middle Name John (Jack)
Surname at Birth Norman
Known as First Name Len
Known as Surname Norman
Gender M
Date of Birth 1944-06-31
Place of Birth Sydney, NSW, Australia
Year of Death
Founding family El Khoury Youssef

 

Special note about the “Founding family” field.

You will be offered a choice of the 5 families or “Unsure” or “Not from Kfarsghab”. Your family will be handed down through the male line. All descendants of Kfarsghab should enter a family choice or “Unsure”. Other family members should choose “Not from Kfasrghab”.

Adding your parents

When you have found all three parts of your triangle (father, mother, self), you may select your own record and then to add your parents, you may click the Edit option or else scroll down and click Add Parents.

This action will create a list from your recently viewed selections. You will see your parents in the list with two columns headed “Father” and “Mother” available. You simply need to select “Father” next to your father’s line and “Mother” next to your mother’s line.

It is very important to then click “Save Changes” to complete the process.
You may wish to make additional contributions for people in your family. If you know Aunty Millie may not get a chance to use the system, you may add records for her.

What is a Wiki?

This system is based on heuristics or commonly known as a wiki. It harnesses the combined knowledge of a community. Anyone may add or make changes to data and as each person fixes errors they are qualified to make, the data continually improves in quality and accuracy over time. This is how Wikipedia was built.

A heuristic system is one that learns from its users and grows gradually over time as more and more attention is given to it. Once a piece of data is upgraded to an irrefutable truth, then it should remain so because nobody should change it without reasonable cause such as the finding of an original birth certificate long-believed to be lost.