Bookmark Page: The Genealogist's Internet Primer

PRIMER:
Overview
Netiquette
E-mail/Chat
Mailing Lists
Newsgroups
FTP File Transfer
Telnet
Gopher
Websites/Web Search
Cite Sources
Make A Bookmark Page
Create A Home Page

Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Inc.
The Genealogist's Internet Primer, by Sharon L. Brevoort

Make Your Own Bookmark Page
The Basics

If you've been collecting genealogical bookmarks for some time now, you may be having difficulty keeping them organized in your browser's bookmark facility. An easy way to fix this would be to create your own bookmark page, or even a small set of interlinked bookmark pages, saved on your own hard drive.

You can do this using your word processor program or a text editor such as WordPad or NotePad so long as you save the file as a text file instead of a formatted document file.

Now you have a choice:

You can follow these instructions and build your own page from scratch.
You can download a template containing one of the examples we've built here and edit it using your word processor or text editor and the instructions below.

To add some advanced features, see Finishing Touches.

Once your file has been saved, you can access it through your browser right from your disk. There is no need to transmit the file to your Internet service provider's server space. In the box where you would normally type in the URL address of a website, type the location of your file instead. So, if you saved your file on the C: drive under a subdirectory named "bookmarks" in a file named "bookmarks.html", type

c:\bookmarks\bookmarks.html

in the URL address box and press <Enter>. (Use the backslash instead of forward slash here.) On AOL, you must first log on to AOL in order to access the browser, then type in your path and filename and press <Enter> as above.

For those of you with Macintosh computers, the instructions would be similar. If anyone can tell us what the differences are, we can add them here.

Open your word processor or text editor. To open WordPad:

Click on Start in the lower left corner of your screen.
Select Programs, Accessories, then WordPad.

Create the basic file structure.

Type in the basic HTML structure and give your page a name. Most HTML formatting tags come in pairs: <HTML> matches </HTML>, <TITLE> opens the title and </TITLE> closes it, etc. The title appears in the top left corner of your screen when you view the page with your browser. Tags may be entered in upper case or lower case.

Add your category headings between the BODY tags. Make them bold with the and tags to stand out. The break tag is the carriage return at the end of a line.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Bookmark Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
MY BOOKMARK PAGE 
 
Favorite Sites 
 
Societies 
 
Libraries 
 
Link Pages 
 
Query Pages 
 
GenWeb 
 
Commercial Sites 
 
</BODY>
</HTML>

The end result looks like this:

MY BOOKMARK PAGE

Favorite Sites

Societies

Libraries

Link Pages

Query Pages

GenWeb

Commercial Sites

Save the file on your hard drive as a text file with an .htm or .html extension, such as bookmarks.htm or bookmarks.html. To save the file using Microsoft Word, WordPad, or NotePad:

From the menu bar, select File, then Save As.
From the Save As box, navigate to the subdirectory where you want to save the file.
Under File name, give it a filename with an .htm or .html extension.
Under Save as type, select "Text Document" or "Text Only (*.txt)".
Click on the Save button.

Add your links after each column heading.

A link is done with an anchor tag using the format
<A HREF="URL">text</A>
The links are case sensitive, so here's a tip to avoid spelling errors. Keep your editor window open. Log on to the Internet and go to the site you want to link to. Select the URL address by clicking once in the Location window with your left mouse button to highlight the entire address. From your browser's menu bar, select Edit, Copy. Switch to your editor window, position your cursor in your bookmark document, and select Edit, Paste.
We'll add some perennial favorites to our file. Of course, links may change, so there is an advantage in linking to someone else's bookmark page if it is well organized and well maintained. Cyndi's List is the prime example, but even Cyndi's List won't have all the links you want to save, and it may take too much time to navigate through her pages to find that one special link you remember from the last time you were there.

Favorite Sites 
<A HREF="http://www.posom.com/hl/">Genealogy Helplist</A> 
 
Societies 
<A HREF="http://www.hvcn.org/info/gswc/">Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, MI</A> 
 
Libraries 
<A HREF="http://lcweb.loc.gov/">Library of Congress</A> 
 
Link Pages 
<A HREF="http://www.CyndisList.com/">Cyndi's List</A> 
 
Query Pages 
<A HREF="http://query.tbox.com/">Genealogy Toolbox: Query Central</A> 
 
GenWeb 
<A HREF="http://www.worldgenweb.org/">WorldGenWeb</A> 
<A HREF="http://www.usgenweb.com/">USGenWeb</A> 
<A HREF="http://www.rootsweb.com/~migenweb/">Michigan USGenWeb</A>
<A HREF="http://members.tripod.com/~deemamafred/miwash.html">Washtenaw Co. USGenWeb</A>
 
Commercial Sites 
<A HREF="http://www.familytreemaker.com/">Family Tree Maker</A> 
 

The file now looks like this through your browser:

MY BOOKMARK PAGE

Favorite Sites
Genealogy Helplist

Societies
Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, MI

Libraries
Library of Congress

Link Pages
Cyndi's List

Query Pages
Genealogy Toolbox: Query Central

GenWeb
WorldGenWeb
USGenWeb
Michigan USGenWeb
Washtenaw Co. USGenWeb

Commercial Sites
Family Tree Maker

If you want to indent your links, try using an HTML list (UL = unordered list). Replace the UL by OL to create a numbered list (OL = ordered list). For these lists, the break is not needed at the end of each line.

<UL>
<LI>First link or text
<LI>Second link or text
<LI>Third link or text
</UL>

The end result looks like this:

GenWeb

<OL>
<LI>First link or text
<LI>Second link or text
<LI>Third link or text
</OL>

The end result looks like this:

GenWeb

To add a bar between sections use the <HR> tag. Examples:

<HR>

If you feel adventurous, add a few finishing touches such as nested lists, different fonts and font sizes, text colors, graphics, or a two-column table. See Finishing Touches.

Download a template file.

MY BOOKMARK PAGE #1: Basic Page
MY BOOKMARK PAGE #2: Ordered List
MY BOOKMARK PAGE #3: Two-column Table

To save any of these files using Netscape,

Right click on the link above.
In AOL, select Save Target As. In Netscape, select Save Link As.
From the Save As box, navigate to the subdirectory where you want to save the file.
Under File name, change the filename to something meaningful. Keep the .htm or .html extension.
Under Save as type, leave any HTML option selected (Netscape Hypertext Document in AOL) or choose a plain text option if not available.
Click on the Save button.

Alternatively,

Left click on the link above to display that page.
From your browser's menu bar, select File, then Save As.
From the Save As box, navigate to the subdirectory where you want to save the file.
Under File name, change the filename to something meaningful. Keep the .htm or .html extension.
Under Save as type, leave any HTML option selected (Netscape Hypertext Document in AOL) or choose a plain text option if not available.
Click on the Save button.

The Genealogist's Internet Primer:
Overview | Netiquette | E-mail/Chat | Mailing Lists | Newsgroups | FTP | Telnet
Gopher | Websites | Cite Sources | Bookmark Page | Create Home Page

Copyright © 1998-2007, Sharon L. Brevoort. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Permission to print a single copy for personal use is granted.
http://www.hvcn.org/info/gswc/primer/bookmark.htm
Revised 15 October 2007. Send comments or changes to Sharon at wwwgswc@aol.com.
Images © Corel Corporation.