The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding © ("TNG") is a powerful way to manage and display your genealogy data on your own web site, all without generating a single page of static HTML. Instead, your information is stored in MySQL database tables and dynamically displayed in attractive fashion with PHP (a scripting language).

This is how TNG is described on the TNG web site of its author, Darrin Lythgoe.

I think it may be possible that web sites using TNG could be accommodated within the scheme I am proposing. I do not have enough knowledge of TNG to decide whether or not it is definitely possible.

The web hosting company that I have used as the example for my proposal is 1and1.co.uk. Their top two hosting packages ("Unlimited" and "Unlimited Plus") include the following in their specifications [PS. Krystal, the Guild's current web hosting company has a package ("Ruby") that seems identical in all relevant respects.]:

I suspect that this means 1 and 1 [or Krystal] can host TNG sites.

Bearing in mind the purpose of my proposal - to maintain members' one-name studies web sites as live sites indefinitely in the future, the issue of maintenance must be considered. Sites such as mine consisting only of HTML plus Javascript are almost maintenance-free. The main issue that can arise is if the web hosting company collapses. In the long term, and we are thinking about decades not just months and years, companies come and go. But my belief is that the Guild of One-Name Studies will prove more robust than that. With the basic safeguard of backing up, it should be no problem to transfer to a new web hosting company. Whether the data on the MySQL database can be backed up and transferred as easily as HTML pages, will be a question for the feasibility study. Whether TNG web sites can be included in the scheme I have proposed might depend on the answer to this question.

Return to Introduction