Heycuz Website Overview

Ever since 1997, Heycuz has been a cousin-helping-cousin effort. Committed cousins have freely shared their research, helped answer questions, and participated in a exchange of stories, photographs, jokes, and helped to preserve our family histories. Cousin-submitted trees have helped develop a huge database of our ancestral branches. This new site will allow that free exchange even better. In the past, the administration of the database was limited to one person. When cousins submitted their corrections or family trees, they had to wait until the administrator had time to enter them into the database. All that changes with this new site. Now, registered cousins will be able to make their own corrections and updates. Those corrections are immediately viewable. I (the administrator) am no longer "The Keeper of

the Database."

New Features

The Family Tree database is powered by a great new software called "The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding," (TNG) and its features are just what our Heycuz group needed to take us to the next level. Some of the new features of TNG include:

Simple and advanced searching
Editing rights, or--if not registered--suggestion posts--on individual "pages"
Multiple report formats, ancestral and descendancy charts.
Ability to print pdf reports on any individual
Upload and link source documents, histories, and photographs to individuals, families, and sources.
GPS mapping, to show you exactly where your ancestors/cousins lived, moved, or are buried.
Protection for the living. Visitors to our site will be unable to view living data.
Gedcom export: Now you can download a gedcom of up to 8 generations so you no longer have to re-enter data that has been changed.
Changes shown at a glance in our "What's new" page which shows the most recently added photos, histories, headstones, and individual and family records.

But that's not all. There are so many exciting features that its impossible to list them all. To read more about TNG see their features page at http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/features.php

Other New Heycuz Site Features

While the database is the largest section and most important section of Heycuz, the new site offers much, much more that make it a true cousin-powered community.
Some of the features include:

Individual photo galleries
News about, posted by, cousins
Reviews about the newest books we're reading or writing and how to find that lost book
Forums, cousins can post their most wanted questions, other queries, handle their special projects (like the Pioneer homesteads mapping project), and gather around the kitchen table to share family stories or just chat.
Weblinks to our favorite sites to do research
Personal blogs: every member has the ability, and is encouraged, to have their own columns with the opportunity to share everything from their current research or just whatever's happening in their lines.

This site's future has never looked better! But, of course, it all depends on you to help make it great. Been to a reunion? Post it! Found a new book? Review it. Got a question? Ask it. Remember a family story? Tell it!