How-to build a genealogy site like this one
Introduction to this guide
This is intended as both a how-to guide and a log of the steps I have taken to construct everything to help me in the event I need to rebuild it in the future. I am not a programmer, I only know enough to hack at the code untill trial and error makes it do what I want.
Major Components
This site utilizes three major components behind the scenes. Not all of them are free, but all are written in PHP and may require code modification to work togeather.
- [WordPress http://Wordpress.org]
- [MediaWiki http://Mediawiki.org]
- [The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php]
Minor components come from:
- numerous Wordpress plugins
- mediawiki components
- perishable press
Installing major components
Some hosting plans offer automatic installations of one or more of these components. While convenient, the do not always provide the flexibility needed to integrate these components. To make this work you will need to go to the official site for each component, download, extract, and manually install them on your server.
- install Wordpress in httpdocs or whatever your default web directory is. Follow all instructions provided by Wordpress.
- install mediawiki in its own directory. For example, a folder called /wiki. Follow all instructions provided by mediawiki. Use the database you used with Wordpress
- install tng in its own directory. For example, a folder called /TNG. Follow all instructions provided by tng. Use the same database you used with mediawiki and Wordpress.
It is very important to use the same database with all three installations.
If you installed everything correctly you will have a directory structure that looks like: