Registration
Sunday, 24 January 2010 12:14
If you read the link just above this one, the link called "About McBroom.Org", then you know this website exists for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to help McBrooms and McBroom researchers with their genealogy work. You also know that this site is broken down into three parts: Forums, Database, and Documents. So far, so good.
The question now may be, "How can I register to add the information I have to this website?". If that is your question, bear with me, and I'll explain what you need to do at this point.
As explained in "About McBroom.Org", this site is actually several different websites pulled together in one place. You can gain access to each part of the site, but each registration process is different, because each part of the site uses different software to operate. Yes, it takes a little bit of effort to make two registration requests instead of one, but if you're doing genealogy research, then you won't mind.
FORUMS: The forums are the "question and answer" part of the website. Everyone can read what is in the forums, but if you want to make a new post (i.e., ask a question), or reply to one of the posts (i.e., answer a question), then you'll need to register for the forums. This is done easily. Just follow the front page menu link to the Forums, and there is a "Register" link in the upper right hand corner of the page. Just click that link, and answer the questions.
Your request for posting priviliges will be handled by the server soon, and in five or ten minutes you should receive an email asking you to verify your registration. Your account will not be active until you reply to the verification email.
DATABASE: Everyone can read the database and see all the persons in the database, as long as the persons were born prior to 1910. Persons born 1910 or later can be seen only by registered users of the database. (This is a whole different registration process than the one used for the forums.) This restriction is intentional, to help protect the personal information of people who are still living. As a genealogical researcher, you'll understand the value in this.
There is no "Register" link for the database. Registration for the database is done manually by the site admin. (That's me.) To get full access to the database, the website admin (that's me) will have to get to know a little bit about you first. The easiest way to do this is to register for the forums, and make some posts there about your McBroom research. Even if you're just getting started, there's something you know that you can contribute to the discussion. Make a post about what you have learned, the family connections you have found, ask for help with a research problem, etc. Once you have established yourself on this site by contributing to the forums discussions, contact the site admin (that's still me) via email and request full access to the database.
If you want to be able to edit and modify the database, you'll have to email me, and we'll talk about that. Permission to modify the database is extremely limited, and very few have access to that. As a researcher, you understand the importance of proctecting the integrity of your data.
If you have worked with some of the well established McBroom researchers, such as Doug McBroom (Texas) or James McBroom (Washington), that will help validate your credibility as a researcher.
If you don't have full access to the databse, and still want to contribute to it, you can send a gedcom file to me, and after reading it, I will integrate it into the database. To avoid duplicating persons already in the database, and to avoid replacing validated data with shaky data, all gedcom merging is done manually by the admin. The database stays smaller as a result, but I believe the info there is more relaible.
DOCUMENTS: If you have a document you'd like to add to the site, please send it, attched to an email, to the site admin or place it somehwhere on the web, and send me a link to the document. Wills, estate inventorries, scans of family Bible pages, court documents, anything that will help other McBroom researchers is welcome. You can send your document in any digital format you wish, including jpg. MS Word, gif, tiff, Word Perfect, psd, etc. Your document will be scanned for viruses, read for relevance, converted to pdf, and then added to the document list.
We're all in this together, so if you have found this site to be of any value at all, please contribute to the general body of knowledge about the McBrooms.
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