Avid Genealogy Buff Became Webmaster
After researching his family tree history, this hobbiest began a large suite of free researching websites.
PORT NECHES, TX (PRWEB) June 20, 2005 -- Bill Cribbs wasn't always interested
in his family history. Not until he met a tall, burly man with his same last
name at a refinery back in 1989. Because his siblings and he were all
small-framed, Bill couldn't believe that this was a Cribbs from his
lineage.
Curiosity prevailed and Cribbs began his research journey in a
non-conventional way. He visited Clayton genealogy library in Houston and began
to scan the census index books from 1790 to 1870. Most researchers begin with
recent information and work backward in time. Making notes of every Cribbs
census record, he was no closer to finding his ancestors. Virtually nothing was
known about his grandparents, so there were no clues to use to provide
direction.
During one researching trip, Cribbs struck gold. An early work
on the Cribbs family that was compiled in 1922 was found on microfilm. In it he
found references to familiar names. These clues gave him information on which
states and counties he should concentrate his researching efforts.
After
poring through hundreds of genealogical volumes, microfilm, and microfiche,
Cribbs was able to piecemeal his family tree into a database of well over 3,000
names. In the process of doing this he discovered three other distinct Cribbs
lines in the United States. His and one other line was of German descent.
Another of the lines was of Scottish, and yet another was an African-American
line that started during the slavery days.
The man that Bill encountered
back in 1989 turned out to be from the Scottish line, hence the man's large
frame. In fact, Cribbs states that every person that he has encountered from
that line is big-boned and burly.
While compiling his family notes,
Cribbs decided to publish his work on the Internet. In 1998 he began his first
web page and has maintained it ever since. Realizing he had found his newest
hobby, he started the first of a series of genealogy websites called the
"Obituary Links Page" at http://www.obitlinkspage.com, a directory of links to obituary
resources arranged by states and counties.
After about two years of
maintaining that site, Cribbs decided to start a sister site called "Obituary
Central", http://www.obitcentral.com. Obituary Central was a compilation
of obituary search engines, all keyword searchable.
"These sites just
became so popular that it turned into a very time-consuming process to maintain
them," states Cribbs. "The Obituary Links Page is by far the largest directory
of obituary research links on the web. The site points researchers to many
hundreds of obituary collections maintained by online newspapers, funeral homes,
as well as private collections."
Late in 1998, Cribbs' wife, Tina, was
diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. The sudden calamity caused him to
pause his online efforts in order to become her primary caregiver. Being a
pressure vessel inspector by day and a caregiver at night, he was resolved to
maintain the sites as they were without adding new content.
In 2001, as
suddenly as Tina was diagnosed cancer, she was told that she was in remission!
Cribbs began to build on the sites and began two new sites: FamGen.net and
GenLookups.com. FamGen.net is a site that provides researchers a free place to
put their family tree databases. Cribbs offers to build the online database at
no charge as long as the researcher allows him to link to his other sites from
their family tree. He also promotes Ancestry.com products on these pages in
order to help pay for the costs of the sites. GenLookups.com is a directory of
online research volunteers who are willing to freely receive lookup requests
from their personal collections of books and other resources. Also hosted at
GenLookups.com is the popular Marriage Search Engines directory at http://www.genlookups.com/marriages.htm, which contains the
highly-trafficked Texas Marriages and Divorces Search Engines.
Now that
he was holding together four major sites on the web, Cribbs wasn't prepared for
a new calamity. Tina became ill again and it was discovered that tumor had begun
to grow again in her lymph nodes and spread to her lungs, liver, and throughout
her bone structure. Cribbs once again became her caregiver but this time he
maintained his sites while taking care of her. It was during this time that Tina
inspired him to begin a new site for beginning researchers. GenealogyBuff.com,
http://www.genealogybuff.com, was
born.
GenealogyBuff.com, another freely accessible site, funded by
Cribbs' thinning wallet and Ancestry.com commissions, houses a unique surname
search utility and a data library. The surname search utility works by
submitting a surname on the main page form. A dynamically created page of links
is produced that contains a well-organized arrangement of database links,
prefitted with the submitted surname.
"Hundreds of databases from across
the web can be scanned in a very short amount of time," Cribbs explained. From
that list are also links to other categories of links including funeral home
obituary databases, newspaper obituary databases, census records, military
records and user-contributed databases.
Cribbs adds, "GenealogyBuff.com
has become an extremely popular site, and now requires the majority of my
attention. The obituary sites have been acquired by a partnership in California
but I maintain them to keep them the best, most comprehensive obituary sites on
the web."
Now juggling a fulltime job as his wife's caregiver, a father
of four children, a refinery inspector by day, and a webmaster by night, Cribbs'
accepts his challenges with resolve.
"I do it all for Tina. She's the
love of my life and I want her to be taken care of. The sites help to pay for
her treatments with the few Ancestry.com commissions that I make and my job
provides some health insurance."
Cribbs recently posted a dedication page
at http://www.genealogybuff.com/dedication.htm
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb252939.htm