USGW-HELPPAGES-L Archives

Archiver > USGW-HELPPAGES > 2006-12 > 1165602902


From: Don Tharp <>
Subject: Re: [USGW-HELPPAGES] Large data - need suggestions
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:35:02 -0600
References: <W971773411294971165597236@webmail17>
In-Reply-To: <W971773411294971165597236@webmail17>


Hi Linda,

I am somewhat confused by the size of your marriage records, 6MB. I
have some 4000 marriages posted on .html pages and use only 0.98MB. I
also have copies of the actual certificates in .tif format, but I
don't post them, just tell the researcher they can have one for the asking.

Mine were all posted by using Exel to set them up, using the .prn
feature when saving, which preserves white space as spaces instead of
tabs, and then posting them with the <pre> elements. I don't use
tables on large data bases because of their relative large size.
However, if you do, you can reduce file size by a large amount by
setting the borders to 0.

I've never tried matching marriages and cemetery records although I
do try to match cemetery and obit records.
I hand code and use a simple search engine provided by FreeFind which
will locate and set up links to all of my server files with any name
entered. Not the best in the world I suppose, because the researcher
after going to a linked page still has to find the exact line with
their own browser's find feature.

I will say this for FreeFind, you can limit the pages it searches,
that is you could put the search engine on your marriage pages and
limit the searches to those pages. [cavet - I've never tried this] It
would then search for a surname, bride, groom or whatever on those
pages. It is free and they usually update the files within an hour or
so of your asking, or you can establish a periodic update of your choosing.

I did visit a marriage index posted by BYU that I thought was unique,
it searched for basic information, i.e., name of groom or bride,
listed those found and when clicked on it displayed other groups of
info. The URL is
http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/westernStates/search.cfm
you might wish to view it for ideas.

DonT


DonT



At 11:00 AM 12/8/2006, you wrote:
>I have a problem I'd like to throw out here and hoping you all will
>have some ideas and suggestions. I am so not used to doing manual
>static HTML pages. So here goes...
>My county archives gave me 5400 county marriage records (1857-1907)
>- 6MB+ - now in my database.
>The most usable way to display this is to provide a search so that
>the user can search for a Surname and it brings back every record
>that contains a bride or groom with that name (I would make all
>fields searchable). I could even pull the matching Cemetery
>transcriptions at the same time. Along with the search I would want
>to also provide a listing for browsing that could be sorted by any
>of the fields (names, dates, locations, minister, etc). All this
>would take is 1 or 2 dynamic pages.
>BUT....
>1) There is only 3 MB of available space now (I have a request in
>for more space)
>2) There is no support for database or server-side code to deliver
>it - only static HTML or text files.
>With these two constraints I fear I will have to pick 1 sort method
>(like Groom's Surname) and display by letter of the alphabet. This
>would cause someone looking for a bride surname or other criteria to
>display and hunt through 26 files. Extremely unusable and would be a
>huge frustration / time-eater for a researcher.
>- There is no way I can create a groom and a bride index as it would
>more than double the space needed and duplicate all the data.
>- If I use an XML file to make it dynamic and searchable, the XML
>file would be well over 20MB (no space and way too slow).
>- If I put it all on one page it is just way too big.
>Any and all suggestions are welcomed and valued!! There is no
>limitation to the way I can output this from my database.
>Linda K Lewis
>
>
>
>Visit the USGW-Helppages archives:
>http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=usgw-helppages
>
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