Creating and Sharing a Genealogy Database Online

Those who have been doing genealogy research for a long time often accumulate or come across information that would be much easier to use if it was in a database that could be quickly searched. For example, many GenWeb sites have numerous cemeteries transcriptions, each in a separate list. Combining those transcription pages into one single, searchable database would make ease of use for visitors so much better.

There is a fairly simple and free way to create a searchable database that can be embedded into most web sites. DabbleDB at http://dabbledb.com/ lets you create a database by pasting information from an Excel spreadsheet or via direct input at the Dabble site. You don’t have to know SQL or PHP and your web site hosting package doesn’t have to support those functions.

Preparation of the spreadsheet is probably the most time consuming aspect. If you are merging several sources into one spreadsheet, and they aren’t in a standard format, then time has to be spent formatting them. For those with some experience using Excel it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Once you have your database built at Dabble, you create a searchable “view” and are given the code to embed the database at your web site.

You can see a Dabble database in action (embedded on a web page) here.