Today I am launching what I believe is to be the first TiddlyWiki vertical made for family trees. Quite a few years ago my Grandpa (Ian) showed me the quite extensive family tree he had built it up, and with the power of the web I improved it a bit more and more importantly digitised it (which he was unable to do). Originally I made a quite pathetic application using php/sql to do this which I blame due to my age at the time. It did the job anyway and my Grandpa liked it (but he's quite the technophobe so take that with a pinch of salt).

Any how since then a lot has happened to me. I've joined BT and then Osmosoft where I have discovered and worked on TiddlyWiki and it seemed perfect for family tree construction. I also went into the realms of mind maps and graph visualizations and in the back of the mind I also thought the work I was doing there would be useful for Family trees. However due to time it's taken me a while to get anywhere near that dream of a TiddlyWiki with the purpose of maintaining family trees.

Recently I was reminded that I needed to get off my arse and get this done by my good old Grandpa again (remember him from earlier). He'd been reading the news recently and had been reminded of John Oxx the famous horse trainer. It so happens he's somehow distantly related to my family (my great great great great grandmother was an Oxx) and my Grandpa wanted to remember what this link was (he's getting on a bit) and hadn't because of cause I'd let my family tree break. It so happens that this particular John Oxx isn't digitised in the family tree as my Grandpa could never clarify the link but that's another story...

Anyway I digress I think I've come close with this new development. I have reused code I've written in the VismoLibrary and using two plugins I have made during my time constructing the ILGA project - the AdvancedEditTemplate plugin and the NicerTagging plugin I blogged about previously (see Nicer Tagging). The result (I believe) is a good starting point for what could be a great TiddlyWiki vertical in the field of genealogy (although it still needs a lot of work - has not even been fully tested in IE :))

Anyway I believe seeing does better than words in this case. Checkout the example (my family tree) - there is a link here to get your own copy as well. Let me know your thoughts by commenting below.