Please add actual photos of you and your family, not pictures of dogs, cake or whatever. This is a family tree site and it's here so your grandchildren and great grandchildren can learn something about you, so respect the purpose of the site. You may think the picture you add is cute, but it's not appropriate. On FaceBook, since it's a social site, that stuff would be considered ok. Thanks.

Important info regarding Geni's new terms of service and costs: http://www.gensoftreviews.com/?p=528

I knew that I either wanted to be an architect or artist from a very early age, 6. At 4 I exclaimed to my mom "I can see!" to which she replied, "that's nice." But there was something different than just using my eyes to see what was in front of me, there was an ability to capture what I saw within my memory. This lead to a first grade school competition sponsored by the library where I drew a picture of a boy sitting at a table in a library. The background of my drawing was in fact my living room that I could 'see', adding book shelves, a table and the rest, all done at school and approved by my 1st grade teacher. Well, I heard the news from a teacher who knew my mom and me, in the hall at lunch time. She told me "Nick, I'm sorry to tell you this but your drawings was disqualified. They think your parents helped you." Me: "But I did the drawing all in school." Teacher: "I know, even your teacher said you did." Me: "So being disqualified is better than first place, isn't it?" Teacher, now standing up instead of bending over to speak to me as before said, "well yes, you're right." And I said "Well that's okay then," and from that moment until today I knew I could draw really well.

It was my ability to draw, and see, and my fascination with architecture where in 3rd grade I was sketching floor plans of my school to discover what the spaces I couldn't see must be like, that put me on my road. But more than just architecture or rendering it has really been a journey about understanding the world around me in order to put that knowledge to use for helping others. In many ways, I have a solid foundation, but have yet to really start on my quest to change the world for the better.

(someone else wrote this first blurb... very useful)

Reducing Email Notifications when inviting someone If you DO want to invite people to join the tree, then I have learned (the hard way) that most people are driven away by the many daily emails this site sends. The following is an important technical tip on how to reduce this "spam" in advance.

AFTER you have filled in their email address, and pressed the Invite button, go to the URL bar of your browser, and substitute everything to the left of the long number (their profile ID) with the following text, and press Return:

http://www.geni.com/account_settings/notifications/

This will take you to THEIR account settings, regarding email notifications. I recommend disabling all of the **daily** emails ONLY (the middle block), and leaving everything else as is. If you disable the lower block, then you pretty much prevent people from being able to use this site to communicate with each other (because they won't be notified about diddly).

Do NOT forget to press the Save Button.

Once they accepted your invitation and joined, only they will be able to change these settings (via Settings on the top-right of any page). But this might be a bit much for the technically challenged or the elderly.

Membership: This is a free site. Don't be tricked into paying a membership fee unless you really want to. I won't, but instead if I do find something in another tree I might ask to collaborate, to consider whether we should merge our information or not. You might be asked to post to FaceBook, you can if you like, or you can 'skip' it.

Privacy: This family tree is private and viewable to only those who are invited via email by either me or other family members. It is not a public information. To check, simply copy the URL and paste it in a different browser. You'll get a message that says what I just said, 'it's private!' You can change who can see your email and a lot more.

You like the tree? Well don't just look at it without at least filling in your own details and adding a photo. It's the least you can do (really). To put that in context, I will to the last day of my life attempt to have a photo and birth date for every person listed, as well as some story about the life of significant people. It's a lot of work so your help will be greatly appreciated.

1. By adding your city we can see where everyone lives on a google map (cool).
2. Adding a photo is important as well and is probably the single most important thing you can do to contribute. It should be a head only shot so people can see who it is and what they look like. Please don't post photos of political statements, humor or whatever... this is a family tree and nothing more so give us a hand and post your headshot. Thanks.
3. See someone you know and you also have their email address? Invite them straight from the family tree by just pasting their address there and clicking send (Thanking you in advance for your help!). It's a good idea that you also send the person a regular email saying you've sent them an invite to Geni, and it's free to use and see our family tree, and it's private to only family members.
4. Adding your birth date will also help me not have to do it myself.

Separations, Divorces, Family Disputes, etc.: This place is not about divorces or whatever, it's about the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It is a family tree. They do deserve to know. No child should come here and ask 'why isn't my mom or dad on here, or don't I have grandparents?' In the end a family tree is an objective look at the people who were part of our history, it isn't a look into how that history played out. Stay objective and add your part to make a useful contribution to the whole celebration of life. You can Block a person by going to their page and blocking. You can limit email notifications. You can 'close account' and leave, but remember your family is larger than those immediately around you, and we'll always be here.

My Mistake: I am bound to mark someone as a boy when they're a girl and visa versa, or get the name wrong, etc. Forgive me. But there are a couple of formatting things worth noting: Female married names, the maiden names appear hidden, unless you change your preferences. Same for middle names which by default don't appear, just go to your account settings.

What the heck? You seem to know who everyone is, how is that? I worked on our family history for about 3 years up until around 1997. I do know, just about, everyone's name, their birth date and where they belong in the family tree, for everyone, except people born and married after 1997. It was all done with research, lots of emails, some phone calls and a few visits. I also have an extensive photo documentation, although the quality has been compromised due to a computer failure, and some really great stories and history. While I am compiling it, I don't consider the information mine... it is yours and is equally owned by everyone in the family.

Contact Me: You can always post a comment on my page here or I can be reached at my business address [http://www.simpletwig.com]. Funny how my business is named 'simpletwig' and we're working on a family tree made of hundreds of 'twigs' :-)