About 15 years ago I received the first genealogical data from my brother Matthias on a lot of paper. This information was later transcribed into a digital database using genealogy software and extended by the immediate family with new entries, photographs, and documents for their ancestors and descendants.

I was asked to show the often spoken about but elusive family tree by relatives, siblings and daughters. So, the question of how to share this data emerged. Giving it to a third party, possibly for a fee, seemed improper since it contains information about many living individuals.

This cemented our decision to handle it ourselves. My brother Ansgar helped me to find a service provider which also rents server space. This turned out to be the NetWork team Osnabrück.

Next, we had to pick a name and find a method to post GEDCOM (Genealogical Data Communication) data on the internet. Since the database goes beyond one family name, we picked the neutral name you know since you are reading this on anverwandte.info.

The publishing method was not as easy a task. Should we convert the data into html ourselves or.

In early 2008 I found the genealogy software called PhdGedView, which turned out to be perfect for our needs, being free and full featured with its own database and administration interface. This is how www.anverwandte.info was born.