The photo above shows the extended Charlie Moore family c.1938
Left to Right the little ones in the front row: John Moore, Betty Jo McGraw (Pepper), Dema Faye Moore (Smith), Bennie J. Duncan; Left to Right the adults: Paul Moore, Orene Moore, Charles Moore, Virginia Lee Pepper (Earl's daughter), Cahterine, Truman, Virgie Ann, Novell Boyd Moore, Georgia, Lewis, and Earl Pepper. Earl's wife took the picture.
(Click on the image to see a larger version of this photograph.)

The Family Then and Now website seeks to be more than just another listing of ancestors and descendents. We want to make family history personal and appealing. We want our web site to be full of interesting stories and pictures ... as well as facts. And we want it to be easy to trace and get to know one's ancestors or their descendents.

It is our goal to provide contextual historical information as well as the particular individual details about and links between various family members past and present. Even though this site has been online for over a year now, it is still very much a work in progress with the basic individual data being collected and linked together. Most of our planned features are now in place with some others still to be added.

Recently Added Features:

• The newest addition to the FTaN website is the FTaN SlideShow. It is updated each month with new images added to the mix of randomly sorted photographs of the various individuals and family groups. And, if you can't spare the 45 minutes to see them all at once, it can even keep track of your place to pick up where you last left off viewinng the over 450 family pictures.
• Another new section is based on a totally separate GEDCOM database primarily collected from information on Ancestry.com which relatively quickly helped locate and extend several family lines ... some as far back as the tenth century. These pages are not as graphically styled - they are more of a gloried database display with lots of internal links. It has not been as carefully edited and should not be considered as exact as our primary data pages, but if you want to look way back into the past this will allow you do so. Each individual page shows spouse(s), children, siblings, and parents, and provides links to each of those individuals as well as to a four generation chart which includes all siblings of each generation.
• A special section of Group Photos has been added and is being slowly expanded. It allows the site visitor to hover their cursor over each image and see pop-up the name of each known person in the photograph. Each person so identified will be linked back to their personal data page as well.
• Another special section added is Special Maps which shows the locations of various ancestors at certain points in time and trace their migrations, crossings, and mergings. Over time this set of maps will be expanded to cover additional areas and family lines.
• Minor modifications to the Life Timelines show the age of the individual underconsideration at each year and a reduction in the number of years before and after their lifetime that are shown for historical context.
• A major addition to the FTaN website was the automatic masking of "under age" living individuals - which we define as being under 60 years old. This provides privacy of their personal information from the general public's eyes while making it possible for grants of special access to be given to trusted close family members upon request for limited periods of time. Over time individuals may age out from under the mask automatically without the need for an editor to specifically search them out and change the underlying database record.
• The privacy masking function is, also, able to mask other individuals (60 years or older) upon their request to have their information kept out of public view. Likewise, it is now possible for individuals to grant the Family Then and Now website their specific permission to display their information to make it easier for their cousins to keep up to date on their extended family members.
• The site security structure has been modified to allow for potential Assistant Editors to access and update the database along specific family lines. This will enable additional individuals who has special interest in and hold knowledge of those particular family lines to serve as editors and thus speed the process of filling out the database with information. (The automated masking feature was added to make certain that our standard privacy policy was adhered to by all editors.)
• One of the newer features adds stories of the lives of our various family members. And we are just starting to populate the data base with stories we know about some of our ancestors. Chances are that we don't know all, or even most, of our family member's life stories. So if you know of any family stories, whether exciting or unique or it is just basic life information, we would welcome your providing them to us for inclusion.
• A unique feature is the extensive social, political, medical, and scientific historical context within which our ancestors lived and worked and raised their families which eventually made us who we are and located us where we are. Just click on the Time Line of Life link just to the right below their name on each individual information page. This timeline of each person's life along with historical milestones help us put their life into persective.
• The lower part of the Home page has a list of family events that happened on today's date. Links are provided to get more information about the individuals listed on each day. Also, links to the previous day, the next day, a listing of events that happened on some unknown day in this month, and the ability for you to choose any date will all display the family events on those days as well.
• The ability to chart the ancestors of a particular person back several generations is provided along with links to each of their ancestors individual data pages. Just click on the Pedigree Chart link next to the parents listing on each individual information page. These Pedigree Charts are specially formatted to allow easy print out onto a standard 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.
• A textual search function is now provided in addition to the right side bar alphabetical listing of family member names both of which can be used to locate information about a particular family member.
• And photographs of every family member of whom there is a photo we can obtain is now in the process of being added. Of course photography was not invented until around 1860 so the earlier members will not be available anywhere, but in a few cases there are painted portraits of earlier family members. Both individual and group photos will be displayed.

Coming Features:

• Data fields to show "Special Interests / Characteristics" for each individual will be added to the database and individual data display pages.
• The creation of a multiple generation Descendants List page for those individuals for whom we have such information is currently under consideration. This will provide a look (with as much as is known) beginning with an individual down through time to their children, grandchildern, and great-grandchildern.
• Another primary feature to be added and perhaps the most unusual for a site such as this, is the plan to eventually add a current family communication function which will allow various family members who have become disconnected by miles and time to reconnect and keep up with the current family events of their relatives.

A few more ideas are in mind, but the above listing will keep me busy for a while to come. If anyone would like to volunteer to help make all of this take shape, please contact the editor.