To optimize this set of data for a single place to update family history information, the solution I designed is to use a plain text format called AsciiDoc.

I have been in situations where I have had to update multiple places with changes and this can quickly get out of control. Family history is too important to let mistakes creep in because I forgot to update the book after updating the website. This solution allows me to update one place and the change propagates to all forms of published content from that source.

This choice allows me to use free tools.

For more details, see the book, Making eBooks - How To Make and Publish your Books With Free Tools, by Michael Lynnmore at amazon.

Of course, a future maintainer may choose an entirely different path.

If I can’t find a descendant interested in maintaining this data, then I may stop when I pass from mortality.

I use a free tool to create the website, called Hugo. It is a static site generator that allows me to build and rebuild the site easily using the format of Text that I chose to use, called AsciiDoc.

I used mostly png files for images.

I edit images in a free rastor editor called gimp.

With this plain text format, which should be able to last decades without going bad, I have chosen to apply asciidoctor conditional publishing to produce both the book and website from the same data source.

So if you want to maintain this data, you need to learn the following:

For both print and ebook options, I am using asciidoctor.

For print, I use asciidoctor-pdf. It is a small piece of code written in Ruby and can be easily added using gem install asciidoctor-pdf after you have installed the Ruby programming language on your machine.