Information

This page provides information for anyone who wants to know more about this family website. The information is divided into four sections:

• Background, what caused me to set up this website.
• Content, what kind of information can be found on this website.
• Access, how to access the website and what the benefits are.
• Contributing, how can you make corrections or add new information.
• Security of this website.

Background

My name is Eric Grivel and I have been the owner of www.grivel.net since 2002. In fact, I started that site because of I have always been interested in collecting information about my family.

I started out collecting information (initially just lists of aunts, uncles and cousins) when I was still in college. I was using Word Perfect back then to create documents for each of the branches of my family. I used to take a binder with print-outs when we visited family and ask them to augment the information.

Collecting information about the family took a backseat for a while after we moved to the U.S. In the last few years, I have taken this up again, moving into a more modern format, and using on-line resources to find more and more ancestors.

All of this culminated in the summer and fall of 2019 in the creation of this website, family.grivel.net. I have incorporated all the information I collected over the years, and am now eager to reach out to family members again, adding more and more information.

I believe that what started as my own hobby can now grow into a resource that is valuable for others as well. A place where we can re-connect with family members we used to know in the past and maybe discover new distant cousins in our shared family tree.

In addition to providing value now, I also hope that this site is going to be a resource in the future. I hope to keep this site alive for a long time, even interesting the younger generation to keep it up after I'm no longer here. Being digital, it will be easier than ever to copy the information and share it among the family.

For questions or comments I can always be reached via email.

—Eric Grivel
family@grivel.net

Content

Who is in the archive?

The idea behind this website is to capture the family of my wife and myself. Whether or not someone has a place on this website is determined as follows:

• It starts with all ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.) of my wife and myself.
• All descendants of all ancestors are included (children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc.).
• The partners (husband / wife, partner, etc.) of the ancestors and descendants are listed as a separate person. But I only include the names of these partner’s parents, and of any children who are not family, no further details.

An example to explain this better:

• I am in the archive.
• My father and mother are in the archive as two of my ancestors.
• My brother is one of my parents’ descendants.
• My father’s first wife is one of his partners and is in the archive.
• The parents and possibly children of my father’s first wife are only included by name, there is no further information on this website about them.

Basic information

I try to collect the following basic information about family members. For privacy reasons, not all data of living or recently deceased persons is shown on the public site.

• Exact official name, and nickname if different from the first name. Only the first name (or nickname) is displayed on the public site.
• Date and place of birth. Not shown on the public site.
• Names of parents.
• If applicable, date and place of marriage (partnership, cohabitation) and name of partner; if dissolved (divorce), date and place of dissolution. Only the name of the partner is displayed on the public site.
• If applicable, children.
• If applicable, date and place of death. Only the fact that the person has died is shown on the public site.

Photo of the person

I try to provide a “profile” photo with every person on this website where possible. The purpose of this photo is to properly represent the person’s face.

For still living persons, a photo is only shown with their permission.

Contact details

I collect the private email addresses of the family members, exclusively for my own use. I use those email addresses to ask questions about the family, and every few years to ask if the information on the website is still orrect.

I also give everyone the opportunity to display contact information on the public site. This is to give others the opportunity to contact them, and is entirely voluntary.

The public contact information can be for various social media networks: email, facebook, twitter, instagram, linkedIn, and so on. I do not collect addresses or telephone numbers; if someone wants to know those, they must contact the family member themselves.

I never give out email addresses that are not on the public site. If someone approaches me to contact a family member, I will forward that request to the family member, who can then decide whether or not to respond.

Memories

The basic data mentioned above is just the beginning of forming an image of a person. They are important for future genealogical research, but do not really provide a picture of who the person is (or was).

The memories of a person are meant to give such a better picture. These memories can be anything. Someone can tell about his own life, but it can also be stories about parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. Some memories are a page or more long, others are a line or two.

As part of the memories, there is also the possibility to include more photos than just the person’s “profile photo.”

Language

The content of this archive is mostly available in English and Dutch. Some, but not all, information is also available in Spanish.

Access

The vast majority of the website is publicly accessible, but some information about living people is protected. This information (full names, date and place of births, marriages, etc.) is only available after logging in.

When logged in, every person’s details also explain how you are related to that person.

Family members can ask me to get full access so that they too can see the protected information. This is a manual process, so it can take a few days. Send me an email at family@grivel.net with the request and I will add you.

Access goes by your email address. The first time you go to the website you must enter a password. You can always change this password later.

Contribute

If you are family, or have further information about family members on this website, I highly appreciate every contribution! There are many different ways to contribute to this website, big and small, and all are welcome.

The first thing I would recommend for family members is to request access to the entire site. This can be done by sending an email to family@grivel.net. Once you have access, you can see exactly what information is already available.

The details of the kind of information that I am looking for for this website are extensively described above in the content section.

Changing information on the website is always through me. My email is everywhere on this website, and if you find errors or want to add information you can always reach me via email. Or possibly via my facebook account.

In addition, there is a “Feedback” button on every person information page to send an email directly to me.

Interview

I would really like to interview family members. Such an interview consists of a telephone conversation (preferably via Skype) where I try to document memories. I have noticed that it is much easier for people to talk about themselves, their parents and other family members in a conversation than to write it down in an email.

After the interview, I will process my notes and write a number of “memories” to post on the website. Before those memories are actually added to the website, I will first ask the interviewed person for permission.

Security

This website contains information that is not publicly accessible, information that must be protected. The website can only be reached via encrypted access (the “https” protocol, and the padlock symbol in the browser). The database itself is also encrypted.

However, the majority of the website is publicly accessible. Anyone on the Internet can see the website and publicly available information, can include shortcuts to the website, and it is expected that Google and other search systems will include the family website in their file.