Genealogy Databases-How To Advice

[Joan Graham]

Dear Folks:

I hope someone out there has done this, and maybe can offer guidance on
what we'd like to start.
Our library's web sites are hosted by our providers, and we have no
in-house servers. Genealogy researchers visit our site, and we've put a
few records online, using a process described in an article in Computers
in Libraries: Access database, queries to sort all records with last
name beginning with A, etc., then reports saved as html, then an html
file for each letter of the alphabet, and finally a web page that allows
a user to jump to the page where his ancestor's newspaper microfilm
citation might be listed.

What I REALLY want to do, since we'll be putting lots more genealogy
data online, is build a series of databases and make a web page that
provides a search tool in which a user can simply type in a name or
keyword, causing a script to link to one or more databases, and produce
the result on the web page for the user. I can create a database, and do
the html page, but it's the rest of the process that I need to learn.
Should I use Access? Someone told me never, ever use that, get Oracle or
DB2. What do those of you with experience recommend?
What links the web page and does the search, returning the result from
the database? If it's Cold Fusion, since I don't know a programming
language, is there something on the Web available for this purpose, like
the javascript sites or cgi sites that free scripts for various
purposes? OR, are there remote hosting services that will house your
database or just make a link to it?

Is it possible to purchase a server for in-house, that has enough power
to just run a few databases, while the rest of our site remains on the
server of our current provider?

As you can see, I'm starting from scratch and would greatly welcome and
appreciate any advice from people who are using any of the above
options, or their own techniques for databases.

Joan Graham, Webmaster
Stark County District Library