About this site

 In order to publish our family history research, we have used two software packages, which work in tandem, to build Wakefield-Ancestry…

WP is described as “a popular, free and open-source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL, which runs on a web hosting service”.

This is the ‘outer wrapper’ of the site and has free access to all visitors. It does contain some relevant snippets of genealogical info to preview our family history research.

TNG is written by Darrin Lythgoe and also based on PHP and MySQL, which runs on a web hosting service. This software powers the family history/genealogy section of our site.

This is the ‘inner part’ of the site for accessing the family history information. This is based on the research of our parent’s ancestors and includes many photos, documents, sources and more. Access is by registration only and is usually reserved for family members.

Our ‘Method’

Our site is a type of integration of WP & TNG. We tried the regular method using the ‘TNG plugin’ and the WordPress theme ‘Suffusion’ and, after a certain amount of experimentation with styles, this worked reasonably well.

However, possibly due to the amount of file redirection required in the htaccess file, we noticed an annoying lag between clicking with the mouse and the actual display on the screen. As our TNG site required users to log in to view the data, it was also necessary for them to be set up in WordPress too. Added to that a ‘ReWrite rule’ in htaccess was required to directly access TNG Admin in order to confirm any changes were completed correctly.

For us the integration using the ‘TNG plugin’ system was good but not ideal for administration of both programs. We read a posting in the TNG Forum for a re-designed web site called Kloosterman Genealogy and Emigrants to America.

Cees Kloosterman had used a slightly different approach without the use of the ‘TNG plugin’ – go here to view his instruction page. Initially we were put off by his use of ‘Artisteer’ & ‘WP Tuxedo’ to make the theme and menu system for his site. However, his method can still be utilised without them (Artisteer & WP Tuxedo) and simply replacie them with a native WordPress theme. Be aware that not all WP themes work well in this situation.

We followed Cees’ instructions and still utilised our existing ‘Suffusion’ WordPress theme. It took some experimentation and messing around with style sheets to make WP & TNG look seamless. Initially, as Cees pointed out, there was some conflict with jQuery functions, but this was not a deal breaker. Cees listed a workaround for this conflict and Darrin Lythgoe incorporated it into the newly issued version 10.0.0.1 of TNG.

We swapped our WP theme from Suffusion to Mantra v.2.3 by Cryout Creations and created a child theme. Suffusion had way too many configurable options for us and we wanted something easier to manage. This was our personal preference as Suffusion is a popular theme with TNG/WP integrators. We have since used several different WordPress themes and modified the css to produce a style which suited.

Now, the site pages load much more quickly. In part this is due to a reduction of file Redirects/ReWrites but also because both TNG & WordPress are using the same database.

It is important to state that the ‘TNG WordPress plugin’ method works well (certainly up to v.10) and several people have put in an enormous amount of work to ensure that it does so. There are many excellent sites that have utilised this method successfully. For more info about using TNG & WP with the tng-wordpress-plugin read this article in the TNG Wiki.

We chose to use the ‘Cees Kloosterman’ method because it suits our particular needs more readily. As we only require user registration/login for the TNG software, there are no plugins required and it is easier to set up and administer.

WW – March 2014