As you may or may not remember, I had created a website once before to give our family a web based news letter of sorts. I've since let it lapse and because it was tied directly to another site that enjoyed pop ups and advertisements, I decided to try again on a server I purchased awhile back that will not be so annoying. I'm also giving web design a try and playing around again. No better time than when a new born arrives.

Our "other" web site is still out there as far as I know (www.familygatherings.freeservers.com), but it had limitations. For one, it was a sub domain, which basically means the freeservers.com was hosting the familygatherings. The down side to that is a long URL or web address and they get their money via ads... those annoying ads! Also, the page designs were limiting too.

Why not just use www.familygatherings.com, right? It's owned by someone else and thus the other reason for the subdomain. I chose to create a site that would reflect a "family tree" name. I did not want to specify a sur name page, as we're all related with different sur names and unfortunately familytree.com was taken too.

What's a guy to do?

I toyed around with the names a little, like other names for family:relations, folks, kin, etc and tree: heirarchy, ranking... so the site was almost named "Folk Ranking" or "Kin Heirarchy". These did not look nor sound right (but in some cases neither does our family at times, right?).

I began looking at alternatives to "family" and/or "tree". Trees have branches and leaves, so I thought why not branches... "Family Branches", sounds a little military. Things got pretty strange for awhile and I'm sure it didn't help that I was drinking scotch at the time.

So where did the "foliage" part come from?

Branches have leaves and I went that route for awhile and eventually I struck on "Family Foliage". It rolls off the tongue nicely and easily memorable (I hope). I also thought, when it comes to the word "foliage" and the many colors seen in the fall, could have some symbolism. Like the maple trees that can produce so many colors, like our family and our backgrounds are linked to the trunk of the tree, but with so many colors and flavors in our lives... past, present and future we become the "foliage". (Yes, I will lay off the scotch next time I try and think of a web site name.)

So there you have it, I hope you find this entertaining. Send me an email with any news, updates, posts you'd like to see or not see regarding our family to:

BigLeaf@FamilyFoliage.com

Pictures and stories are most welcome.

Thanks and enjoy.