This website is based entirely on the extensive work of Jill Tipton to document the Amestoy family history in Los Angeles. Basically it
posts the files (documents) that she generated in her research and makes them accessible through the Internet. These files were
initially made available with the distribution of her "3rd and Final Edit" of the “Amestoy Family and Encino Ranch History” CD.
The following notes describe what this website contains (and doesn't), how it works, and how it was constructed:
- This website, unlike the CD, is publicly available through the Internet. In the interest of keeping personal information private, all
residential addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc. have been deleted from the posted version of the documents where they originally
appear. In addition a file from the CD, "Mail labels Amestoy family CD 06_2015.docx", which is a page of printable address labels,
is not posted on this website at all.
- All documents posted on this website are accessed from the "Home" page under the "Contents" list. This list contains topic headings
followed by relevant text links. Depending on the browser used, these links are usually underlined and displayed in blue.
Clicking on a link takes the user to the web page for the associated document(s).
- The organization of the "Contents" list is taken from the file structure of the CD. The organization of the CD file folders is
detailed with the"Title of CD Folders" web page, which is also accessible from the "Contents" list. The "Contents" list adheres
closely to the CD organization except where further nested structure is added. For example, many photographs are contained in the CD
file folder "Amestoy Ranch Photos" and the corresponding "Contents" list provides these photos under the same heading. However, for
the website, these photos are divided into four groups (Portraits, Group Pictures, The Ranch, Picnic), each with a corresponding link
and webpage.
- Each web page of this website corrresponds to one or more documents found on the CD referred to above. Each web page is structured
such that the source documents are displayed starting at the top of the page. Below the last document is a partition line and footer
containing, more or less, the following information: the title of the page, the file name and date of the original document(s) from the CD,
and "Home" and "Contents" links.
- Many of the files from the CD are Microsoft Word documents. These files have the ".docx" file extension and cannot be displayed directly
on a website. They must be converted to HTML documents in order to be displayed. The Word program has built-in conversion routines
to do this through the "Save As" menu selection. The "Web Page, Filtered" option was used here, which generates files with the ".htm"
extension. These converted files were then modified to include footer information, links, and the common background color.
- An example of this Word file conversion is the "Children of Domingo Amestoy & Marie" web page, which is accessed from the "Home" page under the
"Contents" list. This page was created using the original file "Children of Domingo Amestoy & Marie.Word Doc.docx" to generate the
web-compatible "Children of Domingo Amestoy & Marie.htm" file.
- Many of the files from the CD are Adobe PDF documents. These files have the ".pdf" file extension. While these file types can
be inserted into a web page without modification, the displayed results are often unsatisfactory. Instead, for this website, individual
pages from the PDF file were converted into JPEG files (common photograph files with ".jpg" file extension). These JPEG files are then
displayed with a newly created HTML file also containing footer information, links, and the common background color. The resulting file is
distinguished from above with the ".html" extension as opposed to the ".htm" extension.
- An example of this PDF file conversion is the "Amestoy History & Tipton Heirs by Kenneth Amestoy Tipton" web page, which is accessed from the
"Home" page under the "Contents" list. This page was created using the original file "Amestoy History & Tipton heirs by Kenneth Amestoy
Tipton.pdf" to generate the better-for-display "AmestoyHistoryTiptonHeirsKennethAmestoyTipton.html" file.
- Many of the files from the CD are JPEGs. These files can be generated by any digital camera or scanner and have the ".jpg" file
extension. While these file types can be viewed directly with any web brower (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera etc.), here they are
placed into a simple HTML file exactly as described above with PDF documents from the CD.
- An example of a web page on this site created with JPEG files directly from the CD is the "Portraits" page, which is accessed from the "Home"
page under the "Contents" list at the "Amestoy Ranch Photos" heading.
- Some photos and documents had to be reduced, enlarged, compressed, or rotated to optimize the website display. This means that in
some cases resolution (picture quality) was sacrificed for space or loading time. As a result, the originals from the CD may make
for better viewing.
- Many of the original documents from the CD contain links to other sites on the Internet. When these documents are reproduced for
display on this website (as described above), the links often don't work. This is usually the case when the original document is a
PDF file. The web page "History of the San Fernando Valley - Wikipedia" is an example. However, when the original is a Word
file the conversion (as described above) leaves the links intact. "Ranchos of California - Wikipedia" is an example.
- Document links can also be inactive when originals are reproductions from Wikipedia. If the page is viewed directly from Wikipedia.org,
which would also be the latest version, the links are guaranteed to work.
- Not included on this website are documents where information is repeated by another source document. One example is the original file
"Amestoy-Hauret Family Tree_ for Zeb Tipton.pdf", which is nearly identical to another file found elsewhere on the CD,
"Amestoy-Hauret photo doc for Zeb.pdf". In this case the former was used for the "Amestoy-Hauret Family Tree for Zeb Tipton" link.
- The CD sometimes provides the identical document in multiple locations. To maintain the organization of the CD with the website, links
to these same documents are provided in multiple locations in the "Contents" list. These repeated links are indicated with the
"(Same as above)" text added to the rest of the link. For instance, the link "Spanish-Mexican Ranchos Map (Same as above)" appears
in the "Contents" list because it is repeated elsewhere in the list as on the CD.
Site by:
Michael A. Mahoney
©2016 All rights reserved.