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Borge
Veteran Moderator
Norway
1297 Posts |
 Posted - 16/12/2020 : 13:06:47
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Dear friends.
The Norway Heritage site will be closing down in January 2021.
It has been a remarkable 23 years since the site first came online in 1997. Unfortunately the technology and code work on the site is now outdated, and is in need of a thorough makeover and maintenance which I am not able to provide right now. I do not know if I will be able to put the site back up again at some time in the future.
Stay safe!
Yours, Børge Solem
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Børge Solem |
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StevenDopp
Junior member
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - 17/12/2020 : 15:32:02
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| That will be a loss! I am so sorry to hear it. |
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maybellemn
Junior member
USA
60 Posts |
Posted - 18/12/2020 : 02:31:52
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| I am so sorry to hear this. Your site helped me so much with my "very confusing ancestry" - if they hadn't shown me the way of two very close lines in ancestry - I would not have been able to separate the two lines. I learned so much from this site. A big "thank you" to Borge Solem. |
Edited by - maybellemn on 08/01/2021 18:18:46 |
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Kåarto
Norway Heritage Veteran
Norway
5861 Posts |
Posted - 18/12/2020 : 17:43:16
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I am sorry to hear that Børge, but understandable.
Also other Norwegian/American Heritage forums has closed down.
With more than 5800 postings I have been in contact with many Norwegian-Americans and even found family in USA.
Thank you Børge and God Jul
Kåre |
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JaneC
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 19/12/2020 : 19:16:34
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Dear Børge, thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart. All your work on Norway Heritage has enriched so many lives! I hope you will always know how much this site has meant, to so many.
Jane |
Edited by - JaneC on 19/12/2020 19:22:56 |
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halvelm1
Medium member
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 24/12/2020 : 00:46:58
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Borge
I used the site many years ago and just resumed recently. Thank you for your effort over so many years -- I am sure it was a labor of love. Hopeful "all good things must come to an end" doesn't apply, and that it gets restored at some point. |
Larry H |
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NancyC
Medium member
Norway
198 Posts |
Posted - 25/12/2020 : 16:58:38
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| This is very sad news! I was shocked to read this post. The help given by the generous people that contribute their knowledge and skills to find people and put information together is invaluable. My husband and I have gotten pretty good at finding Norwegian immigrants in connection with books and aritcles we have written, but if we get stuck, this site has been a wonderful resource for us. With two exceptions, Edvard Hansen Rødalshaugen from Ringebu, and Bård S. Foss from Suldal, everyone has been found amazingly quickly! I wonder if anything can be done. What would it take to find someone who masters the technology to update this site, and how much would it cost to update and maintain it? I keep thinking about the fact that in 5 years, we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of organized Norwegian immigration to the US. I imagine a lot of people will be trying to put puzzles together, and they could really use a site like this! Can anything be done quickly to keep it going? |
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Admin
Forum Admin
Norway
528 Posts |
Posted - 26/12/2020 : 12:59:31
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quote:
Originally posted by NancyC
What would it take to find someone who masters the technology to update this site, and how much would it cost to update and maintain it? I keep thinking about the fact that in 5 years, we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of organized Norwegian immigration to the US. I imagine a lot of people will be trying to put puzzles together, and they could really use a site like this! Can anything be done quickly to keep it going?
Thanks your sentiments!
I would like to explain more about the problem so that you can comprehend what it is about. The reason for deciding to close down the site now is that it has a number of security vulnerabilities which I obviously will not specify I detail here.
Part of the problem is that when the site was created we used Microsoft's first server-side scripting language, Active Server Pages (ASP) to create the dynamic content. ASP was first released in 1996 and was superseded in 2002. ASP was supported until January 2020 on Windows 7, while on Windows 8 it might be supported till 2022. Thus, bits and parts of the code cease to function.
Some of the sections on the site like the forum were created by using open code solutions, but they are not any longer supported like back “in the old days”. There are probably still people out there who could do a makeover, but the best solution would probably be to convert to something else then ASP. The replacement for ASP is called ASP.NET and the solution could be to convert the site into ASP.NET. However, most open code forums nowadays run on PHP.
The cost and knowhow needed to fix the site is not known, but it will require a lot of work and skill. It is not very expensive to keep the site running on a server, so that is not the problem.
Børge Solem
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NancyC
Medium member
Norway
198 Posts |
Posted - 27/12/2020 : 12:27:50
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| Thanks for this detailed information! Of course, it is hard for a layman to understand. But I will ask around (children, friends) and see if anyone who understands it better than I do gets some good ideas. And many people will probably see these posts, and they may eventually have some. But are you also saying that the site can remain up, even though it is not lenger being run and maintained? There is so much valuable information here, among other things the passenger lists. Are they available anywhere else for the period you all have transcibed. It would be a tragedy if all this work should no lenger be accessible! And the database of sailings, etc. is a boon, even when no passenger lists survive for those years. |
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NancyC
Medium member
Norway
198 Posts |
Posted - 27/12/2020 : 13:06:01
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| Perhaps it would not be out of place to mention that my husband and I have published two books on emigration/immigration to the US this year, and thanks to you folks, we have been able to tie up several loose ends and put more pieces of the puzzles in place. One of them is about emigration from Ringsaker and the other about emigration from Sauda, and both are available at Nasjonalbiblioteket, the Norwegian National Library, for those living in Norway. And of course we sell them as well, but I don´t want you to get the impression that we are trying to advertize our stuff on your site! The point is that the resources you have provided have resulted in contributions to the history of emigration from Norway, and that might be a good argument for getting help to keep your work and the site going! At present, I am writing an article on Princess Golden Shoes (see the thread on that topic), and this would probably not have become a project without you folks! The article will probably be published in the 2021 yearbook (årskrift) for Suldal sogelag, if anyone is interested eventually. |
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NancyC
Medium member
Norway
198 Posts |
Posted - 27/12/2020 : 13:20:51
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| One thought leads to another... When I finished my book on emigration from Ringsaker, It occurred to me that, even though I limited my study to about 100 persons, I had collected a lot more information and had gotten a good start on documenting emigration from Ringsaker during the early period (late 1840s-ca. 1870). This had never been done before. Therefore, I contacted the locat historical societies and asked them if they were interested in doing a follow-up project, with the goal of completing some kind of resource by 2025. Veldre Historical Society in Ringsaker has expressed their interest, so there will be a meeting in January to discuss it. Initially, I discussed a possible project with a genealogist that I collaborate with. She was enthusiastic about the prospect, and one of the first things she did was to search the keyword «Ringsaker» on your site and compile a list of emigrants that it produced. Not all of the emigrants from Ringsaker were listed according to their residence, so this list is not complete, of course. But we knew about other sailings with passenger lists on your site already, so we could add tese to the list. And we will probably find others as the work progresses. It will be a disaster if these resources are no konger available! Projects to document emigration from communities in Norway should be an item as 2025 approaches. Another argument for keeping the site up and going? |
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David Yaw
Medium member
United Kingdom
128 Posts |
Posted - 28/12/2020 : 13:02:22
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Borge, Just a brief note to add my thanks for helping me find my great grandparents who came from Norway to UK in 1880's. Understandable about the "technology" but a great pity this site will stop
Regards |
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ToreL
Advanced member
Norway
842 Posts |
Posted - 28/12/2020 : 23:46:17
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Would it be possible to offer the data collections on this site to Digitalarkivet, so that they could host it in the future?
Regarding the forums, I found someone claiming that using phpBB you should be able to have a "basic" [discission] site up and running in a few hours. Of course, this would depend heavily on who "you" are, but perhaps someone here would know a suitable "who"?
Preservation of the old threads would be a different matter, which might be addressed at some later point?
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slaleike
Junior member
USA
57 Posts |
Posted - 29/12/2020 : 05:24:00
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I would like to join my voice to all the others thanking you, Borge, and everyone else on this board for all you have so generously done. Thanks to all the kind-hearted research done by the members here, I have been able to gain so much information about my ancestors that would have taken me years to find on my own.
I truly hope that some sort of compromise/morphing/reimagining of the site will be possible; the photos and articles and links are beyond priceless!
I haven't been doing much research on my norwegian lines lately, but nonetheless, I checked the new posts pretty much every day, just because there was usually something new of interest. Plus, the speed with which the members could take a simple query about a relative back a century or two or three within a few hours was downright amazing! So much good spirit hereabouts!
Best blessings to all of you, and especially Borge for keeping this site going all these years. |
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StevenDopp
Junior member
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - 30/12/2020 : 01:42:34
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Thank you Borge. I can not say it better than the previous poster.
quote:
Originally posted by slaleike
I would like to join my voice to all the others thanking you, Borge, and everyone else on this board for all you have so generously done. Thanks to all the kind-hearted research done by the members here, I have been able to gain so much information about my ancestors that would have taken me years to find on my own.
I truly hope that some sort of compromise/morphing/reimagining of the site will be possible; the photos and articles and links are beyond priceless!
I haven't been doing much research on my norwegian lines lately, but nonetheless, I checked the new posts pretty much every day, just because there was usually something new of interest. Plus, the speed with which the members could take a simple query about a relative back a century or two or three within a few hours was downright amazing! So much good spirit hereabouts!
Best blessings to all of you, and especially Borge for keeping this site going all these years.
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Edited by - StevenDopp on 30/12/2020 01:46:16 |
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ldepanian
Starting member
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - 31/12/2020 : 15:05:32
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| Yet another voice to say Thank You for all the incredible help and kindness shown by so many on this site. I am deeply saddened that you will be closing down, though I do understand the rationale. You will be sorely missed! Oh no, what will we do now!?! Wishing you the very best!!! |
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The Norway Heritage site will be closing down in j
