Frequently Asked Questions

1. Announcements

Make group announcements to your family and friends, for example, inviting them to your house warming party.

Click on ‘Quick links’ and then select announcements’. Enter the date for the occasion, the subject and any notes you wish to add. Use the ‘Announcement to’ drop menu to select who you want to send it to and then click send. The announcement will show up on your recipient’s homepage.

2. Audio uploader

To add audio clips into albums you have already created, click on ‘Edit Audio’ located next to the album thumbnail, and select ‘Upload New Audio’ on the new page. The audio uploader is exactly the same as the photo application, where you select the folder which contains the audio on the left window, then select which files you wish to upload on the right window. Click on ‘Send’ to begin uploading.

Audio file sizes of 4Mb and under can be uploaded.

3. Calendar

Double click on any date to create a calendar event. Type in the subject, start and end time, and any notes you may wish to add, then click save.

Your entry will be displayed on your homepage under ‘Upcoming Events’.

4. Can I create an account for other family members including ancestors?

Yes. Once you have created an account for yourself, you can then also create other accounts such as ‘My Child’, ‘In Memory of’ and ‘Family Member’.

When creating these types of accounts, you can still use the email address you registered your own account with, but would need to enter another username and password.

On the ‘Create Account’ page, select who the new account is for from the drop down menu, then tick ‘I want to associate this account with my Account’. Once the account is created, you can start adding content as you would on your own account.

When you are logged into your own account, clicking the ‘Guardian Accounts’ link at the top of the page, will enable you to see all the accounts you have created for other people. You will also be able to change the passwords for the other accounts here.

If you have created an account for your child, and they old enough to take over the account, ensure you have passed over the login details to them, and then delete your association to the account by clicking ‘remove’ under the account name on the ‘Guardian Accounts’ page.

5. Do I have to download or install any software?

If you are using Internet Explorer, the first time you try to upload a picture or audio, the following messages will appear. Follow the onscreen prompts to install the ‘Aurigma’ component.

‘This website wants to install the following add-on: ‘Image Uploader 5.1’ from ‘Aurigma Inc.’. If you trust the website and the add-on and want to install it, click here…’

Click on this message which will be displayed near the top of your browser window, and then click ‘Install ActiveX control…’

Do you want to install this software?
Name: Image Uploader 5.1
Publisher: Aurigma Inc.

Click on ‘Install’.

If you are using a different browser, e.g. Firefox, then you may have to install Java, which your browser will provide the necessary link for.

You will only have to install the Image/Audio upload software once.

6. Evergenes Foundation

Evergenes donates 10% of all profits to the following charities. We have chosen these charities because they are personal to us and believe in what they achieve.

By using this website on a regular basis, you are directly helping us to assist these worthwhile causes.

7. Family Tree

Your family tree starts with you on the far left, and then moves up a generation at a time to the right. If parents and grandparents are Evergenes members, clicking ‘edit’ for that person will give you the option to assign their profile to them. This creates an interactive link to that person’s homepage.

If a relative is not an Evergenes member or has passed away, then you can fill in the details manually.

8. Forum

Post your views and thoughts on the forum and share with other members.

9. Historical events

Write accounts on events you have witnessed in your lifetime, which have changed you and perhaps, the world. Search for member’s individual and personal account of events passed, either by topic or title. Once a topic has been created, other members, who may also have something to share, can post their story too.

10. How do I change my password or email address?

Either click the ‘My Account’ situated next to the ‘Settings’ icon in the top right corner of your home page, or in the ‘Personal’ section located in ‘My Profile’.

11. How long is my profile stored for?

Forever, so that your descendents and future generations will be able to look you up and see exactly how you lived your life, in pictures, videos and your own words.

Evergenes will make it easier for future generations to discover all about their ancestors.

12. How often do I have to use my account?

You can use your account as often as you wish, everyday, once a week, whatever is best for your schedule. Obviously, the more often you use your account, the more accurate and up to date your profile will be.

13. How secure is my information?

Evergenes takes appropriate precautions to protect your information. Your account information is located on a secured server behind a firewall.

Your account is password protected so only you have access to edit it. Also, you have no less than five different security levels, which you can use for each individual entry. This enables you to select what is available for other people to see.

You also have the option to set a release date for your account to be accessible to the whole world, for example: year 2015.

14. Is this website free to use?

Yes. Currently, each member has a generous amount of space to use free of charge, but this is dependant on running costs and the number of users we have. By inviting everybody you know to join Evergenes and uploading only your favorite pictures, you will be assisting us to provide this free service.

15. Journal

By logging your day’s events and thoughts, you will be building a personal and private log of your daily life and routine.

You choose who gets to see your content. Setting your entries to ‘private’ and you have your very own personal diary.

When writing your entry, you can also add pictures by clicking the Image icon on the tool bar. You can then choose to add pictures from existing scrapbooks, or any picture from your computer.

  • Source – this is where the picture will be inserted form.
  • Title – Name the picture and it will be shown when your cursor is placed on it.
  • Alignment – Where you would like the picture to be placed
  • Border – Give the picture a patterned border if desired. Note, you must select the stroke width of the border displayed as 1px, 2px etc.
  • Width & Height – Resize the picture before it is inserted e.g. 200px by 150px

16. Messaging

Send private messages to anyone in your family and friends contact list.

Either use the ‘Send message’ in quicklinks to compose a message or use the link in the top right grey bar next to your account settings.

When composing a message, you can use the address book on the left of your message or just start typing in the recipients name and choose from the suggested names that automatically appear.

17. My Account

If you would like to change basic information such as and login details, click ‘My Account’ in the top right grey bar.

Your username doesn’t have to be your email address, but can be whatever you choose.

18. Photos – tagging / highlights

Adding highlights to (or tagging) photos can be achieved in two ways. When viewing pictures in an album, click ‘add highlights / tags to this picture’ then draw a rectangle in the picture to encompass whatever you wish to highlight. Type in the title of the highlight in the text box, and click ‘Add’. When you have finished adding highlights, click ‘Back’ at the bottom of the page to return to your album.

You can also access this feature when editing images in an album. Click ‘edit images’ next to the album you wish to alter, every picture in that album is then listed in thumbnail view, enabling to you quickly edit the name, caption, privacy setting, and highlights.

You can also set which picture you would like to be the album cover.

19. Photos – uploading

When you create a Scrapbook, you have the option to add as many picture albums to it. Click on ‘Add Album’ located on the right hand side of the main window on the scrapbook you are viewing. After filling in the name, location and description, your empty album will be created. Click on ‘Edit Images’ next to the album, and then on the page that appears, click ‘Upload new photos’. Our photo uploader will start. If this is the first time you are uploading a picture, see Point 5 above on how to install the image component.

The uploader will show the various folders on your computer in the left hand window. Clicking once on the folder containing the pictures you want to add, will display its contents as thumbnails in the right hand window.

When selecting your photos, please take the time to choose your favorite ones. This will help us keep the running costs down and enable us to continue to provide this free service.

Select which pictures you wish to add by placing a tick in the top left corner of them. You can also rotate the pictures before uploading them to the album, by clicking on the rotate arrows in the bottom corners of the thumbnails.

When you have completed your selection, click ‘Send’, then sit back and let the uploader copy the pictures seamlessly to your album. Note – this could take several minutes, depending on how many pictures you selected, and you internet connection speed.

Once uploaded, you will be presented with a page containing thumbnails of your pictures. Here you can select which picture you would like for the album cover and which ones to keep or remove. You can also name each picture, write a caption and choose individual picture privacy settings. When finished, click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page, and you will be returned to your scrapbook.

You may also wish to use the same photo in different albums and scrapbooks. This can easily be achieved without having to upload the same picture twice. Again, click ‘Edit Images’, then select ‘Insert existing photos into album’ which is below the ‘Upload new photos’ button. This will produce a similar page to the photo uploader, but instead of your computer’s folders in the left window, a list of all the picture albums you have previously created will be displayed. As before, click which album you wish to copy images from and tick them in the right window. Once finished, click ‘Insert’ and voila!

20. Placed I have visited

Situated in the ‘Travels’ section, this map of the world shows you and your friends and family, the places you have visited.

Click on any point on the map, and enter the location, date and either create a scrapbook for that place or click ‘assign an existing scrapbook’ which links it to any scrapbook you have already created.

21. Privacy settings

You have total control on who sees your content.

All scrapbooks, notes, forms, photos, videos and audio entries can be customized by you so that your private memories are kept as such.

When filling in a form, or creating a scrapbook, look for the drop down menu labelled ‘privacy setting’, which is where you assign the relevant setting.

These settings are explained below;

  • Private – totally safe and cannot be seen by anybody else
  • Friends – only people you have added to your friend's contacts can see this content
  • Family – only people you have added to your family contacts can see this content
  • Friends & Family – people in both your friends and family list of contacts can see this content.
  • Public – Anybody can see this content

When you add other members to your list of family or friends, content in your profile available for them to view is automatically filtered, according to your relationship with them.

22. Public release date

When this date is reached, all the content in your profile automatically changes to a ‘public’ privacy setting, and is available for any Evergenes member to see.

You can set this date to whenever you like in the future.

You can edit the ‘Public release date’ in two ways. Firstly, you can click the ‘Privacy’ link in the top right grey bar next to where the release date is displayed. Secondly, in ‘My Profile’, the last tab on the right next to ‘Medical’ is also where you can change the release date.

23. Reporting abusive content

If you discover anything you believe is illegal, distasteful or offensive, copy the url from your browser and paste it into an email and send it to admin@evergenes.com (e.g. http://evergenes.com/member/profile/albums/viewImage.aspx?albumID=).

We will look into the matter and take the appropriate action.

24. Scrapbooks

Scrapbooks are the heart of Evergenes, as they allow you to record your memories and thoughts via photos, videos, audio, and text. Scrapbooks will become a content rich source about you, for your friends, family, descendants and future generations to enjoy.

You can create a scrapbook, either by clicking on the ‘Create scrapbook’ link in the left navigation bar, or in the main window, dependant on which category or section you are in. You can then name it, insert a date and location, if desired, and then start typing in your comments in the notes section. You can edit these at any time, by clicking the ‘edit’ button at the bottom of any scrapbook you are viewing.

Once created, you can choose to add pictures to the scrapbook. Click on ‘Add album’ and start uploading your favorite photos using our multiple image uploader. You can choose individual pictures, or select an entire folder and also rotate photos before uploading. When selecting your photos, we suggest you take the time to choose your favorite ones, as looking through albums containing out of focus and repetitive pictures could get tiresome for you and your friends and family

Remember, you can have more than one album in a scrapbook.

When looking through an album, you can add highlights or tag the pictures, so that you and people you have allowed can quickly see who or what is in the picture, just by hovering their cursor over it.

Each picture is always assigned a privacy setting by you, dependant on who you wish to share that photo with, if anybody. When you view a scrapbook, your albums will be displayed on the right. Click ‘edit images’ next to an album, and all the information regarding the pictures in that album can then be edited. Each photo’s privacy setting, name, caption and highlights/tags are easily changed here.

We have also considered the fact that you may wish to have the same picture in more than one album. When editing an album, as discussed above, click on ‘Insert existing photos into album’ and all the albums you have previously created, in every category, are displayed. Then, similar to the image uploader, you select the pictures, and click ‘insert’.

25. Videos – uploading

26. What sort of quality will my photos be stored at?

Photos are resized to 1600 by 1200 dpi which is of high quality and will enable you and those you have allowed, to print off when desired.

Evergenes store your photos at this quality to enable future generations to view and print high quality pictures of their ancestors. This will also create a backup of your favorite photos giving you peace of mind should anything ever happen to your originals.

27. Why are there advertisements?

Evergenes is totally free to use, and to enable us to keep it so, the advertisements pay towards server running costs which is where all your data is stored, as well as general business costs.