About the Reffell Family History Website

The first incarnation of the Reffell Family History website was on the Internet from late 2001 until the late summer of 2005 using the web address of www.reffell.info
This website was put together by Bernie and Oonagh Reffell using photographs from their own collection, with family trees and other information from John Reffell. Many thanks go to them for all the time and effort that they put into the website in its early stages.
A copy of the index page from the original website can be seen from the picture on the right, which shows how the website looked around November 2001. As can be seen, there were sections for articles about the family, a number of family trees with photographs, links to other sites of interest and a message board facility.
The original website was very successfully received and led to much interest in the history of the Reffell family, with many new contacts from all around the world being made.

After the first version of the website disappeared from the Internet, with Bernie's agreement John took over the website using a new web address at www.reffell.org.uk and this was launched on 28 May 2006. For that first year the website was in a violet and blue colour scheme, as can be seen in the picture on the left.
The website grew very quickly, although it was found that the original discussion forum had to be taken off line after an attempt to exploit the host server's security was made through it.
By the beginning of 2007 it was apparent that there were two problems with the website as it was then; firstly the content had grown so much that there was not enough navigational space with the existing vertical menus, and secondly various incompatibility problems had arisen with Internet Explorer's rendition of the site.

Therefore the format was redesigned and the entire site re coded into XHTML during April 2007. This has proved to have been a very good move, as apart from resolving all the previous problems, the site is now much more flexible and adaptable to future expansion. After some trials the colour scheme of 'chocolate, pears and cream' was arrived at and this was the website design for 2007 and most of 2008.

On the second anniversary in 2008, the website was transferred to a new set of PHP-enabled servers with one.com in Denmark, as a result most of the web pages were dynamically converted with the suffix of .php. This allowed development of an improved range of services, including a 'blog' of family interest called Reffell Rantings.

Further design changes took place during September 2009 with the aim of keeping the website looking fresh and interesting, with the colour scheme changing to one of a blue & green nature. There are constant improvements and additions to the website as detailed in What's New, but suggestions are always welcome as to the direction to take the site in the future.

A number of 'mini-sites' have been created to cater in more detail for some aspects of the extended Reffell family, linked into the main site as appropriate. The first of these went online in June 2008 and details the historic research of Thomas Rattle from Canada into The Rattle Families. The next mini website was for the JT Reffell French School in Sierra Leone, which went online on 27 April 2009, a very special day in Sierra Leone. Two educational sites then followed; Make a Family History Website & Simplifying British Family History.

The latest mini-site went online on the first day of 2010 with a new & essentially visual approach to the Reffell Bexley Brewery in the style of the brewery's 1930s advertising. This is based around a character called 'Uncle Reff' who often spoke in rhymes, or 'Reffellising' as he called it.