About the Pettiford Web Sites

Special thanks and recognition to Norma Johnson (who inspired the creation of a Pettiford Family website), in the late 80's I had the distinct honor of meeting Norma via my favorite uncle Jolund Pettiford ("Uncle Joe", who was extremely family oriented). Prior to 1985 I had little-to-no interest in the Pettiford family since my father, TJ Pettiford and mother separated in 1955 when we moved from Albuquerque, NM to Brownwood, TX. (since this is not my personal bio I will forego all of the details). Fast-forwarding to the early 80's, Uncle Joe, Norma Johnson, Norma Rice and Hazel Adams, the fabulous four, from what I observed were the nucleus of the southern California Pettifords and are key players in publishing the "Pettiford Family Tree" book (for the complete details see the "preface" of the "Pettiford Family Tree" book).

I somehow (via Uncle Joe) started attending some of the family gatherings and before I knew it I was on occasion assisting Norma Johnson with the quarterly family Newsletter. It was circa late 1998 / early 1999 when Norma began to make comments about how nice it would be if we had a family website. In her own clever way she was encouraging me to be the creator of this venture. You see I was a computer engineer (actually an IT Manager at DirecTV) who dabbled with programming but was more hardware proficient than software. I moonlighted as a computer consultant designing custom databases for non-profit organizations, one of my clients was Loved Ones of Homicide Victims (an organization that was co-founded by Norma Johnson), and had C-shell scripting experience, knew a little C but had no knowledge of HTML or never tried web designs so I was not very excited about the idea.

Ultimately, sweet-persistent Norma, mentioned someone on the east coast, I do not recall the name, but she suggested that I collaborate with this cousin on the east coast who also was considering such a venture, I chose not to do so. By July 1999, I was convinced that it would be a good idea to at least look into it, so I searched the internet for ideas and possibly some assistance. On August 6, 1999, I came across MyFamily.com and decided to check it out, after all it was free, so I created the "Pettiford Family Web Site" on MyFamily.com. Since it is a private site the only way anyone could access it would be to create an account for them so I got busy inviting family members to the new site. Now, I must confess, my original primary intent was to create a site for my paternal grandfather's, the late Bishop Otho Pettiford, descendants and a few distant cousins whom I had met like Amina Jackson, her father Harold Jackson, and Norma Johnson.

Unfortunately, I did not have many email addresses other than for my immediate family, nor had I a relationship with many of my paternal first cousins so the list of members was limited. The first person I invited was Amina (an artist) hoping she would contribute artistically to the design, Amina invited my first cousin Shirley Washington, who in turn invited Samuel Pettiford.

Samuel Pettiford invited Susan Hall and it rapidly grew from then on, Susan got busy along with Amina, Norma & Samuel and before I knew it we had a thriving family website. So many of you have also been instrumental in the success of "the Original Pettiford Family website", unfortunately, the available tools do not provide a means of seeing who invited whom (other than to go to individual accounts to see who created it, an extremely time consuming process) so I apologize if I failed to recognize your contribution(s), please know that your support and participation are appreciated.

So welcome family to your family website(s).

You are visitor #

 

Tim (your webmaster) at home, San Jose, CA
July 2009
(14,993 site visits)

Charter Members
Amina Jackson Membership: 8/6/1999	The late Jolund Pettiford Membership: 8/11/1999	Naomi Pettiford Membership: 8/11/1999	The late Carl Pettiford Membership: 8/15/1999
Norma Johnson Membership: 8/24/1999	Shirley Washington Membership: 9/12/1999	Samuel Pettiford Membership: 9/12/1999	Susan Hall Membership: 9/15/1999

Strongest Supporters
(stats are as of 8/4/2009)

Susan Hall Administrator 10,833 site visits	Norma Johnson Administrator 6,099 site visits	Paulette Persefannie Pettiford 2,939 site visits	Samuel Pettiford 2,586 site visits
Wilda Paulette Pettiford 2,430 site visits	Mauri Pettiford 2,138 site visits	Lisa Wood 2,072 site visits