Sorry to bump up this old thread, and I hope this is ok, but it is an interesting question. How do you personalize a family name? What domain do you get, how to keep it easy to read, make sure it's available and also make it easy to share/remember/type.
My last name is Fiedeldij Dop, ouch! You don't want to get to type that out multiple times a day to try and read an update. I could of course just register the .nl (we're Dutch), and the .com. But I rather try to think of something outside of the box that makes it more generic. Especially because sister might not have the name anymore because of marriage, etc.
What do you guys think about alternative approaches such as ourfamilysite.com or thedopsonline.com, and names like those?
Regarding coppermine, I have used it on my brothers' web site and it is pretty good. You can just mass-upload over FTP and let coppermine mass import and process the images. Fairly easy to use.