Have you ever wondered where and how FamilySearch gets all the amazing records we can freely access through FamilySearch? There is a fascinating article on the FamilySearch Blog describing FamilySearch’s Strategy to Help Preserve the World’s Archives. It’s well worth a read.
RootsTech 2019 is scheduled for February 27th thru March 2nd. Registration opens September 20, 2018. Details at https://www.rootstech.org and there are still a number of recorded sessions available to view on the RootsTech 2018 Videos page.
If you haven’t visited The Ancestor Hunt lately, now would be a good time. He has links to free historic newspaper titles that include 640 Southern states, 115 New England states and 315 Mid-Atlantic states. He also has updates on new additions at Chronicling America.
There’s even more historical goodness thanks to the Library of Congress. They have posted updates to their state digital resources. These include memory projects, online encyclopedias and historical materials collections. You’ll find the collections directory on their Web Guides page.
One of the best ways you can document and share your family’s history is to create a blog. Blogs are affordable, search-friendly and an easy way to tell the stories your research provides. Best of all, blogs have legs! Because they are so search-friendly they often attract “research cousins” – people researching the same families you are.
Think of a family history blog as a digital scrapbook and you will understand why they are so popular. Don’t try to write a book. Instead, work on the “little stories” you discover in your research and post them on your blog.
My family loves the stories, photos and ephemera posted here. This blog is set up as a private site. To view this blog’s posts you either need the site password or be set up as an email subscriber in much the same way you are currently subscribed to Research Notes. When a new article is posted to the Moultrie Telegraph, it is also delivered to a growing number of relatives and friends.
Unlike Research Notes, which is hosted on WordPress.com, my family blog is hosted at Posthaven. It is affordable, easy to use and was designed with longevity in mind. It doesn’t have all the whistles and bells of its competitors but it doesn’t have the learning curve either. If you can send an email message, you can post your stories and photos on Posthaven.
Our Moultrie Telegraph is a private blog. We use it to share family news, plan family events and celebrate birthdays like the one you see here. To view the site online, you will need to know the password, but most of our family and close friends are set up with email delivery along with email posting. They won’t need the password to publish their own news or read the latest post.
Posting an article to the site is as easy as sending an email. First, your email address must be set up on the site as a publisher. Once that’s done, all you do is send an email message to the address for the blog. The subject line of the message becomes the title of the post while the content of the message becomes the post content. You can include photos in your message and they will be included in the post.
Not only is the post displayed on the website, it is also sent to everyone set up for email delivery. Since private Posthaven sites require a password to access, email delivery is the easiest way to get the latest news without having to remember the password. Want to add a comment to a post? Just reply to the post with your comment. Yes, it’s that easy. A private blog is also a great place for personal events like birthday’s, anniversaries, new additions and other events that aren’t appropriate for posting on social networks.
Want to learn more? The Posthaven Gazette blog is full of tips and ideas for making the most of Posthaven. You can also download a free copy of the Posthaven Primer at the Moultrie Creek Gazette.
Final Notes
Each new post published at SAGS Support is automatically emailed to member subscribers and/or delivered to their newsreader. Research Notes is published every Monday morning and other articles are posted during the week. Subscribers have the option to control how often these updates are delivered. Look down at the bottom of this message and you will find a Manage Subscriptions link in the fine print as you see in this example. Click it and you will be taken to the WordPress.com Subscription Management page. Use the Delivery Frequency column to change your delivery options from “Immediate” to either “Daily” or “Weekly”.
Sample of the “fine print” at the bottom of each post.
Also down at the bottom of each delivered post is a Comment button. If you would like to comment on something discussed in a post or ask a question, just click the Comment button and you will be taken online to the comment section of the post where you can share your thoughts and read what others have shared.
To learn more, download a copy of the SAGS Support Guide.
Comments