by Diahan Southard | Jul 1, 2014 | 01 What's New, Blogs, Family History Podcast
Family History: Genealogy Made Easy
with Lisa Louise Cooke
Republished July 1, 2014
with Lisa Louise Cooke
https://lisalouisecooke.com/familyhistorypodcast/audio/fh38.mp3
Download the Show Notes for this Episode Welcome to this step-by-step series for beginning genealogists—and more experienced ones who want to brush up or learn something new. I first ran this series in 2008-09. So many people have asked about it, I’m bringing it back in weekly segments.
Episode 38: How to Start a Genealogy Blog, Part 1
Have you ever thought about starting your own genealogy blog? Or, if you have, have you wished you could get some expert tips on making it better? In these next few episodes, we’re going to talk about sharing your research and/or your thoughts on the research process by blogging. But even if you don’t plan on starting a blog anytime soon, I know you will enjoy the seasoned genealogy blogger I’ve invited to start us off. The Footnote Maven’s passion for genealogy is contagious, and you’ll enjoy her sense of humor, and words of wisdom.
I caught up with the Footnote Maven at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. She has been blogging for quite some time now and has much to share on the subject. Her two very popular blogs, FootnoteMaven and Shades of the Departed, are widely read by genealogists everywhere.
In this episode, she shares:
- specific tips for getting started, how she prepares her blog posts
- what she would have done differently if she could start all over again
- 9 tips for getting readers to leave comments.
But first, a Mailbox Moment:
A reader writes in to comment on Episode #36 and questions regarding Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com. He sends this link, which shows how to use both websites to search for a female who has married. As you suggested, entering the Birth Name in the database, but how to locate that person using Family Tree Maker’s Web Search feature at Ancestry.com. This specific example is for a census record, but other records can also be found using this same technique.
Family History Blogging with the Footnote Maven
According to her website, a “footnote maven” is someone who is dazzlingly skilled at inserting a citation denoting a source, a note of reference, or a comment at the foot of a scholarly writing.
Footnote Maven’s thoughts on getting started with your own genealogy blog: Go look at several genealogy blogs. What do you like? What do not like? Design wise and content wise. Ask yourself what kind of blog you want to write. Who is your audience? What will you offer them?
Biggest piece of advice: You don’t want to be someone else – be yourself! Everybody else is already taken! “There is something wonderful in all of us – we just have to determine what that is and showcase it.” Pick your niche and stay there. And love doing it, because you’ll never get rich at it! She says, “It is the breath I take…It’s the reason I get up in the morning.”
What She Would Do Differently If She Could Have:
- 25 posts in draft ready to go allowing more editing time
- I would tinker more with the look of my blog until it was the way I wanted
- Invite a few friends to test drive it
And she’ll tell you what was even harder for her than starting her first blog!
Now that the genealogy blogging community is established, people don’t comment as frequently. Footnote Maven shares these for getting comments on your blog:
- Thank people for the comments they leave on your blog
- Go to their blog and read it
- Tell the blogger the positive points in what they are doing
- Host a “Carnival” on your blog
- Post “off the wall” stuff once in a while
- Have good, creative titles for your posts – something that’s going to spark the interest
- Use a word in your title that folks haven’t heard before to catch attention
- Tag your posts and images
- Include “keywords” such as “genealogy.”
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 19, 2015 | 01 What's New, Records & databases
Every Friday, we blog about new genealogy records online. Do any of the collections below relate to your family history? This week we cover burials in Cleveland, Ohio; an Oakland, CA newspaper; travelers to the U.S. via Canada, early Vermont pioneers and a register of WWI soldiers’ mothers and widows.
CLEVELAND (OH) BURIALS. The Cleveland Catholic Diocese has posted an index to burials. According to the site, “The following cemeteries have been uploaded into the centralized database: All Saints, Northfield; All Souls, Chardon; Resurrection, Valley City; Holy Cross, Akron; Holy Cross, Brook Park; and St. Joseph, Avon. Work is ongoing on the following cemeteries: Calvary, Cleveland; and Calvary, Lorain.” Registration is required but it is free.
OAKLAND (CA) NEWSPAPER. Nearly 400,00 pages of the Oakland Tribune spanning a full century (1874-1975) is now online at Newspapers.com. Oakland is in Alameda County and became an early terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad.
TRAVELERS TO U.S. VIA CANADA. Nearly 100,000 records appear in a new Ancestry database, U.S., Passenger and Crew Lists for U.S.-Bound Vessels Arriving in Canada, 1912-1939 and 1953-1962. “This collection contains forms, or passenger lists, submitted to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) by airline captains and shipmasters,” according to the collection description. Records are included for the ports of Montreal, Quebec; Saint John, New Brunswick; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Vancouver, British Columbia; Victoria, British Columbia; Toronto, Ontario and Quebec Ports.
VERMONT PIONEERS. The New England Historic Genealogical Society has a new index online of Early Vermont Settlers to 1784. The collection description states, “This database contains modified Register-style genealogical sketches of every identifiable head of household who has been proven to reside in the present-day borders of Vermont by the year 1784. A list of children, their spouse(s), and all their vital records will accompany each sketch. We have noticed that the head of household occasionally dies outside of Vermont and many of the children live west of Vermont in New York, Ohio, and states westward. This database currently contains 34 sketches, 5,700 names and 2,700 records.”
WWI U.S. MOTHER’S PILGRIMAGE. Ancestry has updated its database of mothers and widows of U.S. soldiers killed in World War I and buried overseas, and were invited by the War Department to visit their loved one’s burial place. “Each record provides the name of widow or mother, city and state of residence, and relationship to the deceased. Additionally, information regarding the decedent’s name, rank, unit, and cemetery is provided.”
by Lisa Cooke | Aug 7, 2015 | 01 What's New, Conferences, Google, images, Technology
Photo courtesy of The Ancestry Insider
New technologies don’t stay new. They keep evolving. Here’s a tip for harnessing new and emerging technologies to advance family history research and stay connected with living relatives.
Last week, I was at the BYU Conference on Family History & Genealogy in Provo, Utah. What a friendly, welcoming group! (Be sure to check out the BYU Family History Library here.) All week, I taught sessions and gave a keynote address on various technologies that help our research. The week’s discussions reminded me how quickly technology moves–and how enthusiastically genealogists continue to embrace new opportunities given them by technology.
It’s part of my job to learn about these new technologies and pass the best ones–the “gems” along to you. But here’s a tip I shared during my keynote address that will help you focus on the technologies you care most about: Think about which tasks you want to accomplish with technology, rather than just learning genealogy-specific technology. Then keep up with developments in the technologies that accomplish those tasks.
For example, by now, many of us have used (or at least heard of) Google Translate. We can use it with foreign-language documents and to correspond with overseas relatives and archives. But Google Translate’s functionality keeps improving. “By the audible gasps of the audience” (during my keynote address) reported the FamilySearch blog, “most were not aware that the Google Translate app enables you to literally hold up your phone to the computer screen or typeset document, and it will translate foreign text on the fly for you—a must have free tool when dabbling in nonnative language content.”
Genealogists are really thinking about these issues. The Ancestry Insider blogged about my keynote talk, too, and my observation that genealogists haven’t been embracing digital video at the same speed at which they embrace other forms of digital media. In the comments section of that post Cathy added, “Now what we need to do is get FamilySearch to figure out a way to let us upload our URL YOUTube videos, not only for our deceased, but for our living….Our children and grandchildren don’t write letters, they email, text, instagram. They don’t write journals, they blog. They make videos of current history….We all need to look to the future and [learn] how to save the new technologies.” Cathy gets it!
A special thanks to conference organizers Stephen Young and John Best, who welcomed me and Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor Sunny Morton all week long. They did a fantastic job of organizing a large event while retaining a warm, personal environment.
Continue reading about applying technology to your family history here.
by Lisa Cooke | Mar 26, 2014 | 01 What's New, Conferences
I have roots in Indiana and have longed to travel to Hoosier state to conduct some much needed genealogy research. So you can imagine how happy I 
was to be invited to keynote at the upcoming Midwestern Roots 2014: Family History and Genealogy Conference being held August 1 and 2, 2014, Indianapolis, IN, at the Indianapolis Marriott East.
This year’s theme is a timely one: Exploring Frontiers: What Would Your Pioneers Have Tweeted? This conference promises to be a glorious melding of old and new with deep history sessions and the latest technology.
Here’s the scoop on the Midwestern Roots Conference:
Registration Opens March 26 with a $99 registration special price March 26-29, 2014.
Includes the two day conference and lunches.
Additional fee for banquet and some pre-conference activities.
Register online at www.indianahistory.org/midwesternroots or
call (317) 232-1882 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday during the special offer.
The Midwestern Roots 2014 Conference is your chance to get updated on the latest technology changes in family history research, resources and methodology, and I’ll be exploring that in my keynote Future Technology and Genealogy: 5 Strategies You Need. You’ll also experience:
• More than 30 stimulating lectures from nationally known speakers Warren Bittner, Lisa Louise Cooke, Joan Hostetler, Amy Johnson Crow, Thomas MacEntee, James H. Madison, Anne Gillespie Mitchell, Daniel S. Poffenberger, Curt B. Witcher and more
• The Great Google Earth Game Show presented by Lisa Louise Cooke (this will be an interactive, FUN, outside the box kind of session topped off with prizes!)
• Hoosiers and A New History for the Twenty-First Century presented by James H. Madison
• A Guided Tour of Ancestry computer lab taught by Amy Johnson Crow and Anne Gillespie Mitchell from Ancestry.com
• Genealogy Resources Library Workshop
• Writing, document preservation and photo preservation workshops
• Family History Market and Book Fair – open to the public
See you at the Midwestern Roots 2014 Conference!
by Lisa Cooke | Dec 4, 2015 | 01 What's New, Australian, British, Immigration, Records & databases, United States
Here’s our weekly roundup of new genealogy records online! Everyone should check out the updates to PERSI at Findmypast. Also, there records of Australia-bound passengers; British watermen; Idaho marriages; and wills for Rhode Island and Staffordshire, England.
AUSTRALIA IMMIGRATION. New at TheGenealogist are over 190,000 indexed records for passengers who departed from Britain and Ireland on early migrant ships to New South Wales in the years between 1828 and 1896. According to a press release, “The transcripts of the latest release uniquely give a family link so you can see spouses and children setting out on their new life. They also reveal details such as which ship they had sailed on, where they were landing, the passenger’s occupation and in the case where the migrant has been assisted to travel out to a job, their employer’s name.”
BRITISH WATERMEN. If any of your ancestors may have worked as watermen in London, their names may appear in several new Findmypast databases:
ENGLAND WILLS. Wills and probate records for Staffordshire, England (1521-1860) are newly searchable on Findmypast. The index includes names, death dates, occupation and next of kin information.
IDAHO MARRIAGES. A marriage index for Idaho (1842-1964, 1975-1996) has been updated at Ancestry. Indexed entries may include “name, spouse’s name, spouse’s gender, marriage date and location, county and state in which the marriage was recorded, residence of bride and groom, and source information.”
PERSI UPDATE. Findmypast has done a quarterly update to the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), a database of thousands of genealogically-relevant articles in journals, magazines and newsletters. According to a release, “35 different publications have either been newly added to the collection or updated with additional coverage….You’ll find fully searchable new articles from states, cities and towns across America….The latest additions include indexes on English, Irish, Australian and Swedish genealogy too.”
RHODE ISLAND WILLS. Ancestry’s collection of Rhode Island wills and probate records (1582-1932) has been updated. It now includes images for probate records from all counties, though some may be missing for various localities or time periods.
Thank you for sharing this post via email and social media! We love spreading good news about new genealogy records online!
