Family History Episode 41: How to Start a Genealogy Blog, Part 4: Get Inspired!

by | Aug 13, 2014 | 01 What's New, Beginner, Blogs, Family History Podcast

Family History: Genealogy Made Easy Podcast
with Lisa Louise Cooke
Republished August 13, 2014

Listen to the Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast by Lisa Louise Cooke. It’s a great series for learning the research ropes and well as refreshing your skills.

https://lisalouisecooke.com/familyhistorypodcast/audio/fh41.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 41: How to Start a Genealogy Blog, Part 4: Get Inspired!

We’ve been talking quite a bit about family history blogging in the last few episodes. Today I have a few goodies for you this week that should help you make significant progress in creating your own blog if that’s something you’d like to do, and some goodies from other genealogy bloggers that will inspire and entertain you.

Blog post: Finding Charlie Stone, by Lee Drew

I really enjoy reading genealogy blogs that share insight into how the bloggers research has enriched their lives and I particularly enjoy reading the family stories they uncover along their journey.

In Episode 69 of the Genealogy Gems Podcast I featured a blogger reading one of their favorite blog posts (and my favorite for that matter) for the first time on the show.  Lee Drew read his post My Mother Was A Quilter – the charming story of his early years growing up in a family of quilting women, and how his life hasn’t changed that much because he is surrounded by them today with his own wife, daughters and daughter-in-laws.

So sit back and enjoy another blog post called Finding Charlie Stone, by Lee Drew, who blogs at FamHist 2  and Lineage Keeper.

Did you start your own genealogy blog?

I have another talented genealogy blogger for you in this episode, but before we hear from her, I want to say that I hope you took a few minutes to follow the steps outlined in Episode 40 of this podcast and got your own blog started. Remember, you don’t have to make it public – so you can dabble all you want and only share if and when you’re ready.

To help you along I have produced two videos for you that walk you through those same steps, but in the videos I show you live on the computer screen how it’s done.  So head to my Genealogy Gems TV Channel at YouTube to watch How to Blog Your Family History, Part 1 & How to Blog Your Family History, Part 2. Rest assured, there are more videos to come because we have only scratched the surface in creating your blog and actually blogging.

Blog Post: How Blogging Has Benefited My Research by Amy Coffin

Here’s a goodie from Amy Coffin who has a masters in Library science and is an avid genealogist who specializes in the use of Web 2.0 technologies to maximize research results. Her experience in the library world has led to a firm belief in the benefits of social networking and blogging to enhance the genealogy experience. Through her web site, www.AmyCoffin.com, Amy offers ideas on how others can maintain blogs and open up their own family history to whole new levels. When she’s not helping clients with their research, Amy shares her own personal genealogy adventures at her We Tree blog. In this blog post, Amy shares a story about how blogging has benefited her research.

We will be finishing up our family history blogging lesson next week with adding a few more gadgets and details, doing a bit of pre-planning for our blog posts, publishing our first article, and then talking about how your readers will subscribe to your blog.

Right now I’m putting the finishing touches on my class called Google for Genealogy. We’ve talked about various Google tools on both my podcasts and in this class we’re going to wade all the way and go in depth!

We Dig These Gems: New Genealogy Records Online

by | Mar 20, 2015 | 01 What's New, Digital Archives, Oral History, Records & databases

 

We learn about great new genealogy records online every week! On Fridays we round up a few for you. Watch for databases and documents that your ancestors might appear in–and get inspired by the types of records that may be out there for your family, waiting for you to discover. This week: Michigan death certificates; Zimbabwe death notices, wills and trusts and an oral history archive of New Zealand nursing.

We dig these gems

MICHIGAN DEATHS. Images of Michigan death certificates from 1921-1939 are now available for free at Seeking Michigan. “The index for records from 1940-1952 will be made available in the next few weeks, with additional certificate images to be released each year as privacy restrictions are lifted (1940 images will be released in January 2016),” says a press release.

“Together with the records from 1897-1920 that have been available at the site for years, this collection makes Seeking Michigan the one-stop destination for more than 2.6 million free, publicly-available 20th century death records for Michigan ancestors.”

ZIMBABWE DEATH NOTICES. Over 130,000 indexed and browsable records from the Zimbabwe, Death notices, 1904–1976 are now available on FamilySearch. According to the description, “The records included in this collection consist of death notices and registers obtained from the National Archives at Harare and Salisbury, Zimbabwe. The collection includes indexes of closed and open files. The records are written in English. It appears those records that are labeled ADM are probably administrations which are separate from the death registers and they contain wills and living Trust records. Birth and death registrations did not include African tribal members until 1963.”

NEW ZEALAND ORAL HISTORIES. A new web archive of oral histories of New Zealand nurses is now available. “The aim of this website is to capture this rich history and create a resource that nurses, students, academics and family members can access in order to gain a better understanding of nursing history in New Zealand,” says the site’s home page. The site contains a “large collection of oral histories including abstracts, recordings, photos and other information. These histories have been collected from nurses who trained during the 1950s and 1960s and capture both the everyday elements of nursing practice along with some of the more unusual. Here you are able to listen to stories, read brief abstracts, and view photos of the nurses.” Got a story to tell? They are accepting new interviews. There’s also a section on hospitals and one on nursing uniforms.

 

check_mark_circle_400_wht_14064Not sure how to find record sets like these for YOUR family history? Here’s a tip! If your keyword searches for record types aren’t bringing up good results, try switching the order of the search terms. In English-language searches, word order counts.

This tip comes to you courtesy of the book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, Second Edition by Lisa Louise Cooke–the fully-revised 2015 edition that’s packed with strategies that will dramatically improve your ability to find your family history online.

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