Comments on: Open Thread Thursday: How Would You Encourage Someone To Read Genealogy Blogs?

By: Dr. Bill (William L.

Dr. Bill (William L. — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 03:02:51 +0000

By: Denise Richmond

Denise Richmond — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:11:36 +0000

Root Cellar Sacramento (California) Genealogical Society “opened” its blog earlier this year as a member benefit and for society outreach. Ongoing education has been the key to encouraging members to read and contribute content. An FAQ page provides how-to basics and blog themes by GeneaBloggers.com. Live demos on blog use are held at meetings. Blog administrators send personal emails (rather than all member requests) to members requesting them to contribute their research to get noticed by a new genealogy community. Other blog content includes society activities, genealogy news and intros to useful tools, websites and blogs members may not know about. Slowly but steadily, readership, primarily by email subscription, and member contributions have increased. Members have also started suggesting articles for the blog. Ah, progress!

By: Pauleen Cass

Pauleen Cass — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:15:20 +0000

A further thought -perhaps all bloggers could campaign with their local family history society to include some information in their published magazines or member emails? Perhaps even write something for the magazine on these topics.

A bit tongue-in-cheek about Ancestry -it does seem lots of people don’t go beyond it

Great idea about a booklet or ebook…I think I’ll suggest this to Unlock the Past in Oz.

By: Judy Webster

Judy Webster — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:12:28 +0000

We should all write a short article, column-filler or two-sentence snippet for journals and newsletters published (on paper and/or electronically) by family history societies to which we belong. Some submissions may be ignored, but many will be published. Please don’t leave it to someone else – *anyone* can do this.

By: N. P. Maling

N. P. Maling — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:20:07 +0000

I agree with Cassmob on the “Why I Blog” item, it does help with getting content to readers about content on the web other than on virtual properties controlled by the likes of Ancestry, Inc.

I disagree, however, that there should/could/might be a link between Ancestry, Inc. and blogs. The reason is that the company would seek to control them the way they do with rootsweb.com (a volunteer effort) with excessive advertising, and/or eat away at their content like they have done with things that used to be on rootsweb, like the ship transcribers guild materials.

We do, already, have an excellent nexus at GeneaBloggers.com where interested genealogists can browse and find interesting blogs. One way to expand the visibility with Mr. MacEntee’s help, is develop a corpus (no pun intended) of the focus of each blog, perhaps updated “about” statements from each blogger and/or their surnames of interest.

Perhaps an ebook, presentation of some sort, or other materials, showing *how* to use a blog for family history and genealogy research would be helpful.

By: Cassmob

Cassmob — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:01:46 +0000

I like the idea of a blog campaign on “Why I blog”. The key problem is that it is preaching to the converted. It’s not until you realise how much information and experience is in the blogosphere that it becomes a priority to follow some/any/a lot. What a shame there’s no link between Ancestry and blog listings -that would get an impact I think. Plus Judy’s plan -for those who do presentations.

By: Dr. Bill (William L.

Dr. Bill (William L. — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:33:53 +0000

Here is my response: http://drbilltellsancestorstories.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-thread-thursday-how-would-you.html

By: Judy Webster

Judy Webster — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:49:04 +0000

When I asked 300+ people at my recent speaking engagements, about 80% said they did not read genealogy blogs. To be fair, though, my talks were in country areas where Internet access is not great. I managed to persuade some of my audience to have a look at blogs that I like – and my own, of course! I guess we just have to spread the word whenever and wherever we can, and slowly the stats will improve.