When GeneaBloggers began back in 2007, blogging was the easiest way to get the word out about researching an ancestor. Fast forward to the present. Family historians are now telling their ancestor stories on a variety of other platforms – hangouts, podcasts, videos, webinars, Facebook, Facebook Live, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter. It’s not just about blogging any more.

We are content providers.

We provide a variety of genealogy content on a variety of platforms. From the personal family historian to a professional author or lecturer, there is room in the GeneaBloggersTRIBE for all. Our TRIBE is about sharing the discovery of a new record – the proverbial aha moment. Our TRIBE is about learning the tips and tricks to make better use of our chosen platform and maybe expand to include something new to us that a fellow TRIBE member finds useful. Personally, I am jazzed whenever Cousin Russ shares some new thing about  producing or editing YouTube videos.

Russ Worthington blogs about genealogy software at FTM User and about his family at A Worthington Weblog, but is primarily known for his short-subject videos like “FTM 2014 – How to select a template for a citation” posted on the Cousin Russ YouTube Channel.  The author of the book Black Indian Genealogy Research, Angela Walton-Raji blogs and podcasts at AfricanRootsPodcast.com and discusses Freedmen and Native American research at The African-Native American Genealogy Home Page. Angela writes about her grandfather’s WWI service in “They Served with Honor: The 809th Pioneer Infantry – Quiet Heroes of the Brawny Arm” posted at My Ancestor’s Name. As a coordinator and instructor at the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute Dr. Shelley Murphy speaks regionally and nationally in person but finds time to tweet as @familytreegirl and participate in Black ProGen Live hangouts. Jana Last explains “My DNA Ethnicity Estimate from MyHeritage”  while J. Paul Hawthorne provides photo recaps of national conferences and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy on Facebook and in his GeneaSpy blog. Professional Archivist Melissa LeMaster Barker, of Houston County, Tennessee, curates content from other archives on Facebook, gives lectures at FamilyTreeWebinars, writes posts for Abundant Genealogy, micro-blogs about offerings from book publishers, and still finds time to hangout with Ol’ Myrt and Cousin Russ once a month.

Our TRIBE members post a variety of genealogy content on a variety of platforms.

We are inclusive.

Just as we’ve welcomed genealogy bloggers, we now expand our focus to meet the variety of platforms genealogy content providers employ to share information with their followers. As researchers we tend to work alone. Our TRIBE brings together folks from all over the world, with content prompts and tech support, not to mention a wee bit of fun with beads and ribbons at regional and national conferences. It was a thrill to provide the ceremonial passing of the blogger beads to the Hilary Gadsby from Wales, author of The Edge of Snowdonia blog. Hilary is a frequent participant in DearMYRTLE hangouts and study groups who also writes for the Worldwide Genealogy Blog coordinated by England’s Julie Goucher.

Though our website is written in English, we encourage content providers who write and speak in other languages. Thank heavens for the Google Translate Chrome Browser Extension.

Sharing insights makes us stronger.

Competition isn’t what got GeneaBloggers on the map. We share what we are learning with each other. For instance, long ago we learned it would improve interest in our blogs if at least one image is added to a post. We can thank The Legal Genealogist for advice about where to find public domain image collections. This week we heard from Jill Ball, a proud Aussie, who pointed us to crgalvin’s “Picture This” post on the Library Currants blog announcing a variety of custom family history graphics are now available for public use. Another awesome Aussie, Alona Tester shared her best practices in  “Blog Tips – The Collection” posted on her lonetesterHQ blog. US-based Shannon Siegfreid Thomas shared John Newmark’s “Tech Tip: Making Your Blog/Website More Accessible?” on his TransylvanianDutch blog. When times get tough, crazy humourist Kerry Scott (Clue Wagon) pulls us out of the doldrums with posts like “Ancestor Hate Mail”. We can always trust Randy Seaver (Genea-Musings) to share some sort of familial legal entanglement, making our black sheep ancestors pale by comparison. When someone’s blog or video is cloned, we are there to assist with a DMCA takedown if necessary. Tami Osmer Mize shared “How to Protect Your Blog from Copyright Infringement” posted on the Social Media Examiner blog. Copyright always seems an issue, so why not marshal the 3,000+ TRIBE troops rather than face the villain alone? 

We lift each other up.
It is our large membership numbers that makes our collective voices heard with the big genealogy sites and software producers. GeneaBloggersTRIBE spotlights member content to spark interest, thereby improving that member’s Google ranking. It’s just plain fun to brag about the good work being published by our members. It’s hard to toot our own horn and, quite frankly, its shameless self-promotion – but your TRIBE can certainly tell the world.

We understand. 

Alona Tester says “For one thing geniepeeps understand why we do what we do. Those in my tribe understand that you can get up (or still be up) at 2am and finally get that breakthrough with a record that you’ve been searching for the past seven years. But of course you can’t wake the non-genies in the house to share your excitement, but you can shout it out loud on social media to your geniefriends around the world, and THEY TOTALLY UNDERSTAND.” Source: “Genealogists are “My Tribe” posted on lonetesterHQ.

Won’t you join our TRIBE today?

There are no restrictions on membership to our GeneaBloggersTRIBE Facebook Group. (Ok, no spammers!)

• If Twitter is your thing, follow us at @GeneaBlogTRIBE
• Consider we are expanding to Pinterest and Instagram as well.
• To join our official membership roll, use this form.
• Add our blog to your news aggregator.
• Contact us if you have a question or have a suggestion for a good tech tip.

Together we are stronger.

(c) 2017 Pat Richley-Erickson for GeneaBloggersTRIBE.com