Generations of Stories

Blogging to Write Family History

15 Jan 2011 1 Comment

by Jennifer Holik-Urban in Blogging Tags: ancestor, ancestors, blogger, family, family histories, family history, family history researchers, genealogical researchers, genealogist, genealogy, genealogy society

Blogging is a fantastic avenue when you begin to write your family history. Blogging allows genealogical researchers to write out their brick walls and frustrations. Sometimes other researchers are able to offer suggestions on how to break down those walls. For some researchers, just simply putting a research problem out there and walking away can lead to more success on that issue down the road.

The photo is of my great, great grandfather, Jan Zajicek. Family story is he lived in Chicago during the Great Chicago Fire and saved the dining room table during the blaze. I heard this story when I was in my mid-20′s and had just started researching. My initial thought was Jan was a married man working as a tailor and perhaps the dining room table was where he did some of his work. To me, it made sense he would try to save it.

Fast forward a couple of years and some major research time. I discovered Jan was not a married man but a teenager! He was working as a tailor but I was no closer to discovering the truth about the table. His family did live in Chicago during the time of the Great Fire, but my brick wall is locating his 1871 address. This remains a brick wall for me, but I have blogged about it so who knows. Maybe an answer will present itself or another blogger will suggest a resource I overlooked.

Some genealogists and family history researchers use blogging as a tool to publish their family histories. What does it mean to publish though? Publish means to write up and present the information to someone, whether it is a family member or local genealogy society, national journal, or publish an actual book.

Blogging allows people to explore many of their family history topics in depth and in a more shallow way. These blog posts can eventually become the beginning of a family history book. Blogging also allows connections to be made between researchers who share the same ancestors.

Where do you start to create a genealogy blog? Check out Geneabloggers. Thomas MacEntee, of High-Definition Genealogy has created a site full of resources for those just getting started and seasoned bloggers. Blogs are submitted and listed by type of blog. There are daily blogging themes posted to help provide blogging topic ideas. Thomas also posts interviews with people around the genealogy community, reviews of books and products, and online safety information we all need.

Explore blogging platforms such as Blogger and WordPress are WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) and HTML publishing platforms. Both are very easy to use with many templates available.

So what are you waiting for? Stop reading and go explore some of these genealogy blog resources and get started today. Leave a comment and post your blog if you begin. I’d love to stop by and read it.