Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Blog Your Family Tree

Wikipedia's definition of a blog states, "A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order."

Indeed, a blog is an easy-to-use web site where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more. Blogs can be personal, written by one person, or they can be produced by the marketing departments of multi-billion dollar corporations. A blog is simply an easy-to-use process that allows anyone, including you, to "get the word out." A blog is a great method of publishing whatever you wish to tell the world.

Newspapers at Footnote.com and the 1930 Census - WWII Collection

A few days ago I published an announcement from Footnote.com about a new Great Depression Collection the company has added. That announcement is at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/03/footnotecom-releases-great-depression-collection.html. I then wrote my impressions of the new interactive 1930 U.S. census that is a part of that collection. My comments are at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/03/commentary-footnotes-interactive-1930-census-and-the-great-depression-collection.html.

Now Beau Sharbrough, former VP of Acquisitions at Footnote, has written about his impressions of the new collection and has offered step-by-step instructions in an article titled, “1930 Census - WWII Collection?”

Blog Software Comparison Chart

Are you interested in starting a blog but don't know which service or software to use? First, decide which features are important to you. Then look at the new side-by-side comparison chart at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm

Read This Newsletter on your iPod

That's right, you can read this newsletter and other RSS feeds on your music iPod! You will need Macintosh OSX 10.4, Tiger, or OSX 10.3.9 Panther running on an iPod, iPod mini, or iPod Nano with Notes facility, plus the free program iFeedPod.

 

iFeedPod is available at http://www.carnglas.com

 

 

Blogs Explained

NOTE: This is an updated version of an article that I wrote about a year ago. The popularity of blogs has mushroomed since this article first appeared. I have added numerous updates to the original article.

The word "blog" sounds like one of those "techie words" that describes some black magic understood only by programmers, systems analysts, and others who regularly invoke incantations not understood by mere mortals. In fact, blogs are actually very simple, perhaps even simpler than the Web page or e-mail message that you are now viewing at this moment. You can read blogs easily, even without a technical understanding of the underlying technology. In fact, if you are reading this article on the web right now, you are already using a blog, perhaps without realizing it. The purpose of this article is to help de-mystify the word "blog" and to explain how you can use the benefits of blogs.

Gendatablog

Genealogy blogs are popping up everywhere. I was delighted to see a new one today, started by an expert genealogist and an old friend.

Gendatablog by Sara Leslie Griffith promises to be a "how to" blog along with reviews of various computer programs. Quoting from the first article posted:

Top Ten Genealogy Websites of 2050

I fell off my chair laughing after reading this list. Christopher Dunham has a way with words. Take a look at his blog.

New Genealogical Society Blog

Blogs, or "web logs," are appearing everywhere these days. Blogs are great at distributing frequently updated information to a wide audience. Blogs can be read in a standard web browser, or even more easily in a specialized newsreader designed just for the purpose. Newspapers, weather forecasts, stock market information and this newsletter are all available as blogs. Now Colleen Robledo has created a new blog that should be of interest to many genealogists.

Announcing DavidLambertBlog.com

The NERGC conference in Portland, Maine hasn't even started yet and already announcements about new products and services are appearing. Here is an announcement from the New England Historic Genealogical Society, followed by some of my own comments:

Announcing DavidLambertBlog.com, genealogical thoughts from the NEHGS Online Genealogist

GenealogyBlog.com is (Temporarily) Offline

Leland Meitzler, the owner of Heritage Creations, publishes a very popular web log (blog) called GenealogyBlog.com. That site has been offline for several days. Apparently Leland is home recovering from some minor surgery that is keeping him away from the keyboard.

CousinConnect Adds RSS Feeds

CousinConnect.com is the latest genealogy site to add RSS news feeds. I suspect you will see many more sites adding RSS during 2005. Here is the announcement from CousinConnect.com:

People of the Year: Bloggers

Blog was an almost unknown term one year ago. Now it is one of the fastest growing technical improvements on the Internet. This newsletter converted to a blog format in May, 2004. Several other genealogy publications and databases are also now available as blog news feeds. Now ABC News has named the authors of blogs as "People of the Year."

Interment.net Cemetery RSS Newsfeed

Interment.net is an online publisher of cemetery records and materials relating to cemeteries. The largest group of users of this web site is genealogists who are looking for records to help trace their family history, and learn something about cemeteries in general.

The owners of Interment.net have been sending frequent e-mail newsletters listing new records added to the database and other news items. However, the owners have now announced that they will no longer send e-mail newsletters and instead are switching to an RSS news feed.

Read This Newsletter in My Yahoo

Yahoo members may be pleased to learn that this newsletter and many others can easily be added to My Yahoo, a personalized home page service offered by the online portal giant.

Newsletter FAQs

When I started the new Daily Edition of this newsletter in May, much of the information in the old FAQ (Frequently-Asked Questions) section became obsolete. I have been updating this section and have posted the new information at http://www.eogn.com/faq.

RSS Feeds Explained

You may have noticed that this newsletter and several other genealogy Web sites are now available via RSS news feeds. So are thousands of other Web news sites covering a wide variety of topics. This article will hopefully explain what RSS feeds are and what they can offer you.

Update: Please Help Me Define the Future of this Newsletter

Last week I asked for your opinions in shaping the future format of this newsletter. I am trying to solve problems created by spam filters. I cannot measure the size of the problem with precision, but it appears that roughly 30% of the Plus Edition newsletters sent via e-mail never reach the intended addressees. I continue to send the Plus Edition to each subscriber via e-mail every week, but I have also been experimenting with alternative delivery methods for those who cannot receive e-mail versions.

Changes to "Other Genealogy News"

For years I have published articles that I have written and occasionally articles written by others within my weekly newsletter. The recent change in format has made possible another benefit for both Standard and Plus Edition readers. Now it’s easier than ever to find all the latest genealogy-related news stories as they appear online. Just go to http://blog.eogn.com and get the full stories from the column on the right, headlined "Other Genealogy News."

Please Help Me Define the Future of this Newsletter

Most readers of this newsletter know that I have been experimenting with the newsletter format recently. I have struggled to work around impediments created by spam filters. I cannot measure the size of the problem with precision, but it appears that roughly 30% of the Plus Edition newsletters sent via e-mail never reach the intended addressees. I continue to send the Plus Edition to each subscriber via e-mail every week, but I have also been experimenting with alternative delivery methods for those who cannot receive e-mail versions.

Automatic Delivery of this Newsletter

If you were to pick between visiting this newsletter on the Web or letting this newsletter automatically come to you every day, which would you choose? For those who prefer the latter, there’s a really simple solution. In fact, it’s called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS for short. Instead of navigating to various Web sites to read information, RSS “feeds” requested news to your computer so that you can read it all at your convenience. Now an RSS/XML feed of this newsletter is available.