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Blog for Free
As promised in the Dec. 15 AncestorNews, here's a free way to keep track of your online research.
You've probably heard about blogs in news articles over the past few years. Short for Web logs, blogs are simply online diaries that people keep on every subject imaginable.
Last October, I began experimenting with using a blog to track my online genealogy research. In the past, whenever I found genealogy information online, I would cut and paste it into a text editor and file it under the appropriate surname. However, I wanted a way to track my online research when I was away from home, and that meant using a system I could access from any computer with an Internet connection.
I tried several online diary options, but none met my needs as well as a blog. It was easy to drop information I found online into my blog with cut and paste. Of course, it's important to remember that I could copy an interesting site's URL (Web address) and a brief excerpt, but I couldn't copy the entire site or I'd be infringing on copyright laws (unless the site stated its material was copyright free).
Another reason I liked the blog format was the ease in sharing research information with other surname researchers. Most blogs allow you (the owner) to allow or disallow posting—that way you can create a blog that can't be posted on except by those people you allow. Although you could build a Web site yourself for shared genealogy research, a blog will allow the same level of sharing, but it's easier and free.
Last, when I do online research, I tend to visit a site once and never go back. By using a blog, which tracks the date I was on a site, it's a lot easier for me to see that I haven't visited a site for months-which means I check back on sites more frequently.
If you go to the blog I'm experimenting with, you'll get an idea of the type of notes you can keep on a blog. As noted, I started the blog in October, but because of travel and the holidays, I haven't had time until now to return to posting. I'm going to re-start my blog-based research and continue to see how well this form of research works for me.
If you use a blog as a research tool, I'd like to hear your thoughts about it. Write me. If you want to start a blog, free ones are available at:
• Blogger (probably the most popular)
• Blogger Tour (gives information on what you can do with Blogger)
• WordPress
• BlogStream Nancy Hendrickson is a contributing editor for Family Tree Magazine. She also is a family historian, freelance writer
and the author of two astronomy books. Her Web site
is at www.ancestornews.com. E-mail her at stjoemo@pobox.com.
by Nancy Hendrickson
www.blogger.com
www.blogger.com/tour_start.g
wordpress.com
www.blogstream.com
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