Lisa Louise Cooke
Footnote Maven
Episode 38: Family History Blogging Part 1
Now that you are making some substantial progress on your family tree, you are probably thinking about creative ways to share what you’ve discovered and perhaps your thoughts about the research process. In episodes 12 & 13 we covered uploading your family tree to the Internet in order to make connections. On today’s episode we are going to focus on another way to share online – and that’s through blogging.
While you have probably read genealogy blogs, you may not have felt prepared to start one of your own. But in these next few episodes we’re going to change all that. And I’ve invited a seasoned genealogy blogger to start us off.
The Footnote Maven has been blogging for quite some time now and has much to share on the subject. Here blog Shades of the Departed has grown dramatically in popularity and in this episode FM as her friends call her will explain what that blog means to her…
And since there are so many different types of genealogy bloggers, Footnote Maven will try to sum up how she thinks of herself in the blogosphere…
…and she explains why YOU can be a genealogy blogger too!
And will give you specific tips for getting started, how she prepares her blog posts, what she would have done differently if she could start all over again, and 9 tips for getting readers to leave comments.
But even if you don’t plan on starting a blog anytime soon, I know you will enjoy the Footnote Maven’s passion for genealogy, sense of humor, and words of wisdom. And that interview is coming up right after a quick trip to the mailbox.
Related Links:
Transcript
THE MAILBOX:
Regarding Episode #36 and questions regarding Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com.
This link shows how to use that combination to search for a female who has married. As you suggested, entering the Birth Name in the database, but how to locate that person using Family Tree Maker's Web Search feature at Ancestry.com.
http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2008/10/census-search-for-females.html
This specific example is for a Census Record, but other records can also be found using this same technique.
Family History Blogging with the Footnote Maven
According to her website a footnote maven issomeone who is dazzlingly skilled at inserting a citation denoting a source, a note of reference, or a comment at the foot of a scholarly writing. And as you will learn in this interview conducted at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree the Footnote Maven has these qualities and yet so many more. Her two very popular blogs FootnoteMaven and Shades of the Departed are widely read by genealogists everywhere, and she gladly shares her experiences and tips with all of us.
Footnote Maven’s Tip for Getting Started with Your Own Genealogy Blog
- Go look at every geneabloggger out there
- What do you like?
- What do not like?
Look at yourself and ask:
- What kind of blog am I going to be?
- What am I offering?
- Who is my audience?
- Make Yourself stand out and be unique
Biggest Piece of advice:
"You don’t want to be someone else – be yourself! Everybody else is already taken!"
"There is something wonderful in all of us – we just have to determine what that is and showcase it."
How she plans her blogs:
- At first: Footnotes niche – warped sense of humour
- Now I’m just being me - I write the way I talk - I write what I know about
FH Quote: "You can’t be an expert in everything – don’t try to be."
“It is the breath I take…It’s the reason I get up in the morning”
What She Would Do Differently If She Could Have:
- 25 posts in draft ready to go allowing more editing time
- I would tinker more with the look of my blog until it was the way I wanted
- Invite a few friends to test drive it
And she’ll tell you what was even harder for her than starting her first blog!
Footnote Maven's Tips for Effective Blog Commenting:
- Thank people for the comments they leave on your blog
- Go to their blog and read it
- Tell the blogger the positive points in what they are doing
- Host a “Carnival” on your blog
- Post “off the wall” stuff once in a while
- Have good, creative titles for you posts – something that’s going to spark the interest
- Use a word in your title that folks haven’t heard before to catch attention
- Tag your posts and images
- Include “keywords” such as “genealogy”
Footnote Maven's Blogs:
