Welcome to the Start of the Family History Blog
I’ve been researching my family tree for a very long time and now I have enough information, resources, and time to create a blog dedicated to genealogy research and my family tree.
The goal of this website/blog is to document my family tree and family history. The purpose of this website/blog is to also share with you what I’m learning and have learned about researching family genealogy and history. There is a lot to learn and a lot of information out there, more information and more easily accessed information than at any time in our history. With all this information out there, it is now overwhelming to begin the search to trace your family roots. Hopefully, together we can help each other through the process.
I am not alone in creating this family history blog. I’ve found some fabulous long lost relatives (didn’t even know they existed until I started digging) and immediate family members who will be helping me out. So this is a team family effort and I’m excited about sharing what we’ve learned with you.
There are some challenges in creating a genealogy blog, especially with the free blogging tool, WordPress. I will be documenting my efforts on one of my other websites, Lorelle on WordPress, so you can follow along with how this develops.
So stay tuned for some exciting changes to this site and great information and resources!
July 24th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Very nice blog. I have been doing some research on my family myself. Can’t say i see anyone I’m related to here. I liked your creating custom reports section.
Thanks,
Fred
August 12th, 2006 at 5:39 am
You’re amazing. I searching after my own family and I want to find my old family members. Can you help me? How should I begin with them? Thanks.
August 12th, 2006 at 6:22 am
Do as I should have done in the first place: TAKE CLASSES.
There are online classes and in person classes. Libraries, churches, Family History Centers (find any Mormon Church), senior centers, community centers, and schools which offer genealogy and family history basic classes. Take them. I’ll have a list of online classes posted soon.
Visit every living relative over 40 years old with a tape or digital recorder and camera. Take pictures of them and ask them to tell you stories of their childhood. Scan or take digital pictures of every photo album you can find in every closet and under every coffee table from every family member, even if you think it isn’t important. Scan or copy birth certificates, death certificates, obituaries, school papers and records, wills, probate records, divorce records, immigration records, every piece of paper from every person that proves they lived, where they lived, how they lived, and what they were doing at each point in their lives. Get children to write biographies of their parents. Get parents to write biographies of their children. Get cousins to write about other cousins. Get help from everyone and tell everyone what you are doing and just collect, collect, collect.
Make huge lists of unanswered questions like why did they move to this area, what brought them to this country, why did they never move, how often did they travel and why, why only one child when every other family member had 12, why 12 when every other family member had 2, why did two very diverse religious people marry, why did they take this job, why did they divorce…and so on. Ask more than one person for the answer until you find the “truth”.
The living repeat the history of their past, so you can learn a lot from the living to start the process of building your family tree and family stories. Take advantage of them while they are here and don’t wait. I did and I regret it daily. I’ve lost valuable access to memories, stories, and answers to mysteries by only a year or two because I waited too long to track the living because I spent too much time digging up the dead.
That’s it. I’ll be writing more on this later, but that’s a good start.
And don’t be discouraged by “common” last names. I have West, Anderson, Knapp, and other very common American and English last names in my family, and with just a slow methodical process, I’ve been able to track them back.
Good luck and let me know if this helps and how it helps.
September 16th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
I have created a genealogy site on my Grand Childs site and I love it.
Now when my grand child grows up he can how he is related and who his ancesters are
good way to pass on information to next generation.
October 24th, 2006 at 12:24 am
Is it also possible to create a genealogy blog using photos alone? I’m planning to make one through WP using family portraits alone minus the words. I thought that is more than a photo blog because I’m going to use oil painting portraits of our family which were done from those ordinary family pictures. What do you think of my idea?
John
October 24th, 2006 at 7:49 am
You can do anything you want. BUT, if you want to be “found” by anyone except word of mouth, you have to have words. It is still a photoblog, whether you use photographs, graphics, or paintings. A photoblog is no more than a blog that uses more images than text.
You will need to photograph the paintings for reproduction as scanning oils doesn’t get you very good results. Depending upon the type, you can get a lot of reflections from the paint on a flatbed scanner.
Also, take very good care of how you handle copyright and copyright and image protection. The odds of someone abusing your images on their websites unless they know the people or something is slim, but you want to protect their copyrights anyway. I highly recommend that you register the images as a collection or one by one as you go.
You still need to have words, otherwise it’s a static billboard, unfindable by search engine searchers. If that’s not important, who cares. Go for it.
October 26th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
how can i find my older sister?
October 26th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Where did you put her last?
That might be a funny, but it’s the truth. You find the last bit of information you have and work forward and backwards from the evidence. And understand that she might not want to be found. You play detective. You ask questions, check legal documents, courthouse papers, friends, neighbors, and become a detective putting the clues together.