Yes, I have updated the blog layout!

Couldn't sleep the other night and decided to update the blog template!  :)  There are still plenty of things that I need to fix and tweak so please be patient with me. Actually, the data is all the same. The column that was in the middle is now on the left with posts in the middle. I'm also adding a few pages so watch the tabs across the top.

The left column has the BLOG ARCHIVE. That's where you find all the past articles and posts. Below that is the INDEX where you can look for articles based on the subject. So if you are interested in information about census records, click on Census!

Further down the left column are the links to various TOOLS to help you with your family history endeavors; links to help you learn about the various SOFTWARE PROGRAMS available for your use in Family History Centers, as well as the SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES that are provided for your FREE USE at the centers.

Do you need a quick review of how computers work or how to do your family history research? Then you will also find links that will take you to the various resources available for training on the internet, many of which are in video format. How easy can it get? Just sit back in your chair and watch a few videos and learn!

I will also continue to add new tools and widgets as I find them (like those little "fill in the blank" search tools you will find in the left column, towards the bottom). If you know of others please let me know. Then you can use them all in one place. You can currently search the Google historic newspapers, search the genealogy message boards Google books online, and all while listening to great music!

Don't forget about the right-hand column. There are plenty of other bloggers out there in cyberspace who have terrific information to share! The Blog News Feed does just that -- it feeds their most current blog description to the list. You can click on any of those links and you'll be taken to their blog and that specific article! The blog feed is automatic and updates as any one of them updates their blog. So you can check out my blog many times during the day and see new updates from other blogs! How easy is that?

And finally, for those of you who use the Granite South Family History Center, there is a calendar at the very bottom that has the schedule of when we are open and who is working. Remember, even if the center is closed you can get hold of one of your Family History Consultants and they can take you to the center and help you whenever you need it -- whether the center is open or not! Keep finding those missing ancestors. THEY ARE WAITING FOR YOU!

What's With All The Tools?

Hopefully, I'm not overloading my blog, but, I want you to know how to use the tools that you find here...and then use them!


So lets take a look at each one and see how they can be of benefit to you.

First of all, take a look at the "Genealogy Blogs - News Feed" to the right, in the center column. Any kind of a web feed or news feed is a data format used to to display frequently updated content. This is similar to when you "like" someone on Facebook, or you subscribe to a newsletter through email, or you have messages sent to your mobile phone. In this case, I subscribe to a variety of Genealogy/Family History related blogs and put them into this feeder. All the blog articles automatically feed at the same time that the various blogs post their articles. The newest ones always go to the top, and, only one feed is shown for each blog. So if someone posts three different articles in an hour, only the most current one will display. The blog articles listed at the bottom of the feed may be months old. So every time you access my blog you will see updated content from all the listed blogs. I try to stick to the more generic blogs, rather than those that focus on a specific location or family.

At the bottom of the Blog feed you will find several tools and another type of widget with a feed.

I recently added a feed to the Mormon Times supplement to the Deseret News. The Mormon Times frequently has genealogy/family history articles that I think many of you would like to read. With this particular widget you need to double click on the Mormon Times.com line of text. That will open the feed and then you can click on the little blue icons to go directly to the article. (I'm going to try to streamline this process in the future.)

The first tool is the Google Book search box. Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text and stored in its digital database. They have thousands of books that contain either the full book, a portion of a book, or a thumbnail of the paragraph from a book that is still in copyright. All you need to do is go down to the search box and type in anything you are looking for. It might be a name, a place, a how-to, or anything else you might want to search for. You will be taken to the Google site with a list of all the books that has what you searched for. Then click on the link and view the actual text.

Once the list of search results come up, you can use the filters on the left column to narrow down your search. For example, you can narrow your search to just those books that are in limited view or full view only, or just those that are in public domain.

Another tool is the Search the Genealogy Message Boards widget. Message boards are those online discussion sites. People post a question or comment and someone else answers the question or adds comments. When you join a message board you have a choice of having each post emailed to you individually as they are posted, or once a day in a digest mode. There are thousands of message boards and you probably don't want to subscribe to everyone...that would be a ton of email! Some of the message boards are set up to discuss certain software packages, some to talk about people with a certain surname or any surname from a particular location. There are boards for just about everything. Well, this search box will let you search across ALL the genealogy message board's archives. So type in a name for example and you will get a list of results from all the boards. Just click on the links and view the messages. You just might find that lost relative!

Genealogy Sleuth Search Engine is the next tool. It is similar to the message boards widget, except that this one creates a custom search and finds that name, place, etc., from more than just message boards. It might locate posted transcripts of data, family or local histories,  blog articles, and genealogy search sites. This is a great way to have your searches customized without you having to do the customization.

The last of the tools is the Genealogy Google Newspaper Archives Search box. Google has created another custom search that looks through their historical newspapers and archives. These are not the ones from the subscription sites but may contain some of the same material. The search results can create timelines which show selected results from relevant time periods. Here is an example of a name search for "parley pratt". The search brought back over 2000 records. I can then click on any decade on the timeline and limit the results to that specific time frame.

So come often and use these tools. They can save you hours of having to create your own custom searches and looking for the material you need!

Why FOLLOW a Blog?

Look way down below in my blog for a little section called “FOLLOW”. This is where you can FOLLOW my blog or any other blog. Well, you ask, why would I want to FOLLOW your blog or any other blog? Well, let’s look at why you might want to FOLLOW a blog, and if so, what methods can be used.

Maybe you have a blog or two, or twenty that you are interested in, but you forget to check to see if the blogger has added any new stories or articles. Maybe you just get tired of checking, so you don’t. You might miss something important to you unless someone or something notifies you of new postings. That’s what the FOLLOW feature is all about. It keeps track of the blogs you are interested in and lets you know when one has been updated by using one of several methods or tools.

One of the tools available to you for reading and keeping track of blogs is the Google Reading List. It’s free and easy by signing up for a Google Account.    All you need is your email address and then create a password. The Google Account will give you access to a variety of Google products, including IGoogle, Picasa, Google Calendar, and access to a free Gmail account. The calendar at the bottom of this blog is made using Google Calendar.

The Google Reading List (above) will keep track of all the blogs you are following and let you read and manage them in one location. If you want to go directly to the blog site, just click on the blog’s link. As you click on a blog on the left, the right side displays all the posts to that site. Clicking on an article’s title will send you to the actual blog site.

If you have a blog of your own hosted on Blogspot, you can also view these blog posts in your Blogger Dashboard which looks like the one below. Subscribing to a blog will add it to your dashboard and then you can also add your “followed” blogs to your dashboard.

IGoogle is another option and can be customized to add the Google Reader.  Create a personalized IGoogle page/homepage. You can add different widgets to personalize your page. One of these is the Google reader. It will automatically display a title and a link  to each of the blogs that you follow. Using IGoogle as your homepage gives you immediate access to blog updates. When you hover over the title the article displays as a popup. Here is a Google Reader widget from an IGoogle page.

The section below, in the middle column, entitled “Genealogy Blogs – News Feed” is one way of following blogs. I set up a blog feed that automatically updates whenever one of the blogs I have added is updated. The most recent post is listed at the top. In this type of feed, only one new post for a blog is displayed at any time. You can click on the header for that blog and the link will take you to that blog where you can see more articles posted.

Followers are also important to bloggers because it helps a blogger know who is reading the blog. Knowing my audience helps me determine what my readers would be most interested in. Posting comments to a blog also helps me understand my readers and give them what they want.

So, if you are interested in my blog, please follow  it. Or click on any of the genealogy blogs in my feeder and follow them. Make following blogs easier!

Read and follow Blogs?!

Wikipedia (other topic for later) says that 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. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries.

So lets narrow this down to our area of interest -- genealogy blogs. There are hundred's, if not thousands of genealogy related blogs out there -- some better than others. Some are written by various genealogy related businesses, some by professionals, and some by avid everyday genealogists.

Some bloggers have specific areas of interest and may write about internet genealogy, news, specific locals, cemeteries, photo's, tips for beginners, military, or specific surname studies. You can find just about anything you want. The trick is knowing what you want to find and then narrowing down the best ones. Then you can "follow" the blog(s) you are interested in.

You can follow blogs in a number of different ways. For instance, if you already have a Google account you can follow other blogs from your Blogger reading list or in a reader you can create on your home page, like iGoogle.



You can also subscribe to blogs using a site feed. This is what I have done with the blogs in the column to the right --->, entitled "Genealogy Blogs - News Feeds". I have set up a news feed to display a link to each blog, and to display the most current post or article by the blog author. I added some of the best ones for overall interest.

Each blog post will bring that blog link to the top of the feed or list. So if you look at the top listing to the right you will see at the bottom of that feed how many minutes, hours or days ago the posting was made. Clicking on the title of the feed will take you to the full blog. Clicking on the title of the article will take you directly to that article.

So you can come back to this blog every day and see new postings in the blog feeder. Scroll down through the list to see articles that you may be interested in.

Now go out and create you own feed and follow the blogs that are of interest to you!.. Especially this one!

Get Started! ...part 2

Research Your Data...continued

2. Utilize Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. Cyndi’s List contains, literally, over 264,000 links to genealogy websites that are indexed by subject, location or keywords. These are free and subscription-based web sites that contain transcribed data, published family pedigrees and histories, training materials, historical data, photographs, reference and finding aids, and, just about anything you can possibly imagine having to do with family history. Cyndi’s List is your “table of contents”, your “index” to the Internet for genealogy.

3. The Internet has many message boards, blogs and mailing lists available to help you communicate with others around the world who have similar interests in research and training on family history and genealogy.

4. Utilize a Family History Center.

a. FH Centers are staffed with people from who have been called to serve as Family History Consultants or by local genealogy enthusiasts.

b. The FH Center has free access to a number of subscription websites. Currently those include:
Ancestry.com Library Edition
Footnote.com
Genline.com
Godfrey Memorial Library (contains the Newspaper Archives)
Heritage Quest
Kindred Konnections
World Vital Records

c. The FH Center has all of the published Pedigree Resource Files on CD that contain much more information than what is online at FamilySearch.

5. Utilize the Family History Library in downtown Salt Lake.

a. You can search the library catalog online FamilySearch.org from your home so that you are prepared before going to the library. The library contains millions of records published on microfilm, microfiche, books and CD’s. Searching the catalog will provide you with information on what is available, film numbers, book references, etc. to save you time, narrow your search, and identify availability of applicable records.

b. Training classes are also provided for free at the library. A schedule is listed here.