Cousin Bait. That’s what Amy Coffin, MLIS and genealogy blogger at WeTree.blogspot.com, calls her blog posts (see Figure 9-1). If you want to cast your nets for possible connections in your genealogy, a regular blog is a great way to do it. It’s also an excellent place to share your research problems and genealogy happy-dance moments to other genealogists around the world. Blogs can truly be one of the most important tools for your genealogy research!

FIGURE 9-1. Amy Coffin of We Tree Blog writes to attract more cousins.

Bill West, whose blog West in New England is at http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com, said, “I’ve had a quite a few cousin contacts through my blog, mostly from my dad’s side of the family. The most dramatic one for me, though, was the one with the cousin from my mom’s paternal side. Her parents divorced when she was a child back in the 1930s, and there was no contact with his family that I know of after I was born. Then one of my cousins found my blog and contacted me. We’ve exchanged phone calls and pictures, and I met with another cousin for lunch.”

Caroline Marshall Pointer said, “I’ve had lots of them on my blog Family Stories (http://yourfamilystory-cmpointer.blogspot.com) and then I incorporate them into my blogging, which leads to more success stories. And then I share some blogging with cousin bait tips on BloggingGenealogy.com (www.blogginggenealogy.com/blog.html).”

Amy Coffin said, “I started this blog (1) so I could talk about genealogy without bugging my nongenealogy family and (2) to get my ancestral names out there online, in the chance that someone would be searching for the same names and stumble on my blog. This has happened many times; I just don’t always write about it.

“The best success story had to do with my great-grandmother Getrude Baerecke. I knew all about her, but nothing about her ancestors. The situation remained unchanged for months until one day a woman read my blog and e-mailed me saying she had been researching the Baerecke line. She knew everything about the Baerecke family, except for a woman named Gertrude who was an elusive mystery to her. Would I happen to have any information on Gertrude? Right there, the puzzle pieces fit together.

“I really, really, really believe blogs are one of the easiest, cheapest, and most successful ways to advance personal genealogy research. I believe in this tool so much that I came up with 52 ideas (one for each week), which I share freely on my website.”

So, are you ready to jump on the blog bandwagon?

Blogging Guidelines

Your blog must have a purpose: to give, share, and relate. The more you do these things, the more you will receive in return. This is much easier than you think!

Your blog will be a dynamic webpage that you can easily change daily, or more than once a day if you wish. Remember, web search spiders love “fresh” content and take note whenever a page changes. So when you blog, you become very findable on the Web! When you create a blog and often mention the surnames you are searching, then you will pop up in the search engines. A visitor may find something on your blog that is of help or has something that helps you, and there you have online genealogy at its best!

How to Blog Effectively

Writing a blog is not any harder than any other writing, and no easier! But writing for the Web is a little different than writing a book or a magazine article.

When you write for the Web, you must picture your reader leaning forward, ready to click away from here as quickly as interest flags. When reading a book or a magazine, the reader tends to be more relaxed and usually has set aside this time to be reading. Reading something on the Web usually has to do with accomplishing something else, and doing it while in some sort of office chair, or at the least while holding a smart phone. Not relaxed, in other words. Your genealogy blog has to capture the eyeballs and hold them to the end, or the mouse clicks them away like the heels of Dorothy’s ruby slippers. But though that makes it sound like work, it can also be very rewarding.

As Robert Ragan of Treasure Maps Genealogy (http://amberskyline.com.treasuremaps) puts it, a blog gets your genealogy done.

When you blog, you are giving back to the world of online genealogy, and that helps keep you motivated to find even more. Remember what goes around comes around! If you address your readers and use the first person sparingly, that keeps your blog from being self-centered blather. That way, you are focusing outward, not inward, and drawing the reader in. You can encourage readers to leave comments, ask questions, offer suggestions, and contribute information by holding back some of your information, indicating you have more to share.

Here is a quick list of writing tips:

    • Be passionate If today’s topic is your personal genealogy, let your excitement show. If it’s a friend’s genealogy success you are writing about, convey that sense of joy.

    • Be informal Write your blog exactly as you would talk to a friend. In fact, that’s what you are doing: telling all your web friends what is new about your search for family history.

    • Breezy is good, but long-winded is not Draft a post, read it over. Look for repeating yourself, wandering off topic, or using needless adjectives. Also give up clichés, unless you are using them as irony.

    • Spell check Most of the blogging sites and software (see the Note) have a spell check. Or, write it in your word processor first, spell check, and then paste into your blog software. Learn to love www.dictionary.com. I do!

    • Pay attention to layout Line breaks, subheads, boldface, and italics can help you express yourself. Bulleted lists catch the eye and make the reader feel efficient.

    • Occasionally, go with a narrative or a picture so that your blog doesn’t look the same every day, making the reader feel like they have read it already.

    • Every entry should have a good headline and descriptive tags. Draw those readers in with creative teasers, helping them know what to expect from your posts. This can be as fun as finding a female ancestor!

Software and Services for Blogging

Blogging platforms are as plentiful as mosquitoes in a swamp. Give several a try, but you will find these three at the top of most “Best Blogging” lists:

    • Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), from Google, is one of the oldest and most stable of the free online blog services. Blogger’s best feature is how easy it is to set up and use; you can have your blog up in 15 minutes or less, regardless of your experience level. With drag-and-drop template editing, dynamic updating, geotagging for location-based blogging, and easy publication from editing tools like Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Windows Live Writer, it is the blogging tool of choice for all the genealogists quoted earlier.

    • WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org) is a free blogging tool and weblog platform. It is also a wonderful site for learning about blogging because they have tutorials for every aspect of the subject. Even if you go with another platform, look at WordPress’s how-tos—they will help. I have been using WordPress for several years.

    • Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com) is very popular with under-30 web users. It is a microblogging site. You get more characters than Twitter, but not so many as with Blogger and WordPress. Images, links to video, and the like are possible, and you can customize the look; in addition, you can write your Tumblr post in no time. It’s a good way to dip your toe into the blogging ocean.

Success Story: Another Jones Surprise, or Why Genealogists Should Blog

We Tree Adventures in Genealogy. Monday, August 3, 2009, by Amy Coffin, MLIS Texas, United States. Reprinted with permission.

In my last entry about Keeping Up With The Joneses, I shared that I was learning about my Jones line. I discovered that they spent some time in Cooke County, Texas, but that I had yet not found the time to learn about the area and its genealogy resources.

In the comments section of that blog post, one of my friends and faithful readers, who also happens to be a very smart librarian, shared with me a link for a Jones Cemetery and asked if these were my Jones folks. They were!

Many of the names in the cemetery are familiar. Duckett and Bostick stand out. Probably anyone from Asheville, North Carolina, has a connection. However, what stood out on that page was a grave marker transcription for:

       JONES, Harriet Elizabeth 8 Oct 1859 - 18 Aug 1861 dau of R. M. and Sarah Neilson Jones note: no longer found

This entry got me excited because R. M. and Sarah are my great-great-great-grandparents. Harriet was a child I did not know of! My great-great-grandfather, Frank Wiley Jones, had another sister! I went to enter her name in my files and I stopped…

She was born on the same day as my great-great-grandfather. He was a twin.

The only evidence I had that Harriet even existed came from the Jones Cemetery transcription webpage. I’ve yet to find them in the 1860 census. I’m wondering if they were en route from North Carolina to Texas then.

The only reason I now know about it is because I blogged about my Jones line and someone took the time to comment and share what she knew.

This is why all genealogists should blog. We are not islands. So many other folks out there have information to share. You don’t have to be an expert writer. Just get your surnames out there. You’ll be surprised at what you find… or who finds you.

Time and Circumstance

This may all seem very time consuming, and getting set up can take you the better part of a day as you define for yourself your blog’s focus, theme, design, and permanent home. But after that, it really only takes a little bit of each day, or week, or month, as you decide, to keep it up to date and fresh.

Here are just a few ideas to get your genealogy muse working:

    • Manic Monday (things about genealogy that drive you crazy)

    • Tombstone Tuesday (pictures or descriptions of interesting, unusual, or pertinent tombstones)

    • Wordless Wednesday (usually pictures, sometimes a link, sometimes a map)

    • Thursday Treasures (heirlooms and their stories)

    • Follow Friday (blogs you follow and why)

    • Surname Saturday (highlight a surname you are pursuing, where and when)

    • Night Moves (genealogy you found late at night on the Internet!)

Many more blogging prompt ideas can be found at http://geneabloggers.com/daily-blogging-prompts. There you will find at least six ideas for any day of the week!

Wrapping Up

    • Blogging is free, fun, and easy to set up.

    • Sharing your genealogy on a blog can garner responses from others searching your surnames.

    • You need only spend a few minutes a day keeping your blog current.

    • Blog entries are best when they are casual in tone, have enough information to intrigue the reader, and are tagged to help web engine spiders find them.

    • Idea prompts can help you get started and keep going.