Creating your own Family History Website
Genealogy is a collaborative project. Yes, you can sift through family records and websites to gather information but in order to gather up a comprehensive family history; you need to involve the family. Who else is better suited to help you piece together bits of family history and lore into a fully filled out family tree? Your family history project should be accessible to the very people who have a vested interest in your genealogy project, your family.
By creating your own family website, you will gain two benefits. The first is that you can post updated about your ongoing genealogy project and it provides and interactive venue for which your family can add valuable information that can help you with your family history. Having a central location for your family to track your project and offer insights, personal stories and recollection as well as helping you find missing information is beyond valuable. Family historians often rely heavily on the internet to research for their family project but they rarely think of using it fully to their advantage in this way.
Another benefit is that your family, both immediate and extended will be able to enjoy your work when you have finished your project. A family history is enjoyed by both the immediate and the extended family and your family website will give all family members access to the family tree. Who know, it might even inspire many to do their own family tree. You can link other family tree to your blog, creating a network of related family trees. The possibilities are vast but in the end, it is a fun and creative way to easily share the fruits of your labor.
A lot of people think that hosting a website is expensive but you do not need to actually go into the cost of buying your own website, although you certainly may if you so wish. For many, a blog is simple enough to manage and will suit all of your needs. Blogs are especially easy to set up and maintain for those that do not have extensive website experience and you can easily set up a blog without needing to learn the ins and outs of html.
BlogSpot, or blogger, is a highly recommended site. It is part of the Google family, so you will need to set up a Google account if you do not already have one. Blogger will host your blog for free, so it will cost you nothing for a basic blog. Blogger is simple, what you see is what you get basically and for the average blogger, it will serve just fine. You will be able to post to your blog from your computer, or via email, so if you are traveling or on the go and want to update, you can do so. Blogger is a no fuss no muss type of blog and that is why I recommend it; it is very easy to set up.
Go to www.blogger.com to get started. You will see a sign in box to the right of your screen; if you already have a Google account, such as for Gmail or Google +, go ahead and sign in to get started. If you do not have a Google account, scroll down the page until you see a box that says “Sign Up.” Please note, you do not have to have a Gmail email to sign up for Google, you just need to have a personal email account, not necessarily Gmail. You will not have to create a Gmail account to sign up for blogger, just a Google account.
Now that you have an account, you can sign into, or will already be signed into Blogger. See screenshot 1. The red arrow is pointing to the new blog button; you will need to click on new blog to begin creating your blog. If you have other blogs, they will be listed here. You can have more than one blog if you so choose.
You will be taken to this screen, see screen shot 2, below.
Now, you need to decide on the title and address for your blog. Most people choose to use the title as their blog address because that makes it easier for other people to find it. If you title your blog “Sarah Smith’s Family Blog” but then make the address “smithfamilyhistoricalblog.blogspot.com; people who know your blog as “Sarah Smith’s Family Blog” may have trouble finding it. Whatever you use to title your blog should also be the blog address. The except is if you have a long blog title, in which case you can choose to shorten it for the title, but still use the main part of your title for the address. For example, if you call your blog “The Smith Family Genealogy Project” but want a shorter address you can use “Smithgenealogy.blogspot.com” for a shorter title but as you can see, the title still evokes the main theme of your title.
You will also choose a template to use. You can change your template later but go ahead and pick the template that you would like to use and then click the create blog button. You are now the proud owner of your very own blog.
To begin posting to your blog click on “Start Posting” and begin to write your first blog post. It will ask you for a post title, so fill in the title of your post and then you will begin to compose your blog post in the text box below. You can write in text, or you can use HTML. You can insert links or pictures, so you can include family pictures, or a family tree to the blog post. Whatever you choose to include that is relevant to your post, include it.
To the right will be the post settings. You can choose labels and your options from here. If you want an interactive blog, allow reader comments. To publish your post, select publish to the right of where you entered your post title. You can save your post with the “save now” option, preview it with the “preview” button or publish it by selecting “publish post.” If you select publish post, you will have published your first blog posting to your new blog.
That is how you create a blog for your family history project. You can post as much or as little as you prefer. If you want to make your blog look more polished and professional, under the settings tab, got to the publishing options and for $10 a year you can buy a domain for your blog.
