Are you researching ancestors in Georgia? If so, you may want to take a look at the New Georgia Encyclopedia’s Genealogy section. The Counties, Cities & Neighborhoods section could also be quite useful. I found a fascinating overview of Chattooga County – where my mother was born.
Are you looking for an easy, affordable and private way to share news, photos and family history in your family? The Posthaven blog platform may be just the thing. Posthaven doesn’t have the whistles and bells offered by the major blog sites, but it does provide a simple and easy service for posting and delivering content. Posting is a easy as sending an email message. That message is automatically posted to the blog site and delivered via email to everyone subscribed to the blog. And, when subscribers receive the post, they can add their comments by simply replying to the message.
Posthaven isn’t free. It will cost you $5.00 a month, but that gives you ten blogs to use however you wish. Don’t think you need ten blogs? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be put to good use. More on that later. I suggest you begin with two blogs – one public and one private. The private one allows your family to share news that isn’t appropriate for public access. This could include vacation pictures or announcing a new arrival. Posting this kind of information on a public blog or social network can result in identity theft, burglaries and other unpleasant incidents so having a private blog is a smart idea.
The beauty of Posthaven for family networks is how easy it is. Subscribers don’t need to remember passwords to see the latest post from a private blog. It’s delivered to their inbox. When others comment on a post, those comments are also sent to all. In our family, I post a “birthday card” – a scrapbook style graphic created just for that person. Once posted and delivered, family members can reply with their own greetings.
Take advantage of a public blog to post family history stories. This serves several purposes. First, it’s a way to share your family’s history with your family. Stories posted on public blogs are very search-friendly and it’s not unusual to meet a research cousin (someone researching the same family you are) through your blog.
Here are some ideas to put those other eight blogs to work . . .
Build a virtual museum of family heirlooms using the blog to post photos and scanned documents along with the stories associated with these artifacts.
Posthaven makes a great travel blog. Take pictures with your mobile phone and email them with supporting descriptions to your blog. Within minutes, those photos will be delivered to all subscribers.
Tired of all those round-robin emails as you organize a large family event like Thanksgiving dinner, a wedding or a family reunion? Task assignments, who’s bringing what dishes and other details are delivered to each person via email while the “master list” is always available at the blog.
Give the kids in the family a blog and challenge them to learn about their family history – documenting what they’ve learned on the blog. As site owner, you can oversee their efforts and adult subscribers can offer encouragement and support.
Use Posthaven to announce family events
Want to learn more? Download a copy of the Posthaven Primer (PDF) for details on how to get up and running. You will also find tips and ideas at The Storytellers Studio group on MeWe.com.
Have you checked in on FindAGrave since they updated their platform? If not, you may be in for a surprise. I recently recieved a request to transfer a memorial to a family member. When I tried to make the transfer, I discovered that I now had a new user account which I could not access because I didn’t have the password. Once I got that issue straightened out I then discovered that the memorial was assigned to my old account which is now dormant. It took a couple of days to get it all straightened out and complete the transfer.
If you haven’t used FindAGrave for a while, you may want to check your account to make sure you have access to the memorials you manage.
Final Notes
Each new post published at SAGS Support is automatically emailed to member subscribers and/or delivered to their newsreader. Research Notes is published every Monday morning and other articles are posted during the week. Subscribers have the option to control how often these updates are delivered. Look down at the bottom of this message and you will find a Manage Subscriptions link in the fine print as you see in this example. Click it and you will be taken to the WordPress.com Subscription Management page. Use the Delivery Frequency column to change your delivery options from “Immediate” to either “Daily” or “Weekly”.
Sample of the “fine print” at the bottom of each post.
Also down at the bottom of each delivered post is a Comment button. If you would like to comment on something discussed in a post or ask a question, just click the Comment button and you will be taken online to the comment section of the post where you can share your thoughts and read what others have shared.
To learn more, download a copy of the SAGS Support Guide.
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