The term “Blog” came about from “Web log” and has been shortened to ‘blog’ over the years.
Many genealogists are posting educational and useful content on a daily basis on their blogs. I learn something new every time I check my blog reader.
There are blogs that cater to surnames or personal research. There are regional blogs, blogs written by ‘graveyard rabbits’ doing cemetery indexing, blogs for pro-genealogists, blogs by libraries and archives. Whatever your interest there is probably someone out there writing about it. People can leave a comment on a blog and good discussions and suggestions can follow.
The quickest way to determine if new content has been added to a blog is to subscribe to the RSS feed. RSS stands for really simple syndication. It is the big orange RSS button on the right hand side of the blog.
View the following YouTube Video to learn how to subscribe to a blog from a RSS feed.
In the video we are given 2 things
1. how to get a RSS reader
2. how to subscribe to blogs and news
Google has a reader build into their Gmail account and is the one I recommend if you are just starting out. (Register for a gmail account here if you don’t have one). Once set up with a reader go to your favourite blog We’ll use this one as an example.
http://www.luxegen.ca
Click on the big orange RSS feed button at the top of the page (right hand side) and subscribe. All new content to the blog will appear in your reader.
To view your reader:
If you are doing this in gmail, open up your web browser to http://www.gmail.com, log in and choose “Reader” at the top left of the page. You will see the latest headlines from all the blogs and news that you are subscribed to. I have Dick Eastman’s blog in my reader along with the other genealogy blogs I am following. I can quickly scan the subject lines to see if there is an interesting blog post I want to read.
Go to http://www.geneabloggers.com for a list of genealogy blogs and subscribe.
But before you do that, don’t forget to subscribe to my blog by clicking on the big orange RSS button at the top of the page today!