Making a Genealogy Podcast

I’ve been at the receiving end of many a fine podcast (radio on the internet) for both Toastmasters and the Genealogy world but I hadn’t ever made a successful one for myself until now!

How did I do it?

Last November I had tried making a podcast using Camtasia, which is a program for creating VIDEO that can be uploaded to places like Youtube.com.  I figured I’d just extract the audio out of it and use it for a podcast.  Despite saving 4 different ways I was never successful at getting one to work.  I’m sure there is a way to do it but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Fast forward 3 months…

I turned to the free audio and sound recording software Audacity. I installed the software on my hard drive (I use a PC with the Windows Vista operating system) and literally had a recording made in minutes.

There was NO learning curve…just push RECORD and go.

This creates an audacity file which I saved to my hard drive.

I now needed to export the audacity file as a mp3 file that can be heard by all of you out there. That required me to download the “lame mp3 encoder“.   The instructions are on the page and you only need to do it once.

After the mp3 encoder is installed I chose my saved audacity file and using the EXPORT AS MP3 feature which saved the mp3 version on my hard drive.

Probably the fastest, easiest way to share my newly recorded mp3 file was to create a profile on Podbean.com.

This I had done on the Luxegen Podbean page last November when I was trying this earlier.  I went into my previous post and uploaded the new mp3 file and Voila! It worked!

Why did I do all of this?

I love hearing the voices and getting to know my fellow geneabloggers and genealogists better. This was reinforced when I met several of them in person at the Mesa Family History Expo.  I’m hoping other genealogists will share their voices too and we can all get to know each other better.

My first podcast for your listening pleasure is “How Luxegen Got Its Name”

Enjoy!

—

P.S. I’m sure there are a dozen different ways to make and present a podcast on line. I’d like to hear your experiences AND your voices.  Please comment below.