Ch-Ch-CH-CHANGES!

If you’ve stopped by the blog recently you will have noticed that I’ve made some changes; well, two main ones.  The first change is to the blog-site itself and the second is that I’ve joined a blogging network, called Genea-bloggers.

The change to the blog-site is that I now have multiple pages! The “Home” page is where my blog entries are posted and I have links to the blog archive on the side, and a cloud of searchable labels below that – the bigger the label the more posts about it. Click any of the labels and it will bring up a list of the blog posts containing that term (or that I’ve labeled as containing that term). The blog archive and the label cloud have been there from the beginning but they are starting to be more noticeable as I’ve gotten a few more posts done. The blog is also searchable from within – I put in a search gadget and it will turn up on Google or other search engines if someone is looking for, say, one of the ancestors I did an ancestor highlight on.

The second page is titled “Surnames/Locations” and I got this idea from some of the other genealogical blogs I follow. Its technical name is “cousin-bait”!   : ) I’m listing, in alphabetical order, all of the surnames I am researching in tracing back our family tree. So, more names will be added as I encounter them going back. Beside each name are the places I’ve found them in earliest to latest. So if someone comes across the blog, and checks this page and says, to themselves, “Hey, I’m researching Erwins in North Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, & Ohio, too,” we could be some sort of cousin!  And they might choose to contact me to make our acquaintance and/or to compare family history notes. This would be very cool!  -- And is the main reason I also added a “Contact Me” page, giving out the email address I use for genealogical stuff and other blogs, in a written form (humans will figure it out and, hopefully, spambots won’t).  Or they could leave a comment; I see all comments as they feed into the same email address. I will answer every comment.

I’ve also put in a page listing links to helpful resources I’ve used and another page listing links to all of the blogs I’ve discovered that are interesting and/or give great information as to how and where to research things, copyright law, and other things useful to beginning family historians and bloggers. I did this partially to help others who run across the blog and may be starting their own family research, partially to make sure I don’t lose track of them as my bookmarks are starting to get rather over-full, and partially as a way to thank those bloggers who have helpfully answered my questions when I posted to their comments.

One the top right side of my blog you’ll now also see a badge identifying me as part of a network called Genea-bloggers. I joined Genea-bloggers because through the network website I have the opportunity to talk with (well, type) and learn more about how to do genealogical research from others who love it. The network also offers webinars in research issues and in blogging issues (technology, daily blog post ideas/themes, etc.), which should mean I’ll get better at both.   They also have a searchable blog roll of links to almost 3000 genealogy and family history related blogs, of which this is now one! (I discovered I’m not very original; there are 4 or 5 “Climbing My Family Tree” blogs listed. Ah well.) I’m very excited about this! Oh, and it’s free!  

I can’t promise I’ll follow all of the prompts and become a daily blog. I’m still working a stressful job with long hours and I need to do life chores and read, and eat, and sleep, and such. If I write a blog post every day, I won’t have any time for research; which I love more than blog-writing. But there may be more, and I may learn to write shorter ones. We’ll see. It’s all an adventure, isn’t it?