‘Blogging’

Gillian Stevens - 20 Jun 2007- speaking at the BerksFHS Computer Branch, Woodley

Last year at a family History Conference Gillian went to a lecture on blogging. The lecturer recommended Google's (free) Blogger program and said it was easy to use with both essential and useful features. Gillian decided to test this and within half an hour had set up a basic blog site for this Computer Branch.

So what is a blog, and what use is it? A blog is the abbreviation for Web Log. In essence it is a notebook on the Internet where the latest addition appears first, unlike a written book where the earliest entry is at the front. It can be used for a variety of purposes: personal diary/journal; collaborative space; news channel (Dick Eastman's newsletter now appears as a blog www.eogn.com); collection oflinks, etc. Gillian showed us it could be used for your family history.

There are many choices of Blog software many, but not all, are free. The Blog can either be hosted on your own web space or on the software's own space. Using Blogger the steps to get started are

I - Go to www.blogger.com

2 - Create an account

If you have an existing Google account this can be used as a first step. If not then create a Google account using an existing em ail address. Enter a password (twice for security) Choose the Display name and the enter the Word Verification by copying the letters of the image into the text box. Accept the conditions (to say that you have read them)

3 - Name the Blog

Choose the Blog name and select a Blog address. Check to see if it is available

4 - Choose a template

Choose a template for the Blog. A dozen samples are shown which can be enlarged for preview. As this only a template which is applied to the posts, it can be changed later.

5 - Add content

This can be text, with the ability to choose font, including colour and style and many standard word processing options such as justify (and spell check). You can also import images.

Having created the content, this can be either saved as a draft, for your use, or published.

To change the appearance of the published version, open the blog and click the Template tag. This allows you to add extra features and edit the existing ones, including their position (by dragging them).

Samples of Family History Blogs can be found at

A simple blog of names - http://genealogyservices.blogspot.com/
A blog for collaboration - http://cruwys.blogspot.com/
A blog for research notes - http://surnames-blofeld.blogspot.com/

Other people can add comments to your blog (and if you wish, you can review these additions before they are made available to everyone). To view a blog you can go directly to the web address but in addition you can 'subscribe' to it so that any additions to it causes a notification to be sent to you.

The Computer Branch Blog

The Computer Branch has a blog Branch listing the current program plus giving information about some of the talks we have had in the past, so if you have missed a meeting, lost your newsletter or would just like to remind yourself about what the Computer Branch has been doing visit, http://berksfhscomputerbranch.blogspot.com/

updated 1 Sep 2007