I am watching a webinar called Google+ the Next Big Thing that was recorded this morning at 4am (too early for me) with Paul Allen, Dan Lynch and Mark Olsen. To find out more about these speakers, and to watch the webinar yourself, go to http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp. It will be available online for another week or so, and then you can buy it on a CD. So far Paul Allen is showing slides of the amazing rate of takeup of Google+ compared with Facebook and Twitter, and talking … [Read more...]
Can Google+ replace Facebook and Twitter?
12 July 2011 by 3 Comments
I've been playing with Google+ for a few days now, and I've had some time to experiment and to see how others in my circles are reacting to it. Most seem to be using it as a substitute for Facebook - posting to a limited audience in their own circles. Many of them like that you can more easily post about specific subjects to specific people, a capability that Facebook has but hides very well. The more public figures - developers and power-bloggers, for example, are making everything … [Read more...]
Ask Archivists!
9 June 2011 by Leave a Comment
Today was Ask Archivists Day. In much of the world it still is, Australia being ahead of most of the rest of the world. It was/is a great opportunity to ask an archivist a question and have it answered. The hashtag to use is #AskArchivists. You don't have to be a member of Twitter to read the conversation; only if you want to ask a question. Questions were varied, from very broad, such as 'what does an archivist do?' to quite specific. I asked the National Archives of Australia (@naagovau) a … [Read more...]
Twitter for family historians
5 June 2011 by 4 Comments
What is Twitter? Twitter is what is known as a microblog. You can send and receive messages, called tweets. A tweet can be a maximum of 140 characters. Tweets can be seen, and searched, by everyone unless you restrict them only to your friends. You can search for messages by a single person, by a word or phrase, or by a topic or hashtag, which is word, often abbreviated, with a # in the front of it. A tweet you particularly like can be retweeted to your followers. Tweets can include … [Read more...]
Top 10 Social Media Sites for Family Historians
22 October 2010 by 2 Comments
I think that social media was made for family historians. We are different from other people - we actually enjoy finding distant relatives and keeping in touch with them! Social media helps us to find relatives and old friends in ways that were not possible in the days of mailing lists and message boards. Here are 10 social media sites that are not directly related to family history (except one) but are nevertheless important for communicating, sharing and collaborating with other family … [Read more...]
Meet the Challenge
5 June 2010 by 1 Comment
This post was originally posted as part of the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy Challenge in 2010. The challenge this week is: Come up with a personal genealogy challenge of your own. Each person has different research goals and experiences. Use this week to come up with your own challenge, and then take the steps to accomplish it. Haha, I thought. that one's easy! My biggest challenge is finding the time toget everything done that I need to do. So I've decided, for the sake of this … [Read more...]
Not the same old stories
14 February 2008 by Leave a Comment
It is a fact of life that every now and then we are obliged to visit our older relatives and in-laws. We may love these people very much and yet we quite often look forward to these visits with annoyance, if not actual dread. To have to listen to the same old stories yet again seems almost unbearable.At the same time we may regret that we didn't get more information from our grandparents and other relatives who have passed away. Why did they never tell us about their childhoods or when they got … [Read more...]
