Saturday, September 29, 2007

"Genealogy Blogging - Soapbox or Service" talk today

I gave my "Genealogy Blogging - Soapbox or Service?" presentation today at the Chula Vista Genealogical Society meeting at the Chula Vista Library. Unfortunately, there was a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar today, and only 12 people attended. I thank them for their perseverance and support! I guess the lesson here is "don't schedule something when there is a community fair just three miles down the road."

In the talk, I discussed:

* What is blogging, who can do it, the advantages and disadvantages of it.

* How do you create a blog, and what should you put on a blog?

* Finding genealogy blogs, keeping track of blogs

* Why did I start blogging?

* Finding your way around a genealogy blog

* Using a service like Sitemeter for statistics and visitor information

* All of my favorite genealogy bloggers (well, I missed some of them, but you don't know who it was!)

* A demonstration of creating a post and publishing it - see the post below. I missed the time by only two minutes!

* Finally - Soapbox or Service? Yes. Both, at least for me and many others.

The attentive audience wondered how much all of this cost, and they were surprised to learn that everything I've done in blogging has been free - except for my time, of course, which I haven't charged myself for. I'm having fun doing it, making online friends, and learning a lot about writing, web pages, etc.

Then we adjourned to the conference room for shrimp cocktails provided by Jan, one of our members. See what everybody else missed!

I wore my new denim shirt - the one with a family tree logo that says "Genealogy, so many ancestors, so little time." It was a gift from one of our new members for helping her find some of her ancestry earlier this year.

We used Shirley's Epson projector and Gary's laptop for this presentation - we'll use them again on 20 October when I present our "Discover Your Family History Online" seminar.

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