Technology for Genealogists

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Technology for Genealogists

Learning New Technology for Genealogy: a never ending pursuit.

I have been learning new techniques for using technology smartly for my Genealogy research and Story creation.

Genealogy Research
For my research in Ancestry and FindMyPast, I am learning how to dig deeper into Parish archives to locate Marriage Certificates and Banns for ancestors who were married in the 1700s and 1800s. For my ancestors who were married in the county of Essex in England, I have discovered that original BDM documents can be viewed online in the Essex Parish Registry, linked directly from the search page in Ancestry; the Essex Archives Online. (Note: there is a cost involved in obtaining the documents as PDFs or you can subscribe for a day and search and view images to your hearts content.)

This process has helped me to verify my ancestral line stretching back to the 1770s so far. Now I can create a story library for those ancestors. It pays to collaborate with other genealogists when researching to uncover such hidden gems.
Here’s a couple of those ancient documents from my research into my clans:

Instructional Design
One of my favourite things to do is to create shareable tips and strategies on writing up my ancestral stories.

To create a fillable worksheet I use Canva.com and PDF Filler. I am sharing the latest one of these called,

New Planning your Story Library DabbleWriter Worksheet fillable

To create a five minute video tutorial I use Loom or Zoom. Today’s experiment with Loom was successful. An easy to use tool for creating a ‘talking head’ or ‘website walkthrough’ video. (Thanks to my coach/mentor Sarah Cordiner for her Live Cast on how to record using Loom. You can join her new 30 day Concept to Course Challenge Course here and gain access to her tutorials.)

To create Ancestral Cards and store my Research Notes from my Genealogy sleuthing, I use Trello. I have an Ancestral Card Template available for you to explore here.

To schedule my posts in advance to social media, I often use Buffer.com, which enables me to plan the posts ahead of time and automate their delivery on dates I select.

To automate my blog posts to appear in social media, I use the Publicize options in WordPress. This ensures that my social media followers are alerted to those posts automatically. (Note: for example this post will be automatically displayed in my Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.)

Perhaps you have your favourite tools too? If you would like to share your ideas on Technology for Genealogists, please leave a comment below.

CoachCarole

Essential Genealogist author, storyteller, family historian, edupreneur

Genealogy Research Services

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