Are you creating long posts that take a lot of planning? Do you want to streamline your process? Are you short on time? Do you want an easy process for creating your ancestral stories as blog posts?
You don’t have time to do a full course, you just want the basic steps! Read on!
These 10 steps can be achieved in 24 hours or less! The process specifies WordPress for your blog site, Elementor for your Templates, and Ancestry for you Family Tree, However, these steps will work equally well for other blog sites and templates and Family Trees online.
Try these easy steps for blogging your ancestral stories!
- Fire up your free WordPress blog (don’t have one yet, see the video below)
- Add a streamlined blog post template (don’t know how, see the next video below – this is optional but it will save time and create a consistent look for your posts)
- Select 2 or 3 ancestors you have researched, and create a set of blog post titles including their names (eg Great Grandfather’s Secret; Finding my Long Lost Uncle; The Day my Parents were married!)
- Harvest your ancestor’s details from your family tree (don’t have a tree yet, try creating a family tree in Ancestry – see video below – download the basic details about your ancestor from your tree and print)
Note: Use the Life Story page in Ancestry and access the Print function from Tools (customise if preferred) print to paper or save as a PDF. - Add some or all of these simple headings to your blog post template:
a. Childhood – include birth date and place, baptism record, school admisssions, childhood pets etc
b. Marriage – include marriage date and place, name of spouse and witnesses, anything unusual eg elopement
c. Working Life – include registers, census and other employment records, research data about the occupation
d. Milestone Events – military experiences, migration and other travel, special notices in newspapers
e. Wills and Legacy – include death date and place, probate information, details of wills - Create paragraphs on relevant selections of these headings from your ancestor’s details downloaded from your tree. This will get you started on a traditional and basic story of your ancestor’s life.
Note: here you are writing the story of the ancestor, so write as descriptive paragraphs and include the Who, What, Where, When and Why elements – see previous post
5 Simple Steps to a Family History Blogging Strategy) - Add images of documents or places to illustrate, also add images of your ancestors as featured images and finish drafting the posts
- Schedule the release of these blog posts during the week
- Publish!
- Enjoy!
This week I improved my strategies for writing my blog posts using the methods above. Now I am planning a group of Ancestral Story posts ready to draft for August in my blog Writing in Progress
Try this formula to streamline and fine tune your Family History Blog writing and join us in the Digital Storytelling Online Facebook group to share your ideas and achievements.
Do you want more detailed instructions and have some time to do a short course online? Try my Blogging in the Past Lane course. Click the link for details.
