Family Tree Circles Blog

by Scott_J 1 year, 10 months ago

This week’s writing prompt should be a lot more fun than last week’s dry topic of state archives. Thanks to the few of you who mustered up journals on that.

Week 38: Funny Ancestor Stories. Tell us a funny ancestor story that stands out in your mind. When did you first hear the story? Do other family members tell different versions? Does this tale play a large part in your family tree?

Write a journal on FamilyTreeCircles about your favorite state archive.

http://www.familytreecircles.com/ejournal.php

When you do, please put “Funny Ancestor Stories” in the journal title somewhere so I can be sure to see it and feature it in this week’s FamilyTreeCircles blog post about it.

“Funny Ancestor Stories” Journals From FamilyTreeCircles Members

FUNNY ANCESTOR STORY :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy Great Uncle Bill was born in Ireland in the late 1800s He arrived in New Zealand about 1920 with a number of his siblings and they established themselves in various parts of NZ Most of them settled near Wellington but great uncle Bill stayed in Christchurch so in all my life I think I only met him half a dozen times The first time I met him he gave me 2/- (20 cents) so he was forever embedded in my mind!! I loved him. He was very quiet. Tall and thin, he would bend right down to talk to me ...via: www.familytreecircles.com

Funny family stories :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy My grandfather was born in 1878 and lived to be 106. As I was growing up he would sit with me on the porch or in front of the fireplace and tell me stories of the Civil War. I was in Junior High before I realized that Grandpa Eubanks had not actually ‘lived’ those stories, they were ones he had been told by uncles and other members of the family. The best one was about his father and grandfather burying all the family valuables and money under a big rock shaped like a frog out in the pasture. Wh…via: www.familytreecircles.com

More Whoppers Families Tell You :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy Just reading about Sue Graham’s post regarding the whoppers families tell brought to mind a whopper in our family. I really can’t mention names, because I am sworn to secrecy. But a certain person’s great grandmother was so secretive about her age that she went so far as to cut up her marriage certificate and hide the pieces inside her handbag, never ever leaving the bag out of her sight. No ammount of pleading or trickery would loosen her lips as to her age. Then on the 7 September i…via: www.familytreecircles.com

Funny Ancestor Story: James Kinsey Brown :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy When my Great, Great Grandfather, James Kinsey Brown, returned from fighting in the Civil War, he married and had four daughters. He named them Annie ATLANTA, CAROLINE Jane, Fannie MISSOURI, and Sally VIRGINIA for wars he fought in.via: www.familytreecircles.com

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy created by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts courtesy of GeneaBloggers for genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

by Scott_J 1 year, 10 months ago

Here’s this week’s challenge:

Week 37: State Archives Which state (or federal or government) archives repository is your favorite? Have you been there in person? What does their website offer to visitors? Share any advice you can to potential visitors who may visit the archives in the future.

Write a journal on FamilyTreeCircles about your favorite state archive.

http://www.familytreecircles.com/ejournal.php

When you do, please put “State Archives” in the journal title somewhere so I can be sure to see it and feature it in this week’s FamilyTreeCircles blog post about it.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy created by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts courtesy of GeneaBloggers for genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

This week’s journals

Indiana State Archives for Perry County, Indiana, USA :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy State Archives hold a multitude of mysteries and answers to many of a genealogier’ questions; but local county ones do, also. In this journal update, I want to tell about the amazing genealogical library in the Tell City, Indiana, USA,library and the curator of the genealogy/history library – Evelyn Lasley. In 2009, my youngest grandson and I were returning from Louisville, Kentucky, and since we were on no strict time schedule, I decided to return thru Southern Indiana, and visit my sister, S…via: www.familytreecircles.com

STATE ARCHIVES – New Zealand :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy this week’s ‘Abundant Genealogy’ topic is STATE ARCHIVES ... HOWEVER for New Zealand we will call it REGIONAL ARCHIVES ... New Zealand is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses, the North and South Islands and numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island nations of New…via: www.familytreecircles.com

by Scott_J 1 year, 11 months ago

Thanks to everybody who participated in week 34, Genealoy Challenges.

Here's week 35:

Just open up a new journal and write about whatever comes to mind related to this week's questions.

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52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy created by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts courtesy of GeneaBloggers for genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

by Scott_J 1 year, 11 months ago

Thanks to everybody who participated in week 33. I hope you found that interesting and fruitful.

Continuing on with the blogging prompts, here's week 34:

Just open up a new journal and write about whatever comes to mind related to this week's questions.

FamilyTreeCircles member Ngairedith is ahead of the game this week and has already posted one:

Ngairedith's Genealogy Challenge

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52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy created by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts courtesy of GeneaBloggers for genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

by Scott_J 1 year, 11 months ago

This past week, I had a phone conversation with Thomas Macentee, a professional genealogist, speaker, and otherwise a really great guy from Chicago, Ill. Thomas runs the excellent website and service, Geneabloggers.com, which is a network of over 2000 Genealogy blogs. (I'm a member with my own genealogy blog here on FamilyTreeCircles.)

I contacted Thomas to see how we might work together to help foster the growth of more genealogy bloggers.

The first thing we came up with is that Thomas was kind enough to allow me to use the 52 Weeks of Blogging Abundance genealogy blogging prompts. Every week there is a new topic to act as inspiration for a blog post, or to simply think about and reflect on in your own genealogy research.

As FamilyTreeCircles is essentially a blogging platform (which is just a place to write online), I thought it would be fun for people to use these weekly prompts here on FamilyTreeCircles.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy created by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts courtesy of GeneaBloggers for genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

We're more than halfway through 2012, and we'll be starting on week 33. But that's ok. There isn't really a sequence here, just a new idea every week.

Just open up a new journal and write about whatever comes to mind related to this week's questions.

I'll be posting these blogging prompts here each weekend for the upcoming week. I'll also be including these in the weekly newsletter. If you'd like to get these prompts in your email along with other newsletter info, make sure you're signed up for the FamilyTreeCircles newsletter.

by Scott_J 1 year, 12 months ago

Here at FamilyTreeCircles, we have a large community of genealogy hobbyists and professionals. Our user base is growing toward 100,000 and we have an opt-in mail list that exceeds 10,000 members.

We're looking for bloggers and genealogy experts who are interested in reaching an audience of genealogy new-comers, enthusiasts, and professionals alike.

Writing for FamilyTreeCircles is a great opportunity to help establish yourself as an expert in the genealogy community.

If you are interested in contributing genealogy-related articles to the FamilyTreeCircles blog and email newsletter, please contact me at scott@familytreecircles.com or through the Private Messaging system on FamilyTreeCircles.com.

by Scott_J 1 year, 12 months ago

When I started FamilyTreeCircles nearly a decade ago, I never imagined it would grow to nearly 100,000 members. It's humbling to be able to provide a resource that has brought so many people together in the common interest.

FamilyTreeCircles has always been a labor of love for me, but with the growing membership, usage, continuing to add new features, and fighting spammers, costs grow as well.

What you may not know about me is that as an entrepreneur, I actually run another web startup. This takes 60-80 hours of my time every week, and I have little left for much else. If you're interested, that's a web publishing platform called Shareist. I think it is a great resource for genealogists.

I would never have been able to even get this far without the patience and support of the people who use FamilyTreeCircles every day, and particularly those who volunteer to help moderate the activity. It's truly a wonderful community. I'd like to not only keep things running, but do even more.

For example, one thing that I've tried to start up several times, but have not been able to do so because of the costs is a periodic newsletter with great genealogy stories and content, as well as featuring fun stuff from FamilyTreeCircles members. But the cost of doing so has been prohibitive. I'd love to be able to do this as well as continue to add more features.

From the start, I promised that FamilyTreeCircles would be a free resource and I have no intentions of going back on that. Over the years, I have received generous offers from people that they would be more than willing to pay for this resource.

In response to that, I've finally added a way to do that, for those with the means to do so, while keeping the service free for the rest.

If you enjoy FamilyTreeCircles and want to see it continue on as a strong and independent genealogy resource, I hope you'll consider contributing even a small amount to its upkeep and further development. If you cannot, no hard feelings here.

Go here: FamilyTreeCircles Patronage

Thank you very much!

Scott

by Scott_J 2 years, 8 months ago

FamilyTreeCircles.com has been around for over 7 years now, and has been in a constant state of development.

I'll be the first to admit that most poorly crafted area of FamilyTreeCircles has been the user profile pages. And as I've been making improvements to the platform, I'd also say that it's been the most neglected.

This week I've taken steps to resolve that with an entirely newly designed user profile.

Your Own Home Page

Your user profile on FamilyTreeCircles is now your genealogy homepage. Your own journals and posts are featured prominently in chronological order, newest first. Until now, your own journals were relegated to a list, and reading them was an exercise in clicking around a lot.

Now your homepage is a very easy-to-read list of all your journals. As you post journals, your latest ones appear at the top.

This makes it very easy for other FamilyTreeCircles members, and even people searching the Internet for the information that you write about, to find and read your journals.

That means more people see your journals, which means that your information and your own queries are seen by more people, resulting in a higher chance that you'll connect with distant cousins and researchers looking for the same ancestors.

Here's what the new profile page looks like:

Hey, This Sounds and Looks Like a Blog

Essentially, your FamilyTreeCircles profile page is a blog. Blog comes from the words Web Log. A blog is quite simply a web page containing a log of your writing. Web log...weblog...'blog.

The writing activity that you do posting Journals on FamilyTreeCircles is no different than that of "bloggers" that we hear so much about.

Now in addition to how your journals were seen before in the activity lists, your information is organized like a blog and you get all the benefits of blogging:

• Research: By getting your and your genealogy research out there, people who are researching the same ancestors will find you. You may even break down some brick walls just by posting them for others to find and help you out.
• Sharing: Posting your genealogy information helps others, and many times it comes back
• Connecting: There are countless connections that people make with distant and lost relatives through publishing a blog.
• Community: The genealogy blogging community is a friendly, helpful group of genealogists, professionals and hobbyists alike. By starting a blog of your own
• Fun: Writing can be a fun, creative way to express yourself. Some people even think it's therapeutic.

The good news is that just by signing up for FamilyTreeCircles, you now have a blog.

How cool does that make you?

View your new profile here. Or click on the "Your Home" link in the header.

Examples?

Here are a few great FamilyTreeCircles profiles to take a look at for inspiration:

• Janilye
• Ngairedith
• Tonkin
• PoorOne
• MrDarlin
• Popey
• Scott_J (that's me!)

by Scott_J 2 years, 8 months ago

1. Check out the FAQ page.
2. Use the contact us form. This is best for issues like password problems, since you cannot use some of the other options without logging in.
3. Send me a private message.
4. Drop into the FamilyTreeCircles campfire chat. You can not only chat with me, but with other FamilyTreeCircles members, if they're in there.
5. If you have a question that you think someone other than the owner of FamilyTreeCircles can answer, comment on this post. That increases the chances of getting a quick answer AND allows other to benefit from your question.

by Scott_J 2 years, 8 months ago

I've been hard at work on some pretty significant changes here on FamilyTreeCircles, big enough that I want to roll this out a little more carefully than I usually do.

For now, the only noticeable change is the header.

If yours doesn't look like that with the black bar at the top, try holding down the shift key while hitting the reload (or refresh) button on your browser. Or just wait and it'll update eventually.

So what's changing?

I've completely redesigned the user profile page. My goal is to make your user profile the hub of your activity, a much nicer home for you here on FamilyTreeCircles. The default view will be a full view of all your journals, formatted much like a blog. That way, anyone who follows your every post can easily see what you've been writing. If you organize your posts into categories, that will be much more visible. And your Assist! locations and surnames will be featured prominently as well.

In fact, it's going to be a lot like having your own blog, which is where I am headed with this.

And speaking of following, I'll be reintroducing he concept of "follow"ing. By following someone, you will be able to keep track of their new stuff.

When's it coming?

I'm still testing it out, but if you would like a sneak peek, just comment here on this post and I'll turn it on for you.

I'll probably grow impatient and make it available in the next few days, but I'd love to get some feedback first.

Again, just comment below if you'd like to try it out and give me some feedback.

Thanks!