Life at the Home20

To recap in a nutshell, I started doing genealogy in 1986, slowed down in 1999, stopped altogether about 2002 and jumped back in earlier this year.  I kept my Ancestry membership all these years, just in case I found time, but mainly because they started renewing it automatically.  I made plans to digitize my records for safekeeping but never implemented them until recently.  Other than that, I haven’t kept up with how genealogists are using the Internet.  In fact, the Internet is one reason I slacked off in my research.  It really bothered me that there was so much promotion going on that said you could literally build your entire family tree with a single click.  At least they made it sound that way.  It really turned me off.

So here I am, back on the Internet (in a genealogical capacity) and I see that a lot of serious researchers have embraced it and I am slowly but surely getting up to speed.  First step - blogging.

I’ve always been a middle of the road Internet user.  I email, Google extensively, shop online, and even sell stuff on Ebay and Amazon, but I tend to keep it simple.  I did manage to construct a website on Rootsweb Freepages but it was sorely neglected for quite some time.  Blogging was something Sweetpea wanted to do back in junior high but I kept saying “no” because I had no clue what it was and didn’t have time to find out.  It just didn’t sound like a safe thing for a 13 year old to be doing.  Hex probably wasn’t too good either.  Then came Xanga and My Space and she stopped bothering me about blogging.  Something was up so I forced myself to stop and investigate these things and lay down some rules (okay, I spied on her).  No problems so far.  Well, if you Google her name there are some lingering tidbits that she put out there (before we had “the talk”) that won’t go away.  That’s the big reason I use pseudonyms here.  But I know if someone really wanted to find us, they could.

I tried to blog on Typepad about digital scrapbooking but could never think if a darn thing to say.  I deleted that one completely.  A few months later I started this one on Wordpress.

When I started this blog I had a totally different concept in mind, hence the odd name.  I was supposed to be writing about trucking from the home point of view with a little genealogy thrown in.  It was okay but when it comes to genealogy I can’t shut up and if you knew me casually, you would be laughing hysterically.  I just don’t talk much.  But it soon became apparent that the blog had a mind of its own and was wandering down a different path.  I didn’t want to spend another $100 to obtain a new URL and more host space so I just went with the flow and I think it has worked out for me.

My revised reasons for wanting to keep an online journal:

• Writing about my ancestors gets my adrenaline pumping again.
• Writing about today’s hot topics in genealogical research forces me to know them better.
• Maybe I can help other genealogists just beginning to use the Internet.
• It’s the IN thing to do.

So now I use Firefox like all the other Internet savvy people do and I have a ton of RSS feeds popping up on my iGoogle homepage.  Next on my list is - social media.  Sweetpea - where are you, Baby?

Tags: Computers & Genealogy //