My task today is to write a post about my blog - why I started doing this, how it's gone so far, what I'd like to do in the future.
I started this almost as a lark. I’d been reading so many genealogy blogs, and talking to people about what was being written, that I thought I might as well try it myself. It turned out blogging was mostly free and that it didn’t take too much time to learn the ‘how tos’, so that was that.
When I started, I thought I’d use my blog to share information about genealogical events and activities that I’m involved with myself, and as a place to post information useful to the students in my genealogy sessions or to friends in the discussion groups I’m in. These purposes are still important to me.
About the title – usually I’m using Canadian genealogy examples, and there aren’t many Canadian blogs, thus ‘CanadaGenealogy’, but my big interest in life is women’s history and I do like to give a womanly twist to clichés – so ‘Jane’s Your Aunt’. One of the earliest posts I wrote in 2005 was about my title: http://canadagenealogy.blogspot.com/2005/02/janes-your-aunt-whats-with-this-title.html
This year, I made a new resolution or two about blogging. I did update my template as planned, since then I’ve started using more photographs, even added a widget.
Participating in the Summer 2008 Genea-Blogger Group Games has given me an incentive to check out Blogger's new features. I've added 'subscribe to' links and I’ve learned how to e-mail a post, this may come in handy in the near future. I thought I remembered a mention of pre-posting in Blogger Beta. That doesn’t seem to be available yet, but I did have someone give me an idea for a solution, if needed.
In my New Year’s Resolutions, I said I wanted to:
“Blog more! I’ve just started with the Carnival of Genealogy and I’ve had fun, so I do want to continue. And, as a bonus, my family is reading my blog, if only to see if their own photographs might appear.”
This is all still true - and I don’t see why a blog (or any other personal writing project) can’t serve more than one purpose.
People seemed to like my book recommendations so I’ll be making that a weekly feature, as with ‘Wordless....’, Wednesday! I think, as that’s my ‘anti-procrastination day’ so not much dallying on-line that day.
I’ll definitely be keeping up with the Carnivals and I'll try to keep up with the Genea-Bloggers (lots of energy in that group!) – it’s fun to do the posts and fun to read everyone else’s. Now, how to encourage more comments? Lots of people tell me they read, but never leave a mark...
Fortune Cookie courtesy of Image Chef: http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Fortune+Cookie
