{"id":573,"date":"2011-10-20T15:24:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T20:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/hello-my-name-is-part-1\/"},"modified":"2013-07-13T14:01:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T19:01:39","slug":"hello-my-name-is-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/hello-my-name-is-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello, My Name Is\u2026 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Name\" Back in late August, Lynn Palermo wrote an article entitled, New Genealogy Bloggers\u2026Who Are You?<\/a>, where she essentially challenged all genealogy bloggers to, at a minimum, include their name somewhere on their blog.\u00a0 Ultimately Lynn pleaded with genealogy bloggers to have an \u201cabout\u201d page that tells their audience a little bit about themselves.\u00a0 Her advice was general in nature and applied to all genealogy bloggers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The other day, Kerry Scott, of Clue Wagon<\/a>, posted the following comment on Facebook:<\/p>\n

Clue: Unless you are independently wealthy or otherwise don’t want anyone to ever hire you for anything genealogy-related, your blog needs to list your real first and last name. It also needs to have enough information about you so that I can decide whether you know enough about a genealogy-related topic that I might want to hire you. \u2026 I’ve been recruiting for 15 years, and this is the only field I know of where people work so hard to be un-hireable. Opportunity cannot knock if you barricade the door. Sheesh!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kerry\u2019s comment was geared toward professional genealogists who have blogs.\u00a0 Both of these wonderful gals make some great points, but I\u2019d like to take each a step further.\u00a0 This first post will focus on genealogy bloggers in general.\u00a0 In the second post I\u2019ll turn to the professional genealogists who have a blog and\/or website.<\/p>\n

As researchers, it\u2019s important for us to be accessible, especially when we publish our work, regardless of the media we use.\u00a0 By creating a genealogy blog, you\u2019ve already decided you want to share your research or family stories, whether with family or the world.\u00a0 And blogging is a great way to accomplish this since it\u2019s free, easy, published on your timetable, and far-reaching.<\/p>\n

Think for a moment:\u00a0 If you were to publish one of these research stories in a society journal, you would certainly use your real name and a valid email address, wouldn\u2019t you?\u00a0 Of course, you would, so why should your blog be any different?\u00a0 You need to provide a way for people (whether long-lost cousins or fellow researchers) to know who you are and how to contact you, just like you would if you were publishing the research in a traditional publication.<\/p>\n

Let me illustrate it another way.\u00a0 I have been blogging for over three years now, and in that time I\u2019ve had several people contact me through my blog.\u00a0 In one instance, a cousin who I had not seen in over ten years found me through my blog and emailed me; we\u2019ve been in touch ever since.\u00a0 In other cases, other researchers have contacted me asking for and\/or offering up information pertaining to a family I have blogged about.\u00a0 I have made several cousin-connections through my blog, simply because I\u2019m out there and ACCESSIBLE!\u00a0 I shudder to think how different things would be if people hadn\u2019t been able to contact me through my blog.<\/p>\n

Conversely, as a researcher who reads other genealogy blogs, I find it frustrating when someone doesn\u2019t provide their name or a way for me to get in touch with them.\u00a0 Sure, I can leave a comment on a blog post, but who knows who\u2019s behind the magic curtain.\u00a0 I want to know who you are and how to contact you!\u00a0 The same applies to websites.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve created your own genealogy website with all sorts of great information, please tell me who you are and how I can contact you.\u00a0 You\u2019re doing yourself a huge disservice by not providing this information on your blog or website.\u00a0 You never know what genealogy mysteries could be solved<\/em> had you only provided a means of contact!<\/p>\n

Bottom Line:<\/strong>\u00a0 Include your name\u2014first and last\u2014and some way for people to contact you (email address, contact form, whatever) somewhere on your blog (and really, don\u2019t make me waste time searching for it, make it obvious).\u00a0 I also think a short bio should be available somewhere on your blog, that lets readers know not only who you are, but what your research experience is, what topics you are interested in, and the names and places you are researching.\u00a0 Blogging is not only a way to share your stories, it serves as a research tool in and of itself.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a way to connect with other people, which is so important in the research process.<\/p>\n

And, I hate to say it, but if you\u2019ve created your blog for the sole purpose of sharing it with family, and therefore don\u2019t really have a need to tell them who you are, then I suggest you make the blog private and add those select people as readers.\u00a0 But, more importantly, if you decide to leave it \u201cpublic\u201d but you would rather be invisible, then don\u2019t publicize it<\/span>\u2026don\u2019t list it with GeneaBloggers, don\u2019t tweet about it, don\u2019t talk about it on Facebook.\u00a0 There\u2019s no sense in telling the world about your blog when you don\u2019t want the world to know about, or heaven forbid, contact you.\u00a0 Sorry to be blunt, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n

As an aside, I realize people are concerned with privacy issues.\u00a0 However, it\u2019s no different than being listed in the white pages both in the phone book and online.\u00a0 Just be smart and use caution when responding to someone\u2019s inquiry about your family.
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Back in late August, Lynn Palermo wrote an article entitled, New Genealogy Bloggers\u2026Who Are You?, where she essentially challenged all genealogy bloggers to, at a minimum, include their name somewhere on their blog.\u00a0 Ultimately Lynn pleaded with genealogy bloggers to have an \u201cabout\u201d page that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[404],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-genblog","tag-tools-tech-blogging","cat-27-id","cat-25-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3HcLI-9f","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4442,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions\/4442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}