Tag Archives: WSGS Blog

How to Post on the Blog

by Roxanne Lowe

Do you want to broadcast information about your local society, workshop, genealogical tip, or a research query? Just post to the WSGS Blog! You can reach hundreds of genealogists from around the state. Just email a Word document, text file, PDF or graphic to WSGSBlog@wasgs.org and the blog masters will do the rest.

We’re always looking to publicize local events and workshops, feature stories, updates from your society, and other genealogical information that might be of interest to our many subscribers.

We hope to hear from you soon! And don’t forget to encourage your Society members to subscribe to the Blog for the most up-to-date information from around the state.

You may manage your subscription options from your profile.

Blog Banner Photo Challenge

by Roxanne Lowe

IMG_0095Summer’s in full swing and that means many of us are on the road, in the air, or on a boat visiting people, places, and things. It also means you’re taking lots of photos. So…we’re sponsoring a Blog Banner Photo Challenge, looking for a few good photographs to highlight in our Blog banner.

The rotating banner will feature a series of photos taken by you, our readers. The latest entry in the Photo Challenge is a photo of the waterfall at the bottom on Barker Canyon, down the west side of Banks Lake in central Washington near Coulee City. The photo was taken by WSGS Vice President (& Past President of Eastern Washington Genealogical Society) Donna Potter Phillips of Spokane. It’s a great example of the beauty of our Evergreen State — and makes a great blog banner.

Rules are few:
•Landscapes, landmarks, and scenery photos are preferred. If, however, you have a perfect photo that includes people, please obtain their permission to post the photo.
•Photo must have been taken in Washington State (this is the Washington State Genealogical Society blog, after all!).
•Photo will be cropped to 1100 x 250 pixels, so keep that in mind.
•You may enter as many photos as you want.
•Final decisions on suitable photos will be made by the awesome WSGS Blog Team.
•There’s no prize if your photo is chosen – just the satisfaction that your photo is being showcased on a blog viewed by hundreds of enthusiastic genealogists.
•There’s no firm deadline to submit photos, just keep ‘em coming. We want to rotate lots of photos to keep the blog fresh.

To submit your photo, please email the image (jpg only, please); what, where, when, and by whom the photo was taken to WSGSBlog@wasgs.org.

Got questions? Email the blog team at WSGSBlog@wasgs.org.

Meet Your Blog Team

by Roxanne Lowe

Have you ever wondered who’s behind the scenes of the WSGS Blog? The terrific trio of Charles Hansen, Roxanne Lowe and Donna Potter Phillips work together to bring you interesting articles, news and tidbits about genealogy and family history in Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. All three of them are at the WSGS Conference in Tacoma tomorrow (18 Jun 2016), so look for news and photos about what’s happening there.

Roxanne Lowe, Charles Hansen & Donna Potter Phillips

WSGS Blog Team: Roxanne Lowe, Charles Hansen & Donna Potter Phillips

In the coming months, you’ll learn more about Charles, Roxanne and Donna, as well as the rest of the WSGS Board in a bi-weekly feature called “Meet the Board.”

In the meantime, if you’re looking to publicize your local event or workshop, have a feature story or update about your society, or other genealogical information that might be of interest to our many subscribers, just email a Word document, text file, PDF or graphic to WSGSBlog@wasgs.org and Charles, Roxanne and/or Donna will do the rest. The blog is a great way to reach hundreds of genealogists from around the state and beyond.

Blog Readers

by Charles Hansen

Most blogs are easy to read in your web browser, but soon you will find it a waste of time to check a blog several times and find out nothing new has been added since the last time you were there, so most blogs have a couple of ways to read them without having to go there daily and check for a new post. One way is to sign up for E-Mail and the post is sent to your E-Mail where you can filter it into categories.  I have not liked that option as I already average 100 or more E-Mails a day. The second method is to use an RSS reader. Google had a very good one called Google Reader and a lot of the people I know used it, but Google in its infinite wisdom closed Google Reader a year or so ago. I first went to The Old Reader which was similar to Google Reader, but very slow in updating the feeds, so I switched to Feedly and I really like it. I have somewhere around 250 blogs I read on a regular basis. I have 47 Genealogy Society Blogs, 150 Genealogy Blogs, 16 Library Blogs, 12 newspaper blogs and even 7 Rootsweb blogs, plus several others just for entertainment and a few for work. Each one is in its own category on Feedly, I have one category for Gene Societies, one category for genealogy blogs, etc. I know this sounds like a lot to read every day, but the newspaper blogs are the busiest each day, some blogs only have a new article once a week or less. The genealogy blogs probably only have 25-35 posts a day, and the newspaper blogs are just about as busy.

Dick Eastman wrote a great blog article on Blog readers, so If you are interested in a blog reader click here