Your Tree Needs Nurturing

Just as the plants in our garden need TLC so do our online family trees.

A benefit of online family trees is that they are not static documents like printed genealogies that cannot easily be edited. Online trees are dynamic documents that can be easily added to, corrected and maintained. As I come across Australian family trees on the web I add them to my list of FamilySites on my Delicious account.

How disappointing it is to find trees that were last updated a number of years ago, This morning I found a distant cousin mentioned in an online tree that was last updated in 2005!  Some of the trees I have bookmarked have not been updated for nearly ten years.

I find it hard to believe that once researchers publish their tree on the web they consider it a completed task. Families trees keep growing. As new resources are discovered, records digitised, children born, ancestors pass away and cousins appear from nowhere we are presented with new information to add to our trees. We should nurture our trees.

I try to update my online tree Geniaus Family Tree every fortnight or whenever someone shares a good chunk of information with me, I feel I owe it to those who share with me to publish their offerings promptly. I am not suggesting that everyone should update as often as I do but a couple of times per year or whenever a number of significant changes are made would be reasonable.

By adding corrections and additions to our trees we raise our chances of making new connections with other interested parties.

Trees that are nurtured will bear fruit.

Makeover Magic

I have fiddled and diddled for most of the afternoon on this blog and will probably continue to tweak for a few more days. So far:

• I have a added a new style blogger template, this allows me to add static tabbed pages to the blog.

• I have created four additional pages: a contact page, a disclosure, a page about my presentations and an empty topics page on which I intend publishing the labels from my blog posts. I have struggled with the html for this, I have copied it religiously in the correct place (so I think) but it isn't behaving.

• I have sent a number of my widgets to the trash and have moved a number to the bottom of the pages underneath my posts.

• I have widened the posts section of my page so that I can fit more text in a screen view. This may have an adverse affect on the formatting of old posts but that can't be helped.

• I have reverted to a two column template to give me this extra width.

• I have added the Print Friendly button to my posts area.

• I added some html to move the text in the header that was covering my eyes in the family photo.

I am still trying to find the a blue for the Geniaus header and am having trouble finding the right blue to complement the ocean background.

I was in a bit of a rut with the template and am rather pleased that I finally got around to making some necessary changes.

Excuse my fiddling

As I blogged the other day I think it is time for a blog overhaul. This afternoon will find me fiddling and tweaking with the new blog template I have just applied.  It may take me a while to decide which widgets I want to keep and to get them correctly positioned so please excuse me as I play for the next couple of hours.

Sometimes less is more.

 Follow Friday posts that are generated by some sort of automated program have been annoying me for quite a while. I thought it may have been because I am getting old and crabby but thanks to Carole Riley who directed her readers to a blog post, Please put a stop to the mass Follow Friday tweets, on this subject I realise that I am not alone.

This article clearly echoed my feelings and set out some guidelines fo Follow Friday posts. I am posting the rules put forward by the author (full details can be found in the post) as I believe that they are eminently sensible:

1) If you’re going to Follow Friday someone, make it just ONE person per #FF tweet per week. 
2) Say why you recommend them.
3) Just do it Friday.  

Joseph Ranseth says:
" The Right Way…

Follow Friday is an opportunity to share with our friends the people that we value. We are saying “this is someone that I get value from, and I want you to enjoy what they have to offer as well”. It’s about sharing, giving and providing value to others.

…and the Wrong Way

Follow Friday is NOT about getting more followers. Some people (either ignorant of the law, or possessing a lack mentality) will recommend as many people as they can for #followfriday in hopes that some of them will feel obligated to reciprocate that gesture. By accomplishing this, they hope that they will attract new followers. Sadly, they just don’t get it…"

A lot of my Twitter pals from the world of genealogy just don't get it either. After Judy Webster from Queensland  posted the following on Twitter last Friday there were a few tweets around the topic.

Bravo, Judy. I never take any notice of  my mentions in Follow Friday posts that resemble shopping lists and are produced by some automated service. It was pleasing to see a number of people adopting Judy's policy last week.

I was bowled over by a tweet from Shauna Hicks, who last week also abandoned the automated style and opted for just 1 descriptive #FF post. Shauna selected @geniaus as the one person for her #FF tweet. Thankyou most sincerely, Shauna, this Follow Friday post meant a lot to me.