The Ethnic American Portal at WeRelate provides a comprehensive collection of information on the many ethnic groups that make up this great country. Not only does this page provide a directory to content within WeRelate, but you’ll also find a large collection of external links too. This is a great way to get started learning about your German, Polish or African-American roots and you are encouraged to add your resources to the existing collection. WeRelate is a community-supported resource and even the tiniest addition adds value to the knowledge base. Related posts:Building a ...

Amazon’s got some great deals on Livescribe digital pens and accessories. Check them out at the Livescribe specials page. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Learn more here . No related posts.

Scribd has recently introduced a collections feature which allows you to organize the documents you’ve posted into categories and even work with other Scribd members to build a library of documents. Any Scribd user can create a collection. There are three levels of access: Private – only visible to you. Public – Locked – can be seen by anyone, but only the creator can add to the collection. Public – Moderated – are also seen by anyone and anyone can suggest a document to add to the collection, but only the creator can approve or reject suggested ...

Posterous supports mobile blogging from any smartphone with email capability, but if you have an iPhone and want to post photos or videos you can grab the handy PicPosterous app which lets you live-blog your photos and videos straight from your iPhone. You can grab this app for free from the App Store. Related posts:It's Posterous! Posterous Update TextExpander for the iPhone

The Personal Archive series continues at Moultrie Creek Press with an article on copyright and Creative Commons . You’ll be surprised to find how many options you have for sharing your personal archive. Related posts:Some Rights Reserved The Personal Archive

The March issue is full of fascinating women. It’s so good you don’t want to be limited to this small version. Visit the magazine site to view it in its full glory and even download your own copy. Make sure to check out The Future of Memories column for some fun ideas for combining family and gift wrapping. No related posts.

I’m delighted every day to hear that another collection has been digitized and made available online. Often because the original documents are so fragile, these collections were something not accessible to the general public even in the area where they physically reside. Digitizing has given us all access to some amazing resources. There’s still an area of untapped treasures which may well be one of the biggest collections yet – the personal archive. Just think of the photos, documents, scrapbooks, journals and diaries you have in your personal collection and multiply ...

Mac users who find themselves typing the same thing over and over will love TextExpander from Smile on My Mac. After setting up your frequently typed snippets with an identifying abbreviation, all you do is type the abbreviation and TextExpander automatically replaces it with the saved snippet. If you have citations you type over and over again, this alone will make TextExpander your new best friend. And, you’ll quickly find even more uses for it – repetitive message board queries, lengthy signature blocks, long URLs and commonly misspelled words. TextExpander can even save ...

I picked up the March/April issue of Discovering Family History to read while I enjoyed my Saturday morning Barnes & Noble coffee ritual and was pleasantly surprised to find another article focusing on genealogy bloggers [Leslie Albrecht Huber's 15 Genealogy Blogs You Need to Read! ]. I was even more surprised to find Family Matters included in the list, along with some other blogging greats. Thank you, Leslie, for the very kind words. Here’s the complete list of bloggers included in the article: Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter About.com:Genealogy Dear Myrtle, ...

One of the primary reasons to update your WeRelate profile page is to provide contact information so you can make connections with others researching your families and locations. As WeRelate grows, I’m finding that I frequently visit pages outside my family pages. Although WeRelate provides a watch list to notify you when selected pages are updated, there isn’t a facility to bookmark my favorite pages. No problem, create your own bookmarks on your profile page. At a page you want to bookmark, select the page name/title at the top of the page, right click and choose the copy ...

You can now use Skype on your mobile phone! Yes, Skype is now available for the iPhone (and iPod Touch 2nd generation or higher using the earphones with mic ) and Symbian phones with Android and Blackberry phones following soon. On the iPhone, you can see who’s online and text message them through either the phone’s data service or via wifi. When you’re in wifi mode, you can call other Skype users at no charge or even other phones if you’re using Skype’s pay-as-you-go or unlimited subscription. Obviously, the Touch will only work over wifi. There are some ...

The featured page at WeRelate is James Kerr – and with good reason. It’s a fabulous example of how to organize and present your research using WeRelate. And, while you’re there, follow the link to the Augusta County page – another delight! Related posts:WeRelate: Building Your Family Story Research Guides WeRelate Research Guides

Every day more and more books are added to ebook libraries like Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive with historical and genealogical value. From journals of Civil War soldiers and regimental histories to diaries of settlers as they travel across the country looking for a new home, these manuscripts have great research value. The key to many of these books is a good ebook reader. One very nice free reader, Stanza , is available for Windows, Mac and the iPhone/iPod Touch. Although I’m more familiar with the mobile version and always have several books on my iPod Touch for pleasure ...

eBay is a tremendous resource for the family historian. It is used to track down family Bibles, photographs and other treasures. I use eBay to expand my collections of vintage postcards and military sweetheart jewelry. If you are a collector or just hoping to find a family treasure, spend a few minutes setting up a saved search or two with the results delivered to your desktop via your newsreader. Once done, every time someone posts an item on eBay matching your search, that notice will appear in your newsreader. Yes, it is just that simple. All of this begins at the eBay search page. ...

Most of us are quite comfortable with our word processing software. We know the everyday commands needed to perform the tasks we need. However, when it comes to serious writing projects such as a family history, it’s necessary to push our word processing skills into new territories. To that end, I’ve created the Word Processing for Publishers series of guides to demonstrate how your word processor can support you in all your writing projects. The series began here at Family Matters, but I have moved it to Moultrie Creek Press , my blog focused on family publishing.