Karma, Reaping What You Sow, Genearosity…Whatever You Call It, Sharing Your Research Pays Off
But how do other researchers find what you have to share? How does using Substack, FamilySearch, WikiTree, Ancestry, Blogs, Personal Websites, Facebook, and Social Media help?
Substack
My paternal grandfather is Roy V Stophilbeen (Roy V Bellamy). And my grandmother is Myrtle Billie Stophilbeen ( Stipe). They had two children. My father, Harold Vernon Stophilbeen and Myrtle Maxine Cox (Stophilbeen)... – Substack User
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could set genealogy as their interest tag? You can if you are using the app. And maybe if enough of us set it on the app, it will start showing up on the website. Substack categories share our publications with those who have the same interests. Meanwhile, Notes, Recommendations, and Substack’s SEO are doing a great job of making my writing findable.
The Notes don’t show up in a Google search, but the Posts do. Two tricks to Substack’s SEO are, first, your subtitle automatically becomes the social preview that searchers see.
I was using magazine-style titles and subtitles. I went back and changed a bunch of my older Posts; however,
, the author of a great Post about Substack and SEO (see the Recommended Reading/Viewing at the end), said it wasn’t necessary. “A writer can keep their fancy title and subtitle, and manually change the SEO title and description in settings.”Thank you, Kirsi, for looking over this tip and setting me straight.
The second trick is that the alt text in the images is also part of the Google search. So, besides the description of the photo, add information about your Post.
FamilySearch
Thank you for sharing the Ramsey Family Bible on FamilySearch! -- Deborah Carl
The Ramsey Family Bible belonged to an individual who photographed the cover, the title page, and the family record pages and uploaded them to the family entries on FamilySearch. With her genearosity, I confirmed that the Nehemiah Ramsey who died in Louisiana in 1862 while serving in the Civil War was my Nehemiah Ramsey.
Most users have a love/hate relationship with FamilySearch. It is a world tree, and 12-year-olds to professional genealogists and everyone in between can contribute and edit, so your perfect entry can get destroyed by inexperienced researchers. But you can also attach Sources and Memories, which could be your Substack posts or images of your family Bible.
A Google search for Nehemiah Spencer Ramsay Louisiana returned the FamilySearch entry. Replacing Louisiana with New Hampshire gave me the same result.
WikiTree
The same two Google searches for Nehemiah Spencer Ramsay also turned up a WikiTree entry. Sadly, it did not have any reliable sources, which is true of many of the entries. But then there are pages like Ebenezer Bancroft (1738-1827) that have a long list of sources, including The Massachusetts Magazine and Biographical Review v. XXVII. There are members of Mission Genealogy who give WikiTree great reviews. You could be the contributor who creates a great page that breaks down the brick wall for another researcher.
Ancestry
So.....gosh, I save a lot of information! I forget what I have sometimes. I received some of that information from a lady named Nancy [removed for privacy reasons]. At the moment, I don't recall her direct relationship, but I have the emails and can forward them if you want. There may be some more notes in them that will be of interest to you. –Ancestry User
A Google search for Vincenzo Chiariello of Acerra, Italy, turned up information at Ancestry. However, clicking on the link did not bring me to a tree. I had to log in and search Family Trees for Vincenzo Chiariello in Acerra to get to trees where he appears. While you can see what users have contributed, the Library edition of Ancestry does not allow you to contact other users.
Contribution to Ancestry allows you to share your research with other Ancestry users. Hint: You can share your Ancestry Tree with others who do not have an Ancestry account. Click on Invite and get the link to share. Each person you share the tree with needs their own link.
Blogs and Personal Websites
These are good places to share if you can get the information to show up in Google or other search engines. My original blog and website didn’t get any traffic other than bots. I moved my blog posts to Substack, and now my writing shows up in a Google search. I had put a link to my website on Cyndi’s List, but I don’t think it helped. Any insights or suggestions would be helpful to others who have blogs and websites. Please add your thoughts to the comments.
Facebook and Other Social Media
I shared my Substack post that proved Hobart Spencer did not marry three women on the Spencer Historical & Genealogical Society Facebook page, and I got five likes. Then it got buried. It never occurred to me when researching Hobart to search the Spencer Historical & Genealogical Society page to see what others have found. Do any of you search Facebook when researching? Has BluSky or other social media helped you with your research or sharing?
And More
And you can submit your research to physical repositories such as local libraries and historical societies. In the comments, please feel free to list more ideas on how to share.
The Payoff
Thanks to your Acerra research, we’ve finally been able to trace my paternal line back to the 1700s! – Ancestry User
I'm a descendant as well. – Substack User
Hi, my name is Carla, and I am researching the Zuzolo, Martin lines. My husband's grandmother was Joann Zuzolo, who was the daughter of Wilma Perkins Wise and Patrick Zuzolo. –FamilySearch User
While I appreciate the feedback and support of my fellow Mission Genealogy members, my target audience is family. My reward is when I learn that my work has helped a fellow researcher.
Recommended Reading/Viewing:
Make Your Ancestors Findable: SEO Essentials for Genealogy Bloggers by Kirsi Dahl
Mission Genealogy Office Hours May 2025 Q&A
Barbara at Projectkin: Note about account-level interests
Substack Categories Decoded: Get Discovered by the Right Audience by Philip’s Creative Lab
Digital Accessibility, Write Helpful Alt Text to Describe Images, Harvard University.
Contribute Tips
Don’t forget to submit your tips to me at YourFamilyQuest@gmail.com It has to be short and sweet and appeal to a broad audience. That means I don’t think anyone but New York Bentley researchers cares about the index to Bentley Gleanings I found, but our Australian researchers would care about Australian repositories, record groups, and websites. Is it true that “each state and territory has separate record systems with few Australia-wide resources”? FindMyPast claims to be the go-to source for searching across all of Australia’s resources. Hmmm…. True or advertising hype?
Upcoming Events:
Check your local times here.
Tuesday, 10 June 2025 at 10 am/1 pm (PT/ET) Mission Genealogy: Atlantic Roundtable
Tuesday, 10 June 2025 at 4/7 pm (PT/ET) Mission Genealogy: Pacific Roundtable
Thursday, 12 June 2025 at 10 am/1 pm (PT/ET) Ancestor Bios: The “ABC” Process with Randy Seaver
Sunday, 15 June 2025 at 2 pm/5 pm (PT/ET) Projectkin Live: Looking at the Week Ahead
Thursday, 19 June 2025 at 10 am/1 pm (PT/ET) Emma Explores: Stories, Mysteries & Fame
So much information in one post! Kudos!
Keeping an eye on our keywords, titles and descriptions is definitely important to make our content findable. Doing so in Substack is easy, if you know the trick within settings. Thanks for resurfacing this important matter!