Making Choices
I really enjoy the Substack genealogy community. Everyone is friendly and supportive and I love the excellently told stories that are being shared.
The last couple of months has been a “trying it out” time for me and I aimed to publish one post per week on Substack, a goal which I’ve met.
However, Empty Branches on the Family Tree is my priority. I have proudly published at least one new item daily since September 2014 and I intend to keep that pace in the future.
I also see no point in publishing the same item on two platforms, which means researching and writing original material for each. Even adding just one more post - on Substack - takes hours of work. It’s just too much.
Therefore, I have made the difficult decision to wind down my posts on Substack and continue with Empty Branches. Although I may still occasionally post a story, my participation will likely be limited to perhaps responding to challenges such as Barbara Tien’s America 250! series.
I will definitely continue to follow Substackers and to add new finds to my feedly list and I hope that my readers will switch over to Empty Branches and follow me there.
In addition to daily posts - the two previous days featured 10 Tips for Building a Digital Genealogy Reference Library and Friday’s Family History Finds, a weekly compilation of my favorite genealogy posts posted during the previous week - I also have compiled thousands of links to free genealogy resources.
The tabs below the header photo include AI resources, Blogs I Follow, Carpatho-Rusyn Resource Toolbox, County Histories/Maps & Land Resources, Education & Methodology, GeneaGems, Genetic Genealogy, Non-U.S. Links, U.S. General Resources and followed by links to resources for all 50 U.S. states.
I’m particularly proud of the county history links. During the pandemic, I hunted for digitized county histories available online that were in the public domain for every county in the United States. Links to those books are organized by state and then county. I learned that there are more than 3,000 counties in America!
Empty Branches is also searchable (arrow to search box is on the right in the image above) and there is a very lengthy list of surnames and topics about which I’ve written down the left side of the home page of my blog.
If you haven’t yet visited Empty Branches on the Family Tree, please stop by and follow me on feedly if you like what you see.
Gosh, @Linda Stufflebean, your challenge is a familiar one. I think that for the long-term health of this growing genealogy community needs a few solutions.
I’ve already followed you from both my WordPress account and Feedly, but I don’t think that’s enough. Ideas would include cross-platform roundups fed back over here.
In January, @Jennifer Jones and @Jane Chapman collaborated on a program for Projectkin titled “The Push & Pull of Platforms.” At the time we were looking at WordPress and WeAre .xyz.
Since then though, @DearMYRTLE, @GeneaBloggers, Michael’s @Genealogy Tip of the Day and others have complemented @Robin Stewart’s weekly roundups. Maybe there’s an automated way to bounce your roundups over into Substack. I’m not sure. I’m personally committed to platform independence. I want to be sure everyone learns about best practices for:
Protecting your subscriber lists
Backing up your posts
Search engine optimization to be sure your work can be found.
If folks think it might be helpful, I’d be delighted to host a conversation about approaches and best practices, perhaps even a clearing house of roundups. I have an incentive in both platform independence and seeing our community grow here.
Thoughts? Interested in a Zoom event with a panel discussion perhaps for early 2026? … (it’s a busy winter already…) comment 👇 or reach out to me in a DM!
Linda, it sounds like you have thoughtfully worked through your decision in order to maintain a balance for your own research and welfare while still providing an incredible level of content for readers. Of course, we will welcome you back here whenever you pop back in! I’ve gained insights and enjoy your writing. You have a wonderful site with so many resources. And I’m thankful you reintroduced me to feedly!