Sharing Your Family History Online

Book excerpt: For many enthusiasts pursuing their family history research, the online world offers a seemingly endless archive of digitised materials to help us answer the questions posed by our ancestors. In addition to hosting records, however, the internet also offers a unique platform on which we can host our research and lure in prospective cousins from around the world, to help build up a larger shared ancestral story.In Sharing Your Family History on the Internet, genealogist and best-selling author Chris Paton will explore the many ways in which we can present our research and encourage collaboration online. He will detail the many organsiations and social media applications that can permit co-operation, describe the software platforms on which we can collate our stories, and illustrate the many ways in which we can publish our stories online.Along the way, Chris Paton will also explore how we can make our research work further for us, by drawing in experts and distant cousins from around the world to help us break our ancestral brick walls, not just through sharing stories, but by accessing uniquely held documentation by family members around the world, including our very own shared DNA.