Thursday, December 30, 2010

Carnival Of Genealogy 101 Research/ Writing Plans for 2011

Years ago when I started on Prodigy I was a real beginner, and I was really enthralled with the weekly genealogy article by the genealogy expert Myra Gormley. I started collecting the articles and made an index to all of them that I had. I actually started on Prodigy a couple of years after Myra started writing articles so I had missed quite a few, but one day another Prodigy member contacted me and asked if I would trade some of the articles I had for all the early ones I had missed, and I jumped on the offer. I kept indexing and collecting the columns until they ended in 1999 due to Prodigy not being Y2K compatible. The original Prodigy closed down and Prodigy came out with a new Prodigy Internet, but Myra did not continue as the genealogy expert on Prodigy Internet. Actually the genealogy bulletin board ended with the old Prodigy, and an invitation from the Crafts Bulletin Board allowed the genealogy people to have a bulletin board on the new Prodigy Internet. Since Myra did not go with the new Prodigy Internet, they asked if one of the three Member Reps from the old Prodigy would like to be the new genealogy expert. I was the last Member Rep appointed by Prodigy and the only one that had migrated to Prodigy Internet, so I was now the Prodigy Internet Genealogy Expert. In 2001 the head of the Crafts BB asked if I wanted to write a monthly newsletter similar to the weekly one Myra had written on the Old Prodigy. I said I really was not a good writer and needed some help with editing and so Carol Sanderson and I started writing a monthly newsletter called Branching Out. Carol was a great editor, and a good writer also so we made a good pair. It has been a couple of years since Carol passed away and I really miss her expert editing. I still continue to write a monthly article, but I still have a problem coming up with a new subject to write on each month. I was never a person that liked English in school and without a spellchecker I really would be poor writer.
Marsha Richardson of the Clan Forsyth Society of the USA and editor of the quarterly Griffin saw some of the articles I had written and asked if I would write a genealogy article for the Griffin, so for a couple of years I have written genealogy articles for the Griffin, but coming up with a subject is still the hardest part of writing articles for the Griffin also.
About a year and a half ago I started this Blog, and the Carnival of Genealogy has helped me with subjects here so thanks to Jasia and the COG.

2 comments:

  1. Just keeping on typing Charles. You should share some of your favorite Prodigy articles with us. Thats the best part of genealogy, old stuff is good! :) :) I'm a Playnet, Prodigy, etc grad myself. I was on a genealogy list-serv before that! :)

    Jan at Cow Hampshire

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  2. Thanks Janice, if you click on the Branching Out above it takes you to the articles I wrote.

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