Friday, 4 August 2017

Moving to WordPress

Please find all new posts at ayfamilyhistory.com.

In December 2014 I had a company called Blog2Print create a bound-book version of my blog archive of 116 posts from April 2012 to November 2014.

pages from the first volume of my bound-book version of my blog archive


It came to 363 pages. I've now arranged for a second volume to be printed - 143 posts, 424 pages - to cover the period from January 2015 to July 2017.

I like having a paper record of what I have written. For some reason, electronic files seem impermanent. Paper is meant to last.

Having printed off the blog, I felt it was time to think about its future. Blogger, which I've been using until now, is OK, but I have decided to transfer to a better system, WordPress.com.

I looked at WordPress.org, the community-support, open-source, version, but with the commercial product, WordPress.com, I don't have to think about the cost and effort of setting up a domain name and installing and maintaining the blogging software. That's part of the WordPress.com package. I do need to pay a small amount to keep the site free of advertising.

I was able to export all the content of my old blog to my new WordPress site. I won't be editing previous posts but I am creating indexes, arranged into family categories. I think this will help to make more sense of what I have written so far. It will also help me to see gaps in my family history I might be able to fill in future blog posts.

I am looking forward to doing more research and writing about our family history. The Blogger site will remain where it is indefinitely, but from today new posts will be published at ayfamilyhistory.com.
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12 comments:

  1. Jenny Mackay4 August 2017 at 16:53

    I'll be interested to watch how you do your index Anne. That's something I need on my Wordpress.com blog.

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    1. Anne Young4 August 2017 at 17:04

      Work in slow progress at https://ayfamilyhistory.com/index/ with nested pages. I am using ahnentafel numbers but not sure how much detail I will add to each person's entry. See for example the minimalist approach at https://ayfamilyhistory.com/index/young-family-index/ compared with more details at https://ayfamilyhistory.com/index/boltz-family-index/
      The index is hand constructed but the linking system at WordPress is making it very easy.

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    2. Jenny Mackay4 August 2017 at 17:07

      Perfect Anne. Thanks for sharing. I can see what I need to do. So far I have my Surnames listed on the menu, but I can see I need to break it down into an index for ease of reading for my followers. https://jenealogyscrapbook.wordpress.com/

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    3. Anne Young4 August 2017 at 17:54

      This was my 260th post and I think navigating by tag clouds probably doesn't help the reader sufficiently. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions about what makes a useful index for a family history blog.

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  2. Cassmob (Pauleen)4 August 2017 at 23:25

    I need to stir my stumps and submit posts for a book. I did a couple back in the day with blurb but lots still not put into permanent form...like you I prefer to have a durable copy. Would you do them as large volumes again?

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    1. Anne Young5 August 2017 at 12:09

      Hi Pauline. Thanks for reading. Yes, the large books work well. The maximum number of pages is 430 so I am just inside the limit. The binding seems very good.

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  3. Marian B. Wood5 August 2017 at 01:53

    I'll be interested to hear your thoughts once you're up and running on Wordpress the way you want. So far, Blogger has been the simplest for me, so I can concentrate on the content and not worry about the tech.

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    1. Anne Young5 August 2017 at 22:02

      Hi Marian
      I think Blogger is very good for set and forget and for concentrating on the content. At 260 posts it is getting unwieldy and I think I like the editing tools WordPress has.

      I am not burning my bridges though. I will see how it goes.

      Thanks for visiting.
      Regards
      Anne

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  4. Hilary Melton-Butcher5 August 2017 at 21:48

    Hi Anne - interesting to read - and good luck with the move over to Wordpress ...

    I had my first lot of A-Zs done by Blog2Print .. and it's fallen apart - is your binding well done - ie. secure?!

    I too will be interested in your indexing ... and how you transfer across etc ... cheers Hilary

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    1. Anne Young5 August 2017 at 21:59

      I have hard cover books and they seem well bound. Can't say I read the book all the time but certainly have opened and looked and no problems.

      Transferring across was easy. In Blogger go to Settings, choose Other and Back up content. It produces an xml file. When you set up in Wordpress you can import that xml file. It brings across everything, tags, pictures ... I am not quite sure I have finished setting up yet though. Probably still some tweaks to be made.

      Indexing is a work in slow progress. I am using Ahnentafel to start with and surnames. I haven't quite fixed how I want it to look yet. The pages for Boltz and for Young I think show two different approaches.

      Today I spent time reorganising tags which you can do in Wordpress quite nicely as you can have a hierarchy. I have grouped surnames and places.

      I would appreciate feedback :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting

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    2. Hilary Melton-Butcher6 August 2017 at 17:40

      Thanks Anne ... I doubt I'll do much for a while ... but when I do - feed back you'll get ... cheers Hilary

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  5. Anne Young7 August 2017 at 11:35

    My next post at my new WordPress site tells you how to export from Blogger and into WordPress https://ayfamilyhistory.com/2017/08/07/back-up-and-export/

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