Digital Writing Tools for Genealogists

Learn how to conquer family history writer’s block with 50 fun and practical tips for getting words on the page.

If you are struggling with a blank page, this webinar will provide ten simple tips to find your writing focus and let the words flow!

Learn how the Scrivener software, a multifaceted word processor and project management tool, can help you plot, organize, and write your family history narrative, prepare research reports, and much more. (Attendees are encouraged to download the free trial (PC or Mac) prior to webinar to maximize the learning experience).

Starting one ancestor at a time is often the best way to get going with writing your family history. Learn how to craft compelling ancestor profiles from start to finish and how to effectively weave them into a larger narrative. Attendees are invited to submit a draft of a 500…

If writing your family history narrative is one of those tasks on your "to-do" list that you just can't seem to start, this webinar will help you get there. Learn ten simple ways to get those creative juices flowing so you can stop procrastinating and start writing yours!

You've gathered the facts, interviewed your relatives and entered the names, dates, and places into Legacy. Now what? Family history is so much more than just a collection of facts or charts. In this webinar, presented by professional writer, Lisa Alzo, you'll learn key techniques and tools for documenting your…

Research reports are not just for professionals, but are a great tool for anyone who wants to answer their research questions. Write a research report to yourself to organize your thoughts, analyze the evidence, document your findings, and solve your puzzles. Using an example from the Netherlands, this presentation demonstrates how you can organize a research report to spot more clues in records, discover and resolve discrepancies, and build reliable conclusions.

As researchers, family historians, compilers, bloggers, or writers of other ilk, genealogists face legal and ethical perils they often do not anticipate. This crash course offers practical guidance to enhance your skills and keep you safe as you explore history, reconstruct lives, and “write up” your findings. While the issues are serious—from the legal issue of copyright to the ethical issue of plagiarism—the lessons are taught with a light heart and humor.

Genealogists write. Their written narratives include stories of ancestral families, biographies of individual ancestors, and explanations supporting genealogical proofs. For their writing to succeed, genealogists—like all effective writers—repeatedly self-edit everything they write. The process results in polished products that the genealogist’s readers will understand, enjoy, and cherish. Emphasizing genealogical narrative, these two webinars will address the self-editing process. Part 1 will focus on “big-picture” editing, including stages of self-editing; focus; keeping the writer out of the narrative; editing the writing’s overall structure, organization, and flow; and improving major and minor subdivisions of written genealogical narratives, including paragraphing. Part 2 will focus on “nitty-gritty” editing, including capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, word choice, and reducing word count.