The Genealogy Tech Podcast

For those of you who still aren’t convinced on how easy it is to publish information on the Web, there’s a Web site you might want to check out.

The Scribd Web describes itself as a “…big online library where anyone can upload” or, more or less, “a writing repository.” As Rick Broida of LifeHacker writes, it’s a “kind of a YouTube for eBooks”, or other types of documents including PowerPoint presentations, plain text files, PDF docs and more.

Once you upload a document the site generates a URL link that you can e-mail or post on a Web page. One of the features I like is that the site provides a text-to-speech .mp3 download of a document, this is a great accessibility option. Once you upload your document, it becomes on-line readable in their custom Flash player.

I still think think that wikis and blogs are the best way to share your research, but if you just aren’t comfortable with technology, Scribd is simply uploading a document you have already typed in your word processor.

Most people recognize Thomas Jefferson as the author of the United States’ Declaration of Independence. Did you know that he was also into genealogy?

I found this interesting passage in his autobiography:

“At the age of 77, I begin to make some memoranda and state some recollections of dates & facts concerning myself, for my own more ready reference & for the information of my family.”

Jefferson goes on to say that his father’s ancestors were originally from Wales, “near the mountain of Snowdon, the highest in Gr. Br.”

You can find Jefferson’s autobiography along with some of his correspondence on the Unv. of Viginia’s Web site located at: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/