Because backing up is (not) hard to do

Jasia at the Creative Gene highlights the importance of backing up your blog to guard against losing all your posts should anything untoward happen. I admit, I’m as guilty as the next person of forgetting to do this, but it is important not just because of the risk of your blog being hacked, but also because servers and computer technology can be unpredictable at times and losing all your work because of a glitch would be heartbreaking.

Backing up is pretty simple -

If you are using WordPress (either .com or .org) go to ‘Manage/Export’ where you will be given the option to download the file to your computer. There are also plugins which can be installed if you have self-hosted WordPress which will create a backup automatically. You will find these in the plugins section of the wordpress.org site, just check the one you choose is compatible with the version of WP you are using.

If you use Blogger just click the ‘Settings’ tab and on the first page you will see the ‘Export’ link. Once again it is easy, you just save the file to your computer.

I’m not sure of the details for other blogging platforms but all good ones will have something similar.

If you have a traditional website, you will probably have copies of your pages saved on your pc. However, there is a free programme HTTrack which can be used to download your site in it’s entirety, so if the worst happens you can simply upload it again.

If you think you might forget to back up regularly, try setting up a weekly reminder using Google Calendar, Sandy or Free-minder so that you receive an email to nudge you to do it.

Edited to add: Thanks to Jasia for reminding me! If you want to back up your Blogger blog you need to use Blogger in Draft which is the Beta, or test version, of the Blogger dashboard. There are a number of extra features in addition to the Import/Export tool. Some don’t work quite as they should, and some disappear, but on the whole they are functional. To access Blogger in Draft go to this page. Once you are there you can make it your default dashboard by clicking the little icon at the top right of the page.

My software ate my ancestors

Actually, it turned my gedcom into a complete mess, but that isn’t such a snappy headline.

Being serious, I downloaded a new programme, which seemed to work very well, only to discover it did some really odd things to the data. Not content with turning my notes into some kind of computer language – great for machines, not so good for people – it mixed families up, so that folk who married in the 17th century were shown to be the parents of others who weren’t really related to them and who arrived in the world a couple of centuries later. I’m not even going to discuss the problem of multiple duplicate entries and the lack of a merge tool.

Fortunately, I have an earlier copy of the file at Ancestry, several dozen people are missing but at least I was able to make some kind of fresh start using Legacy, which isn’t as pretty, but does do what it says on the tin.

A couple of useful freebies

When people begin to trace their family history, often the first purchase or download they make is a software package to record and track their finds. However, there is one other piece of essential software you will need, a .pdf reader. PDF stand for ‘portable document format’, and it can be used on a range of platforms without the overall appearance of the document changing. What is more, it is also widely used to display information on genealogy sites, so it is essential that you have a copy on your computer. Don’t worry, this is not something you need to part with any cash for, you can obtain a copy for free by simply going to this page.

Once you have installed that, head over to Google Books, where you will find copies of many useful reference works, biographies, topographies and other useful material. This is a good place to go to find works that may contain background information about the places your ancestors lived, or the jobs they did, or even them themselves. Some of the books are only available in extract form, others are full books which can be saved or download for free.