Are You A Connected Genealogist?

After months of preparing, writing, and researching and with much "pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth," I am pleased to announce my new genealogy business venture: The Connected Genealogist℠, a division of High-Definition Genealogy.  You can read more about the concept here, but in brief this is what you'll find:

• I've decided to create a store on Lulu to self-publish a variety of "knowledge" that I want to impart to the genealogy community.  The URL for the new store is http://stores.lulu.com/connectedgenealogist.

• All "cheat sheets" posted at my various sites such as GeneaBloggers have been retooled and are now located in The Connected Genealogist Store.  They are in large type (14pt) and in PDF format.

• Don't think "store" and then think $. The cheat sheets which have been downloadable for free in the past will remain that way.  The store is simply and easier way to organize them.

• The newest product - available for a small fee - is Genealogy Speaking Templates.  A package of six Word templates you can use for genealogy speaking engagements.  I'll have more details on the specifics over the weekend, but the templates include:  a contract, spec sheets for travel and hotel, a transmittal letter and even a summary description and a syllabus.  These are easy-to-use documents with "click and type" fields and can be customized to suit your specific needs.

• In the coming weeks and months you'll see more products including templates to create a genealogy resume and bio, books on how to become a genealogy speaker and on 21st century marketing techniques for genealogists and genealogical societies and more.

• Beginning in August 2010, The Connected Genealogist will be offering a variety of webinars (virtual presentations) at our Webex site.  Topics will cover Facebook, Twitter, how to use Dropbox to store your genealogy data "in the cloud," and more.  And in an exciting marketing twist, my intent is to make all webinars free to attend - you pay only for the syllabus materials including templates, guides and books.

The Connected Genealogist is the culmination of about a year's worth of work.  I want to bring a variety of educational tools to the genealogy community, especially ones that can "raise" the technology quotient.

While I would love to give away this knowledge for free, with over 25 years experience in the Information Technology field and my recent experience with social media, financially I can't survive on free.  I will always try to make as many of these items free whenever possible but some items will have a nominal fee.  My mantra in this endeavor: I want to make a living, not a killing.

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I hope you'll check out The Connected Genealogist.  You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well.  And remember, let The Connected Genealogist be your guide to connecting genealogists with new technologies.

The Connected Genealogist is a registered service mark of High-Definition Genealogy

©2010, copyright Thomas MacEntee