I have an English degree. I have written a grammar book. I taught English for many years. I have been a web developer since 2000. I have written blog posts for almost that long. And, oh boy, this blog is a challenge.

The most important thing a genealogist can do is document. I'll say it again: the most important thing a genealogist can do is document.

So that means footnotes. No problem. I had to do a brush up on footnotes and the like because it's been a really long time since I had to obey style guides. And then it gets even trickier. There are recommendations; there are requirements – possibly differing requirements – by associations, certification boards, the Chicago Manual of Style. It's all enough to make one dizzy. 

I've bought books and laminated cheatsheets from Amazon but I'm planning on certification from The Board of Certification of Genealogists. They recommend Chicago Manual of Style as well as a book that was just published last year – after I bought several others – and a book that costs $60 bucks in print but free edition exists online as an entire website.

So mastering the basics was what I did in the first 100 hours of the Wilson project. Writing required keeping one or more of the resources on hand at all times. Then there are footnotes online.

I can find literally reams of resource material for genealogy, for citing online resources, but most genealogists aren't writing for the web. Newsletters and magazines are still in print (yes!!) but when posted online, they are in the PDF format. Most folks aren't blogging and giving away info for free. (Note to self: don't tell all!)

There has to be a balance of HTML, readability, navigation and proper citations online. Now that's complicated. I found several pages, blogs, question and answer forums that addressed this. As usual, everyone on the internet has an opinion.

So in the end I've decided to follow the format of wikipedia.org. Of course, due to the complicated nature of WikiPedia's style sheets, not all info was accessible. So I experimented; I got irritated. WordPress balked. The WP editor didn't do it the way I wanted. So back to old style, creating HTML and pasting it into the editor in admin.

I really hate it when I cannot bend a javascript editor to my will. Alas, Xinha, I miss you! Geez, even the website for it is gone. So goes the way of the internet. They come and they go.

Now back to your regularly sheduled program…