Immortalize Your Blog by Turning It into a Family Search Memory

So you have a blog to share your stories with friends, family, and the world. Great. But will it still exist in 50 years? How about 100? Most likely it will fall victim to the “Digital Dark Age“, and won’t be available. Your grandfather’s memoirs written on paper might be more accessible than your blog. And if your stories are worth sharing with future generations, that’s a shame.

In this post, I’ll show how to make your WordPress blog’s stories available to future generations using Family Search Memories and the WordPress plugin Print My Blog.

Recently I created a WordPress plugin for helping to print your blog to paper or PDF, in the hopes of preserving it. Today I’m going to build on that by showing how you can send that PDF-version-of-your-blog to Family Search in order to make it available to future generations.

Why Family Search?

Family Search is the largest genealogical organization in the world, and has existed since the latest 1800s. It “gathers, preserves, and shares genealogical records worldwide”, all for free. Also importantly: it’s actually operated and financed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so they’re religiously dedicated to preserving family history data.

Family Search also realizes that today’s news will be tomorrow’s family history, so they’re interested in preserving current information. They encourage users to upload current family photos, stories, and documents, so future generations can have them. So if your blog will be of value to your family in the future, it’s a great thing to store as a Family Search Memory.

Should My Blog Become a Family Search Memory?

Of course, not all blogs will have historical value. Eg, if your blog is technology tutorials or restaurant reviews, it’s debatable whether it will have “historical value.”

In their upload guidelines, Family Search outlines the general criteria for content on their service:

Appropriate. Content should support appropriate standards of modesty and virtue.

Relevant. Content should support a family history purpose.

Heart-turning. Content should support individuals coming to know and love their ancestors.

Noncommercial. Content should not advertise or promote products. They should not infringe on intellectual property rights.

Family Search Upload Guidelines and Policies

You should read over Family Search Upload Guidelines and Policies for the most up-to-date information.

Prepare Your Blog’s Stories with Print My BloG

If you think your blog meets Family Search’s requirements, it’s time to get your blog into a format that can be uploaded to Family Search. Specifically, we want to create a PDF.

If your blog is a self-hosted WordPress blog, you can use the free WordPress plugin Print My Blog. If your blog is hosted by WordPress.com, you can use a hosted version of it on DeadEasyFamilyHistory.org.

If your blog isn’t run on WordPress, you may be able to use another service to create a PDF from your blog. I would suggest trying bloxp (also free) or one of the paid services out there.

But it’s important to realize two additional technical requirements for Family Search Memories:

1. The PDF must be under 15 MB in size. That means you’ll probably need to exclude images from the PDF.
2. They require there be no hyperlinks in the PDF. So we’ll use Print My Blog to automatically remove those (if you’re using something else, you may need to manually remove them).

But for the purpose of this tutorial, I’ll be using Print My Blog and Google Chrome web browser. Here’s the steps:

1. Install and Activate Print My Blog

Install and Activate Print My Blog plugin from your WordPress Dashboard. To do that,
1. Under “Plugins”, click “Add New”.
2.Search for “Print My Blog”
3. Click “Install Now” (next to “Print My Blog”), then “Activate”.

If You’re on WordPress.com: Just go to deadeasyfamilyhistory.org/print-my-blog.

2. Configure the Printout

After that, you’ll be taken to the page where you setup Print My Blog.
Click “Show Options”, then select a category of posts that you’d like to include. If you want to include all posts, leave it blank. Then:
uncheck “Featured Image”, uncheck “Show Printout Meta Info”, (optionally) set “Columns” to 2 or 3, set “Image Size” to “None”, and set “Include Hyperlinks” to “Remove”.

Then click “Prepare Print Page”.

3. Wait and Click “Print”

It may take a few minutes, but soon you’ll see “Print-Page Ready” and the button “Print” underneath it. Click “Print”.

4. Save as PDF

This is Google Chrome’s print screen. Remember to set “Destination” to “Save as PDF” in order to save a PDF instead of printing to paper. And then remember where you saved the file, you’ll need it in a second.
On other browsers, the way to print to PDF will be different. Please Google “How to print to PDF on {name-of-browser}”.

Upload to Family Search

Once you’ve gotten your hands on a PDF of your blog, it’s time to upload it to Family Search.

5. Log Into Family Search

Go to familysearch.org, and sign in (or create an account if you’re new, it’s free).

6. Upload the PDF

After you’ve logged in, click on “Memories” at the top.

Next, click “Add Memories.”

From there, click the big green plus button. When you hover over it, it will again say “Add Memories.”

Click “Choose Files”, and select the PDF of your blog.

Select the PDF of your blog.

Notice a new item has appeared. Click “AddTitle” and give it a name (like “Mike Nelson’s Blog”) then press “enter” on you keyboard. Then “Add Tag.”

Click “Who is in the memory?” and enter the names of you and anyone else mentioned in your blog (you may need to create people in Family Search for that.)

Also, click “Add” under “Description” to describe the file (keeping in mind it might be read in several decades from now, so being descriptive is good.)

Then you’re done! Family Search will take a day or two to review your submission before it’s official. They have a review process which can sometimes erroneously flag material as inappropriate. In that case you just need to e-mail them explaining why your submission meets their upload guidelines.

How Will Others Access Your Blog on Family Search

If you only tag yourself in the memory, currently only you will be able to see it. However, when you pass on (or are 100 years old) other Family Search users will be able to see your Family Search details and easily find your memories.

However, if you tag deceased family members in the memory, other Family Search users will be able to see those individuals details (it’s a shared family tree, afterall), and their associated memories, like your blog memory.

Go Immortalize your Blog!

I hope this gives you a good idea of how to can convert your blog into a PDF file that can be uploaded to Family Search, so it will be available in the coming years (long after your actual blog is probably taken down).

On behalf of future generations that are interested to hear your blog’s stories, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions below.

(The cover photo was from Unsplash.com, by Laura Fuhrman)