Cheat sheetsTips and toolsAncestors' storiesChallenge AZNews
Discover sites to learn, write, explore, and travel back in time...
©️Gallica - BnF
In early June 2020, the numbers are in. Time spent on the Internet exploded during lockdown! Médiamétrie reports that the French spent nearly three hours per day on the Web in April, almost twice as much as in April 2019.
You may have taken advantage of lockdown to explore many online resources in search of your ancestors. Discover these new sites that you will surely enjoy, you who love to learn, explore, write, delve into archives and must know how to be patient... The opportunity for you to take a break from your genealogy, which is always beneficial, to return to it better!
Your knowledge of History and Geography has developed since you started genealogy? Your relatives often ask, "But how do you know that?" You like to learn, cultivate yourself, and share anecdotes during family meals? Well, these sites will nourish your thirst for general culture!
With savoir-inutile.com, you click to discover "all that serves no purpose to shine in society..." We tested it, it's quite addictive! By the way, did you know that July 14, 1789, the day of the storming of the Bastille, was a Tuesday?
In the same vein, we really like Factotourism. The anecdotes are in English, but very easy to translate, and the infographics speak for themselves... We warn you - hard to stop scrolling the page! "Wow, the IKEA catalog is as widespread as the Bible?"
We also invite you to keep the site anecdote-du-jour.com in your favorites. Every day, a new anecdote, general culture info, or an odd fact will be presented to you. It's in French and quite comprehensive!
Finally, for those who swear by History, you will surely take malicious pleasure in discovering a new "Badass" of History every week. In "Badass," understand rather "a tough guy, a brave guy" who left a mark in history without necessarily appearing in school textbooks. You will find a rich biography of each new character presented since 2004. It's in English, but a good translator will do the job.
We bet you already spend hours exploring archive sites in search of the slightest clue to retrace the lives of your ancestors. In a more geographical and/or cultural aspect, we offer you some sites that, for some, will become as time-consuming as your research! You have been warned...
Who among you has never dreamed of visiting the world's most beautiful wonders? And... hard to travel these days. So we have the solution. Don't move from your chair, take your favorite drink and set off for a visit to the Château de Versailles, the Lascaux Cave or even the Sistine Chapel, the Great Wall of China, the Acropolis and the Pyramids of Giza... So? Convinced?
And then, for the more playful, how about testing your geography knowledge? Here's the scenario: you are sent to the middle of nowhere and your mission is to get as close as possible to your exact position on a world map. You are timed and must use your knowledge to understand the clues in the image... You might have guessed, we are obviously talking about the famous game Geoguessr, which is undoubtedly fascinating, we must admit...
You may have started writing your genealogy on a blog or to leave a trace of your ancestors for your loved ones. If that's the case, you know that writer's block (especially during the AZ Challenge!) can be a real scourge... To remedy this and to give you all the reasons (and tools) to help you, inspire you, we have listed some sites.
For beginners, it's not easy to get started... How to start? How to make sure you write the best way? The site Scribay can help you. It is said of this platform that it can help you find inspiration and progress within a supportive community, top, right?
In the same vein, WriteControl will help you organize your writing with tools designed for writers (character management, chapters, details...), you have all the keys in hand!
And finally, to inspire you on the most complicated part - which often lies in choosing the title - we tried (and loved!) the Title and its associated cover generator. We leave you to appreciate our cover...
Finally, for those who love to write and are no longer in their first stories, why not try a new exercise to work on your creativity?
To do this, we suggest you write a letter to your future self that you can send to the date of your choice. It's possible on futureme.org and you can also use this tool to write your memories and remind yourself of them years later...
Why not also share your pleasure of writing with a stranger who would be happy to receive your letter? This is the concept of 1 Lettre 1 Sourire which allows you to write a letter to isolated elderly people in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Canada - we find that pretty cool!
Ahhh, old photos... It's always pleasant to visually realize the environment of our ancestors.
With What Was There (literally, "what was here"), it is possible to explore a world map on which old photos of specific places have been recorded. There are 257 photos recorded for France, and you can also propose some. Same principle for HistoryPin which has a large collection of images
Also dive into the photo galleries of online archives. These could help you illustrate your genealogy. Discover today the collection Internet Archive Book Images on Flickr, that of New Old Stock or even the more recent archives of Getty Images.
"Learn patience?" Yes, yes! And it's a genealogist's virtue...
To help you a little, two useful sites in case of a meltdown: Do Nothing For 2 Minutes (understand, "do nothing for 2 minutes, and there's a counter!!) and Patience is a Virtue which will teach you to manage frustration...
In another genre, the site "Is it almost the weekend?" will tell you if you can soon do genealogy...