Leverage RSS to Turbo Charge your Genealogy Learning

Who has the time to browse all their favorite genealogy websites weekly or monthly to see if any new content has been posted? Using a simple RSS newsfeed app, you can have a list of new posts pushed out to you for your review. This basic ability to efficiently keep up-to-date with dozens of websites will fundamentally change the way you browse the web.

Many readers’ eyes will begin to glaze over when I describe what seems to be an arcane computer term, like RSS, but hang in there with me for a moment. It would a big mistake to overlook the power of this RSS technology. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication which provides a standardized platform for the distribution of content from an online publisher to Internet users.

Typical Web Surfing

Most people’s web surfing starts with a Google search and following one of the top results returned. This method gets good results because Google does a pretty good job of figuring out the best options for what we are looking for.

Once you come across a website that is a virtual gold mine of information, you naturally want to know when new posts are made to it. You could create a browser bookmark for the website and some back often to see what has changed, but using an RSS newsfeed app is a much better way.

Using an RSS Newsfeed App

In order to make use of RSS, you need to use a newsfeed app. These apps are readily available on the Internet including Feedly, InfoReader, Newsify, Unread and others. I personally use Feedly, so that is what I will describe in this article.

First, go to the Feedly.com website and signup for a free userid. Once you have an account, you can set about to create newsfeeds for your favorite websites. You can either signup for the popular websites that Feedly suggests or type in the URL for the websites you want to follow.

It is as simple as that. Each time you visit Feedly, you can see a consolidated report of headlines and descriptions of any new content that has been added to your target websites since you last checked. If you want to read the article, then hit the button to “visit website”. Once you read all descriptions of the new material, you can hit the button “Mark all as read” so that Feedly knows you are up-to-date and does not need to display these additions again.

Conclusion

If you have not done so already, it is time you got on board with an RSS newsfeed to keep up with new posts on your favorite websites. The Internet is loaded with valuable information, but you need to focus your critical resources of time and attention to consuming only the best of what is available.

Although this technology is great for keeping up on your genealogy hobby, you can create a newsfeed for just about anything you are interested in such as cooking, finance, travel or just about any subject you can think of. After setting up all your newsfeeds, you will only regret not doing it sooner. Once you go RSS, you never go back.

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