Name of your website?Family History Quick Start
Your name?
Thomas
Your Location (city, etc)
Orem
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Family History Quick Start helps the curious and the serious family history researcher. Quick tips and free courses help visitors find out step by step how to organize their family history and begin researching. The site has instructions for finding out if you have famous relatives (US Presidents, European Royalty, famous inventors, and more). Also learn some quick tips for writing that personal history.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
A nutty love for family history. I end up talking to a lot of people about how fun family history can be. There are some that really get excited, and others that just smile and humor me. With the launch of the website, there's the opportunity to really connect with those that want to learn more about their ancestors but aren't sure what to do to get started.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My very first website I launched was around 2000 or 2001 and was a company website I ran for a family member. Around 2002, we launched a family website. It wasn't much, but it's grown and we've included family history information about our own family history.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Good domain names are harder to find these days. We wanted a domain name that communicated the subject of the site (family history) and what we can do to help (quick start).
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
There are a number of family history websites out there with just too much information. Our site helps give simple, step by step instructions to help newcomers get started with family history.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Keep it for income. We'd also like to publish a book at some point with all of our genealogy articles and courses.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We're just starting out, but have liked the results so far.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We would continue what we're doing, but add more resources to build the site content and improve our listing of genealogical source more quickly.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes. We're dealing mostly with information and "how-to's" rather than physical products that need to be shipped when ordered.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Not too many--a few technical blips here and there, but things have been pretty smooth.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting the word out to more family history and genealogy enthusiasts and would-be enthusiasts.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Social networking sites have been a great traffic director to our site.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It's picked up a little faster than I had planned which is fantastic!
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
We've had the site up less than a month, and plan to keep running it for many years to come!
What's your vision?
Our vision is that we will eventually help hundreds of thousands of people discover just how fun family history can be and provide visitors with easy to follow tutorials and tools to help them make the most of their research and discovery.
What is your website address?
Family History Quick Start
