One of the primary reasons to update your WeRelate profile page is to provide contact information so you can make connections with others researching your families and locations. As WeRelate grows, I’m finding that I frequently visit pages outside my family pages. Although WeRelate provides a watch list to notify you when selected pages are updated, there isn’t a facility to bookmark my favorite pages.

No problem, create your own bookmarks on your profile page.

At a page you want to bookmark, select the page name/title at the top of the page, right click and choose the copy command from the popup menu.

Now go to your profile page (MyRelate > User Profile from the top menu), click on the Edit link and paste your code inside double square brackets as you see here. The asterisk (*) and space in front of the link formats it as a bulleted item.

Save your page and now you’ve got an easily accessible link to a favorite page.

You can now use Skype on your mobile phone! Yes, Skype is now available for the iPhone (and iPod Touch 2nd generation or higher using the earphones with mic) and Symbian phones with Android and Blackberry phones following soon. On the iPhone, you can see who’s online and text message them through either the phone’s data service or via wifi. When you’re in wifi mode, you can call other Skype users at no charge or even other phones if you’re using Skype’s pay-as-you-go or unlimited subscription. Obviously, the Touch will only work over wifi.

There are some significant limits with the iPhone app. The Skype app must be running to receive calls and since the iPhone is NOT multi-tasking, that means you can’t do anything else while waiting for a call. That doesn’t mean the caller can’t send a message via email, Facebook or some other platform to tell the callee that she wants to call . . .

The iPhone app is free at the iTunes store.

The featured page at WeRelate is James Kerr – and with good reason. It’s a fabulous example of how to organize and present your research using WeRelate. And, while you’re there, follow the link to the Augusta County page – another delight!

Every day more and more books are added to ebook libraries like Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive with historical and genealogical value. From journals of Civil War soldiers and regimental histories to diaries of settlers as they travel across the country looking for a new home, these manuscripts have great research value. The key to many of these books is a good ebook reader. One very nice free reader, Stanza, is available for Windows, Mac and the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Although I’m more familiar with the mobile version and always have several books on my iPod Touch for pleasure reading, most of my research reading is done on the desktop version to take advantage of the tools available there. Stanza lets me search the text for specific information, bookmark pages for later reference and copy/paste content. I can convert ebooks to different formats – including plain and rich text – when I want to include passages in my research database or history projects.

Even if you use a portable ebook reader like the Kindle, Nook or iPhone, having the Stanza desktop application installed provides additional flexibility supporting your research. It costs you nothing and will serve you well.

Research Delivered – ManyBooks offers feeds by category of new books added to their collection. I’ve found several fascinating histories and many delightful fiction choices (all free) delivered to my newsreader. There’s a large list of ebook repositories available at the Genealogy Research Resources group at Diigo.