The blog – more than family stories¶
The blog in PastPaths is built for longer texts. It suits family stories, but it can be used for much more: as a notebook for a question you're investigating, as a research diary, or as a place for transcriptions of old documents.
What makes the blog useful in your research is that every post can be linked to people, places and events, given source citations, categories and tags – and contain images, audio, video and documents. The text never becomes a separate document that's hard to find again.
Five ways to use the blog¶
1. The family story¶
The classic use: "Anna's journey to America", "Grandmother's childhood at Långsjö".
- Insert photos, letters and documents in the running text with the media button.
- Link the people, places and events the story is about.
- If the story grows long, split it into a series with several parts. Readers can move between the parts right from the post.
2. The fact collector¶
One post per question or topic, where you gather everything you find: "All about the Lerbäck croft", "The ship Anna sailed on", "Kumla parish estate inventories 1840–1860".
- Write down your findings as you go, with where you found them.
- Add source citations directly to the post – the same sources you use on people and events.
- Link the place and the people who appear. The post then shows up in context when you look at them later.
A fact collector can stay unfinished. Leave it as a Draft until you're done with the topic.
3. The research log – keep your research together¶
How did you actually find the information about Erik's parents? A research log keeps the path there: which sources you searched, what turned up nothing, and why you drew a particular conclusion.
- Choose the post type Research log.
- Create a category, for example "Research logs", so you can find all your logs in one place.
- Link the person or people the log is about.
Research log or research note?
A research note is a short note about what to do next. A research log in the blog is the longer story of what you've done and what you concluded. They complement each other – the note points forward, the log looks back.
4. The diary¶
Write a post after each research session: what you were looking for, what you found and what you want to do next time. Over time it becomes a diary of your research.
- One post per day or per archive visit is enough.
- Tags such as place names or family names let you find every day you worked on a particular branch.
- Set old posts to Archived if you want to keep the list short without deleting anything.
5. The transcription¶
Estate inventories, letters and court records are hard to read. A transcription in the blog makes the content searchable.
- Insert the scanned page into the post – an image is shown in the text, a PDF becomes a link that opens outside PastPaths.
- Transcribe the text below the image.
- Add the source citation to the original.
- Link the people who are mentioned.
The search in the blog list looks at both the title and the content, so a name in the transcription is found even if it appears nowhere else.
Finding your way back¶
The more posts you write, the more important it is to find them again:
- Search the blog list – by title and content.
- Filter by status, post type, category or series. With a series selected, the parts are shown in order.
- Open a person, place or event. The Blog tab shows every post linked to it.
- Click a tag or category anywhere in the app. The tag's page lists everything that has it – people, places, events, media and blog posts.
- Related posts are shown at the bottom of a post: other posts about the same people.
Getting started¶
- Decide on two or three categories, for example Stories, Research logs and Transcriptions.
- Write your first post about something you're working on right now.
- Link at least one person or place – then the post belongs to your research from the start.
Last updated: 2026-10-18