RSS Auto-Posting for Genealogy and Family History Societies

Short answer: RSS auto-posting lets genealogy and family history societies share research guides, meeting notices, new indexes, journal contents and workshop dates on social media automatically. Publish each item as a page on the society website, let an auto-poster read the feed, and every new page appears on your Facebook Page, Bluesky account, Mastodon profile, Pinterest boards and other networks with its link and image. Researchers learn what is new in your collection, and details about living people, private family trees and member contact data stay out of every automated post.

A genealogy society is a memory organisation run by volunteers. It owns indexes, transcriptions, photographs, journals and a lot of patient knowledge about how to find a great-grandmother who changed her name twice. People who start tracing their family often have no idea where to begin, and they search the web for a guide, a local record office or a group that will answer a question. The society usually has the answer, but it is buried in a newsletter that reaches only members. A feed turns every page on the website into a post the moment it is published, so that a beginner searching for parish records or a census guide can find you. This article explains what to publish, how to connect it and where to be careful, because family history involves living relatives, copyright and the trust of people who share their stories.

Who this guide is for

The advice fits many groups that research and preserve family and local history:

• Genealogy and family history societies with a county, region or national focus.
• One-name study groups that collect every record of a single surname.
• Local history groups that share a research room with family historians.
• Heritage libraries and archives with a genealogy collection and a volunteer team.
• Ethnic and cultural heritage associations that help members trace roots abroad.
• DNA interest groups that explain test results and methods.

All of them have a small team, a website with news and guides and a group of members who care about accuracy. The website is the natural source for every other channel.

What a society can publish

A surprising amount of the work can be turned into short pages:

• beginner guides, such as how to start a family tree, how to read a census page or how to find a marriage record;
• notices for monthly meetings, talks, workshops and research days, with the date, the place and the way to register;
• announcements of new indexes, transcriptions and digitised collections, with a note on what they cover and what they leave out;
• contents pages of the journal or newsletter, with a short summary of each article;
• help desk hours at the library or research room, and the days when the room is closed;
• explanations of old handwriting, calendars, place names and occupations that puzzle beginners;
• reports from conferences and outings, written with the permission of those who attended;
• calls for volunteers who can transcribe records, scan photographs or answer questions.

Each page lives on your site, where a researcher can find it through a search engine. The feed then announces it elsewhere without anyone retyping the text.

Which feeds your website already has

Most societies already use a system that produces feeds:

• WordPress has a feed at /feed/ and one for every category, such as /category/guides/feed/. If you are unsure of the address, see how to find your WordPress feed link.
• Website builders such as Wix publish a blog feed; see kā atrast savu Wix RSS plūsmu.
• Membership databases and research indexes hold names, addresses and family details. They must never be connected to a public feed.

Use categories to separate audiences: guides for beginners, meetings and events, new indexes, journal contents and volunteer news. Each category has its own feed, and each feed can go to the place where it works best. Routing by category is explained in category filtering for auto-posting.

What to automate and what to keep private

A simple rule: if it helps many researchers understand a record, a method or an event, automate it. If it concerns one living person, one private tree or one member, it needs a person and a private channel.

Living people, DNA and consent

Family history is different from other hobbies, because every tree connects to people who are alive. A birth record from 1890 is history, but a recent photograph of a grandchild, a current address or a divorce is private information. Most societies adopt a rule that no details of living people are published without written consent, and some also use a cut-off date for records of recent decades. Publish that rule on the website and apply it to every automated post. Be especially careful with DNA. Test results reveal relationships, health risks and unexpected family facts, and a person who shares a result in a meeting has not agreed to see it in a social post. Write posts about methods, such as how to compare matches or how to plan a test, and leave individual results out. If you are unsure whether a page is safe to share, ask the person concerned first, because a retraction on social channels is hard to make complete.

Copyright, indexes and sources

Many collections have more than one owner. A society may hold the copyright to its own transcriptions, while the original records belong to a church, an archive or a government office, and a photograph may belong to the family that donated it. Before you announce a collection, check what the agreement with the owner allows. Credit the source on every page, link to the original archive where it exists and describe your index as a finding aid and not as a replacement for the record. This protects the society from complaints and teaches researchers an important habit: to check the original document before they trust a transcription. A short note at the foot of each page, such as the name of the archive and the reference number, makes your pages more useful and more trusted.

Turn questions into guides

Volunteers on the help desk answer the same questions again and again: where to find a baptism record, how to read an old occupation, why a surname is spelled in three ways. Turn the best answers into short guides, remove names and publish them as pages. A guide that solves one problem in four hundred words is more likely to be found and shared than a long general essay, and it saves the help desk time. Keep a list of the most common questions and write one guide a month. After a year the website holds a library of practical advice, and the feed shares each guide as soon as it is ready. Remember to review old guides when record offices change their rules or websites, so that links and instructions stay correct.

Meetings, talks and research days

Meetings are the heart of a society, but a notice that reaches only members misses new people. Give every event a page of its own with the title, the speaker, the date, the start time, the place, the access arrangements and the way to register. If the talk is online, add the platform and the time zone. After the event, change the page to say that it has taken place and link to notes or a recording, if the speaker has agreed. Old notices left open cause confusion, so close them promptly. Research days and visits to archives deserve the same treatment, with a list of what to bring, such as names, dates and places collected so far.

Choose the right channels

• Facebook Page. Many family historians are active there; it is easy to auto-post RSS to Facebook Pages from your site feed.
• Bluesky and Mastodon. Smaller but lively communities of history and archive enthusiasts.
• Pinterest boards. Good for old photographs, maps and posters, with credit to the source.
• Telegram. A channel for volunteers who want short notices about research days and deadlines.

Most societies do best with a Facebook Page and one more channel, plus the website and a monitored email address. Two active channels beat five forgotten ones.

A one-afternoon set-up plan

1. Find your website feed, usually at /feed/, and check that it lists recent pages.
2. Create categories: guides, meetings, new indexes, journal and volunteers.
3. Choose your channels, for example a Facebook Page for members and the public and Pinterest for photographs.
4. Connect each category feed to the right channel in an auto-poster.
5. Set posting hours for daytime and evening, when hobby researchers are online, and add UTM parameters to see which channel brings visitors.
6. Publish one test page and check how it looks on each network.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Details of living people. Publish only with written consent, and prefer general explanations.
• Individual DNA results. Write about methods, not about named matches.
• Missing credit. Name the archive, the donor and the reference on every page.
• Promising complete coverage. Say what an index includes and what it leaves out.
• Old notices left open. Close event pages after the date.
• No tracking. Without UTM parameters you cannot tell which channel brings visitors; see tracking RSS automation with UTM parameters.

How PostRSS helps genealogy societies

PostRSS has been automating RSS posting since 2014. It checks your website feeds as often as every minute and publishes each new page, with its real image and link, to the channels you connect, from Facebook Pages and Pinterest boards to Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram and many more among its 66 supported networks. You can choose how each post is built, filter items by keywords, add UTM parameters and post only within chosen hours or at exact times in your time zone. See the PostRSS features page for everything it does and the pricing page for plan limits. More ideas for clubs and community groups are under the Local Business tag.

Saistīta lasāmviela

• RSS auto-posting for public libraries and library systems
• RSS auto-posting for museums, galleries and cultural attractions
• RSS auto-posting for chess clubs and board game cafes

The bottom line

A genealogy society holds knowledge that beginners badly need. RSS auto-posting shares every guide, meeting notice, index announcement and journal summary automatically, as soon as it is published on the society website. Write each page for a person who is just starting a tree, credit every source, keep living people, DNA results and member details out of public posts, close old notices, review guides when archives change and let the volunteers spend their time on research and not on retyping announcements.

FAQ

Can a genealogy society automate its social media posts?

Yes. If your society has a website with a news or guides section, its RSS feed can be connected to an auto-poster that shares each new page on Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon and other channels. Details of living people must stay out of automated posts.

What should a family history society post publicly?

Beginner guides, meeting notices, announcements of new indexes, journal summaries and volunteer calls. Keep member data, private trees and living relatives private.

Can we share old photographs from our collection?

Only when you hold the rights or have permission from the donor and the owner of the original. Credit the source on the page and avoid recent photographs of identifiable living people.

Should we post DNA results?

No. Share guides about methods and tools, but keep individual results private, because they reveal relationships and health information about people who did not agree to publish them.

Can PostRSS read a feed from a society website?

Yes. PostRSS reads any valid RSS or Atom address that is reachable without a login. Paste the address, connect your channels and new pages are shared as soon as they appear.