Moving Day at Heartland Genealogy

If you've stopped by Heartland Genealogy recently, you may notice that things look a little different over the next few days. That's because it's moving day!

After many years on WordPress, I'm in the process of moving Heartland Genealogy to a new home on Blogger. While moving a house is usually a one-day event, moving a blog with more than 2,500 posts, thousands of images, and hundreds of embedded videos takes a little longer.

For the next several days (or perhaps a bit longer), you may encounter a few bumps along the way. Some links may temporarily point to the old site, others to the new one, and the site's appearance may change as I update settings and complete the migration. Please be patient while everything settles into its new home.

Why the Move?

The decision wasn't made lightly.

Heartland Genealogy has always been a labor of love. I don't sell advertising, charge subscriptions, or otherwise earn income from the blog. Instead, the goal has always been to share family history, preserve research, document local history, and hopefully encourage others to explore their own roots.

Over the past few years, the cost of maintaining the WordPress site has steadily increased. Between hosting, premium features, and plugins, it became difficult to justify the ongoing expense for a hobby website.

More recently, I also began encountering problems embedding YouTube videos in posts. Fixing those issues appeared to require upgrading to an even more expensive plan. Rather than continue paying more each year, I decided it was time to simplify.

Blogger provides the features I need while eliminating many of the recurring costs. Most importantly, it allows me to continue sharing research, photographs, document transcriptions, AI-assisted biographies, and videos without worrying about whether the next feature will require another paid upgrade.

Preserving the Past

One thing I did not want to risk was losing the thousands of posts that have accumulated over the years.

Fortunately, that work was already underway.

Each month's blog posts have been preserved as downloadable "books" in the Internet Archive, and I've created indexes on WikiTree that point readers to those archived volumes. Those preservation efforts mean that even as the blog changes platforms, the years of research and writing remain safely archived for future family historians.

As the migration progresses, I'll create posts on blogger similar to the index on WikiTree that will point to the 'book' version of the posts.

What You May Notice

During the transition:

• The blog has a new address blog.heartlandgenealogy.org  - and can also be found at heartlandgenealogy.blogspot.com
• Some links will continue to point to the old WordPress site
• There may be minor formatting differences as I adjust templates and layouts.
• If you subscribe through an RSS reader or bookmark individual pages, you may need to update those to the new site.

I'll post another update once everything is settled into its new home.

Looking Ahead

Although the address is changing behind the scenes, the mission of Heartland Genealogy remains exactly the same.

You can continue to expect:

• Family biographies and stories
• Document transcriptions
• Local history
• Genealogy tips and discoveries
• AI-assisted genealogy projects
• Friday Finds, Monday's Diggings, Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, and other familiar features

In other words, the furniture may be arranged a little differently—but it's still the same house filled with the same stories.

Thank you for reading, for commenting, and for sharing this journey with me over the years. I appreciate your patience while the moving boxes are unpacked, and I look forward to welcoming you to the new home of Heartland Genealogy.