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Your personal, business, and genealogy society blog or website can benefit from sharing family history videos from YouTube with your audience. Videos can increase the length of time visitors spend on your sites while providing an invaluable service to your audience.
However, you might be hesitant because of the fear of violating copyright or plagiarism laws or not knowing how.
In this video, learn the answers to these questions and more. I’ll also show you how to add videos to Blogger, WordPress, and Websites. Let’s tackle the question about copyright first.
Watch this video on YouTube.
Can Tou Share Genealogy YouTube Videos Without Violating Copyright Laws?
When you create blog posts, you have to careful when using content, such as images or quotes from, other bloggers, and books.
First, you must cite your sources, which is always good practice. But are links to blog posts enough? Also, many platforms won’t let you share an image from another website, you have to upload it to your blogs and website. Which can be a copyright violation.
Additionally, if you share much text from one blog to another, your website or blog can be flagged as plagiarized content. Things can become REALLY legally messy, so many people tend to avoid sharing the work of others.
On the contrary, when you share (or embed) YouTube videos on your website, you and the creator of the content both with.
By embedding a video into your blog or website, you do not violate copyright because you’re providing direct access to that video. When your reader watches their video, a creator reaps the same benefits as if a viewer watched the content on the YouTube platform.
Additionally, your need to cite sources diminishes as the embedded video is your source. YouTube provides the channel account information and the creator tells a reader about themselves when the video begins.
Videos are the most shareable content on your blogs and websites, so why not reduce your content creation workload by leveraging the content freely available on YouTube.
What Types of Family History Videos Can You Share?
If you’ve watched my presentation on How to Access the Library of Genealogy Learning Known as YouTube, you know how much content is readily available for you to watch, and then share. You’ll find content on:
Historical Events
Pop Culture
Biographies
How to create clothing
Historic Recreations
Genealogy Research Tips and Techniques
And so much more! If you can think of a topic, you’ll likely find a video about it on YouTube.
How to Embed Genealogy YouTube Videos on Blogger
Write a Blog Post
Find a Video You Wish to Share (in this case the Purple People Eater Song)
On the YouTube Video’s Description Page, click on the words “Share” next to the arrow beneath the video.
Click the words “Copy” beside a URL that looks like this https://youtu.be/X9H_cI_WCnE (Don’t copy the link in the URL bar of the video. It isn’t shareable)
Return to you Blog Post
Insert your cursor where you want to embed the video in your text.
Click on the Movie Clapperboard icon to insert the movie
Click on the movie clapperboard to the left of the Smiley Face
Click on the tab that says “From YouTube”
Click on the tab that says “From YouTube”
Paste the YouTube Video URL into the search bar.
When you see the title and thumbnail for your preferred video, click on that option to select it.
Press Save
Now, Blogger inserts a video into the blog posts, but the size is always wrong. Watch the video for the steps to adjust the HTML.
Or, leave it be. Your younger viewers will know how to pop the video open to watch it in full size.
The beauty of sharing videos in this fashion, your readers (which may include your family) doesn’t have to leave your family blog in order to benefit from listening to that song. At the same time, the YouTube channel benefits from you sharing their great content.
How to Embed Genealogy YouTube Videos on WordPress
Write a Blog Post
Find a Video You Wish to Share (in this case the 19th Century Fashion -- How To Tell Different Decades Apart? )
On the YouTube Video’s Description Page, click on the words “Share” next to the arrow beneath the video.
Click the words “Copy” beside a URL that looks like this https://youtu.be/2VSz5G_qeS8 (Don’t copy the link in the URL bar of the video. It isn’t shareable)
Return to your Blog Post
Add a new blog and click the plus sign.
Type YouTube into the search bar to filter to the correct video block.
Paste the YouTube Video URL into the search bar.
Press “Embed”
Your WordPress theme will then correctly size your embedded video.
How to Embed Genealogy YouTube Videos on Websites
Some website platforms require HTML code in order to embed videos onto your pages. YouTube makes it easy to grab the code.
Create a Website Page
Find a Video You Wish to Share (in this case the When One Record Isn’t Enough: Building a Complete Picture with Multiple Records)
On the YouTube Video’s Description Page, click on the words “Share” next to the arrow beneath the video.
Click on the < > icon with the words Embed.
Click the word “Copy”
Return to your Website Page Design Page
Navigate to the HTML for the page or a widget for inserting custom HTML code.
Paste the embed code provided by YouTube.
Save the Page.
↪️ Are you looking for more genealogy resources?
Grab your copy of this FREE Genealogy Research Guide:
Other YouTube Sharing Tips
If you want to share a video, but you want to begin at a point any time during the video, you can share the video beginning at that moment.
Let’s say I want to share Karina’s video beginning at 2:29.
Watch the video on YouTube until that moment.
Pause the video.
Press the “Share” button.
Click on the option to “Start at __”
Then click “Copy” for the link to that starting point in the video.
If you want to share a collection of videos, you can create a playlist on YouTube or share a created playlist. In so doing, your blog post is not cluttered with videos, just the playlist you want a reader to visit.
If you use the ‘share’ link below a video, even if it’s in a playlist, you will only share that one video. Instead, you need to navigate to the playlist by following these steps.
Find a video in a playlist.
Click on the title of the playlist.
Click on the title of the playlist, i.e. “Family History” in the column on the right.
Click “Share” below the playlist description.
Embed the video according to the platform you’re using.
Happy Genealogy Video Sharing!
If you’re trying to share content with your family and you want to add more social and historical context, share videos that add sights and sounds to past stories.
If you’re a genealogy society, share helpful instructional videos so that you can don’t have to write as much content!
If you’re a genealogy blogger and you want to explain how to demonstrate how to use a website or do a genealogy research skill, share videos freely available on YouTube. It’ll save you time, and you can just wrap the video with additional commentary or success stories.
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Continue Learning About Genealogy on YouTube
Review the following blogs and videos for more tips about genealogy on YouTube