Would you like to create digital versions of your family history stories that you can share online, weaving in photos, videos, and interactive maps? Stories you can easily update and republish as you make new discoveries with your research? ArcGIS StoryMaps is an excellent platform to create these types of digital stories. No coding skills required. JOIN ME for my upcoming April 17th virtual workshop that is part of the National Genealogical Society’s new GenTech Toolbox workshop series! Can’t make the live Zoom event? Register for on-demand access to the recording.
Prioritizing Family History Writing
Something I have been trying to prioritize the past couple years is making regular time for my family history writing (even though I rarely have time to write for this blog anymore). I have been researching my family history since 1997, and I have decades of research captured in my online trees, genealogy databases, note systems, spreadsheets, etc. Yet aside from older blog posts and a few photo books, I have put few of my family history stories into a narrative form that I can share with the people who matter most to me…my family. Doing the research part of genealogy is great and fun, but I need to do a better job of converting my research into narrative form.
Mixing in Digital Multimedia Storytelling
For many years though, I have regularly incorporated digital storytelling into all three areas of my professional work: as an academic library, as a college professor, and as a professional genealogy educator. I regularly teach digital storytelling methods and tools, and how to use those to enhance your research. I have created many “sandbox” demo teaching stories over the years to use as instruction examples. But these past couple years, I finally committed to combing my love for multimedia storytelling with goal to make regular time for my family history writing. The StoryMaps platform by Esri is one of my two favorite platforms for multimedia storytelling.
You can view and read two of my StoryMaps here, the first two chapters in multi-part long-form story that chronicles the World War I Army service of my great-grandfather Patrick Flanagan.
The StoryMaps Collection web page housing the first two chapters of my WWI story.
About the StoryMaps Platforms
StoryMaps is a cloud-based digital storytelling platform developed by the geographic information systems (GIS) software company Esri that makes it easy to create multimedia immersive stories incorporating text, images, video, audio, and timelines, as well as interactive digital maps.
The StoryMaps platform currently exists in two versions.
- ArcGIS StoryMaps (formerly Esri StoryMaps) is the version that is part of the larger ArcGIS Online suite of tools that includes GIS and other data integrations. This platform version is heavily used by GIS professionals, government agencies, and educational institutions. There are, however, options available for individuals too, which is what we will use in the NGS workshops.
- StoryMaps.comis the personal director-to-consumer version that Esri released in April 2022 for individuals. It was available as a freemium model with a free Basic plan – the plan I used – and a Premium plan for $10/month or $100/year. However, Esri just announced it is retiring the StoryMaps.com platform at the end of June 2025, when the site and all content will be deleted.
Retiring StoryMaps.com
Although Esri did not announce the retirement of StoryMaps.com until 26 March 2025, I caught on to this back in late February due to changes I noticed in how Esri was handle further use of the platform (they have removed those initial blog posts). A series of email exchanges with StoryMaps.com Support confirmed my suspicions that Esri planned to eliminate this platform, so I had already come up with a Plan B and started manually migrating all of my work-in-progress stories over to a personal ArcGIS Online subscription. I have a free enterprise license account to ArcGIS Online through my work university. However, I like to keep most of my family history research in my personal account, and I use my personal account for teaching in the genealogy community, versus teaching at the university.
ArcGIS StoryMaps Account Options
Individuals now have two options to work with StoryMaps, as part of the larger ArcGIS Online system.
- Personal Use Subscription ($100 / year): This is the personal version of ArcGIS Online that I now use for some of my family history StoryMaps. My great-grandfather’s WWI stories are build with this plan. The paid subscription accounts are referred to as Organization accounts, which I admit is very confusing. When creating a personal use subscription account you also create a personal organization account. I will explain this more in the NGS GenTech Toolbox workshops.
- Free Public Account: Esri also offers a completely free version of ArcGIS Online that now also includes the StoryMaps app. It is for personal non-commercial use, and Esri describes it as a limited use account because it does not have as many features as the persona use subscription. I have one of these free public accounts too since I need to be able to teach all versions of StoryMaps, and I am also manually migrating some of my work-in-progress stories from StoryMaps.com to my free public account.
Follow the instructions on this web page to create a free public account. You can upgrade to a personal use subscription later if you choose too. That web page has a Tip box that links to instructions on how to convert a free public account to a paid personal use subscription. Esri provides a comparison of StoryMaps features available in each type of account. I will explain these more in the NGS GenTech Toolbox workshops.
Why This Type of Storytelling
I sometimes get asked why should someone do this type of digital narrative writing instead of traditional forms of writing. It is not an instead of issue. I do this form of writing in addition to “regular” writing like report or article that I might share with my family. However some people might be more inspired to write if they can create a more engaging form of storytelling that traditional written formats. I still write the majority of my family history storytelling in traditional formats like research reports to myself that might become journal or magazine articles or even a book someday.
I like to use this approach for family history storytelling that create a more enhanced experience for my readers by weaving in multimedia elements like videos, image galleries, and interactive digital maps.
The April Workshop
This workshop will introduce the building blocks used to design and publish a multimedia StoryMap using some of the main content features. We will discuss best practices for planning a story, including copyright considerations. Students will be provided with sandbox content so they can focus on learning the platform and following along to build out their first sandbox story.
Participants will create and use a free public ArcGIS Online account.
Can’t attend the live event on Thursday, April 17th? You can register for the on-demand option!
- Live Zoom Event: Thursday, 17 April 2025, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time
- Recording Available: 20 April – 13 July 2025
- Registration Options:
- Live event only (no recording): $25
- Live event and recording: $35 for NGS members / $45 for non-members
- On demand option: $35 for NGS members / $45 for non-members
Visit the NGS GenTech Toolbox website to REGISTER TODAY!
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