Where tourism marketing and genealogy meet

Posted on Mar 27 2009 in Genealogy, Tourism & Economic Development, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth Measures

Alannah Ryane is searching for information about Peter Martin, ca 1749-1788. Her search for Peter Martin, her great-great-great-great-great grandfather has recently taken a curious twist and she is now researching the possibility that he might have been taken prisoner in Canso, Nova Scotia, following the attack on Canso by the French from Louisbourg in 1745.

I first came to know about Alannah’s search when she emailed me on her blackberry phone while in Florida for the winter:It turns out that Alannah is not only an avid genealogist but also a videographer, now specializing in documentary series for online viewing.

Ryane’s new video series “By Her Roots” webisodes, numbers one to eight, trace her own journey to Nova Scotia, Canada, as she searches for information on Peter Martin’s life.

View “By her Roots” webisode #5 “Ketch Harbour, Nova Scotia,” by Alannah Ryane.

Enchanted by her video series, I asked Alannah about the possibility of her making DVDs of the series, but she now prefers to focus on sponsorship as a way to finance her video productions. She says that she has developed her business model over the past several years through experience: She raises funds by advertising/promo spots on her webisodes; (a ten second advertisement on one of her webisodes, such as the ones shown here for the “Cansobreeze.com,” a community website, and “whitmanwharf.com” cost $350.00 Cdn. (inclusive of artwork).

Alannah explains via her Blackberry phone from Florida, how she searched for sponsorship over the past few years to make video productions for the major networks,

“Well actually after many years of trying to sell it to broadcast stations and looking for sponsorship from Alexander Keith etc. I gave up and went this way or I would still be waiting. I had to have a seasoned exec. Producer… And now because it had to be chopped down to 6 mins each time to be under 100 mbs and close to 5 mins for Roots TV - a lot had to be left out. I tried everybody over 8 years.”

Acutely aware of the changing trends in the way we watch visual media, Ryane sees the enormous potential for reaching her audience not through the major TV networks but rather through the internet. We are rapidly moving from scheduled TV programming to “on demand” viewing, and even more recently from streaming video/podcasts on our laptops, to viewing these videos on our phones.

“I’ve now finished all 8 webisodes for Part One of the series, By Her Roots,” says Alannah, “so I won’t be coming back to Nova Scotia (this year) unless we find evidence of Peter Martin prior to 1749, perhaps among the New England Canso Prisoners taken by the French in 1745.”

Working from her studio in her RV, Alannah relies on her Blackberry phone as she volunteers in a Florida forest, so these changing patterns in how people are viewing videos are very much a part of her everyday life.

“The numbers of people watching television online is growing so fast that the major broadcastors are not just compressing the video for online viewing of their cable shows but they are now compressing even more… for people who watch on their phones, like me here in the forest,” explains Ryane. This, she explains is why she has switched her productions to focus on online viewers. More importantly, Ryane sees how this shift in viewing is changing advertising,

“They are also working their advertising and marketing. So I am developing my internet based documentaries as I believe it is a win win for everyone.”

Now Alannah is planning to travel to Ireland. Working on the financing for Part Two of her series, By Her Roots: in Ireland, she plans to research the Nova Scotian ancestors from Wexford in Ireland. “They show up in the records just after the 1798 rebellion so (I shall be) going back to the villages and their rebellion records that have the same surnames. Part two is what I will be focusing on now in Ireland- just have to get sponsors- the same premise will work , (advertising sponsors) and it’s much faster than the old way. I am happy with this, I think it will work now that people like it I should be able to get more sponsors- just takes time.”

The Cat-High Speed Car Ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia, (By Her Roots video series sponsor)

Pushing ahead and achieving her goals is what makes Ryane an interesting proposition for potential advertisers. She is garnering a global audience as she globe trots to make her documentary video productions. This has not gone unnoticed by The Cat, the major ferry line which operates between Maine, US and Nova Scotia, Canada, who are now included among her sponsors.

Not content with having her next documentary at the development stage, she is also planning to shoot in France this summer.

“I am also now working on a proposal and financing for a new series, By Her Roots: In France: “Eleanor of Aquitaine - The Grandmother of Europe”…I found a descendant here in Florida that had never looked at the paperwork in the back of her old genealogy books which shows her family tree goes back to the very beginning of English Monarchy!” says Ryane.

With advertising shifting from the traditional media outlets to the internet, to social networking sites, and to Youtube, there is now enormous potential for reaching huge global audiences, by thinking outside the “box”!

Tourism marketing can clearly also benefit from targeting niche sites such as the online genealogy site, Roots TV, as Ryane has shown.

The Roots TV site, http://rootstelevision.com promote their own audience as,

• Someone who already lives on the Internet.
  
• Genealogists are known for crashing sites with traffic and are among the stickiest surfers online.
  
• Travel and tourism appeals to genealogists; after all there’s nothing like a family reunion or a trip to the homeland to do some first hand genealogy!
  

For more information on Alannah Ryane you can visit her website (www.ryaneinc.com)

She is currently showing her work online both on Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/user/RyaneInc and Roots TV, http://rootstelevision.com as she combines her unique skills of both story-telling and videography.

Sponsorship enquiries for her European series in Ireland and France can be made to alannahryane@yahoo.ca