Sunday, February 17, 2008

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 10-16 February 2008

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week.

My criteria are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy, address current genealogy issues, personal family history, are funny or are poignant.

I don't list posts destined for the Carnival of Genealogy, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

* "Carlisle Family Papers: University of Michigan" by Charlotte at the Apple's Tree blog. Apple has found a treasure trove sitting in an archive in Ann Arbor and can hardly wait to see what family history secrets it holds. She asked for advice about going to the Bentley research library in April, and got lots of good advice - be sure to read all of this post!

* "It's Not Too Early" by Lee Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee has some suggestions for family history oriented Christmas presents. Don't wait, start now!

* "FWOOM: How Do You Handle a Blast of Family History?" by Larry Lehmer on the Passing It On blog. Larry wonders how to handle the "fire hose effect" of Internet genealogy - can you advise him? He makes some great observations too!

* "Famous DNA Review, Part IV: Jesse James" by Blaine Bettinger on The Genetic Genealogist blog. Blaine discusses the mitochrondrial DNA results for the outlaw Jesse James and gives an excllent example of how mtDNA can be used to determine relationships thorugh a female line.

* "Google Views Ancestry & FamilySearch Streets" by ???? on The Ancestry Insider blog. The Insider shows some Salt Lake City sights, including TGN and the FHL, then provides many more views of the area, including a place that one of his/her ancestor's lived in 1850. S/he challenges readers to figure out who s/he is from the clues given in this and earlier posts.

* " 'American' ethnic identity in the United States" by Ruby on The Radical Genealogist blog. Ruby shows some interesting maps about "American" ethnic identity. See the links for more information. The 2000 census map data is intriguing!

* "The American Winston Churchill: 1871-1947" by Janice Brown on the Cow Hampshire blog. Did you know that there was an author named Winston Churchill buried in New Hampshire? Janice found out, and told us about this interesting man, along with a genealogical record.

* "Mortality Schedules" by Lori Thornton on the Smoky Mountain Family Historian blog. Lori checks out 1850 to 1880 mortality schedules, and tells us about some of them ore "interesting" causes of death.

* "Random Acts of Kindness Week" by Miriam Midkiff at the Ancestories: Stories of My Ancestors blog. Miriam has a series of posts this week about Join a Lookup Service, Be a Sponsor, Volunteer for a Society, Share Your Data, Transcribe or Translate, Give a Hand, and Be Grateful and Generous. There are many useful ideas here - give back to genealogy!

* "US Suggestions for Newbies," "News Sources for Newbies" and "Software Suggestions for Newbies" by Pat Richley on the DearMYRTLE blog. Pat has three excellent lists designed to help beginning genealogists get up to speed in a hurry.

Please go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add the blog to your Favorites, Bloglines, reader, feed or email if you like what you read.

Please make a comment to them also - we all appreciate feedback on what we write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me!

2 comments:

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

Thanks Randy! I appreciate all of the tips I've received so far and would love any more that anyone can think of.

Reference Services said...

Here is a blog that is more about history than genealogy,...but history and genealogy are so interconnected:

http://sanduskyhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Prout%27s%20Station