Sunday, August 17, 2008

Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of August 10-16, 2008

Several hundred genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide 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.

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

* Why Genealogists Make Mistakes by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig discusses how and why we make mistakes in our research endeavors, just like medical doctors do.

* Tuesday Tales from the Road - Pennsylvania by Kathryn M. Doyle on the California Genealogical Society and Library blog. This is report number three from Mary Mettler as she researches across America. This week, she's in Pennsylvania and sends back stories with pictures.

* MyHeritage introduces a whole new way to work with photos - Part 1, 2, 3 and 4 by Saar Kagan on the MyHeritage blog. This series of posts describes how to put photographs on the MyHeritage site, photo tag them with automatic face detection technology, create a face cloud, and adding, viewing and searching for photos on the site.

* On the road again: To Chicago by Schelly Talalay Dardahti on the Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog. Schelly is a busy lady, and still on her long road trip around the USA. Read about her trip to Chicago, and also the excellent advice for genealogy societies about outreach.

* But is it real? Online publishing, writing and reading, that is ... by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. Terry hits this out of the park - of course, it's real! We bloggers try hard to be real, don't we? And discovered, and accepted, too.

* Arkansas Road Trip, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Call Me Ahab by Amy on the We Tree blog. Amy went on her road trip to Arkansas and had some interesting experiences and successes. I can relate to this!

* Almost no oaks in my forest by Abba-Dad on the I Dream of Genea(logy) blog. This is a wonderful and very sad story about Amir's grandfather during World War II, how he migrated to Israel, and found someone who he thought was his sister. Interesting descendants chart, too, that conveys the Holocaust in one picture when words cannot suffice.

* Making of America - A Resource You Shouldn't Miss by Carolyn L. Barkley posted by Erica on the GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com blog. Sage advice about a great historical book resource.

* August 15 - Friday from the Collectors: I Do Collect Photos! by Maureen Taylor on footnoteMaven's Shades of the Departed blog. Maureen describes her special photo collection of wedding portraits. She is, of course, the author of the Photo Detective blog and web site.

* Homeland Security and Your Genealogy by Arlene Eakle on the Arlene H. Eakle's Genealogy Blog. Arlene has excellent advice on how to protect and preserve your genealogy work from the chaos and randomness of daily life.

* ProGen Study Group #4 by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark discusses the Professional Genealogy chapter work and the group conference that he (and I) participated in recently. He also talks about using Skype for phone conversations.

Thank you to all genealogy bloggers for an interesting and informative week. Did you notice some new blogs on this list? I hope so!

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their 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!

7 comments:

Amy Coffin, MLIS said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy! I'm glad you enjoyed my Arkansas travels.

Kathryn Doyle said...

Randy, Mary is tough to track down these days, but the next time she checks in I'll be sure to let her know how much you are enjoying her adventures. Frankly, I'm more than a little jealous!

Terry Thornton said...

Thanks Randy for honoring my work again. You are real --- and my appreciation and thanks to you are hopefully well grounded in reality too! LOL! I was inspired by a fellow GB/FB member Dana Huff whose work I linked --- hope you read her fine article.
Terry Thornton
Fulton, MS
HILL COUNTRY OF MONROE COUNTY MISSISSIPPI

Abba-Dad said...

Thanks for the link, kind words and the comment, Randy. I love your 'Best of' posts!

Craig Manson said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy. These "Best of" posts are a great help to me in finding the interesting stuff out there!

SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI said...

thanks, Randy. I'm now in Chicago meeting up with my colleagues at the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. I'll have a lot to blog during this week.
Schelly

SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI said...

thanks, Randy. I'm now in Chicago meeting up with my colleagues at the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. I'll have a lot to blog during this week.
Schelly