Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of August 3-9, 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:

* Ancestry.com and FamilySearch Partnership and Making Sense of Motives by the Ancestry Insider on The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI explains, in simple economic terms, the agreement between these two genealogy behemoths. Makes sense to me!

* The Danger of Historical Books by Midge Frazel on the Granite In My Blood blog. Midge has excellent advice about historical books, especially reprints. They may not include everything that was in the original book.

* Legacy Cruise 2008 - An Enormous Success by Geoff Rasmussen (I think!) on the Legacy News blog. Want to know what a genealogy cruise is like, with pictures? Read this post.

* Top Ten Genealogy Group Games That Were Cut by the Committee and 5 Ways That Genealogists Are Similar to Athletes by Donna Pointkouski on the What's Past is Prologue blog. Donna does a humorous Top 10 list post and then a serious Top 5 post. Excellent work - both of them!

* Zillow as a Genealogy Tool by Kathi Reid on the Ancestor Search blog. Kathi has a great tip for finding photos of homes in many areas - use the Zillow real estate web site.

* Record Search Updated to Version 1.4 by Tim Crabb on the FamilySearch Labs blog. This post describes changes to all of the LDS FamilySearch Labs projects. The most important addition is the use of wild cards in searches. Great news!

* Welcome to the Picnic by Bill West on the West in New England blog. This is the summary post for 19 picnic memory posts. These are fun reads!

* All Roads to Parham by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. Each of us should be so lucky to be able to take a stroll down memory lane like Terry takes us in this post.

* Reflections on my first dying, well, almost dying ... by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. A true life story well told. I teared up reading this one. I rarely put two posts by the same author, unless it's a series, in my Best of lists, but this one is a no-brainer.

* The Greatest Show Above by Tim Abbott on the Walking the Berkshires blog. I'm a sucker for poignant "dad teaches the kids" stories and this is one of the best - short and sweet! These are really lucky kids - what a treasure trove of stories for them!

* August 8 - Friday from the Collectors: Don't Purge, Get Creative! by Thomas MacEntee on footnoteMaven's Shades of the Departed blog. Thomas shares his wonderful ideas for creating gifts and memories using family photographs - things like Christmas ornaments, refrigerator magnets, placemats, memory quilts, puzzles, etc.

* Here are the web sites recommended in July by Dick Hillenbrand on the Upstate New York Genealogy blog. Dick has a nice list of upstate New York genealogy blogs and web sites that have social or historical information on them - recommended by his readers.

* The Missouri Insurance Company and Update: The Missouri Insurance Company by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig uncovers some interesting documents and asks a good question about why parents would buy an insurance policy for their infant; he gets a good answer too! Craig is on his new host - is he in your feed or Bloglines?

Thank you to all genealogy bloggers for an interesting and informative week.

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!