Sunday, March 1, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - February 22-28, 2009

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 genealogy carnivals, 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:

* Migrant Mother's Soul Stolen by Craig Manson in his Appealing Subjects column on the Shades of the Departed blog. We've all seen the famous picture, now read the story behind the picture - the real, human being story. Then see what Craig says about ownership of the photograph. Excellent work!!

* The Deathwatch by Leland Meitzler on the GenealogyBlog blog. Leland's brother died recently, and his account of the last days is heartbreaking and inspiring too. Read the comments too. This is something that all of us have gone through, or will go through, in our lives. I appreciate Leland sharing this with his readers.

* February 2009 Scanfest Summary by Miriam Robbins Midkiff on the Ancestories: Stories of my Ancestors blog. Miriam summarized the last Scanfest and listed the participants. You can read the transcript at February 2009 Scanfest.

* Metes, Bounds & Meanders by Kimberly Powell on the Kimberly Powell Genealogy blog. Kimberly provides a great description of some land records terms and examples of their use. Be sure to see the second page too about land platting.

* FamilySearch has been busy by the Ancestry Insider on The Ancestry Insider blog. The helpful Mr. AI neatly summarizes recent FamilySearch activities and events for us all in one place. I rely on the AI and Renee Zamora to keep me current with old and New FamilySearch events.

* Tech Tuesday: Organizing Data with CensusMate by Denise Levenick on The Family Curator blog. Denise used CensusMate to organize her pre-1850 census data. It's a nifty tool - thanks, Denise, for the link!

* 16th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy by Jessica Oswalt on the Jessica's Genejournal blog. There were five entries to this monthly Carnival hosted by Jessica.

* Put WorldCat to Work by Denise Olson on the Family Matters blog. Denise has great ideas for using the www.WorldCat.org site to help you with your genealogy sources and research.

* How to share your family history with your family.--social networking and the internet by Janet Hovorka on The Chart Chick blog. Janet writes about putting a family history on a web site or a blog, and then "pushing" it to readers via an email newsletter, Facebook and/or other social networking sites.

* The Dirty Thirties: No Easy Street by Chery Kinnick on the Nordic Blue blog.
Chery tells a fascinating story about her grandfather Ernest Johnson's family in the Depression years - the 1930's. There will be a sequel, too.

* The Slow Death of Handwriting by Lee R. Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee laments the deterioration of his own handwriting skills, and provides examples of some of his ancestors' signatures. Many of us are more comfortable typing than writing, it seems.

* Genealogy before the Internet by Libbi Crowe on the Crowe's Nest by Elizabeth Powell Crowe blog. Libbi provides some insight to what genealogy research was like before the Internet came along. Read the comments for the memories of other seasoned researchers.

* Genealogy Today by Dan Lawyer on the Taking Genealogy to the Common Person blog. Dan shares a presentation that describes what genealogy research is today, but he leaves out the New FamilySearch part. Bummer. Still good stuff, though.

* Haley-Baff Family Reunion, Thanks to DNA by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. This is sure to make the newspapers this week - read it on Dick's blog first! What a great DNA research story - Alex Haley's nephew Chris Haley finds an exact Y-DNA match with a Scottish man with the same sounding surname as Chris' great-great-grandfather's slave-owner.

* A Report from London: WDYTYAL Day #1, with Pictures and Day #2, with Pictures by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. Dick shares his experiences in London at the biggest genealogy show on earth.

* Back to Basics by Kathryn M. Doyle on the California Genealogical Society and Library blog. CGSL had great success with a Beginning Genealogy class and will have Intermediate Genealogy classes soon. They are ready for the WDYTYA surge of interest in genealogy - are you and your society?

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 - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

3 comments:

Becky Thompson said...

JoLyn Day at 'Uphill Both Ways' wrote this excellent post:
http://www.upbothways.com/2009/03/two-wrongs-never-made-one-right.html
I wanted to bring this to your attention. I think it's a terrific story and wrote it well.

Kathryn Doyle said...

Hi Randy,
Thanks for the mention!

Jessica's thoughts said...

Hi Randy,

Thank you for mentioning the 16th edition of my carnival.

-Jessica