Sunday, April 12, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - April 5-11, 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:

* How I Use Technology With My Genealogy by Thomas MacEntee on the Destination: Austin Family blog. Thomas waxes philosophical about those who practice "traditional" genealogy and those who practice "technological" genealogy. It's a good piece with great advice for all of us.

* Character Development: My “Body Parts” Writing Assignment by the writer of the Memoir Mentor blog. She has great advice for developing characters in your family stories. This is a new blog for me.

* Tuesday Teachings: How to Order Birth Certificates from the GRO by Kathryn Lake on the LOOKING4ANCESTORS blog. Kathryn takes us step-by-step in the process of ordering a birth certificate from the United Kingdom's General Register Office. I've never done this, but have always wanted to know how to do it. Thanks, Kathryn!

* Dick Eastman Speaks ... Remotely by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. Dick provides a step-by-step procedure for both ends of a remote hookup of speaker to society. Interesting, but, as dick says, shameless promotion!

* Step by Step Guide to Creating an Audio Podcast by Sean Sexton on the Sean on Family History blog. Sean provides an excellent procedure for creating a podcast. It sounds complicated!

* Ancestry’s ExpertConnect: Much ado about nothing by Pat Richley on the DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog. Pat opines about the brouhaha swirling around Ancestry.com's attempt to match willing client with willing genealogist. I like it when professionals opine!

* Two Bellas - Five Generations Apart by Abba-Dad on the I Dream of Genea(logy) blog. Amir and his wife just had a baby and they named her Bella. He describes little Bella's namesake - her great-great-grandmother who died in the Holocaust. I love stories like this, and Bella's memory will live on in her descendant, who will tell the story to her children and grandchildren.

* Collamore Family Tree by Midge Frazel on the Granite in My Blood blog. Midge describes how she came to creating a family tree on Ancestry.com for her daughter's babysitter in her first attempt at client work.

* Genealogy heaven by John D. Reid on the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. Road trip! John visited The (UK) National Archives (TNA) in London, had a great time, and tells and shows us the highlights of the visit.

* Utah Census Form by Renee Zamora on Renee's Genealogy Blog. This is the funniest census questionnaire in genealogy history ... great work by someone. Renee? Utah seems unique!

* GeneaWeb 2.0 - Leveraging Online Resources for Meaningful Genealogy Research Issue #1 - Quality Data by Kathleen Schaible on the Tracing Your Routes: Official Genealogy Blog of GenWed.com. Kathleen hits on the most important feature of genealogy data - the quality of it, not where it was published or posted. Excellent piece.

* Quest of a Genea-holic - Part 1 by Terri on The Ties That Bind blog. Terri claims to be addicted to genealogy research like many of us - and she is only part way into what promises to be a fascinating story.

* Why Search Tennessee Genealogy Periodicals? by Arlene Eakle on Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog. There are excellent reasons to search any genealogy periodical, and Arlene demonstrates the wealth of useful and unique information in some periodicals from Tennessee.

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.

2 comments:

DearMYRTLE said...

THANKS for your kind thoughts, Randy.

Opiningly,
Myrt :)


PS - Not sure about the professional part. Professional what? LOL

Kathleen Schaible said...

Hey Randy-- thanks for your mention here- I'm glad you like the Blog! I hope I can continue to garner such excellent feedback on it and continue to have a postive contribution to the sphere :)

Kat