Sunday, May 3, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - April 26-May 2, 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:

* Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718-1820 by the author of The Ancestry Insider blog. While this post explicitly talks about the databases with this title on ancestry.com, it points up a major issue with the way Ancestry.com creates and uses titles. A twofer here!

* Converting My Personal Library to Digital by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. Dick shares how he is doing this task and the pain he endures while doing it. I can relate! Read the comments too.

* Memory Monday: Running Away by Greta Koehl on the Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. Greta remembers her childhood, and tells us about her adventures. Great stories.

* Secrets, Pt. 6: The Rest of the Story... by Caroline Pointer on the Family Stories blog. This series of posts has been fascinating to me - I love "watching" how people have sorted out mysteries and brickwall problems. Of course, Caroline hasn't found "everything" yet.

* Better Online Citations - Details Part 1 and Better Online Citations - Details Part 2 (GEDCOM) by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark continues analyzing how to efficiently put better source citations into our genealogy software.

* Top Ten Things You Don't Know About the 2010 Census by Chris Dunham on The Genealogue blog. Chris's irrepressible humor can be applied to almost anything - read this and laugh. If you want, spend more time on his collection of Top 10 items here.

* What if it's a roomful? by DearMYRTLE on the Internet-Genealogy Blog. Pat has thoughts about how to organize and source the 47 boxes of a family history collection -- not quite Eastman's solution but useful I think.

* Black Sheep Canadian Ancestors Submissions by Lorine Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. There are eight fascinating entries to this Canadian blog carnival - read about Black Sheep ancestors!

* Clarence & May (and Leonard) ... continued and May & Leonard.. the story continues by Cindy on the Everything's Relative - Researching Your Family History blog. This is another serial story about relatives that are really hard to track down, but Cindy is working hard on it.

* Tech Tuesday: Tips for Travel and More on Lojack for Laptops and Family Curator Visits NEHGS Spring Research Getaway 2009, Part 1: Preparing to Research by Denise on The Family Curator blog. The first post is really important for everyone that carries a laptop, and the second post describes Denise's research experiences at NEHGS. A twofer here too!

* I Have No Answers - Only Questions and Thoughts, A Clarification and The Citation Goddess - Elizabeth Shown Mills - Weighs In by the author of the footnoteMaven blog. These posts all concern Mark Tucker's posts about Better Source citations. Since footnoteMaven is an expert on this issue, I appreciate her comments, and love her parody of the Beach Boys song Good Citations. I've
been singing it all week!

* ENGINEER'S Report - Tech Info by John G. West on the Tri-State Genealogical Society of Evansville, Indiana "TSGS Cruiser" blog. John links to an article about keeping your computer clean on the outside.

* Why I like Facebook by DearMYRTLE on the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Blog. MYRT sees a grandson's photo on Facebook and has a sentimental time thinking down memory lane. Is Facebook how we get the kids and grandkids interested in what we do?

* Making a Genealogy Time Capsule and Making a Genealogy Time Capsule Part 2 by Lorine Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. Lorine and her husband are having fun putting a time capsule together - see why and how they're doing it!

* Los Angeles County Record Request Requirements–Just Quirky? Or Unconstitutional? by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig encountered an interesting form and questions the constitutionality of it. Great analysis of something we all may face in the future.

* Carnival of Genealogy, 71st Edition by Donna Pointkouski on the What's Past Is Prologue blog. Donna was the hostess for this carnival with the theme of "Local History." 25 genealogy bloggers submitted articles.

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.

6 comments:

DearMYRTLE said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DearMYRTLE said...

DearRANDY,
THANKS for the kind words regarding two of my blogs this week. The trip down memory lane was a particular delight, though Ol' Myrt here had to break out the "bounty extra absorbent paper towels" to dry my tears. But it was fun to blog about some of the neat genealogy stuff I've inherited from my father-dad.

Myrt :)

Greta Koehl said...

Thank you so much for your kind mention of my blog, Randy. Also wanted to thank you for this week's Genealogy Fun - it has helped me figure out some website subscriptions that I need to add.

Cindy said...

Randy - Thanks so much for another mention this week. I've really enjoyed sharing the story of May.

Saturday night fun made for great reading this week - LOTS of sites out there that I've not been to or need to re-visit! Thanks!!!

Antje Wilsch said...

Nice list! Am so glad I found you via twitter. You are an amazing wealth of information!

Family Curator said...

Thanks for the kind notice, Randy. It is an honor to be included with so many great bloggers. Stay tuned for the Parts 2 and 3 of the NEHGS review.
Denise, The Family Curator