Sunday, August 23, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - August 16-22, 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:

* The Carnival's In Town , 16th EDITION, Smile For The Camera, 10 August 2009 by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog. The topic of this carnival is Ancestor Bling - photos of jewelry, watches, tiaras and other pieces of fancy things. There were 29 beautiful entries!

* DNA: Zayde wasn't crazy! by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy blog. This fascinating post by Schelly describes the DNA study she has participated in that found that her family wasn't what they thought they were. Lots of history here, too.

* BYU Conference Final Keynote: David Rencher by the blogger who writes The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI recovers his tweets about the David Rencher keynote at the BYU conference. Lots of great information here about FamilySearch plans!

* I Wear A Seat Belt When Doing Genealogy by Lee Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee's DNA test showed he might be from an alien culture - at least it's different from other Drews!

* What is a genealogical consultation? by Paula Stuart-Warren on the Paula's Genealgical Eclectica blog. Paula has advice about hiring a consultant, or visiting one at a conference.

* Carnival of Genealogy, 78th Edition by Jasia on the Creative Gene blog. The topic for this carnival was "Pony Pictures" - photos and stories about horse that we have known. There were 29 entries!

* Dangerous temptations in genealogical research by Geoff Rasmussen on the Legacy News blog. Geoff raises a good point about trusting online genealogy databases, and has a wonderful example from his own research. Read the comments too.

* The problem with standardized place names and Revisiting standardized geographic names by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James discusses this issue thoroughly, and has good advice for all of us, including the database and software providers, to follow.

* One way to do a Find-A-Grave Cemetery Visit by Russ Worthington on the My Tombstone Collection blog. Anyone planning on visiting a cemetery can be helped by Russ's post here, even if they're not taking pictures for someone else.

* Tombstone Tuesday: Union Army U.S. Colored Troops by Luckie Daniels on the Our Georgia Roots blog. Luckie learns about African-American soldiers in the Union Army in the Civil War, and body-servants too. Excellent post! Read the comments too.

* Back to the Land - Again by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog. This includes a reprint of an article written by Bill Dollarhide titled "If Your Ancestor Owned Land, Then There's a Deed." A keeper!

* Don’t Expect the Genealogical Helper to Reemerge by Leland Meitzler on the GenealogyBlog blog. Leland shares the bad news that the Everton's assets are up for sale, and the Helper probably won't come back. A pity - great magazine.

* Family Reunions & Genealogy Games and Scavenger Hunt at Family Reunion by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. Lorine seems to be an expert on this topic - excellent ideas and advice! Sounds like fun.

* Grandfather’s First Home in America, At Castle Garden and Lady Liberty in Passing by Steve Danko on Steve's Genealogy Blog. Steve has been traveling on the East Coast and visited some interesting places. Some of them are very familiar to me now! A nice picture of some genea-bloggers too!

*Twitter Best Practices for Genealogy Conferences--Some ideas by Janet Hovorka on The Chart Chick blog. Janet has reasonable ideas and guidelines for tweeting at conferences and presentations.

* How I Organized My Genealogy Paperwork (or How I spent my summer vacation!) by Tami Glatz on the relatively curious about genealogy blog. Tami has a different file organization system that works for her.

* A Festival of Postcards (4 Ed.) – Water by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault on the A Canadian Family blog. This carnival on the topic of "Water" has 37 entries - each of them interesting!

* Research in Talladega and Visiting the Plantation by Taneya Koonce on Taneya's Genealogy Blog. Taneya's on vacation in Alabama, and tells about her experience at the library and at one of her husband's family's slave plantations. I got chills up my spine reading this. Interesting and bittersweet.

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! I am currently reading posts from over 510 genealogy bloggers using Bloglines, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

NOTE: I will be away from home on Sundays for the next four weeks - so Best of the Genea-Blogs may go on hiatus for awhile. I hate to do that, but we will be traveling and I probably won't have time to do it until 27 September. We'll see how the work load is on the road!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Randy, Happy Trails to you. Remember that you are coming
South, and things move at a slower pace. Might be a nice change for you. Enjoy all your visiting.
Kathi

SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI said...

Thanks for the pointer, Randy. Enjoy your travels! We all need to get away for a little bit. Have fun!

Schelly

Janet Hovorka said...

Thanks Randy. I always appreciate your vote of confidence. We'll miss you while you are on hiatus. Be safe on your trip. We'll be looking forward to hearing about it.