Sunday, August 9, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - August 2-8, 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:

* Shot Myself in the Foot by Thomas Fiske on Leland Meitzler's GenealogyBlog. Tom tells us an interesting story and posits his own law of genealogy: “Genealogy is finding the person who has done all the research.”

* Genealogical Serendipity: Does the Internet lead to more or less of it? by Dean Richardson on the Genlighten Blog - Genealogy Documented. Dean analyzes the NYTimes article and disagrees with it, then poses some interesting questions for us to ponder.

* What's New in Family Tree Maker 2010 by Russ Worthington on the Family Tree Maker User blog. Russ hears first-hand about FTM 2010 from an FTM creator and tells us about it.

* BYUGEN Tweets by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark provides his tweets for six of the presentations he attended at the BYU Family History Genealogy conference last week.

* The 77th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: Disasters by Miriam Midkiff on the Ancestories: Stories of my Ancestors blog. Miriam hosted this Carnival with the topic of Disasters! There were 30 entries - read all of them - fascinating, scary, excellent writing!

* The Other Side of Genealogy, Don’t Put Sources In New FamilySearch? and Research Practices and NFS by the Ancestry Insider on The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI posted his tweets from three of the sessions at the BYU conference.

* Breaking News: Man Smashes Through Brick Wall in Louisiana!, Breaking Down the Wall-Prologue, The Process of Breaking Down a Brick Wall and “So What Makes You So Sure You’ve Knocked Down a Brick Wall?” by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig started his multi-part series on his Gines brick wall problem solution. There are lessons here for everyone!

* Browning v. Beck Pt 8 - The Cases Are Resolved by Patti Browning on the Consanguinity blog. Patti finishes her series on two fascinating court cases involving her ancestors.

* BYU Genealogy conference by Janet Hovorka on The Chart Chick blog. Janet posted her tweets, and those of The Ancestry Insider, from Mark Tucker's BYU conference session.

* WDYTYA and Ancestry by John D. Reid on the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. John discusses the relationship of the TV Show Who Do You Think You Are? with Ancestry.com in this post.

* Genealogy is more than just craft. by George Geder on the George Geder blog. George persuades us to listen to the stories about our ancestors rather than get wrapped around the genealogy process axle. Wise words!

* Genealogy Rant (Pet Peeve) by Lorine Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. Lorine discusses (rants!!!) genealogy "researchers" who won't look for any information that is not online. Excellent post - read the comments too!

* State of the Staats Estate by Chris Staats on the Staat's Place blog. Chris provides some house history of one of his ancestral homes in words and pictures.

* Genealogy Through A Wider Window by Leah on The Internet Genealogist blog. Leah provides her perspective on Lorine's rant, based on her research experiences.

* A Misunderstood & Underutilized Resource by Tami Glatz on the relatively curious about genealogy blog. Tami discusses the LDS FamilySearch.org website in detail - great summary post.

* The Year Was 1893 by Sheri Fenley in her The Year Was ... column on footnoteMaven's Shades of the Departed blog-ezine. Sheri tells the story of the year in pictures and words - it was a fascinating year!

* For genealogy, let the computer do what computers do by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. Computers are tools to be used efficiently and wisely in genealogy, according to James. Well said.

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 500 genealogy bloggers using Bloglines, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

2 comments:

James Tanner said...

Thanks again, I always enjoy your list. I have added a number of the blogs to my reader, which is, of course, getting completely out of hand to keep up with.

tami osmer glatz said...

Thanks for including me yet again, Randy! - relatively curious