Monday, December 7, 2009

Honors: The Genea-Speak Award



Thomas McEntee of the Destination Austin Family blog honored me with the Genea-Speak Award. The award was created by texican wife on the Mountain Genealogists blog and is given "for excellence in writing, speaking, and the promoting of good genealogical practices." Thomas was the first recipient of the award.

Thomas had very kind words to say about me and co-honoree, Miriam Robbins Midkiff, who writes the Ancestories: Stories About My Ancestors blog and co-authors the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society Blog. Congratulations to Miriam - it is well-deserved.

The requirement upon receiving the award is to pass it on to at least two deserving recipients.

I hereby award the Genea-Speak Award to two dear genealogy friends and outstanding writers, speakers and genealogy evangelists:

Pat Richley-Erickson,
better known as DearMYRTLE for many years. Pat authors the DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog and the Teach Genealogy Blog, and co-authors the Internet-Genealogy Blog. Pat's blog header says "Providing practical down-to-earth advice for family historians since 1995 --- online since 1984." She also leads the Just Genealogy discussion group on Second Life, speaks at regional and national conferences, and has written several genealogy books, including her latest - The Joy of Genealogy. Her website is http://www.dearmyrtle.com/.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak
is one of the most visible and best-known genealogy evangelists at present. Megan is the Chief Family Historian for Ancestry.com (including hosting the videos available on the Ancestry.com Learning Center), is co-owner of the RootsTelevision online genealogy video service, writes the Roots Television: Megan's Roots World blog and the Megan Smolenyak blog on The Huffington Post, has written several genealogy and DNA books, appears regularly on television interview shows, writes for print magazines and online websites. Megan's websites is at Honoring Our Ancestors. I'm sure I left out some things here - it's hard to keep up with Megan!

By nominating Pat and Megan, I realize that I am driving the award toward "professional genealogists" - but my view is that professional genealogists embody many of the attributes in "excellence in writing, speaking, and the promoting of good genealogical practices." Pat and Megan are two of the most qualified persons for this award that I know! I do have a long list of persons that I hope will receive the award in the near future.

Perhaps the award should be awarded on two tracks - one for "professionals" like Pat and Megan and one for "non-professionals" like myself, but the dividing line sometimes isn't clear.

2 comments:

Dr. Bill (William L.) Smith said...

Very worthy recipients.

I do like the two-tier idea, as well!

Keep those ancestor stories coming!

Bill ;-)

http://drbilltellsancestorstories.blogspot.com/

DearMYRTLE said...

Thank-you Randy -- though I think we each become "professionals" when it comes to the specific places where our ancestors once lived. It is by sharing with others that a better view of our ancestors' lives becomes available.

Myrt :)