Sunday, April 11, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of April 4-10, 2010

Hundreds of 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:

* More Updates: The "Mystery Photo" by Patti Browning on the Consanguinity blog. Patti publishes the analysis of her mystery photo by Brett Payne of Photo-Sleuth . What an interesting challenge, and excellent analysis by Brett.

* Accuracy versus Precision by Ruth Himan on the Genealogy is Ruthless Without Me blog. Ruth suggests that the genealogy community adopt a standard for data quality, based on her life experiences and the state of online family trees.

* Your Ancestor in the Kitchen by Gena Ortega on the WorldVitalRecords Blog. Gena notes that food is a wonderful part of our family histories, and has suggestions for cookbooks, recipes and menus from yesteryear.

* Brick Walls As A Product of Dysfunction by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. Martin uses two of his ancestral families to discuss this thesis. Interesting thoughts here.

* What I have learned from genealogy blogs by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James writes what many genea-bloggers feel - excellent post and very true! Especially the knowledge base and time balance parts!

* Easter, 2010 by Michael Cassara on the Michael Cassara blog. Michael's walk in the cemetery turned up a startling find - read about his genea-gasm. A pretty good first post for a new blog!

* Tombstone Tuesday and The Power of Genealogical Crowdsourcing by Dean Richardson on the Genloghten Blog - Genealogy Documented blog. Dean refers to Michael Cassara’s post as a lead-in to discussion of crowd-sourcing ( a new term for me...).

* UK: Genealogists are 'creepy, boring' by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog. Schelly analyzes the latest newspaper article by an, um, non-genealogy fan, and summarizes other responses.

* Homemade Music/Homemade Instruments by Jean Hibben on the Circlemending blog. I am awed by Jean's musical knowledge and prowess - and this article is a how-to masterpiece about home-made musical instruments.

* People are talking about Genealogy….. by Heather Rojo on the Nutfield Genealogy blog. Heather talks about genealogy everywhere, especially after WDYTYA? started, and found a great "starter" article in a local newspaper too.

* FamilyLink is (or soon will be) for genealogists by Paul Allen on the Paul Allen (the lesser) blog. Good news from Paul about the FamilyLink.com website - and thanks for the shout-out!

* Cluster Genealogy Research by Gus Marsh on Gus's Genealogy Blog. Gus summarizes the topic nicely with excellent advice for researchers.

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John's picks often complement my own - read all of the lists that John provides too!

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

4 comments:

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

Thanks, Randy, for the nice mention. That was a fun story to put together, and a fun day, too! It's nice to see people of all generations enjoying genealogy, not just us older people.

Unknown said...

Thank you very much, Randy. I do get a bit fussy about databases. I love how fellow genealogist like RootsMagic, Saturday Fun, and CaseClues helps make data quality tools fun and easy to use.

Katrina said...

This was a great batch of posts; I enjoyed reading all of them!

SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI said...

Thanks for the shout-out, Randy. I keep receiving comments on the post.
Schelly