Sunday, May 23, 2010

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

* Who owns the genealogy companies? Part Two and Part Three by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James continues his series with analyses of FamilyLink (including WorldVitalRecords) and Footnote.com.

* My Favorite Genealogy Websites, Free Geni Programs and Online Trees by Regina De Leon on the Kinfolk News blog. I love to read other bloggers lists of their favorite sites, and often find a new site from the lists. Thanks, Regina!

* Madness Monday - The Melting Pot by TexicanWife (Cyndi Beane Henry) on the Mountain Genealogist blog. Cyndi has definite opinions about online family trees, and some excellent examples and comments in this post.

* Primary v. Secondary v. Derivative Sources by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. Martin discusses the source terminology issue and thinks that citing a reliable printed (albeit derivative) source is "good enough" for almost all scholarly and heritage research.

* Even God Laughed by Donna Pointkouski on the What's Past is Prologue blog. Donna's Memory Monday post shows the human condition at its finest - thank you, Donna, for sharing!

* Our Trip to the N.S.C.A.R. National Convention by Elizabeth O'Neal on the Little Bytes of Life blog. Elizabeth provides a terrific photo essay of her daughter's trip to the NSCAR convention in Washington DC. Is there a cuter genea-blogger's daughter than Elizabeth's "kid?"

* Evidence Management in the Wild by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI analyzes the source features and citation templates for Ancestry, FamilySearch and Footnote.

* Religion and Genealogy by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John's thoughtful piece starts with a discussion of defenestration, and proceeds from there. Excellent! (You do know what defenestration means, don't you? :)

* Five Steps to Funding a Family History Book by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog. Lynn has outstanding advice for family history writers about how to fund your book.

* Reflections and Goals by Elyse Doerflinger on Elyse's Genealogy Blog. Elyse's life circumstances have changed, and she provides a wonderful example of adapting her genealogy work to them.

* Why care about all this ‘social networking’ nonsense? by Elizabeth on the Genealogy Geek blog. Elizabeth has an excellent take on this subject!

* Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2010 and Ontario Genealogical Society Conference, Part 2 by Ian Hadden on Ian Hadden's Family History blog. Ian shares his experiences at OGS with detailed notes about Lisa Cooke's and Maureen Taylor's presentations.

* Tricking a Database Into giving Me What I Want by Amy Crow on the Amy's Genealogy, etc. Blog. Pretty neat trick by Amy here - a fine example of not giving up when you think the record is in a database but you cannot find it.

* Follow Friday: Little Bytes of Life by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. Greta highlights her favorite blog posts from the past week, plus her Follow Friday pick (a good one!).

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John highlights his favorite readings and finds of the week past.

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.

3 comments:

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Randy, thank you for mentioning my little blog not once, but twice in your picks this week!

I'm glad you enjoyed my post about our trip. We had a great time, and get to do it all over again (sort of) next month in Idaho. Yay, another plane ride with a fidgety preschooler!

kinfolknews said...

Randy, Thank you so much for mentioning my post! I'm honored!
Regina :^D

Elizabeth said...

Thank you for the mention Randy! I felt like I was 'preaching to the choir' on that one, but posted it anyway. Thomas and Elyse added wonderful points in the comments too.

And I can't wait to read the rest of the posts you mention here; they look great! Thank YOU for compiling and introducing us all to new folks.