Sunday, May 30, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - May 23-29, 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:

* Evidence Management and Of Sources and Citations: All Bets Are Off by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI is still working on his EM series and wrote about definitions of "Sources" and "Citations." Are you using these incorrectly like I am?

* The Most Funnest Thing Ever... by Susan Edminster on the Echo Hill Ancestors Weblog. Susan has a great idea for those who want to write their life story - she and her hubby had great fun sharing and writing his story.

* Who owns the genealogy companies? Part Four, Who owns the genealogy companies? Part Five and Who owns the genealogy companies? -- Additional Information by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James investigated GenealogyBank and FindMyPast in this continuing series.

* Library of Congress Visit by Taneya on Taneya's Genealogy Blog. Taneya went to the library in DC on vacation, and provides a guided tour of her experiences.

* PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF. by Bill West on the West in New England blog. Bill created ways to find misplaced pages in the 1870 and 1880 Agricultural Census records and tells us about it. Excellent detective work!

* Is The Way To A Geneablogger's Heart Through Their Vanity? by the writer of the footnoteMaven blog. Miss fM analyzes the MyHeritage Top 100 sites situation and has some pointed comments. so do her readers...

* You Know You’re a Genealogy Geek When … by Natalie Cottrill on the ProGenealogists (R) Genealogy Blog. Natalie provides a fun list. I have done only one of those in my genea-geek career, so I guess I'm not a geek! Has anybody done more than one of these? This would make a good SNGF topic!

* From the E-Mail Bag: Help a Reader Out by Amy Coffin on the We Tree blog. Amy answers a reader's question with wisdom and excellent suggestions, and her readers do also.

* Interviewing Family: What Should I Ask? Major Life Events by Susan Kitchens on the Family Oral History Using Digital Tools blog. Susan has a fantastic list of interview questions, and recommended techniques too.

* Experimenting With Scribd by Julie Tarr on the GenBlog blog. Julie has been working with Scribd and putting transcriptions of family history documents on the site. Excellent idea!

* Using Webex For Collaborative Genealogy Research by Thomas MacEntee on the High-Definition Genealogy blog. Thomas works with Gini and her mom to find records through online collaboration.

* Webex, Thomas, and Finding Hans by Gini Webb on the Ginisology blog. Here is Gini's side of the online collaboration. This was a superb idea and implementation.

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John highlights his favorite weekly readings, plus lists the favorites of other genea-bloggers.

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Among your personal best this week I found some of my personal worse.
"advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant."
This week demonstrated some of the best and worse of genealogy blogging. A nice reminder to myself to keep more noble goals in mind when I blog. But that is again, IMHO.

Bill West said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy!

Connie said...

Have I done more than one of Natalie's geek-isms?

Yeah, at least 4. (The "in your sleep" one is up for debate, but if I count that, 5).

What kind of prize do I get?

Gini said...

Randy, thanks for the mention...working with Thomas via Webex was a great learning experience. Webex is a wonderful tool. Technology never ceases to amaze me!

Susan said...

Dear Randy,
I must have been sleeping at the switch when you featured my article "The Most Funnest Thing Ever" as one of your "Best of the Genea-Blogs" for May 30th. Thank you!
Sue Edminster
Echo Hill Ancestors Weblog