Sunday, August 22, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 15-21 August 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:

* Tombstone Tuesday - 17 August 2010 - Remembering a forgotten grave, Nathan W. Wilcox by Jean Wilcox Hibben on the Circlemending blog. Jean arranged to have a tombstone placed for her third great0grandfather who was a Union Civil War soldier and died in Tennessee. A wonderful tribute to the man.

* Tombstone Tuesday: Bitten While Hiking to Shoot a Family by A.S. Eldredge on the Geni Tales blog. Here's a story of persistence in finding a cemetery after the directions failed. Well done!

* Twice Told Tuesday - Marvels in Matchboxes by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog. fM took a picture of two matchbox creations, researched the art form, and wrote a beautiful article about matchbox architecture. Fantastic work - both the matchbox architecture and the article.

* Association of Professional Genealogists PMC - Recap Part 1 and Part 2 by Amy Coffin on the We Tree Genealogy Blog. Amy, and several other genea-bloggers, attended the APG Professional Management Conference in Knoxville last week. Thank you Amy for the report.

* Tuesday Tech Tip: Google's "Site:" command is not always better by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John works in Google's site command with some interesting results.

* Do the DNA Results Support the Story? by Mavis Jones on the Georgia Black Crackers blog. Mavis is doing a fine job trying to work out her genetic makeup using DNA testing. It's not easy, but it's a fine example of using every available resource.

* Family treasures: What’s in your attic? by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the MyHeritage Genealogy Blog. There are two stories in this post - Schelly's own experiences, and a link to a fascinating story in the Austin TX newspaper.

* A Rabbit's Tale 8/19/2010 - Developing a Cemetery Walk by Sandy Peavey on The Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal blog. What a helpful and interesting post - Sandy did it, and it's something that other historical societies should consider.

* Unknown Child on the Titanic - Part 1, Part II, Part III and Part IV by Colleen Fitzpatrick on the Identifinders blog. Colleen's new blog features some of her amazing research results, including this series about finding the resting place of Sidney Goodwin.

* The Archives Just Aren’t the Same by J.L. Bell on the Boston 1775 blog. J.L. goes to the nearby National Archives branch and finds some of his favorite microfilms are gone... progress?

* Find-a-Grave Gold by Lee R. Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee encourages readers to contribute to Find-A-Grave and "pay it forward" and describes his rewards from doing so.

* How do we know what we know? by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. It's an interesting question, and one we should ask every time we find a "fact" in the form of a name, relationship, event, place and date.

* This Jamison Story Needs to be Told by Becky Jamison on the Grace and Glory blog. Becky has researched three Samuel Jamisons - this one has a most interesting story, and well documented by Becky.

* Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Wild and Crazy - House Hunt and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Wild and Crazy - House Hunt - The REST of the Story by Carol on the Reflections from the Fence blog. This has to be the wildest story so far in response to my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun theme - great one, Carol!

Other "Best of..." weekly pick posts are here:

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John also links to several other weekly pick posts.

Many genealogy bloggers writing about their experiences at the Federation of Genealogy societies Conference in Knoxville TN this past week. Thomas MacEntee's post on Geneabloggers has a list.

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

3 comments:

Amy Coffin said...

Thank you for the mention, Randy! Always a treat to be tapped for your "Best of."

Schelly Talalay Dardashti said...

Hi, Randy. Thanks for the shout-out! All our attics appreciate it!
Schelly Talalay Dardashti
Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog

Carol said...

Thanks for the shout out, I did enjoy Saturday night's theme, I knew IMMEDIATELY what to write, actually, I had it written and in my database as color,so all I had to do was copy, paste, add a couple of graphics. FUN! Loved revisiting that story, brought back some great memories. Thanks!