Sunday, August 15, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 8-14 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:

* Tracing an Illegitimate Ancestor by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Ask Olive Tree a Question blog. What an intriguing question and excellent answer by Lorine. Look at her link to the Removal Orders and Bastardy Orders post too.

* Sources for Free Online Family and Local Histories by Diane Haddad on the Genealogy Insider blog. Diane provides an essential list of resources for online published books.

* Anatomy of an Internet Genealogist by Jennifer on the Rainy Day Genealogy Readings blog. Jennifer's feisty post describes many people I know... enjoy.

* Norway: the Promised Land of Internet Genealogy by JT on the filioagnostic blog. I've not done much Norway work for years, so this post is a great summary of the "state of the search" for me.

* Internet Genealogy v. Internet Genealogists by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. Martin discusses this important issue with some telling examples.


* If I Was Starting All Over Again - My Best Advice for A Beginner Genealogists by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog. Lynn has excellent advice for beginners - and this is an excellent blogging meme for all of us!

* The Armchair Genealogist on Advice for Beginners by Greta Koehl on the Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. Greta takes Lynn's lead and adds more advice - all good!

* A Week In Paradise (or close) -- The Family History Library by Patricia Johnson on Patricia Craig Johnson's Genealogy Blog. Patricia took her genealogy trip of a lifetime - read all about it!

* The Historical Value of Money by Blake Scarbrough on the Footnote Blog. Blake provides
a link to a WolframAlpha window that computes current values of historical money, with some examples. I had a hard time making this work.


* Open Thread Thursday: Genealogy Bloggers and Source Citations by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog. An important issue, with many opinions. Read the comments too.

* What Do You Want On Your Tombstone? by Gale Wall on The Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal blog. Gale has two photo albums linked here with gravestone art - beautiful work!

* Backdoor Genealogy by Kimberly Powell on the About: Genealogy blog. Kimberly has tips on how to overcome brick wall problems by using techniques she calls "cluster genealogy on steroids."

* Can I obtain a copyright of a copy of an old document?, Can I make editing changes to a document to obtain copyright protection?, and Who can claim a copyright to old diaries, journals and letters? by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James discusses some of the copyright issues I wonder about in these posts - both from a creator and a consumer standpoint.

* Essential Research Tools – Research Logs and Research Reports by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com blog. Carolyn provides an excellent guide for beginning and experienced genealogists alike. I really like her first paragraph...the shoe fits here!

* I stopped by the 18th century and bumped into Randy Seaver by Marian Pierre-Louis on the Roots and Rambles blog. Marian did some house history research and found information on my web site that helped, or at least informed, her. Cool.

* Winner of Docu-Challenge: Death certificate analysis by Pat Richley-Erickson on the DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog. Ol' Myrt challenged readers in July to analyze a death certificate. They did, and Pat posts some of the responses. A good tutorial!

* Move Your Computer to the Cloud by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. The latest on cloud computing from Dick...this sounds intriguing. But I want my genealogy software to work fast. Will it?

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. John also provides a handy list of tributes to the late genea-blogger, Terry Thornton.

* Follow Friday: 13 August 2010 by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog. Greta's picks are often different from my own.

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.

Updated 5 p.m.: Added the Sources post from Geneabloggers - missed it when posted!

2 comments:

DearMYRTLE said...

Thanks for the "Best of" mention this week Randy. My DearREADERS did more of the writing, but I added a few additional points. The analysis should prove useful to newbie genies, who've barely gotten their feet wet with this family history research stuff. Little did they know when they started how addictive this will become.

M

Greta Koehl said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy. And Lynn always comes up with good subjects!