Sunday, February 20, 2011

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 13-19 February 2011

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:

The Week My Outlook on Genealogy Changed: RootsTech 2011 by Polly Kimmitt on the Pollyblog blog.  This is probably the best post I found explaining what RootsTech was really all about.  Polly gets it.

New Developments at FamilySearch by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog.  I appreciate James ferreting out information about what FamilySearch is doing.

3,000+ Genealogists at the RootsTech Conference (with Pictures) by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online genealogy Newsletter blog.  Dick has a great summary of RootsTech!

Graveyard Rabbit Carnival - February 2011 edited by footnoteMaven on The Graveyard Rabbit blog.  The theme of this carnival was "The Oldest Stone."  There were five entries this month.

Remembering My Great Grandfather - Valentin Kocevar by Tessa Keough on the Scandia Musings & More blog.  Tessa celebrated her great-grandfather's birthday (Valentine's Day!) with this post about  his life in documents and stories.  A beautiful job!

RootsTech 2011: My report to management by Pat Richley-Erickson on the DearMYRTLE Genealogy blog.  Pat summarizes her views on the best features of RootsTech and has many suggestions for improvement.  Kudos to FamilySearch for asking the presenters.

Source Citations in Genealogy: Church or Cult? by Kerry Scott on the Clue Wagon blog.  Kerry believes in source citations, wants everybody to cite their sources, but doesn't want Citation cops.  Read the many comments too.

My Amazing Phone Call by Leslie Albrecht Huber on The Journey Takers blog.  Research for ten years.  Write the great book.  Receive ancestral letters from hitherto unknown cousin.  Leslie got lucky a year too late!  A sequel?

An Interview with Maureen Taylor by Lucie LeBlanc Consentino on the Acadian Ancestral Home blog.  Lucie does a Q&A with Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective.

Committed to seamless genealogy file sharing by Pat Richley-Erickson on DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog.  This is the best post so far about WHY we need a Better GEDCOM and how to pursue it.  I hope FamilySearch, Ancestry, and the software companies are reading.

Where I Get My Information by Marian Pierre-Louis on the Marian's Roots and Rambles blog.  Marian lists her online genealogy information sources - some good examples here.  I'm doing pretty much the same thing.

Rootstech Takeaways: High Tech High Touch by Joan Miller on the Luxegen Genealogy and Family History blog.  Joan has started her series of presentation summaries with this one on Curt Witcher's FGS Luncheon talk. 

Interactive Online Family History Photos by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog.  Check out Mark's post - this is really cool photo technology.  Got any photos that you would like to Zoom-It in on your blog?

Fly on the Wall of the RootsTech Debriefing Meetings by Anne Roach on The TechnoGenealogist blog.  Here's the "inside RootsTech" perspective - read all of Anne's post this past week for more.

Several other genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts this week, including:

Friday Newsletter and Follow News: 18 February 2011 by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog.

Follow Friday: This Week’s Favs by Jen on the Climbing My Family Tree blog.

Follow Friday (on Sunday): Around the Blogosphere - February 20, 2011 by Susan Petersen on the Long Lost Relatives.net blog.

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS 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 820 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

UPDATED 9:30 p.m.:  Added Anne's post and Susan Petersen's summary.

3 comments:

DearMYRTLE said...

Thanks for the shout out, Randy.

Tessa Keough said...

Thanks for the kind words - blogging is such a good way to get the stories out there when we are not ready to publish everything! Thanks also for your "Best Of" - it is my top source to find interesting and new blog entries.

Kerry Scott said...

Thank you for the mention! It's been a great week for genealogy bloggers (and readers). Lots of interesting conversations happening out there.