Sunday, February 13, 2011

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 6 - 12 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:
Motivation Monday - Research Plans by Tessa on the Keough Corner blog.  Tessa shares her ProGen Research Plan with us - one of the best I've seen!  Well done.

Why It Doesn't Matter Which Software You Use by Kerry Scott on the Clue Wagon blog.  Kerry views software as a tool to organize her information.  Good points.  Now she tells me!

* Genealogy, Ancestry, heritage - what does it all mean? by Abby Burchett on the pursuits of a desperate genie blog.  Abby asks questions, offers some answers, and links to a neat video about "what is Genealogical research?"

Interview – Elizabeth Shown Mills by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog.  I really enjoyed this interview - this is the real Elizabeth - funny, creative, full of concepts and ideas. 

A Conversation with Pamela Boyer Sayre by Leslie Albrecht Huber on The Journey Takers blog.  Leslie's interview with Pam covers more than genealogy - we get to hear about Pam's life before genealogy too.  I like the conversational style here.

Smiling Big & Laughing Hard by Caroline M. Pointer on the Family Stories blog.  Caroline keeps telling big Paw Paw stories, and I'm hooked.  Court records are great, eh?  These stories are too - I was hooked by the chocolate shake.

Presenter Interview: Colleen Fitzpatrick, Forensic Genealogist by Cynthia Shenette on the Heritage Zen blog.  I enjoyed reading about Colleen Fitzpatrick's research in this interview.  Cynthia did a great job with questions.

An Interview with Leslie Albrecht Huber, Author of The Journey Takers by Marian Pierre-Louis on the Marina's Roots and Rambles blog.  Marian interviewed Leslie Huber about her book, her genealogy research and her real life.  Well done!

I Don’t Care Where You Put the Comma by Amy Crow on the Amy's Genealogy, etc. Blog.  Amy discusses source citations in an, um, practical way.  Lots of readers agree with her!

Putting Dropbox to Work by Denise Olson on the Moultrie Creek Gazette blog.  Denise has the lowdown on how to use Dropbox as an online file storage system.  Well done!

Genealogy Monopoly by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog.  An interesting take on investing in genealogical resources.  Greta has, and its paid off handsomely. 

Latest News from RootsTech by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog.  Thomas colelcted all of the posts about RootsTech in this post.  Read them!

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

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

Friday Newsletter and Follow News: 11 February 2011 by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog.

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - February 11 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 810 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

5 comments:

Moultrie Creek said...

Thanks for the shout out on Dropbox at the Gazette. I hope you're finding it useful too.

Greta Koehl said...

Thank you for the mention, Randy! And thanks also for featuring Amy's article. I've been trying to track down her blog and finally found it through you!

Cynthia Shenette said...

Thank you for the mention Randy! Colleen was a pleasure to interview, and I'm glad you enjoyed reading it!

Kerry Scott said...

Thanks for the mention! Your recent posts actually helped inspire mine, so thank you for your work on determining how sources translate across various software packages. It just goes to show that we all need to rethink how we handle citations in our databases.

Tessa Keough said...

I am late in thanking you for the mention of my post on research plans. I encourage any of your readers to check out the ProGen program as it is an excellent peer group for improving genealogy skills for amateurs and aspiring pros. Love your "Best Of" each week. Thanks for all you do to keep us informed and entertained.