Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Family Tree Magazine Top 40 Genealogy Blogs for 2011

The popular Family Tree Magazine has unveiled the 2011 Family Tree Top 40 Genealogy Blogs, as voted upon by readers of the magazine using an online survey system.  Sunny Jane Morton wrote the piece, which describes each blog on the list, and provides a link to each blog.  The article will be in the May 2011 issue of Family Tree Magazine, and will be available later this week.

The article starts:

"If you haven't joined the genealogy blog scene yet, let me describe what you're missing: Imagine eavesdropping on the best lunchroom buzz at a big genealogy conference. Smart, experienced researchers exchange advice and laughter-laced banter. Advice flies from every table: on French Canadian sources, on using the Flip-Pal mobile scanner. You tune in (or out) as you please; listen or comment at will. The speakers don't mind -- in fact, the more eavesdroppers, the merrier."

Why isn't Genea-Musings or some of my other genealogy blogs on the list?  Or se veral other really popular blogs?  It's because I was one of the panelists that helped select the Top 40 genealogy blogs.  You can read about the panelists in the side article Meet the Family Tree 40 Panel.

Congratulations to the winners as selected by the readers - you've earned the distinction of being selected by your readers and your peers. 

It should be pointed out that there some fairly stringent requirements to qualify for inclusion, including:

*  be primarily about genealogy.
*  have original content (aggregators featuring posts from other blogs will be disqualified).
*  belong to a private individual or individuals, not to a business (a change from last year’s Family Tree 40). They may not exist primarily to market products.
*  be active, having at least four posts per month for the past three months (or, for blogs newer than three months, four posts per month since the blog has been in existence).
*  contain or link to information about the blogger(s), such as an “About Me” page.
*  not be hosted by a Family Tree 40 panelist or by Family Tree Magazine.
The online article does not list the URLs for the winning blogs, but it does link to them.  I hope that the magazine article will provide the URL for each blog for the readers of the published magazine issue.

7 comments:

footnoteMaven said...

Thank you for the list Randy and for your work on the Expert Panel. I know this was a challenging task, and I thank you for your hard work.

I am honored to have hit the GeneaJackpot one more time.

-fM

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

Thanks Randy for the post, and now thanks to fM I know you were on the panel. I don't know how you could judge with all the great blogs out there in cyberspace, but thanks for choosing mine!

Amy Coffin, MLIS said...

Thank you for serving on the panel, Randy. No easy task, I'm sure. I appreciate all you've done for genealogy blogging.

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Wow, I can't imagine what difficult job the panel had this year. Thanks for your hard work, expertise, and for leading the way in the realm of genealogy blogging. I am honored (and stunned) to have made this list again this year.

Bill West said...

Thank you Randy for serving on the Panel. I'm honored to have won.

Thanks!

Joan Miller said...

Thank you Randy for all of the hard work you do for the blogging community and for serving on the panel.
I am humbled and honoured to be included in the top 40 list!

shekhar said...

It is very wonderfull center