Sunday, July 13, 2014

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 6 to 12 July 2014

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 daily blog prompts or 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:


*  Identifying Possible Common Ancestors Using Multiple Tests by Roberta Estes on the DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy blog.  Roberta provides an excellent summary of the available DNA tests and how to understand them.

*  Getting the Last Word In by Judy G. Russell on The Legal Genealogist blog.  Judy highlights Greg Boyd's advice - use the GenForum message boards to provide updated contact information and the "last word" before they are closed to new content on 30 September.

*  What is the Relationship of Bloggers to Genealogy? by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog.  James ponders the demise of printed genealogy magazines and the role  and motives of geneabloggers.

*  The Writing Life Blog Hop, July 7, 2014 by Dr. Bill (William L.) Smith on the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories blog.  Bill explains why and how he writes, and his writing process, in this post.

*  Searching Journals on AmericanAncestors.org by Sam Sturgis on the Vita Brevis blog.  Sam's post describes how to access the digitized journals on the NEHGS website, and search limitations.

*  Survey Results: Top 10 Family History Online International Resources, Survey Results: Family History Online International Resources, Survey Results: Family History Online International Resources, and Survey Results: Other Family History International Online Resources by John D. Reid on Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections blog.  John had 415 responses to his survey.

*  15 Genealogy Things That Amaze Me by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog.  Yeah, me too!

*  6 Ways for Genealogists To Focus by Kenneth R. Marks on The Ancestor Hunt blog.  Excellent suggestions from Ken.

*  Tuesday Chick Tips: 7 Chick Tips for Beginners by Eowyn Langhoff on the WikiChicks blog.  There are great ideas here for helping beginners get going on genealogy research.

*  Another Genealogy Tool -- And a Proposed Project Idea to "Pay It Forward" by John D. Tew on the Filiopietism Prism blog.  John used the USGS "Historical Topographical Map Explorer" to create a neighborhood map project.

*  Family History Humor, Featuring Jean E. Allogee by John Brugliera on The Online Genealogy blog.  Some funny names and occupations in this collection, including Henry Hiney!

*  Ancestry.com Awarded Patent for Displaying Pedigree Charts on a Touch Device by Gary Mangum on the Ancestry.com Tech Roots blog.  Here's how the Ancestry.com mobile app came into being in 2011.  Congrats on the patent!

These genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week:

*  Monday's Muse: 7 July 2014 by Eowyn Langhoff on the WikiChicks blog.

*  NN Genealogy Things You Need To Know This Morning, Thursday, 10 July 2014; Friday, 11 July 2014; Saturday, 12 July 2014 by Caroline M. Pointer on the 4YourFamilyStory.com blog.

*  Friday Finds - 07/11/14 by Julie Cahill Tarr on Julie's Genealogy & History Hub blog.

*  WikiChicks Weekend Warmup for July 11, 2014 by Eowyn Langhoff on the WikiChicks blog.

*  Follow Friday ~ Fab Finds for July 11, 2014 by Jana Last on Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog.

*  Blog Posts and News Stories for Genealogists, July 11, 2014 by Michael J. Leclerc on the Mocavo Genealogy Blog.

*  What We Are Reading, July 11 Edition by Amy Johnson Crow on the Ancestry.com Blog.

*  Saturday Serendipity (July 12, 2014) by John D. Tew on the Filiopietism Prism blog.

*  This Week's Creme de la Creme -- July 12, 2014 by Gail Dever on the Genealogy a la Carte blog.

Readers are encouraged to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blogs to your Favorites, Feedly, another 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 1530 genealogy bloggers using Feedly, but I still miss quite a few it seems.


Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/07/best-of-genea-blogs-6-to-12-july-2014.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver 



4 comments:

Kenneth R Marks said...

Thanks Randy for including my article. Much appreciated!

Dr. Bill (William L.) Smith said...

Thank you, Randy, for including my writing post! NEAT! ;-)

Unknown said...

Just wanted to say this is one of my favorite posts you do.

John said...

Randy: Thanks for the mention of my neighborhood map project idea -- much appreciated. Sorry about the delayed "thank you" but we were in Iceland and I am still catching up on past blog reading. ;-)