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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Specific Family Name Blogs

One of the questions asked at the Blogger Summit at the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree was along the lines of "can you actually make contact with cousins using a blog?" The answer for many of the panel bloggers was essentially "yes, but not often."

There are, of course, more blogs than you can shake a long stick at - Chris Dunham's Genealogue's Blogfinder lists over 900 genealogy blogs now, and some of them are devoted to information about a specific surname or group of surnames. Chris lists 77 in the current "Single Surname" blog list.

Interestingly, Bob and Reb's Genealogy Blog about the Orrell Family is not on the single surname list (I found it on the Personal Research list of 459). I've been reading Bob and Reb's work for about two years now, and am real impressed by the depth of their research posted online, not only on the blog but on their web site.

Bob and Reb Orrell decided a month ago to shut down their blog and web site due to lack of time and some health problems. Then fate intervened and Reb retired, so now he has more time to devote to their site. They will keep it active, but perhaps not blog as much as they have in the past. Of course, we all know that every time a new database comes online, that these guys won't be able to resist using it, and blogging about it.

I'm ecstatic that Bob and Reb will keep their web site and blog active for now. I was dreading seeing it go into digital limbo, even though they have saved the blog and web site content to more permanent storage like CDs.

For me, this site is an excellent example of what a Single Surname blog site should look like and how it should work. I've thought about a single surname blog myself (let's see - Seaver, Carringer, Vaux, Auble, ...), but haven't pursued it intensively due to my other time commitments.

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