Are you listening?

One of the highlights of my week is to listen to one of the weekly podcasts on genealogy subjects produced by these superb hosts and genealogists:

* DearMYRTLE Family History Hour -- DearMYRTLE (Pat Richley) has a weekly hourlong podcast - the last one was on 19 August and featured interviews with Dusty Rhodes, Elizabeth Powel Crowe, Whitney Ransom and Pat's rundown of weekly genealogy news.

* The Genealogy Guys -- George G. Morgan and Drew Smith host this weekly hourlong podcast - the last one was on 22 August and featured a genealogy news summary, email questions and responses from listeners, and Drew's Italian research.

* Genealogy Gems Podcast - Your Family History Show -- Lisa Louise Cooke hosts this monthly hourlong podcast, which just produced its 50th show. The 15 August show featured comments from other genealogy podcasters, an interview with Tim Russell the star of Prairie Home Companion, and more.

* The Genealogy Tech Broadcast -- Bill Puller hosts this occasional podcast about technology applied to genealogy. The last show was on 21 May 2008.

* Anna-Karin's Genealogical Podcast - Anna-Karin Shander's podcast about Swedish and American genealogy research. The last show was on 26 July 2008.

* The Irish Roots Cafe Podcasts -- Mike O'Loughlin has a regular podcast about Irish genealogy research. The site offers free podcasts and videocasts, and members-only podcasts and videos too.

The hosts make it easy to listen to the shows - their web pages have links right to the .MP3 files and all you have to do is turn up your volume to listen. If you are interrupted for osme reason, you can pause the podcast and resume playing it when you return to the computer. You can download the podcasts and put them on your computer hard drive or transfer them to your iPod or other portable device for listening at a more convenient time.

I try to listen to one of the first three podcasts each week in my busy life. Each is different, but all are enjoyable and informative. They are one more way to stay current on the genealogy news of the week.

The beauty of podcasts is that you can listen to them on one browser tab and do something else on another browser tab - like look through web pages or family trees!