Sunday, January 18, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - January 11-17, 2009

Several hundred 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:

* More X-Chromosome Charts by Blaine Bettinger on The Genetic Genealogist blog. Blaine provides more information about how the X-chromosome influences a persons genetic makeup. It has to do with males receive only a Y-chromosome from their fathers, but females receive an X-chromosome from both parents. It's not as easy as I thought! Is anybody sequencing the X-chromosome?

* Research Plan: Finding Death Dates for Joseph Bergmeister and Ursula Goetz by Donna Pointkouski on the What's Past is Prologue blog. Donna has created a research plan in an effort to solve one of her brickwall problems. This is something each of us should be doing. Donna has provided an excellent example. Can anybody help her?

* On SlideShare: 10 Things Genealogy Software Should Do by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark shares his slides from his March 2008 presentation at BYU. The presentation is excellent. The method of sharing is also excellent - is this something that presenters can use effectively? Or bloggers?

* Ancestry.com and New Subscribers by Sean Sexton on the Sean and Family History blog. Sean shares some ideas for Ancestry.com (and any other genealogy provider, really) on how to attract new subscribers and retain current ones. Excellent marketing idea here.

* A well-traveled clock. by Amy on the They who go down to the sea blog. Amy tells a wonderful story with pictures about an intimate yet inanimate family member - Clock Miller. It's fascinating.

* Cold As Whiz by Tipper on the Blind Pig & The Acorn blog. Tipper muses about sayings about weather (and especially really cold weather!) and gets more in comments than she expected.

* Advice to my Fellow Bloggers who Require Word Verification to Comment by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. Terry's post deals with the verification words that many bloggers use to prevent spam... it's funny - go read it!

* How Music Defines A Generation by Elyse Doerflinger on Elyse's Genealogy Blog. Elyse's story isn't really about music, it's about encouragement from a family member and how it affects a person's life. Excellent post!

* Carnival's In Town - 9th Edition of smile for the Camera - A Carnival of Images: Who Are You? I Really Want to Know! by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog. This carnival features pictures that the writers really want to find out the names of the subjects. There are 47 entries in this carnival, each with a picture dying for a caption.

* Demographics of Smithland - 1830 - 1840 by Brenda Joyce Jerome on the Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog. Brenda's study of a town in a time period is fascinating to me, as is her selection of available records to use in the study. All researchers can use records like Brenda used - do we?

* Carnival of Genealogy, 64th Edition by Jasia on the Creative Gene blog. Jasia gathers the 47 posters to the 64th Carnival of Genealogy, with the topic of "A Winter Photo Essay." This collection chilled me with all of the pictures. The topic for the next COG is "The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy." Oh boy!

* GeneaProjects by Julie Cahill Tarr on the GenBlog by Julie blog. Julie lists projects that researchers can participate to help the genealogy community. It's a great list.

* Those Wacky Styles by Lee Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee got me thinking with this post about the clothing styles, and additional paraphernalia, of my grandparents and early generations. Check out the picture and the cartoon too - great comparison!

* Heritage Albums, A Collection of Family Moments for the Family Historian by Jasia in the Shades of the Departed blog Captured Moments column for 18 January 2009. Jasia's monthly column describes the process of creating a heritage album, provides excellent creative tips, and shows some beautiful examples of her work.

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Bloglines, reader, 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!

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

4 comments:

Terry Thornton said...

PSHUM, Randy! Thanks a CABILION!

And keep RALUMM! [That was your word verification necessary to post this comment! LOL!]
Terry

Tipper said...

Randy-A great round up full of wonderful posts! Thank you for the Shout Out-I really appreciate it!

Anonymous said...

Dear Randy,
Thanks so very much for adding me to your list! It's hugely flattering for this novice blogger to receive such kind attention from the greater community.

Cheers!
Amy

Elyse said...

Thank you Randy for including me in your best of the genea-blogs this week. Thank you!