Sunday, February 22, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - February 15-21, 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:

* The Carnival's In Town - 10th Edition: Smile for the Camera - Costumes! by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog. There are 48 entries in this Carnival of Costumes - what a fascinating parade of photographs and stories.

* My Two-Week Timeout in the Hospital by Ernie Margheim on the Ernie's Journeys blog. Our oldest genea-blogger (he's 87) went into the hospital for an arterial bypass early in the week, and is now out of successful surgery and ICU into his private room, where daughter Becky Jamison reads all of the supportive comments from his blog and Facebook friends. This post might have been Ernie's goodbye, but I think he's going to post a lot more memories for his family to share.

* Why I Left Legacy for RootsMagic by Renee Zamora on Renee's Genealogy Blog. Renee has reasons to choose RootsMagic over Legacy, and she explains them, then shows several comparisons between the two programs. Read the comments too - enlightening!

* Genealogy and Family Hope Chest Step 5: Original Documents; Step 6: Treasures; Step 7: Memories & Stories; and Step 8: Genealogy Research by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. What a wonderful set of posts in this series by Lorine that sets out her plans for the "stuff" she has in her research files. I wish I was this organized!

* California Dreamin': Resources for your California Ancestors by Gena Philibert Ortega on the Gena's Genealogy blog. Gena provides a great list of California historical and archives resources for the natives and incomers.

* Solving Problems in NFS by The Ancestry Insider on The Ancestry Insider blog. The AI received a letter about the problems with New FamilySearch and tried to recruit his correspondent to bash FamilySearch. Interesting to me for the spotlight it puts on NFS problems.

* Bingo! (and a few lessons learned) by Julie Cahill Tarr on the GenBlog by Julie blog. Julie has the "feel-good" research post of the week. She solved a longstanding research question - follow along with her as she searches and finally succeeds. Then she put a correction into Ancestry.com, which she discusses in Correcting Entries on Ancestry. A two-fer this week!

* The Secrets of Lincoln's DNA by Janet Crain on the Historical Melungeons blog. This post summarizes what is known about the DNA left by Abraham Lincoln, and links to a Newsweek article on the same subject.

* Confusion with the Various Definitions of Original Source, More on Sources: Original, Derivative, or Otherwise and If a Person has Some Information and they Never Share it, Is There Still a Source? by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark has been thinking about definitions of things, and tried to sort it out in these posts. My brain hurts when I even think about these types of things. I'm glad Mark is thinking about them.

* Free BYU web courses in family history... by Jessica Hall Grayless on the Family History Mysteries blog. Jessica links to a series of BYU web courses - this is a fantastic resource. It's LDS oriented, but there is plenty here for everyone.

* Carnival of Genealogy, 66th Edition by Jasia on the Creative Gene blog. The topic for this carnival was the 2008 iGene Awards from the Academy of Genealogy and Family History. There are 28 entries with awards given by genea-bloggers to themselves.

* How Popular is Genealogy? by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. Dick makes excellent arguments that genealogy is not one of the highest interest hobbies in America. Read his opinions and the comments.

* The Popularity of Genealogy: Why Dick Eastman is Wrong by Dan Lawyer on the Taking Genealogy to the Common Person blog. Dan actually thinks that dick is right in his conclusion, but offers thoughts about what to do to raise interest and overcome barriers in genealogy research.

* What Facebook Did–The Right and Wrong by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig applies his legal knowledge and skills to analyze the Facebook Terms of Use controversy that erupted this week.

* If your blog died today... by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the Tracing the Tribe:The Jewish Genealogy Blog. Schelly found an interesting post and challenges genea-bloggers to write an obituary about their own blog - both now and ten years in the future.

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.

1 comment:

Jasia said...

Schelly's post about the obituary for one's blog will be the topic for the Oct. 1 COG.