Sunday, February 15, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - February 8-14, 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:

* Sunday Spooks by Colleen on The R.I.P.PERS blog. Colleen has a series of these short stories going on her latest blog, and this one gives us a hint as to why we can't find anything in a library.

* The Amazon Kindle could dramatically improve U.S. Education by Paul Allen on the Paul Allen blog. Paul describes the latest "personal reading device" and ponders how it could affect education. It could also affect Genealogy Research too - imagine having 200 genealogy books, magazines and periodicals on a Kindle for your reading pleasure - always with you at your fingertips.

* Starting a Genealogy and Family Hope Chest; Step 2: Let's Talk!; Step 3: Categorize!; Step 4: Share Those Photos!; Step 5: Original Documents! all by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. Lorine has thought through how she wants to deal with all of the genealogy "stuff" and is creating her plan. It's an excellent multi-step plan - one we can all use!

* Standards of an archive quality digital record repository by the handsome yellow-faced blogger on The Ancestry Insider blog. The AI defines his standards (in response to the complaints about NARA and imagers on the APG mailing list) for what an archival repository should have in place to ensure archivists and researchers that everything has been accounted for, imaged and indexed. It's a great list!

* Tech Tuesday: A Student Wish List for Online Learning by Denise Levenick on The Family Curator blog. Denise has a wonderful list of wishes from the student's point of view for online learning opportunities.

* Follow-Up: Some Hard Genealogy, and Surname Distribution Analyzed, by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig delves deeper into his Gines family, answers some readers' questions, and some of his own. He uses the World Names Profiler to help him sort out and analyze the surname distribution too.

* Yes, it took an act of Congress! by Cindy on the Everything's Relative: Researching Your Family History blog. Cindy recounts her struggle to obtain war medals for her grandfather's World War II service. Cindy's persistence paid off - you need to see what she received.

* Ilona's immigration: the one hundred year anniversary by Lisa on the 100 Years in America blog. This beautiful story, with excellent pictures, tells the story of Lisa's grandmother's voyage to the USA. And what happened afterwards.

* Ancestry.com Reveals the Sweetest Valentines in America’s Family Trees by Suzanne Campbell on the Ancestry.com Blog. Suzanne does the Valentine's Day honors by finding really sweet names in the databases on Ancestry.com.

* African American Genealogy – Finding Your Roots by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog. This is an excellent summary of the unique research required for African-American genealogy.

* "Around the Kitchen Table" -3rd Edition, Canadian Genealogy Carnival by Kathryn Lake Hogan on the LOOKING4ANCESTORS blog. The topic for the Canadian Genealogy Carnival was "Around the Kitchen Table," and six bloggers contributed their stories.

* Graveyard Stew by Diane Wright on the Wright's Graveyard Stew blog. Diane has created a "list of lists" about cemeteries by topic - this is a keeper!

* Dougall Part 2 by Brenda Dougall Merriman on the Brenda Dougall Merriman blog. Brenda recounts a mistake she made early in her research about her Scots Dougall ancestor, and tells how she figured out the correct answer. It's a good lesson for all researchers.

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.

2 comments:

Bill West said...

Hi Randy,
I just left a comment on Paul's blog on the Kindle. I cannot see it changing education in the near future because a lot of folks don't have $359 to spend and neither do moststate or local governments for their schools.

I have to be honest. As a booklover and a bookseller, I dislike Amazon and the Kindle. They are killing brick and mortar bookstores.

Family Curator said...

Thank you, Randy, for the note regarding my Online Wish List. Here's hoping we meet in class one day!