Sunday, February 1, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - January 25-31, 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:

* 2009 Inauguration of President Barack Obama by Karen Burney on the Louisiana Lineage Legacies blog. Karen's story of her trip to the inauguration of our 44th President is very moving - you can hear the joy in her words and see the smiles on her face as she experienced something she, and her descendants, will never forget.

* What Happens to My Research When I'm Gone? and Part 2 by Sheri Fenley on The Educated Genealogist blog. Sheri ponders what will happen to the genealogy stuff, and shares the genealogy codicil to her will. The second post highlights a possible solution for those who have no interested family members.

* Collaboration in a Virtual World - Updated by Denise Olson on the Family Matters blog. Denise explores virtual tools to collaborate with others - in an online meeting or in a shared document environment. These tools are very useful for online groups that meet on a regular basis, or for a family association or genealogy society to share project information and papers.

* 15th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy by Jessica Oswalt on the Jessica's Genejournal blog. This monhly carnival of genealogy posts had four entries on the topic of History Books about Central and Eastern Europe.

* Genealogy Jam and More Genealogy Jam by Pat Richley on the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Blog. Ol' MYRT's talk at the SLIG banquet brought many to tears - see her take on writing family history books for your family, and the beautiful quilt she made for her father. In the second post, MYRT's readers share some of their G-Jam.

* Camp Polk Cemetery "Varieties of Hope" by Dead Man Talking on the Blogging a Dead Horse blog. Want to see a really interesting and non-traditional cemetery? Check out DMT's post about Camp Polk in Oregon.

* The Actual Dime Museum by Lidian on The Virtual Dime Museum blog. Lidian's post describes the Dime Museums that many of our ancestors visited for entertainment in the Victorian era.

* NBC series to give family history a boost by Larry Lehmer on the Passing It On blog. Larry comments about the Who Do You Think You Are? TV show coming in April, and shares his expectations.

* Packing Up a Life and Packing Up a Life, Day 2 by Lorine on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. My face is wet after reading these two posts by Lorine about sorting out and packing up her mother's belongings.

* WDYTYA: Impact on Genealogy, American Style by Schelly Talalay Dardaahti on the Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy blog. Schelly writes about the upcoming TV show and notes that the ancestors of the three named stars to date are Jewish and eastern European.

* Analyzing Evidence by Gena Philibert Ortega on the Gena's Genealogy blog. Gena links to a form about "how to analyze a document" to help researchers analyze the collected evidence.

* Five Fallacies in Genealogy by Brenda Joyce Jerome on the Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog. Brenda shares five common fallacies from her research and invites readers to add to her list.

* Gentle Advice for Genealogy Societies by Amy Coffin on the WeTree blog. Amy's timely and helpful advice should be taken by every genealogy society.

* Who Do You Think You Are - the downside by Tim Agazio on the Genealogy Reviews Online blog. Tim has a humorous post about what might happen after WDYTYA? debuts. He might be right!

* A Matter of Temporary Insanity by Lee Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee has research success after he checks and rechecks his earlier work. There's a lesson here 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.

UPDATE: I fixed Tim's name and blog name after the Super Bowl. Thank you, Sheri, for catching my error! Sorry, Tim, for the mixup - I wasn't paying attention, I guess.

5 comments:

Amy Coffin, MLIS said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy!

Tim Agazio said...

uh...Randy,

The post about the downside of WDYTYA is mine, not John Newmark of TranslyvanianDuch...the link is correct though. I do appreciate the link.

Tim Agazio

Anonymous said...

Randy, thanks for the shout out.

Schelly Talalay Dardashti said...

Hi, Randy,

Thanks for the pointer!

Schelly Talalay Dardashti

DearMYRTLE said...

Thanks for spotting my work.

What I want to know is HOW on earth did Amy make a Texas shaped waffle. KEWL!