Sunday, March 29, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - March 22-28, 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:

* What's NOT in Ancestry Library Edition by Diane Haddad on The Genealogy Insider blog. This is a really helpful post for those who access Ancestry at a public library.

* Free genealogy lectures via Skype by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog. I completely missed the move of Beau Sharbrough's blog to another platform, and the announcement that he was no longer at Footnote.com. This post provided very useful information about using Skype to provide a genealogy program to a remote location like a society or conference.

* Genealogy and History Channels on YouTube [Reference Shelf] by Jennifer on the Rainy Day Genealogy Readings blog. Jennifer passes along a list of links to YouTube channels of interest to genealogists. There are some new ones to me on the list.

* Top Ten Reasons Why I Blog by Greta Koehl on the Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. Greta has a nice list of reasons - #1 is that we might be contacted by a distant unknown relative who finds our blog. This happened to Greta recently. Read all of her reasons.

* Gen Web Project by the author of the Ancestor.com blog. This post provides a nice summary of the origin and scope of the USGenWeb project which is an indispensable genealogy research tool.

* There’s No Such Thing as Proof by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig's thesis is that "Something which is true may not necessarily be proven, and that which is not true might be proven. So it is in life; so it is in genealogy." and he demonstrates it with examples from his own research. Great post!

* Secrets of a Successful Genealogical Society by Kimberly Powell on Kimberly's Genealogy Blog. Kimberly shares a link to her article outlining ways for a society to grow and thrive. Good ideas, all!

* Choices ~ Consequences by Lee Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee writes about his father's choices and how they affected many lives. A wonderful tribute to a good man.

* Death of Ancestry.com's living person database by the Ancestry Insider on The ancestry Insider blog. The AI provides a great list of People-Finder sites after the demise of the "old" Ancestry.com Public Records Index. He also cautions against giving any web site your email address book. wise words.

* (Not at All) Wordless Wednesday - Browning vs. Beck (1837) by Patti Browning on the Consanguinity blog. Patti finds some interesting court records that clear up a family mystery. Nice work putting it together!

* Genealogical Blogs – A Wealth of Information at Your Fingertips by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com blog. Carolyn's article discusses genealogy blogs, their purposes, how to find them, and provides links to some interesting blogs that I haven't read before.

* Internet Genealogy – It's Just the Tip of the Iceberg by Kathryn H. Doyle on the California Genealogical Society and Library Blog. Check out the terrific graphic created by the daughter of a CGS member. It's an instant classic that should be on a poster displayed in every repository.

* Friday From the Collectors - March 27: Is She Dead? by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog. fM has presented another intriguing photograph and asked the question "Is She Dead?" I don't think she is. Read the comments for interesting analyses.

* Computing in the Clouds by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. This post describes "cloud computing" which may be where the Internet is headed - information stored online instead of on hard drives. There are several genealogy applications already, and dick describes them nicely. Read the comments too.

* Bound for Mom, A Journey of Firsts by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog. This is the first edition of this new Carnival, and there are six submittals on the topic.

* March 28: The Humor of It by Donna Pointkouski on footnoteMaven's Shades of the Departed blog. Donna explains how all of the pictures of her family somehow came out somewhat skewed - to the point that whole persons, or only heads, were cut off. Funny.

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:

Schelly Talalay Dardashti said...

Hi, Randy,

Thanks once again for the shout-out for Tracing the Tribe.

Schelly Talalay Dardashti

Kathryn Doyle said...

Thanks, Randy, for including a link to the "Tip of the Iceberg" graphic. Dick Eastman posted it too so I've had my first official blog-avalanche!