Sunday, April 26, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - April 19-25, 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:

* A Koonce & Koonce Expedition by Taneya Koonce on Taneya's Genealogy Blog. Taneya meets up with another Koonce researcher and they go on a road trip to Lincoln County, TN. Nice report to start us off this week.

* Genealogy Search Sites - The Bait and Switch by Robert Ragan on the Treasure Maps Genealogy blog. Robert discusses how commercial sites lure the unsuspecting researcher onto the pay sites and describes how to find free research data.

* Frustrating Day with Genealogy Apps on Facebook by Melody Lassalle on The Research Journal blog. Melody wrote about her experiences with Facebook genealogy applications. Been there, done that, but Mel wrote about it well.

* Tip: Adding Links to WeRelate and Footnote Person Pages by Denise Olson on the Family Matters blog. Denise is the genea-blogging expert on Footnote and WeRelate, and this post is about adding links to both of them. Well done.

* My DNA Adventure, Part II: The Search for Sarah Gilbert by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig discusses his mitochondrial DNA results and his search for the matching people. He also discusses several mtDNA matching sites.

* GeneaWEB2.0- Leveraging Online Resources for Meaningful Genealogy Research Issue#3 - The Blog as a Viable Tool for Genealogy Research by Kathleen Schaible on the Tracing Your Routes: Official Genealogy Blog of GenWed.com blog. Kathleen continues her series about GeneaWeb 2.0 and discusses the usefulness of genealogy blogs.

* Finding 1861–1869 Names of Residents & Civil War Soldiers – Part Three - Florida Through lllinois by William Dollarhide on the GenealogyBlog. Bill continues his series of excellent reports on this topic - these are keepers for me.

* WSJ - Potential Conflicts of Interest in Paid Blogger Product Reviews by Tim Agazio on the Genealogy Reviews Online blog. Tim cites a Wall Street Journal article about periodical reviews that may apply to genea-bloggers and reviewers in publications. Point taken!

* Essie Mae Hester by Tina Sansone on the Gtownma's Genealogy blog. Tina writes about her great-grandmother's life and the struggles of being a mother that loses babies to sickness. Tina also ponders the changes in maternity care and women's lives since 1900.

* 18th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy by Jessica Oswalt on the Jessica's Genejournal blog. Jessica hosted this carnival which had four articles on the topic of Easter and Passover Traditions.

* Making Family History by Janet Hovorka on The Chart Chick blog. Janet introduces us to her newest family member, shows some beautiful family pictures and waxes eloquent about families. I love posts like this!

* 10th New England Regional Genealogical Conference - Thursday; 10th New England Regional Genealogical Conference - Friday am ; 10th New England Regional Genealogical Conference - Friday pm ; and 10th New England Regional Genealogical Conference - Saturday by John D. Reid on the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. It looks like John is the only one blogging about the New England Regional Genealogy Conference this week. Nice job, John!

* Book Review: Citing Ancestry.com by the blogger who writes The Ancestry Insider blog. The AI provides an excellent example of how to write a genealogy book review - it is of the latest QuickSheet for how to cite Ancestry.com databases and images. The best thing about this is the honesty of the review and the transparency of the writer. I appreciate that and will try to emulate it in my reviews.

* Can't Visit His Burial Place - Nobody Can Tell Me Where It Is! and Clarence and May - A soap in the making by Cindy on the Everything's Relative - Researching Your Family History blog. Cindy is telling her story of trying to find where her great-grandfather is buried and about his life. These are great stories, and Cindy's not done with them.

* How Forthcoming IS Ancestry? and READER'S FEEDBACK: How forthcoming IS Ancestry? by Pat Richley on the DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog. DearMYRT has a Skype friend who asked a question, and then DearMYRT found some things that cause her to wonder. Interesting posts.

* Quest of a Genea-Holic - Part 4 by Terri on The Ties That Bind blog. I've been following Terri's saga of her ancestor that disappeared after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. It's a wonderfully detailed research story, but a tragic one for his first family. I think Terri is a true Geneaholic!

* "All Things Genealogical" catalog? by Pat Richley on The Internet-Genealogy Blog. DearMYRTLE looks forward to the FHL/WVR catalog coming soon on http://www.genseek.com/ in this post. I do too!

* There's Always One by Donna Pointkouski on footnoteMaven's Shades of the Departed blog. Donna's "The Humor of It" column displays photos of people, from her family, that try hard to mess up photographs. She's right, we all have one!

* "Treasures" from Saturday's SPLUNGE ROAD Yard Sale in Hill Country by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. Terry has the most interesting experiences just driving around his little part of the world. Don't you wish you could ride along with him sometime? I do. He just celebrated his second blogiversary today - see his post here. Congratulations, Terry, on your two years of telling us about your life and region, it's been fascinating. Keep up the good work! Note that Terry is working on ten blogs now!

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.

6 comments:

Terry Thornton said...

Randy, Thanks for your kind comments and for including two links to Hill Country (WOW! a BOGO!) in your roundup.

Come to Hill Country --- bring your Angel --- and Sweetie and I will show youall the best of rural Mississippi.

Terry Thornton
HILL COUNTRY OF MONROE COUNTY MISSISSIPPI

Craig Manson said...

Randy,

This was a great edition! It really helped me get caught up on some good stuff I'd missed.

Tina Sansone said...

Thanks for including me this week. Essie has been on my mind lately for some reason. Maybe since Mother's Day is coming up. When I think I have it bad, I reflect on her life ande realize I dont' have it bad at all.

Thanks again,

Tina

Anonymous said...

Wow! What a great collection you pulled together this week. Thanks for including me in this illustrious group.

Taneya said...

thanks Randy for including me as well! I look forward to your weekly posts on the best of... gives me a quick way to see some of the many interesting posts made.

Cindy said...

Randy, Thanks very much for the mention this week. It's great to be included in a list of wonderful posts and great bloggers!

Cindy