Sunday, July 26, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - July 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 Baby Boomer Remembers the Man Who Came to Dinner… Every Night by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. What a wonderful memoir of Walter Cronkite - many of us can totally relate to this. Thanks, Craig.

* How To Get Kids Interested In Genealogy by Elyse Doerflinger on Elyse's Genealogy Blog. Elyse shares some ideas, from her own experience, on this subject. Timely - my 6-year-old grandson comes in a week!

* Tonight's Webinar On Ancestry.com by Texicanwife on the Mountain Genealogists blog. TW summarized the recent Ancestry Webinar about "European Research: Tips and Tools for success." Well done!

* I’m on a Boat: Passenger List Found! by Brian Zalewski on the Zalewski Family Genealogy blog. Brian shares his recent research success - we can all learn lessons from others' successes!

* NARA 2009 Strategic Plan by the Ancestry Insider on The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI discusses an important document about the National Archives plans.

* Digital Toolbox: Online Printing and Publishing by Denise Olson on the Family Matters blog. Denise seems to post about things I wonder about...I appreciate it!

* A matter of notes by Mary Minton on the Family Lines blog. Mary describes her quandary about the research and family notes that she puts in her genealogy software program. Good discussion and suggestions.

* Chasing The Slave Owner by Luckie Daniels on the Our Georgia Roots blog. Luckie provides a wonderful description of her research process for some of her slave ancestors. This is a beautiful blog (I couldn't resist that!).

* Fotomat. What's That by Donna Pointkouski in her "The Humor of It" column on footnoteMaven's Shades of the Departed blog. Here's another memory post that many of us can all relate to.

* University archives contain family treasures by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the MyHeritage Genealogy Blog. Schelly provides excellent advice about under-utilized and relatively unknown resources.

* Genealogical & Historical Societies Online by Tami on the Relatively Curious About Genealogy blog. Tami has found some interesting things in local societies - good advice for everyone!

* WE FOUND "MICKEY" ON THE WAY HOME! by Cheri Hopkins on the You Go Girls Genealogy blog. Cheri and her sidekick and co-blogger Ruby Coleman attended the Family History Expo in Sheridan, Wyoming last week and had a great time - and found some interesting things in graveyards on the way home. Needless to say, these grannies had some genealogy fun!

* How do you do research? Looking for the arrow by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James describes developing a research methodology after finding the genealogy arrow you shot on the Internet or a repository. Excellent wisdom from experience here.

* Interactive Kinship Calculator by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark created a useful tool for figuring out how many times you are removed from your newly found cousin. You need to follow Mark's directions to download and use this tool.

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! I am currently reading posts from over 500 genealogy bloggers using Bloglines, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the shout out and glad I could be of assistance.

valenaann68 said...

I love reading your blog! You have given me much to think about!

Luckie said...

Randy - thank you very much for your kind words regarding Our Georgia Roots! For me, this has been a great day (lots of family time) & reading your sentiments, the icing on the cake!:-)

Luckie.
www.OurGeorgiaRoots.com

Schelly Talalay Dardashti said...

Randy - thank you so much for the pointer to the MyHeritage Genealogy Blog posting!

Schelly Talalay Dardashti
MyHeritage Genealogy Blog
Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog
International Jewish Graveyard Rabbit

Free Birth Records said...

What a great list. That Kinship Calculator may be handy with a family tree like mine. We're kind of inbred. LOL I'll have to check it out and see if it does double links.

Fay