Sunday, November 8, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - November 1-7, 2009

Hundreds of 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:

* Graveyard Rabbits Carnival – November 2009 Edition by Julie Cahill Tarr on The Graveyard Rabbit blog. This Carnival had the theme of "Write your own epitaph." Six bloggers accepted the challenge.

* Robyn’s 10 Key Genealogy Principles by Robyn on the Reclaiming Kin blog. Robyn shares her list of ten principles.

* The Genealogical Maturity Model by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog. Perhaps the most important post of the year IMHO, for all genea-blogs. Excellent ideas. Read the comments too!

* Navigator, Undertaker, Carpenter, Survivor by Lee R. Drew on the Lineage Keeper blog. Lee has a fascinating and true story of the life adventures of his great-grandparents. He could write a book about this family history.

* Searching City Directories, part 1: Finding Frank Sharbrough, Searching City Directories, part 2: Browse problems, Searching City Directories, part 3: What Worked, and Searching City Directories, part 4: Annotation, Find, and a Footnote Page by Beau Sharbrough on The Unofficial Footnote Blog. Beau is an expert at navigating Footnote, and has written some very helpful blog posts about searching City Directories (and other OCRed works) on Footnote.com.

* Carnival of Genealogy - 83rd edition - Musical Instruments by Janet Iles on the Janet the Researcher blog. There were 26 entries in this Carnival about musical instruments.

* Footnote.com, Wikis, and the Possible Demise of Genealogical Journals by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. Martin opines about user-contributed data to websites and the future of genealogical journals.

* Kinship by Leah on The Internet Genealogist blog. Leah summarizes kinship theory for those of us bewildered by it, and explains it well, I think.

* Irish portraits: An "album" of stories by Lisa on the Small-Leaved Shamrock blog. Lisa presents the 16th Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture on the topic of Irish Portraits. There are ten entries in this Carnival.

* RSS Feeds for Rootsweb/Ancestry Boards by Taneya Koonce on Taneya's Genealogy Blog. Taneya shares the secret of receiving message board items in an RSS feed - this was new for me!

* Can You Say--Global Warming? by Cheri Hopkins (Girl #2) on the You Go Girls Genealogy Blog. Cheri humorously recounts the YGGG frustration with the early winter in Nebraska, which foiled the best-laid plans of the Girls. They coped...

* Common Sense Image Use by guest blogger Maureen Taylor on Thomas MacEntee's Geneabloggers blog. Maureen shares her thoughts and some guidelines about using images on your blog or website.

* Getting there by Pat Richley-Erickson on the DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog. Pat discusses how and why our ancestors migrated, and then how we can find them wherever they are! It's good to see her writing again!

* Shades Of The Departed - The Magazine by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog. The November 2009 issue of this online genealogy magazine, written by genea-bloggers, is stunning and excellent. Read and enjoy.

* A Thought: Could the 1890 Population Schedules Be Re-created? by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. It's an interesting thought, and Craig has devised a way it could be done. What do you think?

* How do I do genealogy? by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James ponders how people search for things, like their ancestors. Naturally, he has some recommendations!

* The Value of Networking with your Peers by Angela Walton-Raji on the GenealogyWise African-Ancestored Forum. Angela recounts her experiences at the First International Black Genealogy Summit in Fort Wayne last week, and has wise advice for every researcher.

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 530 genealogy bloggers using Bloglines, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

5 comments:

James Tanner said...

Thanks again for the list. I guess I am going into information overload, I missed some of the best items on your list in my readers that you pointed out.

Dorene from Ohio said...

So glad to see Shades of the Departed-- the Magazine on your list of "The Best." It is awesome!

footnoteMaven said...

Randy:

Thank you so much for the shout out for Shades The Magazine. It was your wish and my command!

And Dorene thank you! The best is yet to come.

fM

DearMYRTLE said...

THANKS for the shout out, Randy!

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