Sunday, December 6, 2009

Best of the Genea-Blogs - November 29-December 5, 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:

* Case Study: Frances I (Goering) Froman McDonnell , Case Study: McDonnell Part II - SSDI, Docu-Challenge #2 - Funeral Card, Case Study: McDonnell Part III - Death Certificate, Case Study: McDonnell Part IV - Family Bible by Pat Richley-Erickson on the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Blog. It is great to have "old MYRT" blogging again - and this series provides an in-depth look at how she gathers and analyzes different resources. To be continued!

* Genealogy is Like Love by Travis LeMaster on the TJL Genes:Preserving our Family History blog. Travis states a wonderful maxim - "Genealogy is like love - it is nothing until you give it away." He then explains how he helped another researcher over Thanksgiving. Excellent post!

* English genealogical sources newly digitized by John D. Reid on the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. John lists recent additions to the Allen County Public Library, and Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/), digitized records.

* Intimations of Mortality… Using the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com blog. This post explains the US census mortality schedules and where to find them. Nice work.

* Family-Friendly Video-Sharing Platforms by Denise Olson on the Family Matters blog. Denise offers several options for the budding creator to upload their videos for the world to see...or keep them private.

* Saving A Life’s Work by Tom Fiske on Leland Meitzler's GenealogyBlog blog. This is another outstanding piece by Tom - what he is doing to save his genealogy work for posterity, or whoever else wants to use it.

* From Birthday Gift to Heirloom… by Sherry Stocking Kline on the Family Tree Writer blog. Sherry has a fascinating story about an heirloom in the making - interesting take and great story-telling.

* How to Batch Genealogy Tasks to Save Time by Katrina McQuarrie on the Kick-Ass Genealogy blog. Katrina has excellent ideas on how to work efficiently and effectively when gathering, sorting, inputting or analyzing your genealogy information.

* Didn’t Have To Travel Far by Lee Drew on the FamHist blog. Lee discusses the feelings we have, and the need to visit, the burial places of our family and ancestors. Nice post.

* It's All On the Internet (No, Really) by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. Martin found 300 years of ancestry in 15 minutes for a friend - but that's because the guy had a New England ancestry. Great quote: "It's your brick wall that's impossible." Read all of the post, especially the caveats.

* Privacy laws? Even for 100+ year old burials by Paula Stuart-Warren on the Paula's Genealogical Eclectica blog. Paula laments the various laws that make no sense and keep genealogy records hidden away.

* Graveyard Guru – December 3, 2009: The Death Wail by Stephanie Lincecum in The Online Graveyard Rabbit Journal. Read about wailing, keening, banshees, and death songs in Stephanie's post.

* "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" & The Great Locomotive Chase by Jean Wilcox Hibben on the Circlemending blog. What a fascinating song and bit of history that Jean provides us in this post.

* 85th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: Orphans and Orphans by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog. Greta did a great job summarizing 22 posts on the topic of "Orphans and Orphans." There are several "new-to-me" blogs on this list.

* Footnote, Census, and FamilySearch by Beau Sharbrough on The Unofficial Footnote Blog. Beau describes the present status of online US Census records and wonders what will happen when they are all freely available.

* Weekly Rewind by Apple on the Apple's Tree blog. Apple does a weekly summary of her activities, carnivals posted, get-well notes, and her selection of favorite blog posts.

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

3 comments:

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

Thanks for the mention Randy! With all the blogs out there you usually find some interesting things that I miss.

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Moultrie Creek said...

Thanks for the plug. I'm glad you enjoyed the article and hope to see some video stories from you soon!