Sunday, January 24, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - January 17-23, 2010

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:

* A New Computer Revolution is Rising Around Us by Dick Eastman on the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. Dick shares his reasons for believing that these are exciting times to be a computer-using genealogist. He has contacts in the industry and has a good view of the future.

* An Afternoon with Ancestry.com by Heather Rojo on the Nutfield Genealogy blog. Heather relates her experiences of loading a really big family tree file into FTM 2009. Her serial experience is interesting and may be comforting to others who have had problems doing this.

* Carnival of Genealogy, 88th Edition by Jasia on the Creative Gene blog. The theme for this Carnival post was "Volunteerism," and there were 26 entries. Jasia chose Sherry Kline's post Volunteering - Carnival of Genealogy posted at Family Tree Writer as the featured post of the carnival. The topic for the next edition is "Ode to My Family History!" Submissions are due by February 1.

* Obstacles in the Genealogical Workflow by Dan Lawyer on the FamilySearch Labs Blog. Dan summarized the suggestions he received to his earlier question on this subject.

* Why Bother Publishing? and Why Bother Publishing Part II by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. Martin wonders if publishing articles in periodicals is worthwhile, since many researchers cannot find them or refuse to look for them. With examples.

* Genealogy - What's the point? by Abba-Dad on the I Dream of Genea(logy) blog. For writing things down off the top of his head, Amir did a nice job! Why do you do genealogy? He tells his reasons and asks for yours.

* Why should I go to a genealogical conference? by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James offers some reasons and notes that maybe genealogy is not as "popular" as we like to think it is.

* The Genealogy Reference Desk Institute, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 by Amanda Acquard on the A Tale of Two Ancestors blog. Amanda attended the American Library Association meeting at NEHGS in Boston and attended a series of talks by renowned genealogical and historical speakers. The series should continue next week.

* News Ketchup for 21 January 2010 by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog. The AI tries to summarize the genealogy news from the past few weeks, and does a nice job of it.

* Churchyard Literature: A Short Essay on Epitaphs by Stephanie Lincecum in her "Graveyard Guru" column on the Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal blog. Stephanie provides historical background and reasons for gravestone epitaphs - plus transcribes some "good ones."

* The Twittering Genealogist Slides by Mark Tucker on the ThinkGenealogy blog. Mark shares his slides prepared for the Mesa, Arizona Family History Expo this weekend. Take a look at them. Well done!

* Remember Microfilm? Obituary of Charles Judson, age 3 (1879) by the author of the HERSTORYAN blog. Here is a step-by-step of finding and then using microfilm to find an ancestral family member's obituary. I love it when a plan works out well.

* Pro Bono Anyone? by Sheri Fenley on The Educated Genealogist blog. Sheri is looking for a research project to pursue for free - any takers? There are requirements.

* Organizing The Paper Mountain (Part 1) and Organizing The Paper Mountain (Part 2) by Elyse Doerflinger on Elyse's Genealogy Blog. Elyse has excellent ideas for this often monumental task. She has one more post in the series to publish.

* Weekly Rewind by Apple on the Apple's Tree blog. As always, Apple finds really interesting blog posts and stories that I've missed.

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John's picks are different from mine - and some I've missed.

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

7 comments:

Herstoryan said...

Yeah! I made your list! Thanks, Randy! [I was quietly hoping to make your list someday!] Happy Dance! Thank you for reading! :)

Sheri Fenley said...

Thanks for the help in spreading the word Seaver!

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

Thanks Randy, for another good, and interesting thing out of a potentially bad experience!

Sherry - Family Tree Writer said...

Thank you, Randy! I appreciate being included! Like Herstoryan says "Happy Dance!"

I also appreciate all the Blog Challenges you come up with, especially the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun ones! We had so much going on this weekend, that I'll be lucky to get my SNGF posted before tomorrow!

Amanda E. Perrine said...

Thank you so much for putting my posts on the list, Randy!!! I agree with Herstoryan: [I was quietly hoping to make your list someday!] I just never thought someday would be so soon!

Abba-Dad said...

Thanks for the mention Randy. I really appreciate being included. I'm still hoping to get some more responses to the post...

Nancy said...

I think this is the first time I've been to your blog. I'll have to keep coming back. I'm impressed by all the reading you must do during a week to post these bests. Thanks for making a list and giving details and links.

Nancy from My Ancestors and Me at www.nancysfamilyhistoryblog.blogspot.com