Sunday, June 20, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - June 13-19, 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:

* Genealogist or Gossip by the writer of The Ancestry Insider. Mr. AI continues his series about evidence management and conclusions.

* Summer of Genealogy Wishes - I Wish For A Ph.D. by Karen Rhodes posted by Tina Lyons on the Gen Wish List blog. Karen wishes for a university that awards PhDs in genealogy, and one for herself.

* Ancestry.com Missing Documents and NARA Responds to Ancestry.com Issues by the writer of The Ancestry Insider. These posts discuss problems with missing documents on Ancestry.com and the NARA response. NARA says it wasn't their fault, but now they're working with Ancestry on quality issues.


* President's 2009-2010 Year-End Review by Robert L. Ward on the Cape Cod Genealogical Society blog. Robert is the outgoing President of CCGS, and reported on the state of his society. If every society did this annually, they would have an excellent historical record!

* Why Read Blogs (and More)? by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog. Very interesting advice in this article - are you reading more than blogs and applying the gained knowledge to your research?

* Genealogy Programs for Windows by Dick Eastman on Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog. Dick describes many of the Windows genealogy software programs for his readers.

* Treasure Chest Thursday: Another enslaved ancestor found! and Follow Friday: Finding my Enslaved Third Great-Grandmother by Dionne Ford on the Finding Josephine blog. "I desire to find my people." Dionne's second great-grandmother wrote those words. A beautiful story, and a testament to the power of blogging, networking, and RAOGK.

* Ancestry’s Public Member Trees: An Addictive New Game by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. Interesting take here by the Tree Trampler with Will Bombs and Land-Deed Grenades ... funny one too.

* Random thoughts on FamilySearch by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James highlights some problems and quirks with the FamilySearch development that concern him.


* Lucky the Massachusetts Genealogist When It Comes to Vital Records by Polly Kimmitt on the Pollyblog blog. Ah, the travails of the New England researcher. Polly shows why it's not always easy, but easier than many places, to do research there.

* 10 Names I Decided Not To Use For My Genealogy Company by Chris Staats on the Staats Place blog. Chris has the humor pick of the week! I hope Elyse is paying attention!

* CoAAG 4th Edition: FreedomTweet 2010 ~ What Does FREEDOM Mean To You & Me? by Luckie Daniels on the Our Georgia Roots blog. The theme of this Carnival of African-American Genealogy was Freedom - what an excellent set of meaningful posts.

* Follow Friday 18 June 2010 by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. A fine list of Greta's favorites from the week.

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John highlights his favorite reads of the week.

* SCGS Jamboree 2010 Post Summary highlights all of the genea-bloggers that wrote articles about their experiences at the SCGS Jamboree last weekend. Lots of neat research stories, photographs and talk summaries on the list!

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

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

3 comments:

Tina Lyons said...

Randy, Thanks again for including my blog in your weekly round up.

Greta Koehl said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy. I'd like to add that there were some excellent comments on the PMT post as well (one of them actually influenced my decision on how to handle one of these trees).

Anonymous said...

Didn't you see my post on "Why Genealogy Is Everyone’s Solemn Duty" at: http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/blog/?p=762