Sunday, October 31, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of 24-30 October 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:

My Family on Kindle by Valerie Craft on the Begin With 'Craft' blog.  In addition to reading books and periodicals, Kindle can be used to read PDF files of genealogy subjects, like pedigree charts and reports.

A Sunday Road Trip to New York Part1 and Part2 by Bill West on the West in New England blog.  Bill and his sister visited the Statue of Liberty and  Ellis Island last week and had a great time.  Nice pictures!

Genealogist-ologist-ologist by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog.  Mr. AI addresses how genealogy is like the game of concentration, and how some genealogy website/software product managers approach their tasks.  Read the comments too.

Genealogical Smackdown: Colonials vs. Immigrants by Donna Pointkouski on the What's Past is Prologue blog.  Donna debated me for a bit last spring, and writes an even-handed summary of both arguments.  It points out that genealogy research is hard everywhere!

Evidence Analysis Webinar Available Online by Angela McGhie on the Adventures in Genealogy Education blog.  Angela highlights an excellent webinar presented by Karen Clifford at the ICAPGEN seminar last week.

The War of 1812 - Get Ready to Celebrate by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog.  Carolyn provides a brief history lesson, a summary of War of 1812 records available to researchers, and bibliography.

Talks tour of Australia by Chris Paton on the Scottish GENES (GEnealogy News and EventS) blog.  Chris made presentations in four cities in Australia in 12 days, and it looks like he had an excellent time doing it.  Nice pictures, too, of our Australian colleagues.

The History of Aprons by Arlene Eakle on the Arlene H. Eakle's Genealogy Blog.  An excellent short article about the myriad uses of aprons.  Who knew?  Well, I'm male, so I didn't.  Our kids don't either.

Top 10 Things I Learned in Breaking Down my Brick Wall by Terri on the Finding Our Ancestors blog.  This concise list of Terri's should be considered by every researcher.  I loved it.

GOGS - Omaha Conference was Great! by Susan Petersen on the Long Lost Relatives.net blog.  Susan summarized the presentations at this day-long conference this past week.

Several other genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts this week, including:

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - Oct 29 by Susan Petersen on the Long Lost Relatives.net blog.

Best Bytes for the Week of October 29th by Elizabeth O'Neal on the Little Bytes of Life blog.  

Friday Newsletter: 29 October 2010 by Great Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog. 

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS 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 690 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

NOTE:  There is a very good chance that I will be unable to write a Best of the Genea-Blogs post next week - we have grandpa duty for a week!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy, Thanks for including my Top 10 List in your "Best of" post. It is greatly appreciated!

Susan Petersen said...

Thanks so much for including my post in this week's list, Randy! I really appreciate it!

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Thanks for including my "Best Bytes" list, Randy!

Donna - What's Past is Prologue said...

Thanks, Randy. That shows you how behind I am with my ideas. Your post from March gave me the idea, I talked to other bloggers at the conference in April and I think I contacted you about it in May or June. I never did anything about it after we talked...so here we are in October and I finally got around to writing about it! Better late than never...