Sunday, December 19, 2010

Best of the Genea-Blogs - December 12-18, 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:

ProGen Study Groups by Angela McGhie on the Adventures in Genealogical Education blog.  Angela outlines the ProGen Study Group program and encourages serious genealogists who want to improve their skills to consider joining a group.

Planning Reasonably Exhaustive Research by Tonia Kendrick on the Tonia's Roots blog.  Tonia shares her notes from a Thomas Jones lecture on this topic.

Technologically speaking, where will we be next year at this time? Part One and Part Two by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog.  Crystal ball time - and James has a fairly clear one!

Applying The Scientific Method to Genealogical Research (Part 6) by Steve Danko on Steve's Genealogy Blog.  This series demonstrates how Steve uses the scientific method to analyze and solve research problems.  The link is to the last part, which has links to all six of the posts in the series.

“Gimme an ‘N’!”: Using Neighbors To Solve Deed Dilemmas by Chris Staats on the Staats Place blog.  Chris has success using the FAN Club principle (Friends, associates, Neighbors) to sort out some property ownership trails.

Benjaman Kyle – Close Calls, Part I and Part II by Colleen Fitzpatrick on the Identifinders Blog.  Like many others, I am fascinated by the Benjaman Kyle case.  I love that Colleen is sharing her progress in the case on a regular basis. 

*  Lost Souls of Children by Polly Kimmitt on the Pollyblog.  Polly found newspaper reports for a child that died young with no official record of birth or death in one of her ancestral families.  Good work, including using an online family tree as a finding aid.

The Top Personal History Blogs of 2010 by Dan Curtis on the Dan Curtis - Professional Personal Historian blog.  Check Dan's picks for 2010 - you'll enjoy the reads.

We Want Tech: Automatic Citations by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog.  Mr. AI laments the poor citation creations on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch and yearns for something better.

What is research: Understanding the Kaleidoscope  by GeneJ on the Build a Better GEDCOM blog.  I love the graphic in this post created by GeneJ.  Very helpful to understand doing a Reasonably Exhaustive Search.

More thoughts on preservation by Pat Richley-Erickson on the DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog.  Ol' MYRT commented on the NARA post about the 2010 Census preservation, and has more questions and comments besides. 

Trends in use of genealogy-related terms revealed by John D. Reid on the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog.  John used the new Google Books NGram Viewer to look for trends over the past 200 years

Online Historical Newspapers Galore! by Miriam Midkiff on the Ancestories: Stories of My Ancestors blog.  There are two major announcements and additions to the online newspaper world - Miriam is on top of them.
A Digital Genealogical Disaster Plan or What's the Minimal Amount of Family HIstory to Pass On? by Michelle Goodrum on The Turning of Generations blog.  Excellent list.  Michelle's actually doing this - have you?  I haven't.  I should.

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

* Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - December 17 by Susan Petersen on the Long Lost Relatives.net blog.

* Best Bytes for the Week of December 17, 2010 by Elizabeth O'Neal on the Little Bytes of Life blog.

* Friday Newsletter and Follow News: 17 December 2010 by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Bog blog.

* Donna's Picks - December 17, 2010 by Donna Pointkouski on the What's Past is Prologue 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 740 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

Genea-Musings is on the road for the next two weeks, so there will be no Best of the Genea-Blogs posts on 26 December or 2 January.  BOGB will return on 9 January!

7 comments:

GeneJ said...

Oh, Randy, thank you so much for spotlighting the BetterGEDCOM effort and our postings on the Build a BetterGEDCOM blog. More diagrams to come!

DearMYRTLE said...

Thanks for the kind comments,

Randy. I learn so much by reading your posts and particularly appreciate your Best of the GeneaBloggers post each week.

Michelle Goodrum said...

Randy, Thanks for the shout-out.

Unknown said...

Randy, Thanks for highlighting my ProGen blog post. I love your "Best of the Genea-Blogs" each week.

Miriam Robbins said...

Thanks, Randy!

Dan Curtis said...

Randy, thanks for highlighting my post and blog. Much appreciated!

Polly F. Kimmitt said...

Randy, I'm always honored when you highlight my blog! Thanks so much!