Sunday, August 7, 2011

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 31 July to 6 August 2011

...
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:


The FamilySearch Tree's "Universal" Future by Michael McCormick on the Enduring Legacy Genealogy blog.  Mike relates Gordon Clarke's comments about New FamilySearch.

Essential NON-Genealogy Books about New England  by Marian Pierre-Louis on Marian's Roots and Rambles blog.  Marian's readers submitted these books for her list - it's superb!

*  Ancestry.com is an Animal  by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog.  Mr. AI summarizes a talk about Ancestry.com's search capabilities from the BYU Conference.  I'm encouraged - I think I hit all of thesep oints in my own talk recently.

BYU Conference on Family History & Genealogy 2011  by Susan LeBlanc on the Gopher Genealogy blog.  Susan summarizes her experiences at the BYU Conference.

J.K. Rowling's Case of Mistaken Identity - Why Genealogists Caught What Others Missed by Kimberly Powell on the About.com Genealogy blog.  Kimberly did independent research on Rowling and found what the WDYTYA researchers did - this is a great research story!

Land Records 101: Why Land?, Land Records 102: State Lands vs Public LandsLand Records 103: State Land Descriptions, and Land Records 104: Public Land Descriptions by Susan Farrell Bankhead on Susan's Genealogy Blog.  This is an outstanding series on land records - a keeper!

A Little Land Record Lesson by Anne Roach on The TechnoGenealogist blog.  Anne visited a busy county office and learned a new way to look at land records. In teresting!

5 Tips for Snapping the Perfect Dear Photograph Picture, A Not-So-Wordless Wednesday Post by Denise Levenick on The Family Curator blog.  Denise provides guidance for making a neat Dear Photograph photograph.

Carnival of Genealogy, 108th Edition by Jasia on the Creative Gene blog.  This monthly carnival has 17 posts on the subject of "Food."

Adoption Record Research by Carolyn Barkley on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog. This excellent article may help many adoptees trying to find their own birth parents, or help researchers trying to help adoptees.

Open Discussion Weekend: YOUR Ideal Season of Who Do You Think You Are? by Susan Petersen on the Long Lost Relatives.net blog.  Susan shares her list, and wants to know yours. 

Are you practicing Genealogy Ethically? by Dave Dowell on the Dr. D. Digs Up Ancestors blog.  It's a good question, and Dave offers some commentary and questions for us to answer.

The Case of the Forged Will and The Court Battle Continues: The Case of the Forged Will, part 2 by Claudia Breland on the Claudia C. Breland Genealogy and Online Research blog.  Claudia's excellent genealogy detective work brings this case back to life.  I found it fascinating.

Are you sure you're looking in the right county for those records? by Randy Majors on the RandyMajors.com blog.  Randy has tweaked his Historical County Boundary Maps interactive tool so you can see the county boundaries every ten years.  This is really cool.

Several genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week, including:

Monday Morning Mentions by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.

Monday's Link Roundup by Dan Curtis on the Dan Curtis ~ Professional Personal Historian blog.

Ruth's Recommendations by Ruth Blair on The Passionate Genealogist blog.

Genealogy Round Up, August 4 by Megan Smolenyak on the Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's Roots World blog.

Follow Friday: This Week’s Favorite Finds by Jen on the Climbing My Family Tree blog.

Genealogy News Corral, August 1-5 by Diane Haddad on the Genealogy Insider blog.

Week in Review by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog.

I encourage readers to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blogs 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 1020 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

2 comments:

Susan Petersen said...

Thanks for the shout-out, Randy! I appreciate. Seems like folks are having fun coming up with their fantasy seasons of WDYTYA.

Family Curator said...

Thanks for including my photo tips post in your round-up, Randy. It's an honor to be in such good company.

Looks like the challenge photos are coming in strong, too. Lots of fun, tanks to you.