Saturday, July 23, 2011

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Write a Poem on "Where I'm From"

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Hey there, Genea-Nauts -- It's Saturday Night, and time for more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Write a poem about "Where I'm From" using the template found at the website http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm

2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Google Plus or Facebook note.

Thank you to Kevin Huigens of the Family History Nuggets blog for the SNGF suggestion!

Here's mine:

Randy's From Where?

I am from an all grown up small town,
from Rice Krispies and store-bought clothes.

I grew up in a Victorian house with no porches
with angled walls and secret places.
I am from coral trees and boysenberry bushes,
from jacaranda trees with purple flowers.

My San Diego is sun and beach,
sunburn, body surfing and sand castles.
Cavemen, Padres, Chargers and Aztecs,
football in the street, bareball in the park,
bicycles, flexies and scooters, newspaper routes,
berry sales, Piggly Wiggly and five-and-dime stores.

I am from Seavers and Carringers,
from Aubles and Richmonds,
hard working, easy playing,
laughing, learning, and loving.

I am from a family of encouragers
and triers and second place winners.
From "never give up," "do your best"
and "well done, you tried hard."

I am from Episcopalians and agnostics,
and turned into a Presbyterian. 

I'm from Chula Vista, Leominster,
McCook, Oak Grove, Sandy Lake, Aurora,
Killingly, Townsend, Sterling,
colonial America, Wiltshire and Somerset.

From the snake oil salesman, the house painter,
the blacksmith, the farmer,
the carpenter, the wheelwright,
and all of the homemakers.

I am from folks in faded and crumbling pictures,
from homes with wood stoves and straw beds,
from sod houses and salt box houses,
from towns built in the wilderness
by the indomitable human spirit.

If I can do it, you can do it!  It's amazing what memories and thoughts come to mind when you write about "Where I'm From." 

Thank you, Kevin for the idea and the inspiration.

Surname Saturday - WILLIS (England > Massachusetts)

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It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week. I am up to number 259, who is Experience WILLIS (1709-1787), one of my 6th-great-grandparents. [Note: The 6th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts]

My ancestral line back through three  generations of WILLIS families is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

4. Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942)
5. Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)

8. Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922)
9. Hattie Louise Hildreth (1857-1920)

16. Isaac Seaver (1823-1901)
17. Lucretia Townsend Smith (1827-1884)

32. Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825)
33. Abigail Gates (1797-1869)

64. Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816)
65. Martha Whitney (1764-1832)

128. Norman Seaver (1734-1787)
129. Sarah Read (1736-1809)

 258.  Isaac Read, born 23 February 1704 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 28 May 1780 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 516. Thomas Read and 517. Mary Bigelow.  He married 11 February 1730 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
 259.  Experience Willis, born before 10 April 1709 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 06 August 1787 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  


Children of Isaac Read and Experience Willis are:  Isaac Read (1731-1759); Jacob Read (1732-1797); Experience Read (1734-????); Sarah Read (1736-1809); Samuel Read (1740-????); Mary Read (1741-1831);  Ruth Read (1743-1812); Samuel Read (1745-1780); Lois Read (1747-1814); Eunice Read (1749-????); Asahel Read (1753-1775).


 518.  Samuel Willis, born 01 April 1675 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 26 November 1758 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.   He married before July 1703 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
 519.  Susannah Gleason, born 24 March 1676 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 12 May 1756 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  She was the daughter of 1038. Joseph Gleason and 1039. Martha Russell.

Children of Samuel Willis and Susannah Gleason are:  Samuel Willis (1705-????); Experience Willis (1709-1787); Joseph Willis (1712-1799); Elijah Willis (1720-1756).

 1036.  Roger Willis, born about 1646 in probably Massachusetts, United States; died before December 1700 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He married 19 July 1664 in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States.
 1037.  Ruth Hill, born August 1644 in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States; died 01 September 1736 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  She was the daughter of 2074. John Hill and 2075. Frances Tileston.

Children of Roger Willis and Ruth Hill are: Ruth Willis (1666-1701); Mary Willis (1669-????); Samuel Willis (1675-1758); Elizabeth Willis (1678-????); Hannah Willis (1680-????); Josiah Willis (1686-1758); Thankful Willis (1690-1735).

The only useful published work on this family is:

Francis (David) McTeer and Frederick C. Waters, "Willis Family of Sudbury, Massachusetts," New England Historic Genealogical Register, Volume 114, Number 1 (January 1960), page 22.

The parents of Roger Willis are unknown.  The first record of him is his marriage in 1664 to Ruth Hill.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Some Useful Ancestry.com Database Links

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Here are some of the links I provided in my handout for my "Searching Ancestry.com Effectively" presentation.

*  Ancestry Card Catalog of Databases (30,170 as of today) – at http://search.ancestry.com/search/CardCatalog.aspx  --

*  Ancestry Recently Added or Updated Databases -- http://www.ancestry.com/cs/reccol/default

Ancestry.com Blog: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/

There are also some blog posts concerning free, unindexed, and future databases:

*  Free Ancestry.com Databases (only index entries, no images, posted February 2011): http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/2011/02/free-databases-on-ancestrycom.html  

Ancestry.,com World Archives Project Databases (Free Indexes) - http://community.ancestry.com/awap

Unindexed Databases (need to browse, posted May 2010): http://www.geneamusings.com/2010/05/finding-ancestrycom-databases-without.html

*  Ancestry.com's Coming Attractions (posted May 2011): http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2011/05/ancestrycoms-preview-of-coming-attractions.html

Follow Friday - Weekend Genealogy Fun

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Here are my choices for Genealogy Fun this weekend:

1) Listen to Geneabloggers Radio tonight (Friday night, 10 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. CT, 8 p.m. MT and 7 p.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEntee. The topic is "Until We Meet Again! – Family Reunions and Genealogy" The guests are:

Edith Wagner, founder, publisher and editor of Reunions magazine and reunionsmag.com;
Marilyn Stewart, better known as “Aunt Mo” who runs the Family Reunion Helper website;
Lorine McGinnis Schulze of the Olive Tree Genealogy Website.

2) Listen to the FGS My Society radio show on Saturday (2 p.m. ET, 1 p.m. CT, 12 noon MT, 11 a.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEnteeh. The topic is "The Doctor Is In – Solving Your Genealogy Society Problems." The guests include:

Thomas MacEntee will be focusing on current issues and problems that genealogy societies are facing. While Thomas won’t have all the answers, we know the My Society listeners and those on the chat board will come through with some great ideas in the true spirit of problem-solving and collaboration.
 FGS 2011 Conference Speaker of the Week, Linda Geiger, about her upcoming presentations at the conference in Springfield, Illinois this September.

3) Check out the recent Webinars on:

* "Google Images and Beyond," with Maureen Taylor (available free until 1 August from Legacy Family Tree)
* "The Power of DNA in Unlocking Family Relationships," with Ugo Perugo (available indefintely from Legacy Family Tree)
* "Leveraging the Power of "We": a Watershed Event in Discovering Where to Find Your Ancestors (Research Wiki, Research Courses, and FamilySearch Forums)," with Mitchell Ritchey (available from Legacy Family Tree).
* RootsMagic Webinars (all free) available at http://www.rootsmagic.com/Webinars/
* National Genealogical Society (NGS) Videos (free to view) at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/videos_online
Utah Genealogical Association Virtual Chapter Videos (free until 1 August 2011) at http://www.ugagenealogy.com/cpage.php?pt=11

4) Respond to my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, posted on www.geneamusings.com soon after 12 noon Pacific time (that's 1900 GMT for those who understand time zones).

5) Go to a local genealogical society program, or go to a library or repository with genealogical resources.  I wish I could go out on Saturday, but the granddaughters are here for Grandma and Grandpa Camp, so I'm working ion family history instead.

6) Do you still have material in your "genealogy piles" that needs to be added to your genealogy software program? I do, and don't have any hope to work on it this weekend.  But you can go for it if that floats your genealogy boat!

6) Enjoy your family! We have our daughter's family here - two wonderful little girls (ages 3 and 6) ave been here all week while their parents take an Alaskan cruise.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

New Steve Morse One-Step Utility for 1940 Census Enumeration District Maps

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Joel Weintraub and Steve Morse have created a One Step Utility for Viewing 1940 ED Maps on ARC Catalog, and have modified their 1940 Census ED Finding Tool to reflect access to the ED maps on the NARA website.  Here's the press release:

July 21st, 2011

PRESS RELEASE


The National Archives (NARA) has recently uploaded the 1940 Enumeration District (ED) maps to their website.  These ED maps will be very useful for searching rural and small urban areas.

The maps can be located using NARA's Archival Research Catalog (ARC) at
http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/BasicSearchForm.  The ARC search form isn't the easiest to use, so Steve Morse has produced a simpler search form for rapidly getting to these maps.  The new utility entitled: "Viewing 1940 ED Maps in One Step" is at http://www.stevemorse.org/census/arc1940edmaps.html 

 We have revised our tutorial/quiz at
http://stevemorse.org/census/quiz.php to reflect this new locational resource for the upcoming 1940 census.

 Thanks

 Joel Weintraub
 Steve Morse

Some Help for Searching Ancestry.com

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I gave my "Searching Ancestry.com Effectively" presentation last night at GSNOCC in Yorba Linda, California, and noted some of the Ancestry.com information pages and help screens to the attendees.  Many commented afterwards that they did not know about these, and they appear to explain quite a bit about the topics, so I wanted to share them here:

The Customer Help Page has Knowledge Base major topics for Online Family Tree, Family Tree Maker, Record Types and MyCanvas.

What is the best way to search the databases on Ancestry?

Tips for Searching on Ancestry.com - http://search.ancestry.com/LandingPages/SearchTips.aspx

How are Exact Searches and Ranked Searches different, and when might I use one over the other?

*  “First Name Filters” in “New Search” http://search.ancestry.com/Search/Help/SearchForm.aspx?topic=fname

*  “Last Name Filters” in “New Search” http://search.ancestry.com/Search/Help/SearchForm.aspx?topic=lname

Locality Filter” in “New Search” - http://search.ancestry.com/Search/Help/SearchForm.aspx?topic=places

Wild Card Rules: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2010/01/04/ancestry-search-improved-wildcard-flexibility/

There are many more pages in the Customer Help section, and through links on many of the search pages.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 74: James Richmond's Death Certificate

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It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is James Richmond's (1824-1911) death certificate in Putnam, Windham County, Connecticut:



I obtained this death certificate by postal mail from the Putnam CT Town Clerk's office back in the early 1990s.

Here is the transcription of the death certificate (handwritten parts underlined and italic):


State of Connecticut Bureau of Vital Statistics

Medical Certificate of Death

1. Full name of deceased:  James Richmond
2. Primary cause of death: Pneumonia  3. Duration: 9 days
4. Secondary or contributory: La Grippe  5. Duration: [blank]
Remarks: [none]

I hereby Certify that I attended the deceased in h er last illness, and that the cause of death was as above stated.
................................ Signature J.B. Kent
Dated December 21st 19 12 ... Address Putnam


Undertaker's Certificate Personal and Statistical

1. Full name of deceased:  James Richmond
2. Place of Death -- Putnam Conn.
3. Number of families in house: One
4. Residence at time of death: Putnam Conn.
5. Occupation: Farmer
6. Condition (state whether single, married, divorced or widowed)
7. If wife, or widow, give name of husband: 
8. Date of death -- year: 1912, month: Dec, day: _20__
9. Date of birth -- year: 1821, month: Apr, day: __22_
10. Age:  91 years, 7 months, 18_ days
11. Sex: Male
12. Color: White
13. Birthplace -- Town: _______________ State or Country: Eng
14. Father's name in full: John Richmond
15. Father's birthplace: Town: _______________ State or Country: _"__ [England]
16. Mother's Maiden Name: Ann Marshman
17. Mother's birthplace -- Town: ______________ State or Country: _Eng__ [England]
18. Place of burial: Putnam Ct Cemetery: Grove St.
19. Name of informant: Thomas Richmond Address: Putnam Ct
20. Was body embalmed: yes If so name of embalmer: J.E. Rich License No. 420

Signature of Undertaker: Lebbeus E. Smith Address: Putnam Ct.

I posted the death certificate of James Richmond's wife last week, in Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 73: Hannah (Rich) Richmond's Death Certificate.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Iowa State Picnic for Southern California on August 6, 2011.

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This information was received from Liz Stookesberry Myers of the Questing Heirs Genealogical Society:

The 111th Annual Iowa State Picnic for Southern California is being held on  Saturday, August 6th from 9:30 to 2:30 at the Long Beach Lawn Bowling Club, 1109 Federation Drive, Long Beach, CA 90804.  At about 11:30 the potluck will start.  Bring a dish to share, your own beverage, and your own eating utensils.  Let us know if you are coming by calling Jo Ann Kock  at 562/421-0726 or E-mailing: countrygaljo@aol.com.

The Lawn Bowling Club has picnic and other tables/chairs.  It is  handicapped accessible with plenty of parking.  However, extra chairs may be needed. Take East Anaheim Street West, Left at Park Avenue, and left on Federation Drive.  The 22 Freeway-West turns into 7th Street.  Take 7th Street West, and right on Federation Drive.

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 162: Betty and Nana

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I'm posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be Wordless Wednesday posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here is a photograph from the Seaver/Carringer family collection handed down by my mother in the
1988-2002 time period:


This photograph is of my mother, Betty Virginia Carringer, with her maternal grandmother, Georgianna (Kemp) Auble, sitting on a bridge railing at Mission Cliffs Park in San Diego in 1926 (according to the caption below the photo).  The photo was in the Bessie Pentecost photograph album that I found recently (again) in my Carringer treasure box, and scanned last month.

I have very few pictures of Betty as a young girl or Georgia as a middle-age matron.  I love my mother's hair style - it looks just like my granddaughter's hair style!

"Searching Ancestry.com Effectively" Presentation at GSNOCC Tonight!

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I will be presenting "Searching Ancestry.com Effectively" tonight (Wednesday, 20 July 2011) at the Genealogical Society of North Orange County, California (GSNOCC) meeting.  The program schedule is:
 
6:15 p.m.: Beginners’ class (open to experienced folks, too!)
7 p.m.: A brief business meeting
7:15 p.m.: The program
At the end: Refreshments and conversation

Yorba Linda Community Center
4501 Casa Loma Avenue (at Imperial Highway)
Yorba Linda

The program description and Randy's CV:

Ancestry.com has many wonderful features--a lavish buffet where it is hard to choose what to use and how to use it. Randy will discuss the effective use of such features as new or old search algorithms, basic or advanced search forms, exact or ranked matches, full names or wild cards, specific or all databases, restricted or whole collection, and site navigation.

Randy Seaver is a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University in Aerospace Engineering, and a retired aerodynamics engineer with a 38-year career at Rohr/Goodrich in Chula Vista. His ancestry is mainly colonial New England and Upper Atlantic, with some colonial German, French and Dutch forbears, and several 19th-century English immigrants.

Randy's activities include serving the Chula Vista Genealogical Society (former President, currently Newsletter Editor and Research Chairman); speaking to Southern California genealogy groups; teaching senior adult genealogy classes at OASIS; and writing the Genealogy 2.0 column for the FGS’s FORUM Magazine. He is a member of NGS, NEHGS, SDGS, CVGS, and CGSSD, and blogs daily about genealogy at Genea-Musings (www.geneamusings.com), The Geneaholic (www.geneaholic.com), and the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe (http://CVGenCafe.blogspot.com).

For additional information, please call GSNOCC at 714-996-9511, visit their web site at http://gsnocc.org, their blog at http://gsnocc.blogspot.com or Facebook.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Post #5000

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A funny thing happened five years and three months ago on my way to the ice cream store - I said to myself "Randy, maybe you could blog about something once a week or so...about genealogy, politics, sports, religion, you, know, your life."  My wife said "Honey, that would probably be pretty boring - who in the world would read what you write?"

So the experiment began, and 5,000 posts later here I am - stuck in a rut of writing two or three or more blog posts each days about genealogy on Genea-Musings, a daily journal blog post on The Geneaholic almost every day, and occasional posts on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe and the South San Diego County Graveyard Rabbit.  Then there's Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus!  My wife wonders what I do in the Genealogy Cave every day for eight or ten hours! 

Oh, I forgot, there's my society meetings, society presentations, the senior adult and CVGS education classes, and I even find time to spend on online research (and occasional repository research), entering data into my database, entertaining the grandchildren and my wife, and watching Padres baseball games on TV or at Petco Park.  There is Life with Genealogy!  But, for me, there is no Life without Genealogy!  It's part of me, who I am, and has been for 23 years.

In celebration of my 5,000th post (that's over 2.6 posts per day on average, and over 950 posts per year on average), I'm going to take the rest of the day off and take the grandgirls to Sea World today.  I'll try to write something tomorrow.

"Life is short - eat ice cream and do genealogy first!"

Tombstone Tuesday's Tip - Use Google Images to Find Family Photos

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This week's Tuesday Tip is to:  Use Google Images to find family photos in online collections.

Google has an Images page at http://www.google.com/imghp that can find almost any image online (it seems that way!) if you do a search. 

I did some research several years ago for my aunt's husband's family - the Remleys.  I recently added that database to my ancestral database so that all of the spouses of my aunts and uncles are in it, so I went searching for images of Remley people and gravestones and whatever else I could find. 

A search for [remley cemetery] in Google Images brought up over 3,000 images:


On later pages, there is a collection of cemetery photographs from many cemeteries in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, where my uncle Jim Remley grew up.  I found a wonderful gravestone picture of his paternal grandparents:


 I contacted the photographer and he sent some images to me, including this one - surprise - Uncle Jim's gravestone too!  


Jim is right in front of the gravestone of his father and step-mother (the photographer has done a magnificent job in Lawrence County!).  I had forgotten that he was to be buried in Lawrence county PA.

Since Blogger puts images uploaded in Blogger-based blogs (including Genea-Musings) into PicasaWeb albums, and other people save their family images in free PicasaWeb albums, there are thousands (probably millions) of family pictures, gravestone pictures, newspaper clippings, documents, etc. available online. 

There are other images that Google finds on web pages in a Google Image search.  And, yes, they do have copyright protection. 

The major problem is, of course, that not all of them have captions or metadata associated with them, so it's a bit of a mess to find specific people. 

It is also Tombstone Tuesday, so I captured two daily blogging meme's in one post!

Monday, July 18, 2011

FamilySearch Collection Navigation Hints

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In my post Tuesday's Tip - How to Find New/Updated Collections on FamilySearch.org two weeks ago, I complained about some of the FamilySearch navigation problems.

Reader Dana Frantz in Australia offered some very helpful tips on how to avoid the frustrations that I encountered.  Here are Dana's ideas:

My problem:  The problem I have is when I go back to the Historical Collections page after browsing or searching, it always reverts back to the alphabetical listing. After doing a keyword search like the above, you cannot return to that page of results for the keyword - you have to go to the main Historical Collections page and search again.

Dana's solution:  Try using a right mouse click on the collection you want to search or browse then choose either Open in a New Tab or Open in a New Window (I usually use the New Tab). Either way you keep your initial page in the Last Update Order and can move back and forth as you wish.

Also, when using the Search Collections box on the left, if you type slowly, the software will search as you type.  Don't actually click on the search button and when you are finished using the results of the search, delete the search terms from the search box and it will go back to the initial page in the same order you started with (Last Update Order).


Two great suggestions for my problems!  Right-click, and don't hit Search.  Those are very simple, very correct, and extremely useful!  Why didn't I know that?  I just have not worked that way.  I use the Windows right-click button occasionally, but it's not what I think of first!  The "don't hit Search button" idea works too. 

These ideas will save me lots of time!  Thank you, Dana! 

1940 Census Enumeration District Maps Online at NARA Website

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I wrote about the 1940 U.S. Census Enumeration District Finder prepared by Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub three weeks ago. 

Joel alerted my to Ginny Somarstrom's post Getting Ready for the 1940 Census on the Seattle Genealogical Society President's Blog written on 15 July.  Ginny provided a link to the National Archives ARC website that has the 1940 census maps of the Enumeration Districts.  The link for the Search is http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/BasicSearchForm.

It is best if you put 1940 census maps [county name] [state name] in the Search box.  I put 1940 census maps san diego california in the Search box, and received 10 matches.  Eight of the ten matches had the "Digital Copy Available" icon to the left of the title.  I picked one of them, the one for 1940 Census Enumeration District Maps - California - San Diego County - San Diego - ED 62-1 - ED 62-142, and there are four tabs on that page.  The one for "Digital Copies" brings up the maps in a thumbnail view.  There are 36 maps for this particular item.


I scrolled through the thumbnails and found my grandparents area, and saw this map:



This screen image is of the map with my grandparents home block on it (bounded by Hawthorn, 30th, Ivy and Fern Streets in San Diego).  I saw no easy way to zoom in or out on the web page.  I saved the page as an image, and was able to use my Photo Viewer to zoom in and out.

The Enumeration District numbers appear to be written on the map - they're very faint in the images for San Diego (likely written in a colored ink that doesn't show well on the images).  For my grandparents home, the ED seems to be 63.

One of the benefits of these maps, from all over the United States, is that you can see the street names, and the housing development, of the cities and towns in 1940.  I'm a map freak, and love stuff like this!

Thank you, Ginny, for the lead, and thank you, Joel, for the notice on this!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 10 July to 16 July 2011

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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:


Google+ vs Facebook vs Twitter – 10 Things and Google+ – What’s Missing by Banai Feldstein on The Ginger Jewish Genealogy blog.  Banai was one of the first to work on Google+ and shares her opinions.

Jumping on the Google+ Bandwagon by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy blog.  More commentary about the Google+ features.

Enjoyed Speaking, Would Do Again: My Analysis/Newbie Support Post by Chris Staats on the Staats Place blog.  Chris jumped into the genealogy speaking circuit and tells us all about it...excellent retrospective.

Collaborative Genealogy by GeneaPopPop on the Stardust 'n' Roots blog.  An interesting collaboration, with answers to two questions about speed and quality of the result.

FamilySearch.org SSDI Citation Review by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog.  Mr AI looks at how FamilySearch sources the SSDI, and doesn't like what he sees. 

Genealogy and Science by J.H. Fonkert on the Four Generations Genealogy blog.  Jay nicely addresses the issues here that were discussed at great length on the APG Public List.

Who Will Google Kill This Time? by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog.  Excellent commentary and analysis.

Hanging Out with Google+ by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on the Nutfield Genealogy blog. Heather discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the Hangout video chat on Google+. 

Dear Santa... by Jill Ball on the Geniaus blog.  Jill loves her new "toy" (Google+) but has some suggestions for the upgraded version.

Getting a Great Genealogical Education for Little or No Money! by Valerie Elkins on the Family Cherished blog.  Valerie provides an excellent summary of many of the free or inexpensive educational offerings available.

The Patient Part I, The Patient Part II, and  The Patient Part III by K.S. on the Walking My Tree blog.  Angela has pursued records from a Connecticut State Hospital with vigor, and gets her reward.

* Genealogy for Kids: My Ancestors in the Civil War, Genealogy for Kids: Conducting Interviews by Jen on the Climbing My Family Tree blog.  More family history activities for children.

FAMILY ORAL HISTORY – Part 1 – Memories Game and Part 2 – Using a Smart Pen by Joan Miller on the Luxegen Genealogy and Family History blog.  Joan had wonderful luck getting her family to recite memories, and she was able to record them.  Check out these tools!

How Not to Become Certified, part one and part two by Michael Hait on the Planting the Seed blog.  Michael shares his own commentary, and the judges commentary, on his application to be a Certified genealogist.  We can all learn from his experience, and apply the lessons learned.  Michael did, and earned his CG recently.

Shades The Magazine - Occupations - July/August by footnoteMaven on the Shades of the Departed blog.  An excellent digital magazine on genealogy and photography...always!

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

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

Links, 7.11.11 by Liz Haigney Lynch on The Ancestral Archaeologist blog.
Monday Morning Mentions by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.

Follow Friday Newsletter: 15 July 2011 by Greta Koehl on the Greta's Genealogy Bog blog.

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

* Follow Friday - So Much to Do So Little Time! by Cheryl Cayemberg on the Have You Seen My Roots? 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 1000 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.