Sunday, November 19, 2017

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 12 to 18 November 2017

Dozens 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 daily blog prompts or 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:


How to Find Compiled Military Service Records for Your Ancestors by Michael Strauss on Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems blog.

*  Crisps Fragmenta Genealogica – Genealogy Problem Solver by Linda Elliott on the Mad About Genealogy blog.

Along the Pilgrim Trail ~ Francis Eaton of Bristol, England~ James Chilton and Canterbury, Kent, England; ~ Fishtoft, Lincolnshire, Where the Pilgrim Fathers Were Betrayed~ Boston, Lincolnshire, Where the Pilgrim Fathers Were Jailed by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on the Nutfield Genealogy blog.

*  Genealogy 101: Genealogy Isn’t Just About Ancestors – Finding the Living by Gena Philibert-Ortega on the GenealogyBank Blog.

*  Making Sense of Your Matches on Ancestry by Donna Moughty on Donna's Irish Genealogy Resources blog.

*  FTDNA’s 13th IGG Conference Lab Tour by Louis Kessler on Louis Kessler's Behold Genealogy blog.

Thither FHISO by Tony Proctor on the Parallax View blog.

*  Introducing We Remember – Free Online Memorials by the Ancestry Team on the Ancestry.com Blog.

*  Loose Marriage Records....What Are They? by Melissa Barker on the A Genealogist in the Archives blog.

DNA Testing Advice by Dave Robison on the Old Bones Genealogy of New England blog.

*  A Story in Captions: The 1913 Gettysburg Reunion by Laura Hedgecock on the Treasure Chest of Memories blog.

*  Findagrave New and Fairly Workable by Margaret H on the My Family History Hat blog.

The Price of Access by Judy G. Russell on The Legal Genealogist blog.

Here are pick posts by other geneabloggers this week:

*  Friday Fossicking - 17th November 2017 by Crissouli on the That Moment In Time blog.

 Friday's Family History Finds by Linda Stufflebean on the Empty Branches on the Family Tree blog.

 Friday Finds, 17 Nov 2017 by Lois Willis on the Lois Willis - Genealogy and Family History blog.

*  Friday Finds 17 Nov 2017 by Nichelle Barra on the Copper Leaf Genealogy blog.

*  Friday Finds: Week 46 - 2017 by Martin Roe Eidhammer on the Norwegian Genealogy and then someblog.


This Week's Creme de la Creme -- November 18, 2017 by Gail Dever on the Genealogy a la Carte blog.

Readers are encouraged to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blogs to your Favorites, Feedly, another 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 900 genealogy bloggers using Feedly, but I still miss quite a few it seems.


Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.



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5 comments:

Tony Proctor said...

Thanks Randy. Have your views changed at all since those that I mentioned in the article?

Randy Seaver said...

Hi Tony,

No, my views haven't changed a lot. I thought your article described things pretty well, but I wasn't too involved in the early development.

I was mainly interested in the source citation effort, and my humble opinion was that trying to sort out hundreds of different record templates, each with 5 to 15 fields, and get a source citation to look like something recognizable was going to be impossible. That's why I suggested a simpler solution - say five fields (or layers) that the user could choose and would transfer well from one program or site to another.

Tony Proctor said...

My favourite approach, Randy, is the RDFa one, where citations are hand-crafted (possibly with a bit of software assistance), but the elements are marked-up in situ. I'm not a fan of systems that take separate elements (such as author name, title, publication date, etc) and format a citation string for you. There are too many special cases that require them to be tinkered with.

As for FHISO, it really needs recognition of its progress. While they cannot expect end-users to appreciate what a "standard data model" really means, those users have to consider what would happen if FHISO disappeared. FHISO's resources are finite, and although they have a couple of working relationships, the industry (especially meaning the 'big few') are not showing any interest. Maybe those companies don't see the financial advantage to themselves in sharing data. That's quite plausible given that they've clearly lost their way -- their simple model of "give the users millions of records and a tree" was exhausted long ago, and the likes of unified trees and DNA tests show signs of being uncoordinated add-ons to help keep their market share. (IMHO, of course)

Linda said...

Hi Randy, Many thanks for choosing my post "Crisps Fragmenta Genealogica – Genealogy Problem Solver" for your Best of the Genea-Musings 12 - 18 November. It's good to know that my efforts are being appreciated! The focus of my blog is to help educate and encourage genealogists of all levels. There is so many records online now that it is a joy to share them with other genealogists.
Kind regards, Linda.
www.madaboutgenealogy.com

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

Thank you for listing several more of my "Along The Pilgrim Trail" stories on your list this week. I'll be wrapping up this series soon after Thanksgiving. It has been extremely popular and shared among the many Mayflower groups on social media, and with groups who study early colonial history.