Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of 11 to 17 January 2026

 Scores of genealogy and family history bloggers write hundreds 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 most 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: 

*  The 'AI Artisan Storyteller' Model: by Carole McCulloch on Essential Genealogy.

*  Finding Your Loyalist Ancestors by Aryn Youngless on Genealogy By Aryn.

*  Hidden Newspaper Articles – Gem of the Week: Court Dockets for Minor Cases (Recorder’s Court) by Kenneth R. Marks on The Ancestor Hunt.

*  Sanborn Maps: A Genealogist’s Friend by Linda Stufflebean on Empty Branches on the Family Tree.

*  Types of Records Found in Historical Newspapers (That You’re Missing) by a writer on GenealogyBank Blog.

*  Meet Your New Research Partner, Claude Code and The File That Makes Claude Yours by Steve Little on Vibe Genealogy.

*  Preserving Old Black Paper Photo Albums by Melissa Barker on A Genealogist In the Archives.

*  Strategies to Jumpstart Your Research by Juliana Szucs on Upfront With NGS.

*  Research Notes in Practice: A RootsMagic Perspective by Marcia Crawford Philbrick on Heartland Genealogy.

*  What Happens When AI Analyzes a 160-Year-Old Murder Case—Without the Legend by Jason Duncan on Jason Duncan - webjmd.

*  Debunking a Family Myth and I Finally Know the Source by Alicia M. Prater on GenTales.

*  Family Tree Experts: An Interview with Roberta Estes by the writer of Family Tree DNA Blog.

*  Always Check the Originals: A Case Study on Why You Need to Go Further Than the Index by Lex Knowlton on Knext Gen Genealogy.

*  Getting Ready for RootsTech 2026 by Roberta Estes on DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy.

*  Real Genealogical Research from FamilySearch Full-Text Search, Google Gemini and NotebookLM by James Tanner on Genealogy's Star.

*  Ride Along on the Road to RootsTech! by Barbatra Tien on Projectkin.

Here are pick posts by other geneabloggers this week:

*  The Chiddicks Observer Edition 40 (12 January 2026) by Paul Chiddicks on Paul Chiddicks. 

*  Friday’s Family History Finds [16 January 2026] by Linda Stufflebean on Empty Branches on the Family Tree.

*  This week’s crème de la crème -- January 17, 2026 by Gail Dever on Genealogy a la Carte.

*  GenStack [17 January 2026] by Robin Stewart on Genealogy Matters.

Readers are encouraged to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add the 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 currently am 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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