Cyndi Ingle Featured at San Diego Genealogical Society Seminar on 27 September

The San Diego Genealogical Society (SDGS) Fall Seminar will be on Saturday, 27 September, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Marina Village (1936 Quivira Way, San Diego, CA 92109) in the Captain's Room.

The featured speaker is the world-renowned Cyndi Ingle, the creator, owner and webmaster of the award-winning website Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet, www.CyndisList.com.

Cyndi's four presentations will cover:

*  A Guided Tour of Cyndi's List 2.0

*  The Internet: Lower Your Expectations to Raise Your Research Potential

*  The Hidden Web: Digging Deeper

*  Evernote for Every Genealogist

The morning coffee, tea and Danish are included in the price of the seminar. Our pricing of $40 for members and $50 for non-members includes the seminar, the welcoming coffee/tea/Danish, and a sandwich lunch box.  The lunch will be provided in a room just to the north of the Captain's Room.

Please register early as seating is limited to the first 200 registrants. We expect the seminar will fill up fast.

You can register online at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?llr=bbm4ssnab&oeidk=a07e9bo38yoad5d4b4a.  There is a mail-in registration form at https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a6bc981b563c967736105c2ee/files/e6bb53c5-4761-40fc-ba24-599fa3c77eb2.pdf

I hope to see many of my San Diego area colleagues at this seminar.  It should be great!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/cyndi-ingle-featured-at-san-diego.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Uncle Ed and Aunt Janet Visit San Diego -- Post 321 for (Not So) Wordless Wednesday

I am posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they aren't "Wordless" - I am incapable of having a wordless post!

Here is a photograph from the Seaver/Carringer family photograph collection from my 40 years of photo albums, boxes and piles of family photographs:

This photograph was taken in about 1998 at Cabrillo National Monument on the southern tip of Point Loma in San Diego.  The view is north toward the San Diego airport and San Diego Bay.  I don't know who took the picture - perhaps a bystander with my film camera.

The persons in the photo are (from the left):  Linda Seaver, Randy Seaver, Betty (Carringer) Seaver (my mother), Edward Seaver (my uncle, my father's brother), and Janet (Roukes) Seaver, Ed's wife.

From the mid-1980s until their passing in 2004 and 2002, respectively, Ed and Janet Seaver lived in the Phoenix area in a beautiful retirement community. Occasionally, they would visit us in San Diego and we wold often go sightseeing, especially on clear days.  My mother loved being with Ed and Jan, and I really had a great time hearing the "war stories" and the "childhood/young adult" stories about my father.  Ed was the only one who really knew them, since he was usually a participant in them.  Their sisters knew some of them, but had a different opinion about them.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/uncle-ed-and-aunt-janet-visit-san-diego.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 1: Creating the Tree, and Basic Navigation

I've been a subscriber to FindMyPast.com for two years now, and have used the website to find records for my american and English ancestral families.

However, I had not created a Family Tree on FindMyPast.com, and I don't recall any blog posts showing the process and the tree features.  Perhaps someone has blogged about it, but I don't recall seeing it.

1)  Here is the home page (after I signed in), and I highlighted the "My family tree" tab.  I can click on an existing tree, view all trees, or create a tree:

2)  I clicked on "Create a tree" and had a choice to either "Import a tree" (upper right-hand corner) or start entering my own name, vital data, etc.:

I clicked on the button to "Import a tree":

The note on the screen says:

"Please note we cannot upload any media files referenced in your GEDCOM.  
Currently limited GEDCOMs containing a maximum of 50,000 people."

I found a recently created GEDCOM file of my ancestral families (I chose up to 15 generations back), put the file name into the "Choose file" field on the screen above, and clicked on the blue "Upload" button.  The "Family trees" screen opened:

The GEDCOM file for 15,383 persons started uploading.  After 36 minutes, the screen said the file was uploaded:

3)  I clicked on the family tree title, and the "Tree settings" window opened:

I typed my name into the "Home person" and "You" fields, and edited the name of the tree, and checked the "Public tree" box, but did not check the "Show living" box.  I did not check the "Captialized surnames" box.

When I clicked on the blue  "Save changes" button, I got an error message that my name in the "Home person" field was not acceptable (presumably because I'm living).  I picked my father instead and the changes saved.

4)  The tree opened with a rather bare-bones pedigree chart, with my father (now the home person) highlighted:

I could click on the arrow under my father (the home person above) to see the Spouse and Children, see Siblings, or Add a relative.

By clicking on a person's name, I could perform more actions.  I clicked on my grandfather's name, and a box appeared with the basic vital information for the person.  There were buttons at the bottom of the box for "Their tree," "Profile," "Edit," "Add relative," and "Search":

5)  I clicked on the "Profile" button and saw the "Overview" timeline for the person (three screens below):

As you can see, the "Timeline," "Media" and "Notes" appears on the left-hand side of the screen, and the "Things to investigate" and "Relations" (parents, spouses and children, and siblings) are in the right-hand side of the screen.

I had several other Events on the Timeline - specifically the 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 census, a draft registration event, some occupation events, an obituary, a funeral event, and a Burial event.  Those did not appear in the Timeline for some reason (perhaps there is a limit on the number of Events?).

Note that the Media did not transfer into the tree (as warned), yet there are place holders for media.  The Notes transferred seamlessly it appears.

Note also that the above screens are for the "Overview" tab - there are also tabs for  "Fact and Events," "Relations" and "Notes."

In the next post in this series, we'll look at the other tabs on the "Profile" screen.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/family-trees-on-findmypastcom-post-1.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

MyCanvas Not Being Discontinued - Alexander's Will Adopt It

I received this in my email from Ancestry.com today:

======================================

Check out the blog post below from Eric Shoup. http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2014/08/19/mycanvas-is-sticking-around/

Great news: MyCanvas finds a new home in Alexander’s

(Author: Eric Shoup)

This past June, we announced that we were retiring the MyCanvas website and service in September 2014.

We’ve heard from many people who love MyCanvas and hate the idea of it going away. Well, we have some good news for you: It’s not going away after all. We listened and decided not to retire MyCanvas, but instead transfer the website to Alexander’s.

Founded 35 years ago, Alexander’s is a Utah-based printing production company that has been the long-term printer of MyCanvas products including its genealogy books, calendars, and other printed products. This makes the transition of MyCanvas to Alexander’s a natural fit.

It’s our hope that this agreement will not change the experience for MyCanvas customers. In fact, Alexander’s plans to make some exciting improvements we think you’ll love. Additionally, MyCanvas will continue to be available from the Ancestry.com website as we believe in the importance of sharing family history discoveries and see MyCanvas as a way to deliver this ability to our customers.

The transition of MyCanvas will take about six months. But in the meantime, all MyCanvas projects will remain accessible on Ancestry.com until it moves over to Alexander’s next year. We will continue to communicate details as the transition moves forward.

We want to thank our loyal MyCanvas customers for all the projects you have built and printed with us over the years. We’re excited about this new owner of MyCanvas—and we think you will be too.

==================================

This is, indeed, good news for users of MyCanvas to create quality family history books with photographs, charts and narratives.  

The blog post above states that MyCanvas will be available from the Ancestry.com website.  This doesn't explicitly state it, but it implies that the information in the Ancestry Member Tree of the user will be accessed in order to create a new or revised book.  

Obviously, this is a really smart move by Alexander's - they get to continue producing one of their products which probably is a significant part of their business.  My guess is that they will hire some of the Ancestry.com personnel who developed the technology to turn the family tree information into the book format, and the technology and website to do it will be part of the transition process.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/mycanvas-not-being-disconrtinued.html

copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Tuesday's Tip - Use "Record Hints" to Add Sources to FamilySearch Family Tree

This week's Tuesday's Tip is:  Use the "Record Hints" feature to add sources and content to the FamilySearch Family Tree.

In order to use FamilySearch Family Tree, you have to add your ancestral families to this "universal" (i.e., one tree = "our tree," not "my tree") family tree database.  Once your ancestral families are entered into the tree, then sources should be added in order to support the names, dates, places, events and relationships in the tree.

FamilySearch now provides "Record Hints" on the Family Tree profiles for persons in the tree, based on the records available in the indexed FamilySearch Historical Record Collections.

The "Record Hints" are similar to Ancestry's green leaf "Hints" on an Ancestry Member Tree - they indicate that FamilySearch has found a record for this person in their record collections.

These "Record Hints" appear at the top of the right-hand column on a person profile, viz:

This is the person Profile for my great-grandfather, Charles Auble (1849-1916).  When I opened his profile today, there was one "Record Hint" for him (note, I had already attached several others for him from census records).  The "Record Hint" is a Wisconsin marriage record for Charles Auble and his wife, Georgia[nna] Kemp.

I clicked on the "Record Hint" to determine if it was for my great-grandfather (two screens below):

The indexed information on the record is shown in the left-hand column on the screens above, and the information in the Family Tree is shown on the right-hand side of the screens above.  Persons named in the record are shown on the left and compared with persons in the Family Tree on the right.

I can decide to "Attach" this record to Charles Auble or decide that it is "Not a Match" with the two buttons below the "Reason to Attach Source" field on the screen above.

I decided that this is a match to my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, so I will click on the blue "Attach" button.  First, I need to enter a "Reason to Attach Source" and I did that as shown below:

After clicking on the blue "Attach" button, I have now attached the source to my great-grandfather's profile (as noted by the green background on the screen below):

However, I need to Attach it to my great-grandmother too, so I clicked on the circled "Attach" link on the screen above.  After I do that, the screen looks like this:

The record is now attached to both of my great-grandparents.  I chose not to attach the record to Charles Auble's parents, although the information was correct (but used initials).

Back in the Family Tree Profile for Charles Auble, I scrolled down to the "Sources" section, expanded the marriage source, and saw:

The source citation, the link to the record summary, and my reason for attaching it are included in the "Sources" entry.

This is the easiest way to attach a Source to a Profile in the FamilySearch Family Tree.  The bonus is the link to the record summary.

If you are using the FamilySearch Family Tree, I urge you to attach sources in this manner whenever you can.  You will be helping to add documentation to the Family Tree and, perhaps, find a record that adds to your documentation of your ancestral families.  In addition, you may be helping other researchers find records to help them in their own research.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/tuesdays-tip-use-record-hints-to-add.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Best Way to Match Parents in Familysearch Family Tree Using RootsMagic - Part I

I have matched hundreds of persons in my RootsMagic 6 genealogy database with profiles in the FamilySearch Family Tree.  The major problem I have had is with matching parents of the person I'm working on.

I think that I have finally found the "best way" to do this, but it took me a long time to get the idea.  I cannot find anything in the RootsMagic Help information about this, nor do I recall anyone else writing about it.  But it's important if you are matching persons using RootsMagic (or any other program, I think).

Here is the problem:

1)  On the RootsMagic "FamilySearch Person Tools" screen, I want to match the parents of my person (Eunice Rayment) with the parents attached to my person in the FamilySearch Family Tree:

2)  I want to match the Father in RootsMagic (Samuel Rayment on the left list on the screen above) with the Father in FamilySearch Family Tree (Samuel Raymond on the right list above).  And do the same thing with the Mother.

To do this, I have been clicking on the RootsMagic Father, then finding matches for him already in Family Tree.

3)  After I find and select one or more matches for the Father, when I come back to the "Share Data" screen, I see:

As you can see, there are now two Samuel Raymond profiles on the FamilySearch side of the screen, with the same ID number on the Family Tree side of the screen.

4)  Then I do the same thing for the Mother - I clicked on the RootsMagic mother and matched her with one or more FamilySearch Mothers.

5)  The result is shown below:

I now have this profile (the child, Eunice Rayment) with three sets of parents in the Family Tree - one for the couple, one for the Father with an Unknown mother, and one for the Mother with an unknown father.  I've made the FamilySearch Family Tree much worse!  I still don't understand how that happens, but it does.

6)  The only way to correct this problem (that I've found) is to go to the FamilySearch Family Tree profile for the matched RootsMagic person (in this case, the child, Eunice Rayment).  Here is the Family Members section of the profile for Eunice Rayment (two screens):

As you can see on the two screens above, the three different families all have the same child.

7)  To rectify this problem, the user has to do the following operation for the families that have only one parent:

**  Run the mouse over the Child's name and click on the "Edit Parents" link.
**  Click the "Delete relationship" link on the top right of the screen
**  Add a cogent reason to the field that appears for the action
**  Click the two check boxes below the "Reason" field
**  Click the blue "DFelete" button below the check boxes.

Here is the "Delete Relationship" screen for one of the relationships:

8)  I did the same thing for the other "family with one parent" and both "spurious families" disappeared in the Family Tree.  Here's the bottom of the "Family Members" section on the Eunice Rayment (the child) profile:

As you can see, there is only the one family with the child Eunice Rayment now.

9)  Back to RootsMagic, I refreshed the screen, and now the Father and Mother in RootsMagic are matched to the Father and Mother in the Family Tree, and there are no spurious parents listed on the FamilySearch side of the screen:

10)  So what is the preferred way to match Parents of a person using the RootsMagic "FamilySearch Person Tools"?  I will show how I've learned to do it in the next post in this series.

11)  To reiterate - DO NOT USE the method shown above to match Parents of a Person using the RootsMagic "FamilySearch Person Tools."  It creates problems in the Family Tree database, and requires extra work to fix.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/best-way-to-match-parents-in.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

My Autosomal DNA Quandary Persists

I wrote My Autosomal DNA Quandary a year ago, and my quandary still persists.

In a nutshell, my quandary is that the three autosomal test results I've taken do not match each other, and only one matches my perception of my genealogical ethnicity.

According to my genealogical research, based on the estimated origins of my 256 6th great-grandparents (I had to guess at some of them), is in these regions:

68%  British Isles
24%  Germany
1%  Holland
1%  France
6%  Unknown (perhaps some are French, or English, or Native American)

Compare that estimate with the results provided by the three autosomal DNA tests taken to date:

1)  The AncestryDNA test results:

The AncestryDNA ethnicity estimate is:

*  66% Europe West
*  18% Ireland
*  9% Great Britain
*  3% Scandinavian
*  1% Italy/Greece
* <1% Iberian Peninsula
*  <1% Pacific Islander
*  < !% Native-American

2)  The FamilyTreeDNA test results:

The FamilyTreeDNA ethnicity estimate is:

*  45% Scandinavia
*  32% Western and Central Europe
*  19% Southern Europe
*  4% British Isles

3)  The 23andMe test results are (Speculative estimate):

The 23andMe ethnicity estimate is:

*  46.7% British & Irish
*  24.7% French & German
*  1.9% Scandinavian
*  23.5% Broadly Northern European
*  1.2% Broadly Southern European
*  1.2% Broadly European
*  0.5% East Asian & Native American
*  0.1% Middle Eastern & North African
*  0.1% Unassigned

4)  As you can see, the ethnicity populations are not exactly the same between the three test companies.  

*  If you combine British and Irish, then 23andMe says I'm 46.7%, AncestryDNA says 27%, and FamilyTreeDNA says 4%.  [Compared to 68% from genealogy research.]

*  FamilyTreeDNA says I'm 45% Scandinavian, AncestryDNA says 3%, and 23andMe says 1.9%.   [Compared to perhaps 1-2% from genealogy research.]

*  If you consider France and Germany to be representative of Western and Central Europe, then the AncestryDNA says 66%, FamilyTreeDNA says 32% and 23andMe says 24.7%.   [Compared to perhaps 28 to 32% from genealogy research.]

*  Only 23andMe provides non-specific ethnicity results, saying I am 23.5% "Broadly Northern European" (which could be Scandinavia, Western and Central Europe).  AncestryDNA and FamilyTreeDNA don't provide any "broad" results.

So do you see why I am still confused?  Also, AncestryDNA and FamilyTreeDNA have changed their ethnicity estimates in the past year or two.  

5)  My understanding for the disparity between these results rests on three factors:

*  The estimates are from DNA test results in reference populations in the specific areas.  Very few of these European populations are homogenous - we know that the British Isles have had significant immigration over the centuries from Scandinavia (Viking, Norman), Iberia, and western Europe (Angle, Saxon, etc.).  Perhaps that explains the British Isles and Ireland ethnicity disparities.

*  The autosomal DNA in our chromosomes comes from ancestors from thousands of years ago, not just 7 generations ago.  

*  Each testing company uses the same chip, but tests different numbers of SNPs, or gives more importance to certain SNPs.

Obviously, I am not an expert in this - just a confused customer and user.

If the tests all agreed, and were really different from my genealogical estimates, then I would think that I have a serious genealogy research problem.  But 23andMe seems to match my genealogical estimates pretty well, especially if I apportion the "broadly Western European" segment to the British Isles and France/Germany.

One concern is that each of the DNA testing companies seem to claim that the results provided are definitive for each person.  Obviously they are not, at least in my case.  We saw a lot of DNA test results on the Finding Your Roots TV series on PBS last year, and I anticipate we'll see more this year when the 2014 season starts in September.  I think they are using 23andMe for those tests, but I'm not positive.  

There was quite a bit of helpful discussion in the comments to my earlier post My Autosomal DNA Quandary  (posted 22 August 2013).  Since then, I have worked a bit in GEDMatch to try to find chromosome matches.  I have not investigated DNA Tribes to date.

Some questions:

*  How well do your test results match across companies?

*  What are the uncertainty bounds for each test company?

*  What am I missing?

*  Should I just accept that the reference populations and methodology are different between test companies?

*  Will the estimates from the testing companies be improved again and again over the coming years?

Reader comments will be appreciated!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/my-autosomal-dna-quandary-persists.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Amanuensis Monday - Post 231: 1791 Upper Canada Land Petition of Abraham Dafoe

Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started a Monday blog theme years ago called "Amanuensis Monday."  John offers this definition for "amanuensis:" 

"A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another."

The subject today is five images in a 1791 land petition filed by Abraham Defoe with the Government of Upper Canada on his own and his brother's service during the American Rebellion (five images):

The transcription of these petition papers is:

[page 551, first image above, marked 1]

To his Excellency the Right Honorable Guy Lord Dorchester

Captain General, Governor & Commander in Chief of the Colonies of 

Quebec, Nova Scotia New Brunswick & Their Dependencies &c &c &c

The Memorial of Abraham Defoe, late a Corporal

                     in the King's Rangers

                                          Humbly Sheweth

That your Lordship's Memorialist in Right of his Brother

Jacob Defoe who died at St. John's in the year 1784 and Served

as a private in the King's Rangers, Humbly prays that the

portion of land that his Brother would have received, had he

lived to come to this Country may be assigned him in the

Tenth Township.

And your Memorialist as in duty bound shall we pray

                                                     Abraham Defoe

Kingston           }           To his Excellency Lord Dorchester }

Feb.y 23d 1791  }            Governor & Commander in Chief & & &

                                                   in Council, Quebec.

[page 552, second image above, reverse of image 551, marked 1a]

                          1791

Dist. Mecklenburgh

No. 527

Abraham Defoe

Concur in this w?

the Land Board

Report                Page 14

Sent

February 23 1791

       Referred

[page 553, third image above, marked 1b]

To his Excellency the Right Honorable Guy Lord Dorchester

Captain General, Governor, & Commander in chief of the Colonies

of Quebec, Nova Scotia & New Brunswick & their dependencies &&&

The Memorial of Abraham Defoe Serg^t King Rangers

                                        Humbly Sheweth

That your Lordship's Memorialist have Received one hundred

Acres, humbly prays that one hundred Acres More, together

with his Lordship's Bounty of two hundred Acres may be

assigned him in the Seventh Township --

And your Memorialist as in duty bound will ever pray

                                                          Abraham Dafoe

Kinston                }

March 9^th 1790  }

                              To his Excellency Lord Dorchester

                              Governor & Commander in Chief & & &

                                                              in Council

                                                                      Quebec

[page 554, fourth image above, marked 1c]

No. 235   1790

Abraham Dafoe

Examined

folio 38

[page 556, fifth image above, marked 1e]

                 1792

Abraham Dafoe

Report      Page 7th

Certificate granted

21^st March 1792

                  100 Acres

The source citation for this set of land petition records is:

Upper Canada, "Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1763-1865," digital image, Library and Archives Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ : accessed 11 August 2014), Abraham Dafoe, 1791, Microfilm C-1885, Volume 171, "D" Bundle Micellaneous 1788-1795, (DA-DEY), Petition 1 (images 551-554, 556 of 925); citing RG 1, L 3.

There are two petitions in this one set of papers - one filed in 1791 and the second in 1790.  Abraham Dafoe prays for 100 acres in his brother Jacob's right in 1791 (images 1 and 2 above), and for 100 acres more, plus 200 acres of Bounty land, in 1790 in his own right (images 3 and 4 above).  The fifth image above notes he was granted 100 acres.  It is unclear to me if he received the Bounty land, or his brother's land.

The process to find these records was described in Finding Loyalist Petition Papers on Library and Archives Canada (LAC) (posted 11 August 2014).

Abraham Dafoe (1755-1815) is my fifth great-grandfather.  His daughter, Mary Dafoe (1776-before 1851) married John Kemp (1768-after 1861). 

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/amanuensis-monday-post-231-1791-upper.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Post #8000 on Genea-Musings

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

A funny thing happened eight years and four 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 8,000 posts later here I am - happily stuck in a "routine" of writing two or three or more blog posts each day about genealogy resources and results on Genea-Musings, a daily journal blog post on The Geneaholic almost every day, and occasional posts on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe.  Then there's Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus, including my almost weekly participation on video (available on YouTube) in Mondays With Myrt!  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 very occasional repository research), entering data and sources into my genealogy 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 26 years.

In celebration of my 8,000th post (that's over 2.6 posts per day on average, and over 960 posts per year on average), I'm going to take the rest of the day off from ... blogging, not genealogy.  Tomorrow is another day.  I'll be away next weekend to visit my daughter and grandsons in Santa Cruz, and my other daughter is having a baby in four weeks, so I do get to do some "real life" things.  

The statistics for eight years of blogging, from SiteMeter and Blogger:

*  1,506,500 visits (average of 510 per day, SiteMeter since July 2006)
*  2,422,400 page views (average of 820 per day, SiteMeter since July 2006)
*  13,858 comments (average of 1.7 per post, Blogger since 2007).

Thank you to my friends, geneablogging colleagues, and Genea-Musings readers for their patience, understanding, collaboration and support over the years - it's been a lot of fun, and I hope it continues for years to come.

I do appreciate your comments and emails, and will be happy to answer "Dear Randy" questions about genealogy, research, online resources, software, family trees, etc. on the blog.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/post-8000-on-genea-musings.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 10 to 16 August 2014

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 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:

*  Alex Haley - Genealogy Hero or Heel? by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog.  I vote "both" - but really appreciate what he did to energize genealogy work.  Roots inspired me.

*  Upper Canada Land Petitions at LAC by Ken McKinlay on the Family Tree Knots blog.  I picked this post because it really helped me with my LAC struggles.

*  The Future of Family History: Peering Into the Mist by James Tanner on the FamilySearch blog.  James discusses the future, where everything is in one big family tree, and is correct.  Right...

*  Wednesday Spotlight: Marian Pierre-Louis by Tami Osmer Mize on the WikiChicks blog.  This week's interview is of Marian Pierre-Louis of New England.

*  I'm a ProGen Almnus! by Miriam Robbins on the Ancestories: The Stories of My Ancestors blog.  Miriam describes the 18-month ProGen course and what she learned.

*  Life and Near-Death in Fort Wayne by Sally Knudsen on the SallySearches blog.  Sally had a hairy travel day, but an excellent research day at ACPL.

*  Genealogy Technology -- Random Thoughts by Louis Kessler on Louis Kessler's Behold Blog.  Some excellent thoughts, and questions, in this "rant" (it wasn't really!) by Louis.

*  Survey Results Indicate People Leave Societies Because Little Value Offered by Gail Dever on the Genealogy a la Carte blog.  Gail had over 300 respondents to the survey.  Interesting!

*  The Fourth American Civil War Blogpost Challenge Roundup by Bill West on the West in New England blog.  Bill highlights entries in his Civil War blogp ost challenge.

*  Ancestry.com New Terms and Conditions by the write of The Ancestry Insider blog.  Interesting changes, but we need a legal analysis, I think.

These genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week:

*  Monday's Muse - 11 August 2014; Whaddya Miss? Monday, August 11, 2014; Whaddya Miss? Tuesday, August 12, 2014; Whaddya Miss? Wednesday, August 13, 2014; Whaddya Miss? Thursday, August 14, 2014; Whaddya Miss? Friday, August 15, 2014 by Eowyn Langhoff and Tami Osmer Mize on the WikiChicks blog.

*  Follow Friday ~ Fab Finds for August 15, 2014 by Jana Last on Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog.

*  Friday Finds - 08/13/14 by Julie Cahill Tarr on Julie's Genealogy & History Hub blog.

*  This Week's Creme de la Creme 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 1540 genealogy bloggers using Feedly, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/best-of-genea-blogs-10-to-16-august-2014.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver