Sunday, April 27, 2008

Best of the Genea-Blogs - April 20-26, 2008

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week.

My criteria are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the Carnival of Genealogy, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

* "Top Ten Ways a Family Historian Can Help the Environment" by Chris Dunham on The Genealogue blog. Chris celebrates Earth Day as only he can ... #1 is "Compost Uncle Louie" -- priceless.

* "Ancestry Employess Get First Look" by the Insider on the Ancestry Insider blog. The Insider teases all of us about a new Ancestry project using underlined blank spaces to keep all of us non-TGNers in the dark. He showed how the FamilySearch Indexing Project highlights a name ... could this be the much-needed and anxiously awaited "highlighting of indexed names or keywords" that other genealogy companies provide? Or is it a "Volunteer Ancestry Indexing Project" that researchers could participate in (and perhaps earn credits toward a subscription?) to provide indexing for digitized documents? Just guessing! Nobody else has.

* "Older Genealogists Hate Free Genealogy Sites" by whoever writes the Genealogy - Family Tree Genealogy Search Software and More blog. This "tongue-in-cheek" post (I think!) discusses the old ways of doing genealogy. Methinks that some older genealogists really hate commercial genealogy sites, and think that all online genealogy sites should be free without advertising, but who knows...I'm not that old, apparently.

* "LAC suggested online genealogy databases" by John D. Reid on the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. John provides a nice list of Canadian genealogy web site links from Library Archives Canada (LAC). Very useful!

* "Some Genealogical Humour" by the Canadian Lib Genie on the Librarians Helping Canadian Genealogists Climb Family Trees blog. This is a list of New Year's resolutions made in 1852... good list!

* "Hit the ground running: report from Myrt's" by Pat Richley on the DearMYRTLE Blog. Pat describes the small research group that she leads monthly at her home, and a chat on Second Life about reading difficult handwriting. The home group sounds like a great thing for a knowledgeable genie researcher could do in almost any location.

* "Why I Do Genealogy" by Janet Hovorka on The Chart Chick blog. Janet has a great list of her reasons to pursue genealogy and family history. Well done!

* "Moovers and Shakers: Week of April 23, 2008" by Janice Brown on the Cow Hampshire blog. Janice has a nice list of her favorite cow, New Hampshire and genealogy posts for the past week. What, no Genea-musings?

* "Hobo Nickels" by Dave Tabler on the Appalachian History blog. This article was fascinating for this city boy who never knew anything about "hobo culture."

* "Human mtDNA Diversity Before Migration Out of Africa" by Blaine Bettinger on The Genetic Genealogist blog. Blaine explains last week's news article about DNA research.

* "The Wine in Aunt Harriett's Demijohn" by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. Terry's story about his aunt's pot is wonderful - we should all have been so lucky to have an aunt like Harriett!

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Bloglines, reader, feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - we all appreciate feedback on what we write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me!

2 comments:

Janice said...

Randy,

Your "Best of the Genea-Blogs" was listed as my favorite in my post, Moovers and Shakers: Week of April 11, 2008

Your articles are always at the top of my list of favorites!! :D

Janice

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