Around the Blogosphere - November 27

It's been a while since my last Around the Blogosphere post, but with the holiday weekend, I've had time to catch up on my blog reading. The following are my selections of some of the best genealogy blog posts of the last two or three weeks.

Genealogy's Need for Curators by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog.

More on Organizational Systems and Genealogy by James Tanner at Genealogy's star. Also of note is Why You Have To Pay For Free Government Documents.

Why I Want to Remain an Amateur by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

My Views on Family History Have Changed by Elyse Doerflinger on Elyse's Genealogy Blog.

Family Discovery on eBay by Deb Ruth on Adventures in Genealogy. Deb also shared some great resources for maps.

The Big Genealogy Blog Book by Amy Coffin on We Tree Genealogy - buy Amy's new book! Amy also shares her experiences in self publishing.

Kathleen Brandt writes about Mayflower research on A3 Genealogy.

Tips on Decoding Family Photos by Susan Farrell Bankhead on Susan's Genealogy Blog.

And perhaps the best news - Season 3 of Who Do You Think You Are premieres on NBC on February 3

Around the Blogosphere - October 16

Here are several of my favorite blog posts from around the blogosphere this week. While some of these are not specific to genealogy, they do offer topics of relevance to genealogists.

9 Reasons to Publish an eBook by Ben Barden on Quick Blog Tips. If you are a blogger and aren't reading Ben's blog, you need to be.

Another post that focusing on writing has to do with NaNoWriMo - on The Ginger Jewish Genealogist. Do you think you can write a book in a month's time? That's what NaNoWriMo is about - and November is the month. Maybe your book doesn't have to be a novel, but about family history. The idea is to get it in gear and write!

Paula Stuart-Warren offers a perspective on Budget Choices in Life and in Family History on Paula's Genealogical Eclectica.

Dan Curtis is a professional personal historian and has a blog that genealogists and geneabloggers should subscribe to. This week he provided links to 20 articles about interviewing techniques. I always lament the fact that my college journalism coursework focused on reporting, writing and editing, but in four years, there was no mention or instruction on how to conduct an interview. It's certainly a lot more than writing out your questions ahead of time.

Randy Seaver is my genea-angel of the week with all of his posts about the new 2012 Family Tree Maker. While I haven't read every one all the way through (yet), I will - because, for a change, I want to avoid some mistakes by just clicking through a lot of buttons and not know what I'm doing. Randy provides a compendium to all of his articles about FTM 2012 in one post.

And - another Nebraska genealogist has joined the blogging world. Please visit Marcia Stewart's blog about her Turpin family on Turpin Traces. Marcia teaches beginning and intermediate genealogy classes at Southeast Community College here in Lincoln. And as a former student, I can tell you she is very good at it!

Around the Blogosphere - October 10

There have been so many great and informative genealogy blog posts recently - so many, in fact, that I've really had to just skim the surface in my blog reading. Truth is, I've read three books this week, so the blog reading took a bit of a back seat. However! Here are some of the blog posts that I enjoyed recently.

I enjoy reading about and seeing how other genealogists organize their work. While done out of necessity, Greta Koehl shared her story and photos of drying out some documents after having 26 inches of water in her basement. I think I would have just run away! See A Proper Place for Sentiment on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Another peek in a genealogist's closet as provided by Michelle Goodrum of The Turning of Generations. Her post: Progress on the Archival Closet on Sorting Saturday.

My friend, Diana Ritchie, of Random Relatives is working on her goal of 15 minutes of writing every day. Her goal was inspired by our other friend, Lisa Alzo, at the FGS conference this year. Read What I've Been Doing for 15 Minutes Every Day! Diana also wrote another great post called I Just Received a Letter From My Great-Great Grandfather.

Another of our mutual friends (thanks to the Family History Expo in Kansas City last year), Jenna Mills, has been on a long time search for her grandmother and great-grandmother, who have been elusive for quite some time. I've been following Jenna's progress and took an interest since they were in Amherst, Nebraska for a while. Jenna reports the latest update on her Desperately Seeking Surnames blog.

Archives.com posted an article that I enjoyed about U.S. Presidents in the Census. In the census, they were just like everybody else, except for their occupation: President of the U.S.

If you haven't seen this yet, you definitely need to check out Joan Miller's gynormous family tree on Luxegen Genealogy and Family History.

Paula Stuart-Warren has laid the groundwork for what could evolve into the next genealogy meme. With October being Family History Month, Paula makes some suggestions for activities we can all do to help further our research. Read Paula's blog post and come November 1, post on your blog what YOU did during Family History Month. I've done so much already that I had to relax and unwind a couple days before the next group of activities begin!

After seeing the photos of DearMYRTLE (Pat Richley-Erickson) wielding a pitchfork at the FGS conference, I could hardly wait to read the rest of the story. She shares it (and more photos) in Back Story: Get Off the Fence and Start Writing.

Being able to "meet" other genealogy bloggers whether in person or in the virtual world is always great fun. Barbara Poole of Life From the Roots met up with bloggers who were on the Legacy Family Tree cruise at the New England Historic Genealogical Society last week. She shared her experiences and photos in Meeting Bloggers I've Not Met Before.

Around the Blogosphere - September 11, 2011

I am still outrageously behind in reading everyone's blog posts from the past week, but I have managed to select a few for inclusion in Around the Blogosphere.

Since so many folks attended FGS in Springfield, Illinois this week, I kept up on those activities via blogs, tweets and postings on Facebook. Rather than single out any of these posts, I suggest you take a look at the blog roll and tweets from the conference that are available on Geneabloggers.com

The best photos to capture the event were posted by Linda McCauley. My favorites were Abe Lincoln listening intently to Thomas MacEntee, and Dear Myrtle wielding a pitchfork. I hope someone shares the story about that! I think Abe really wants to get his hands on some geneablogger beads!

Good blog reading this week came from:

Labor Day Isn't a Good Day For Me - Debi Austen's beautiful tribute to her father on Who Knew?

Deb Ruth shared how she made use of her electricity-deficit time in When the Lights Go Out on Adventures in Genealogy.

Beatles fans will get the reference in Everyone Knew Her as Nancy, but her name was Agnes by Jean on Bluegrass and Buckeye Roots.

It's a short list this week, but as I get through my Google Reader, perhaps more of this week's posts will show up in next week's list.

Around the Blogosphere: September 4, 2011

Fall means the return of our favorite television programs, football season (maybe for you, but not for me), and also marks the return of Around the Blogosphere here at LongLostRelatives.net.

Summer activities have made it difficult to keep up with all of the genealogy blogs, but here are a few of my favorite posts from recent blogs:

The story of Sarah Alexander Lawton from On the Trail of Hillhouse by Jan Eloise Morris. I'll admit I'm a bit prejudiced since Jan is a long time friend, but a new blogger. She's a gifted writer and photographer who melds the two into fascinating pictorial essays about her family.

Greta Koehl always manages to bring a smile to my face. She does it again with Things I Don't Care About in Genealogy on Greta's Genealogy Blog. I can also relate to Greta's post Sometimes You Just Need to Clean House.

Hmm. . . is a theme emerging from the posts I've bookmarked as favorites? James Tanner of Genealogy's Star writes about Dealing With the Piles and Boxes - Genealogy in Quantity.

Apparently, I'm in the mood for humor as I also loved Amy Coffin's take on If Genealogists Were in the Tabloids on her We Tree blog.

I posted this link to Facebook, and it bears repeating here. This is a nice video about memories of the North Platte (Nebraska) canteen during World War II - from the Nebraska Outback blog.

Barbara Poole from Life From the Roots has a knack for seeing things through her camera lens. I love the way she shared a painting done by her grandfather at age 80, along with a photograph of the subject of the painting. You must take a look!

I also suggest you take a look at another new blog by a new friend (and potential cousin) of mine, Evelyn Pecht. Evelyn is off to great start in her geneablogging career at IowaGirlMemories. If you're at least my age, you'll appreciate her story about the outhouse!

And . . . the post that has become my Favorite Blog Post of the Year: All I Really Need to Know About Genealogy I Learned in Kindergarten by Elizabeth O'Neal on Little Bytes of Life. This is one I know that I will re-read several times and have it permanently marked as a keeper.

Around the Blogosphere: May 15 2011

The bloggers among my readers already know that Blogger had a big hiccup this week and was down for a couple days. If anything good came from that, it was the fact that the outage allowed me to get caught up on my blog reading. The following are some of the genealogy blog posts that I enjoyed this week:

Jenna Mills of Desperately Seeking Surnames wrote an excellent piece with advice for genealogy trade show exhibitors in My Response to Genealogy Conferences - Selling the Goods.

Mel Wolfgang also joined in the discussion about genealogy conferences with a discussion of the genealogy conference model and some thoughts on the 'money thing' on Mnemosyne's Magic Mirror.

Joan Miller of Luxegen Genealogy and Family History talked about social media in Lessons Learned from Social Media Unplugged.

On the fun side, Travis LeMaster of TJL Genes gave us a quiz: Are You Smarter Than a 60 Year Old? Apparently I'm 60 because I whizzed through this quiz in seconds!

Dan Curtis - Professional Personal Historian always has a great list of weekly picks on his blog.

I've become a fan of Michael Hait through his excellent online webinars. This week he shared What blogs does a professional genealogist read? I discovered some new blogs from his list and signed up to follow several of them.

Cheri Hopkins shared Another Take on Local Museums with a look at the Knight Museum in Alliance, Nebraska on Those Old Memories.

Cheri and her sister-in-law, Ruby Coleman, are off on their annual two-week research trip to Salt Lake City. I enjoyed following them on last year's trip, and you can keep up with them on the You Go Genealogy Girls blog. This week, I got my my copy of Ruby's new book, Genealogical Research in Nebraska. If you are doing any kind of research in the state, this is an excellent resource.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Around the Blogosphere: May 8, 2011

Here are a few of my favorite recent posts from the genealogy blogs.

140 Free Online Genealogy Research Courses from FamilySearch.org - press release on GeneaPress. I've already selected several that I plan to take.

Tombstone ads from the Sears Catalog from Escape to the Silent Cities.

Reliability of the Cloud - everyone must rely on multiple layers of data backup - from James Tanner at Genealogy's Star.

Genealogy Memories from Ruby Coleman of You Go Genealogy Girls. Also from Ruby on Genealogy Lines is Something About Blogs - sage advice for blog writers and readers. Ruby has also just published her latest book, Genealogical Research in Nebraska. I've ordered my copy and recommend that anyone doing research on Nebraska ancestors pick up a copy.

Closing the Chapter on Murder by Barbara Poole of Life From the Roots.

Delivering the Content by Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers.com - a view about being a speaker at genealogy conferences.

The Secret to Recording Audio like the Pros - Dan Curtis, Professional Personal Historian.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere April 22

Here are some of my favorite posts from the genealogy blogging community this week:

What Do You Mean It Isn't Free from the Minnesota Family Historian is an excellent discourse on the value of genealogical services and information and the actual behind-the-scenes costs.

Along the same lines, Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers was quite transparent in sharing information regarding making money in the genealogy field. Those who have a dream of doing genealogy as a full-fledged career may have their eyes opened to this economic reality. It is not as easy as Thomas makes it look!

Also weighing in the topic of making money in genealogy were Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy and James Tanner of Genealogy's Star.

My Top 3 Bits of Advice for Blogging from Marian's Roots and Rambles

How to Create Online Content Like an Immortal Renaissance Artist from Copyblogger (not a genealogy blog, but excellent advice for the digital writing community)

Dear Myrtle has an excellent piece on the Bureau of Land Management and researching land records.

For those looking to expand their genealogy education, learn about 140 free online genealogy research courses offered from FamilySearch. This comes from GeneaPress. 

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - April 15

Sometimes life interferes with the reading of one's blogs, so Around the Blogosphere has been AWOL for the last three weeks. Once my Google Reader hit 700 blog posts that I hadn't read, I had to give in, delete them and move on.

However, here are some of my favorite genealogy blog posts that I've read recently:

Organizing Family Photos: Getting Over the Hump by Melissa Mannon on ArchivesInfo.

Websites for Finding Vital Records and their Alternatives by Gena Phillibert Ortega on Gena's Genealogy.

Preserve it or lose it - Dear Myrtle - here's where I discovered the Light Impressions web site where I've ordered some archival storage containers that meet the PAT test.

Obsessed With Genealogy by Ruby Coleman on the You Go Genealogy Girls blog.

Are You Related to? by Deb Ruth (no relation to the Babe) on Adventures in Genealogy.

The Minute Men of 1861 by Barbara Poole on Life From the Roots.

Why Is there So Much Drama on FindAGrave by Kerry on Clue Wagon - be sure to read the comments in this fascinating discussion. We've all had varying experiences with this site, although mostly quite positive. Yes, sometimes there is drama there.

Dorothy Louise Harris - this is an excellent example of putting together a story timeline illustrated with photographs. From Dave Weller on Tree Rings.

What Makes a Good Memoir - Biff Barnes on Family History and Memoirs.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow Friday - Around the Blogosphere - March 25

As usual, there have been some great posts on the genealogy blogs this week. Here are some of the ones I enjoyed reading.

Genealogical Standards - Building Blocks of the Profession by Carolyn Barkley on GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com

Brenda Leyndyke reminisced about the movie, Funny Girl, in her 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and Family History post. Apparently, there were quite a few of us who had a crush on Omar Sharif that year.

Dear Myrtle advises us to take off those rose colored glasses when it comes to researching the lives of our ancestors.

Frances Elizabeth Schwab is a relatively new blogger at Fantastic Electrisoil. Her post this week about her Dad playing an exhibition baseball game with Satchel Paige and Dizzy Dean caught my eye because I had seen an episode about this very subject on PBS' History Detectives a few months ago. She has the newspaper clipping to prove it!

Creating new Genea-Words was the parlor game many of us were playing in the chat room last Friday night during Thomas MacEntee's Geneablogger Radio show. Randy Seaver took this up for his Saturday Night Genealogical Fun. This post by Chris Staats at Staats Place on Mis-defined Genea-words is fun and entertaining.

Since dusting off the transcription of my great-grandmother's autograph book a couple weeks ago, I've been tuned in to posts about diaries, journals and other writings left behind by our ancestors. This week, the Traveling Genealogist wrote about transcribing journals and diaries.

I always learn about "new to me" Nebraska resources from Ruby Coleman. This week she wrote about the historical maps in Hall County, Nebraska on her Nebraska Roots and Ramblings blog.

Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist provided some great examples on creating a timeline for our female ancestors.

And it's countdown time until tonight's episode of Geneablogger Radio - about four hours from now. Be sure to sign into the chat room and say high. Also join the geneabloggers who will be live tweeting during tonight's episode of Who Do You Think You Are on NBC - tonight featuring Steve Buscemi. On Twitter: #wdytya

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow Friday - Around the Blogosphere - March 18, 2011

Here are some of my favorite posts from the genealogy blogs from the past week.

The Reno County Genealogical Society shared some information about resources available at the Midwest Genealogy Center near Kansas City.

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings wrote about using PERSI to find genealogy related periodicals.

James Tanner of Genealogy's Star wrote about anonymity and privacy in the world of genealogy. Another excellent post from James was The impact of e-books on genealogy.

Greta Koehl of Greta's Genealogy Blog reflected on RootsTech and its impact on genealogy now and in the future. You'll also enjoy Greta's humor on Top 10 Scenes I'd Like to see on "Who Do You Think You Are."

Ruby Coleman, one of the You Go Genealogy Girls wrote a fun piece that we "older" genealogists can relate to with Trying to Remember.

Since I have some Paltine ancestors, I enjoyed this article from the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog.

Creating an Electronic Index on Technology Tamers offers some tips on getting a handle on your digital information.

The blog from the Nebraska State Historical Society wrote about the Irish in Lincoln and featured the brother-in-law of my great grandfather - John Fitzgerald.

John Gasson of the Wandering Genealogist provides asks some relevant questions in RootsTech: Am I the only one that wasn't interested? Check out the comments - it would appear that RootsTech did not necessarily grab the interest of the entire genealogy tech community.

Margel of 2338 W Washington Blvd also poses some questions for reflection in Ponderings on Blog Posts. Be sure to leave a comment about your reasons for blogging.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow: Friday - Around the Blogosphere - March 11

Here are a few of the posts that I enjoyed from the genealogy blogs this week.

Ordering tombstones from the Sear's catalog - check out this ad posted on Escape to the Silent Cities.

Dave discusses pruning your family tree on the Digicopia blog.

Using land records to solve genealogy problems was a topic on The Turning of Generations.

Here's a step-by-step description of using the FamilySearch extension in the Google Chrome browser. This is a nifty tool that lets you search FamilySearch.org while on a person page on Ancestry.com. This has been working fine all week, until today. The developer indicated it may be an issue with FamilySearch - and will keep an eye on things to make sure the extension continues to work as intended. The post is from John on the Currach blog, whom I thank for bringing this add-on to my attention.

Another great post from James Tanner at Genealogy's Star is about online privacy.

The list is a little short this week - I've had the pleasure of ancestor overload this week with a LOT of new information and photographs coming my way. I've actually been working on my family history research rather than reading the blogs! That's a good thing, though, right?

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - March 4

When I was a kid, there was a "brain teaser" going around. The question: What date is a command? The answer: March Fourth! So, I shall March Forth with the list of my favorite posts from the genealogy blogs from the past week.

For whatever reason, I've taken an interest in Jenna Mills' journey in breaking through the brick wall in the search for her great grandmother, Mary Evingham. It's probably because there are some ties to Nebraska. Her recent discovery has presented additional mysteries to uncover. Jenna writes about this in Mary AND Her Daughter Make Me Contrary on Desperately Seeking Surnames.

Many of my favorite posts of the week include images I found fascinating. This article about the TypeMusic company from the Nebraska State Historical Society is interesting as it shows the typewriter that was used to create sheet music. I think having one of these specialty typewriters would have been great fun!

Thomas MacEntee's well crafted post about Genealogy Bloggers Come of Age was a thought provoking piece regarding the impact of the RootsTech conference.

It's not a genealogy blog, but I always enjoy reading about Dick Cavett's memories of growing up in Nebraska in the Opinionator blog from the New York Times. This week, Cavett wrote about his career as a young magician in How Do You Open for a Mind Reading Horse.

Of the bloggers who wrote about the Kim Cattrall episode of Who Do You Think You Are, this post by J. Mark Lowe was one of the best. Mark writes Keeping the Story Alive and was one of the genealogist researchers in the Lionel Richie episode of the series.

Here's another of the "must see" photos I loved this week from Margel at 2338 W Washington Blvd. Make sure you scroll down to see the second photo. In addition to that, I applaud Margel's choice in naming her blog after the home address of her great grandparents.

The Free Genealogy Guide has a great post called Are You Tweeting Your Descendants? While most of us our tracking the paper trail left by our ancestors, this post asks about the digital trail that we are leaving behind for future generations. The Twitter archive of tweets is being turned over to the Library of Congress, so ponder what your image will be to your descendants four or five generations from now.

Jean Hibben of the Circlemending blog did a great post about navigating the National Archives' new web site and locating microfilm records in Riverside California.

Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has brought back her 31 days of blogging prompts about Fearless Females in honor of Women's History Month in March. Many bloggers are picking up on this series and writing some great posts about their female ancestors. I'm writing on several of these prompts throughout the month of March.

Biff Barnes ponders the difference between a chronicler and a historian on his Stories to Tell blog.

More photos I enjoyed this week are from the Forgotten Old Photos blog. I love the premise of this blog. The author, Far Side of Fifty, locates old photos that have some kind of identification information on them - whether it be names of people or places. The photos are posted in hopes of getting them back into the hands of family members. There have been many successes that are reported on the blog. This is a very worthy activity that perhaps more of us should do as we visit the antique malls, garage sales and auctions.

Since Belleville, Kansas is where many of my ancestors lived, I'm pleased to share this post from the Belleville Library summarizing a new Kansas research resource at the Kansas State Library web site.

This video is not genealogy-related, but The String Beans sing a whimsical tune about many of the things that made Nebraska famous. There were a couple things I wasn't even aware of before!

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Monday's Link Roundup from Dan Curtis.

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - February 25

Around the Blogosphere is back on schedule this week. Trimming down the number of genealogy blogs that I follow is making this a bit more manageable. For the great posts that I may have missed, be sure to read the "best of the blogs" from other genealogy bloggers at the bottom of this post.

Even though I mentioned it earlier today, I must repeat, with gratitude, the work of DearMyrtle (Pat Richley-Erickson) for setting up a blog and calendar that provides a listing of all genealogy themed webinars available online. This is located at GeneaWebinars. There are so many fantastic educational opportunities for genealogists of all experience levels that are now available online. It's wonderful to have a central location to find out about all of them! Last summer, I posted about Creating Your Own Genealogy Conference if you are not able to attend one in person. Now, with GeneaWebinars informing us when and where we can find sources of online learning, that is easier than ever! And guess what! I plan to join the Southern California Genealogical Society just to be able to access all of their great new online webinar resources! Learn more about the SCGS webinar series.

Now, on to my favorite blog posts from the past week:

My fellow Nebraskan, Ruby Coleman, always has something to share about furthering our genealogy education and various Nebraska resources. On her GenealogyLines blog, she also shares information about some of the many upcoming genealogy webinars.

Joan Miller of Luxegen Genealogy wrote a concise summary of Curt Wichter's address at the RootsTech conference.

If you didn't catch all of the posts about RootsTech, Renee Zamora has provided one stop shopping with her summary and links to posts about this conference.

One of my new favorite bloggers is Dan Curtis. Here are his picks of the week for Professional Personal Historians.

T.K. of Before My Time put together a collection of 1940 Census promotional films from YouTube.

Greta Koehl wrote a thought provoking piece about the democracy of genealogy. This is a must read. Make sure you read the comments also.

Be sure to check out footnoteMaven's tried and true technique for citing your sources while doing research and making copies at the library. She has some great ideas here! She also provides illustrations of how her technique works.

President's Day was this week and I enjoyed this look at how the Presidents of the United States are related to one another. Online sources tell me that I'm related to the Bushes, and FDR via my Mayflower ancestors. Along that line, Randy Seaver of Geneamusings has a LOT of Presidential blood flowing through his veins. Check out his list! How about YOU? Are you related to the President(s)? Please comment below if you're Presidential kin.

Alan Stewart of Grow Your Own Family Tree wrote about Ancestry adding the Dictionary of National Biography (UK) online.

The Nebraska State Historical Society has an amazing blog with great posts and illustrations. This week they announced that the ENTIRE Fall/Winter 2010 issue of Nebraska history magazine featuring African Americans in Nebraska is available free online. The magazine is available by downloading Adobe PDF files for each section. This is a ground-breaking issue of the magazine that blew me away when my print copy arrived several weeks ago.

If you are not reading James Tanner's Genealogy's Star blog, just what planet have you been on lately? Everyone needs to be following his work. Check out two of his posts from this week, Genealogy Inc. vs. Genealogists, Part 1 and Part 2.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

Follow Friday (on Sunday): Around the Blogosphere - February 20, 2011

Sometimes, other duties interfere with doing genealogy, blogging and reading all of the great posts written by other bloggers. This was one of those weeks.

There were so many great blog posts being written about last weekend's Roots Tech conference, that it took a while to skim through everything in my Google Reader to pick out my choices for the best blog posts of the week.

Here they are, better late than never.

Why Roots Tech is the Bees Knees by Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy

Roots Tech Update 7 by Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy

Roots Tech Update 6, yep, you guessed it, Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy

I enjoyed this post by John of the Transylvania Dutch blog because it really hadn't occurred to me that federal tax returns could be a source of information for genealogists. 

If you're like me and getting sick and tired of 25 different bloggers posting the same genealogy-related press release on their blogs, help is on the way. Joan Miller of Luxegen Genealogy explains the new site, Genea-Press which should provide some relief from an over-filled RSS Reader.

Also from Joan Miller is this report from Roots Tech.

Bill West of West in New England provided one of the better reviews of the Rosie O'Donnell episode of Who Do You Think You Are.

I'm still laughing over You Go Genealogy Girl #2 Cheri Hopkins' tie in of her Hogg family with Boss Hogg of the Dukes of Hazard. It reminded me of the time I was walking around a corner in Nashville and ran smack into John Schneider.

I'm sure there were some other good posts this week, but I missed some of them because the author only syndicates the first few lines for the RSS feed; or there were too many affiliate advertisements and widgets on the blog that I didn't have the patience to wait around for the page to load; or the font size and color used on the blog couldn't be read on the dark background used on the blog. Sorry for the mini-rant, but with more than 700 posts back logged in my Google Reader this week, it's time to say adieu to several of the blogs I've been following. Adieu.

Follow Friday: Around the Blogosphere - February 11

Here are some of the genealogy blog posts that I enjoyed reading this week:


Professor Dru wrote a post about Vanessa Williams' ancestor, David Carll, on Let Freedom Ring. Another post about David Carll appearead on the Footnote.com blog.


Leslie Albrecht Huber wrote about Life Before Genealogy and How it Shapes Our Paths now on the Journey Takers blog.


Don't Judge a Genealogist by their Ancestry Tree was an interesting post by Shelley on Twigs of Yore. This post generated quite a few comments and good discussion points.


When Skeletons should stay skeletons by Kellie on She Finds Graves has some good points to ponder.

Do you want to know What it's like to do research at the Family History Library? Polly Kimmitt will tell you on Polly Blog.

Jenna Mills shared a video about a new scrapbooking tool, SMASH UP, that could be adapted for genealogists. Warning: the tune is addictive! Jenna's blog is Desperately Seeking Surnames and you can usually find her on Twitter!

John of Transylvania Dutch has just completed 100 editions of Amanuensis Monday posts! Way to Go!

Those of us with Palatine ancestry (myself included) perked up when the Palatines were mentioned on the Tim McGraw episode of Who Do You Think You Are. Kathleen Brandt is the genealogist who assisted Tim with his research in this episode and she provides an excellent overview of the Palatines on her A3Genealogy blog.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.