Follow Friday: 23 July 2010

This Week

At Find My Ancestor, A. C. Ivory is starting a series on the “Family History Library: Getting Started,” a guide to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City for newbies.

A must-read: “1851 Dilemma, Are Your Dresses Draggley or Turkish?” at Carol’s Reflections from the Fence.

In “Not So Long Ago or Far Away: Six Degrees to Slavery,” Nolichucky Roots examines her own connections to slavery and the impact it has had on her life; the original inspiration for this came from Finding Josephine, where Dionne wrote about discovering relationships between the slave owners of her ancestors in “Treasure Chest Thursday: Six Degrees of Slave Owner Separation.”

“Archaeology on the cheap,” “dumpster diving,” “junking,” or, as Tipper at The Blind Pig and the Acorn calls it, “Treasure Hunting for Old Bottles” – a fun way to explore the past.

At a3 Genealogy, Kathleen Brandt provides some great pointers on how to prepare for a research trip by checking out various state and local research resources in “Research in Mississippi?”

At FamHist Lee Drew reminds us that we should always look for ways to back up the information provided on death certificates in “Faulty Memories and Death Certificates.”

Another thought-provoking post from Daniel Hubbard at Personal Past Meditations – A Genealogical Blog: “Quantum Genealogy” – dealing with the probabilistic, with winding paths, with how increased knowledge of a past life makes in more difficult to reconcile new knowledge that does not fit our expectations. And how do we change already lived lives with our examination of them? Fascinating questions.

At TransylvanianDutch, John Newmark has some good advice on how to make sure your genealogy notes and photo labels are not confusing or ambiguous in “Don’t use shorthand, abbr., or otherwise leave out” (I am so often guilty of doing just that!).

Lots of helpful information on turning blogs into books and “herding photos” this week:

At I Will Remember, Kathy shows how she turned the first six months’ worth of posts on her blog into a book in “Treasure Chest Thursday – A Blog Book” (Blurb was also the subject of an article by Heather Rojo at Nutfield Genealogy; her book is shown at the right side of her blog).

At Before My Time, T.K. writes about her progress on her Blurb book project in “Blurb Blurb.”

And at Olive Tree Genealogy Blog, Lorine McGinnis Schulze writes about “How to Create a Photo Collage in Picasa.”

I’m inspired by all these posts to get going on book and photo projects!

Around the Genea-Blogosphere

Happy Second Blogoversary to Elyse at Elyse’s Genealogy Blog!

Happy Blogoversary to The Genealogy Gals! (And check out the “Blogiversary” post to read about genealogists’ special take on certain words.)

For more suggested genealogy blog reading, check out John Newmark’s “Weekly Genealogy Picks” at TransylvanianDutch and Randy Seaver’s Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings.

This week I started following these blogs:

Between the Gate Posts (love the inspiration for the blog name)

Genealogical Research – past, present, future…

Layers of the Onion – A Family History Exploration

Search For Agnes (search4agnes)

The Generations Project Blog

I would like to echo a request made by Carol at Reflections from the Fence for prayers for members of our GeneaBlogging community and their families, particularly Gini at Ginisology, whose mother is gravely ill, for the recovery of Linda's (Flipside) son Aric, and for recovery and good health for footnoteMaven.