Follow Friday – 3 June 2016

When I run across amazing blog posts or articles, I want to share with my readers. Most of the time the articles I find may not be from just the week of my Follow Friday post, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go “back in time” to read them or perhaps find a new-to-you blog! So without further ado –

Broughton Images has two new posts from this past month (including one celebrating Memorial Day): Just Follow the Flags and Bonham Heritage Day Festival. The photographer truly captures the atmosphere and stirs emotions whether it’s photos of a Veterans Memorial surrounded by flags from each branch of military or Bonham’s courthouse on the square during the annual festival.

Becky Jamison has caught the Trello bug! She has started to use Trello to organize many items pertaining to her genealogy research. So please visit her Grace and Glory website and read what happened when she Brought Hidden Emails to Light.

And if you need something else to “spark” your creativity, visit Amy Johnson Crow’s site and read Creating Family History Videos Easily for Free using Adobe Spark. On top of that article, you’ll also want to read Amy’s suggestions for researching the new Indiana Vital records that Ancestry recently added. You can find that informative article here: Indiana Vital Records on Ancestry: Good & Bad. As I spent some time yesterday going through these records, I know of what Amy speaks!

The other day I had 28 New Ancestor Discoveries on Ancestry. Yesterday it dwindled to six. I knew why after I read Roberta Estes’ article on her DNAeXplained blog: Ancestry Refines New Ancestor Discoveries (NADs). Perhaps her explanation will help you in what has perplexed many researchers.

Do you find it difficult to organize everything you need in order to be more productive at research (whether it is for family history, work/school project, or to run a household)? Diane Haddad at the Genealogy Insider shares some tips with her article The Big Picture: Using Mind Mapping to Organize Research Ideas. See if it helps you!

These are just some of my favorite articles lately! What are you reading?

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Follow Friday – 4/15/2016

Sometimes I am a little slow to read or find articles posted the same week as my “Follow Friday” and at least one of the posts below is from a couple weeks ago. I’ve still read it this week!

Susan Peterson explained how easy it is to Create Your Own Clip Art for blog posts. She has some great tips!

To piggy-back on Susan’s post, I ran across 6 Steps to Organize Your Blog Images on Tonia Kendrick’s “Solopreneur Diaries” website.

Are you on Pinterest? Are you following Geneabloggers? If you haven’t followed yet, I urge you to do so – there are many boards there (Genealogy Bargains, May I Introduce You To…, DNA Genealogy, Photo Resources for Genealogists, etc.) that may help in any aspect of genealogy, research, websites, photos, or blogging.

What useful tips or articles have you found this week?

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Follow Friday – April 8, 2016

The blog post that had me by the heartstrings this week was from DNAExplained by Roberta Estes about a daughter that was born too early and passed away without a name or a proper good-bye – The Invisible Child. Her article made me think about my own mother who lost a child at 5 months gestation.

Randy Seaver, at Genea-Musings, never fails to amaze me with tips, ideas, how-tos, or some humor. Yesterday, he posted Ancestry.com Provides a Relationship Calculator, and my first thought was “are there still people who aren’t familiar with that?” I was thinking that it is the line on the person’s profile that says “2nd great-grandmother” – etc. But then I started reading the article! It is not what I thought. Once again, Randy told me something I did not know nor was I aware of!

I believe that Amy Johnson Crow is my hero when it comes to Ohio research! I learn new and interesting things about researching in my home state. Her article, 5 Ways to Prepare For Your Courthouse Research Trip, is not just for those with Ohio ancestors. This couldn’t come at a better time for me because I’m planning on doing some courthouse research this summer when I’m in Ohio. Thank you, Amy!

Denise Olson (Moultrie Creek Gazette) provided some tips on publishing a family history book in Build Family History Books with BookWright. There are many types of services to do this, and Denise helps narrow down those choices.

What have you been reading this week?

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Follow Friday – April 1, 2016

No Fooling!  Here’s a few of the articles that I’ve read this week and want to share with my readers.

Since I was born and raised in Ohio and at least three or more generations back called it home as well, I appreciated Amy Johnson Crow’s article 5 Hidden Treasures for Ohio Genealogy. Although I’ve used a few of her suggestions, I sometimes tend to forget about them. Now I can make sure they are bookmarked when I need to refer to them.

Do you have an ancestor or collateral relative who fought in the Civil War? My 2nd great-grandfather, James Emory House, was a member of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry Co. H, 80th Regiment. Do you wonder if your ancestor was at the Battle of Gettysburg or Vicksburg? Follow the advice that DearMyrtle gives in: Was He There When His Unit Fought in the US Civil War?.

Lynn Palermo (The Accidental Genealogist) shares Seven Timelines Apps to Share Your Stories.

Do you have tins or jars or boxes full of buttons, trinkets, or other household paraphernalia? Have you inherited them from your mom, aunt, or grandmother? What stories does that jar of buttons hold? Denise Levenick, The Family Curator, provides some advice in dealing with items that others would consider “junk” in Why You Don’t Want to Toss Grandma’s Buttons in the Trash”. I especially loved the ending – but don’t read ahead!

That’s all for this edition of Follow Friday!

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Follow Friday – 18 March 2016

In case you missed all the hoopla that resulted from a recent article published in the March edition of the AARP Bulletin (20 Tips to Declutter Your Home), I urge you to go read the article and then the rebuttal from my fellow Buckeye and professional genealogist, Amy Johnson Crowe – Don’t Burn Your Family Letters When You Declutter. Feel free to add your two cents worth – or better yet, write a blog post about it and leave a link in the comments! (I’ve written a few articles about the letters that I have!)

Do you add metadata to your digital photos? I guess the bigger question would be do you know why you should? You know all those boxes/albums full of old family photos that you have? How many times do you think “why didn’t anyone list who, what, why, where, when, and how?” so you wouldn’t be left scratching your head and trying to figure out that information. Metadata serves the same purpose. It gives you the information you need – as well as a source. Did you inherit it from your paternal grandmother? Was it part of a scrapbook from your favorite aunt? Was it a loose photo stuck inside a Bible or letter? You will want to source all of that so in five years when you pull up a photo from the cloud or your hard drive, you aren’t scratching your head trying to put it in the right context. Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist has written a wonderful article about this – Repeat: an image citation how-to. Go read!

Yesterday, I posted a photo of Ellis Island and a link to Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak’s article about Annie Moore. Last night, Megan posted on Facebook that she had found Annie’s relatives! Here is the story – Generation Saga: Relatives of Annie Moore Traced. Fascinating story!

This past week, the story of the Purple Heart found  at a Goodwill store was making the rounds on Facebook. Within 24 hours, a family member had been found! Power of social networking! Here’s just one article about it – Purple Heart Found at Goodwill.

Last but certainly not least, I want to call your attention to a photo/travel blog with excellent photos of landscapes, nature, events, and animals. Recently, Broughton Images spent a day in Dallas photographing the skyline. Go check it out! You can also follow on Facebook.

 

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Follow Friday – New Geneablogger Changes, Source Lists, Unidentified Woman, and Sheri’s Trip

In the last few days, Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers made two announcements. The first was a brand new genealogy mailing list (and before you groan and think “not another one!” – just remember that this new one will be filled with “news not just for bloggers or ‘technies,’ but will include something for every member of the genealogy community.” UPDATE: The website is back up – so go to Geneabloggers and look on the right hand column.   The other piece of news from Thomas concerns the Geneabloggers website – you can read the article at Open Thread Thursday: How Do You Handle Change?.

If you want to create a report for your sources, Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings posted several articles this week: Creating a Specific Source List Report in RootsMagic 5, Creating a Specific Source List Report in Family Tree Maker 2012 (and the update to that post is found here and here, and Creating a Specific Source Usage Report in Legacy Family Tree 7.5. Thanks, Randy!

A news story from today concerns Forensic Genealogist, Melinde Byrne, and Police Chief, David C. Bailey, from a town in New England – Former Chief, Genealogist Continue Trying to Identify Body.

Sheri Fenley, of The Educated Genealogist posted about her recent trip to Rhode Island. If you plan to research there, please read her insightful article –  Office of the Town Clerk in Rhode Island, as well as this post – New England Hospitality – to see some great photos and read about Sheri’s time with other genealogists and friends!

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Follow Friday – Around the Web

Here is a list of what I’ve been reading “around the web” lately (in no particular order).
Review: Finding Family by Judy Russell on the Legal Genealogist Blog. Judy reviews a book about the journey of an adoptee.

There are many blog posts and articles about the closing of the Georgia archives. If you google “Georgia Archives” – you are sure to find one of the many articles. This is very sad for all those who rely on the Archives for historical, biographical, and genealogical information. Update: Click here to read an update about this – it looks like the Archives will remain open! 
My Heritage Automates Record-Matching as Genealogy Wars Heat Up (Europe) from Gigaom. Interesting article about what the top two (according to the article) genealogy companies (Ancestry and MyHeritage are doing to compete technologically.

There have been several reports of people adding QR codes to their loved ones headstones and this is one of those. What do you think? Will the QR code be outdated in the next big wave of technological advances?

I also want to call your attention to a brand new radio show by one of my genea-friends in New England, Marian Pierre-Louis. She is hosting Fieldstone Common at BlogTalk Radio every Thursday at 1 p.m. (EST). Be sure to tune in! She’ll be giving away books!  The description for this unique program is: “Fieldstone Common is a radio show streamed live on the internet via Blog Talk Radio. Host Marian Pierre-Louis will introduce you to authors and historians who bring history alive! Topics focus on history and genealogy in New England and the Northeast.”

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Follow Friday – My New Followers

I’ve had several people subscribe to my blog lately so I want to show them some love by publicizing their blogs!  I’m also including those who have left comments or “liked” some of my articles.  Most of these are “new to me” blogs, and I bet some of them are new to you also!  Please go check them out!

Porters and Grays and Halls Oh My written by Edith Heilman. I am looking forward to reading this blog because I immediately noticed that her sister was born in Yokohama, Japan – close to where my folks were stationed in the 50s.

Digging Up the Ancients written by Lynda Crackett.  Some of the surnames she’s researching include Crackett, Webb and Henderson. Her most recent posts include History through the Alphabet and things that happened in her family on that day. Please go check out her blog if it is also new to you!

La Mia Familia by Michelle Ann Kratts. Her blog appears to be rather new – begun in May 2012 – and she writes about her Borgatti and Fortuna ancestors.

The Turning of Generations by Michelle Goodrum. Currently, she is organizing all that “stuff” in the Family Home! She provides tips and technical information.

Hidden Genealogy Nuggets written by Jim Sanders. His recent posts include information about Connecticut libraries and military genealogy.

KJN Genealogy – Dead Reckoning written by Kathy Judge Nemaric. Her most recent articles are a series of posts about her Judge ancestors coming to America from Ireland.

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Follow Friday with the Genea-Blogs

There are some blogs and geneabloggers that I want to introduce to you. They aren’t new to me as I’ve been reading their columns for quite some time; however, I want to put them in the spotlight this week.

Marian Pierre-Louis

Marian is the author of several blogs: Marian’s Roots and Rambles, The Symbolic Past, and The New England House Historian. According to her “About Me” page: she “is a full-time House Historian and Professional Genealogist who focuses on New England research.” Marian “specializes in probate, deeds, New England town records and brick wall research.” She is the “Publicity Chairperson for the New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC) and is actively involved with the New England chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Her Roots & Rambles blog was nominated to the Family Tree Magazine 2011 Top 40 Genealogy blogs contest.” Recently, she posted a question to others on her Facebook page that asked how others manage to attend genealogy conferences all of the time. Some 70 responses later – and after many requested that she blog about that subject – Marian did just that. How Do Y’all Manage to Go to Conferences All the Time? is the article she wrote. I suggest you head over there to read it and the comments she received. Perhaps you have your own suggestion. Marian’s twitter is @marianpl.

Carolyn Pointer

Carolyn is the author of Your Family Story. She writes her family’s stories and says, “I like to listen and write their stories down. Sometimes their stories are sad. Sometimes they’re happy. And sometimes they’re downright naughty [if I’m lucky].” Earlier this week (ok, yesterday!), Carolyn wrote A Baby Boy!. She was looking for someone and ended up receiving information about a baby she hadn’t known about.  She gives some links to helpful sites that she used to figure out what the Latin records meant. Carolyn also authors Pearl’s Day Books. Her twitter is @FamilyStories.

Jenna Mills

Jenna is the woman behind Desperately Seeking Surnames. She says that losing both of her parents in 2001 prompted her to start searching for her ancestors. Jenna says that, “While going through their belongings the questions started to pile up, who was this? who was that? etc. Ultimately, I decided I would try to get the answers to the question and find our ancestors. I have been working my way back in time ever since.” One thing I like about this blog is the banner for her title – it looks like she scrapbooked it!  Her Independence Day post is beautiful! You can find it at Happy Independence Day America. Jenna’s presence on twitter is @SeekingSurnames.

Lisa Alzo

Lisa is well known throughout the geneablogger world (as well as those who read genealogy publications and books)!  She speaks at conferences and has published many articles as well as several books. You can find out everything you want to know about Lisa at Lisa Alzo. Her genealogy blog is The Accidental Genealogist. Recently, Lisa’s written articles concerning her return trip to Slovakia: Sojourn in Slovakia: The Sequel; Sojourn in Slovakia: The Sequel. Preparing for the Trip; Sojourn in Slovakia: The Sequel. Departure Day; Sojourn in Slovakia: The Sequel. Day 1. Stay tuned – I’m sure Lisa has future articles that she will post concerning her trip. You can find her on twitter at @lisaalzo.

 

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Follow Friday – January 20, 2012

In between the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday on Monday, the grandson’s school schedule getting back to normal, starting back to my class schedule on Wednesday, work, normal life, and wanting to reach through the phone to strangle doing my best to keep my cool with a customer service rep for our health spending account, I did manage to get some blog reading accomplished!  My happy dance this week was installing the Google Reader app on my kindle fire so that I have all my genea-blogs in one place!

I want to highlight a few outstanding (in my opinion) genea-blogs that I enjoyed in the past week.

First is Ginger Smith’s To Cite or Not to Cite? That’s not really the question! at Genealogy By Ginger’s Blog. This post was written on January 13 but I had not read it before publishing my Follow Friday post (I apologize, Ginger!)  She discusses footnotes and the mysterious disappearance of said footnotes – even when she tries really hard to include them!

Second, the wonderfully informative (tongue-in-cheek humor) post on The Sound of Music Effect from Donna Pointkouski at What’s Past is Prologue. As only she can, Donna explains the difference between “a true story” and “based on a true story”.

Lorine McGinnis Schulze is much braver than I ever would be in her post, Sharing Memories – Week 3 – Hair! at Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. I’ve had some of those “wild” hair-do’s as well!

Many of my fellow genea-bloggers were discussing SOPA and PIPA in the past few days and some blacked out their sites on Wednesday in protest (along with Wikipedia and other well known websites).

If you haven’t read the above posts that I mentioned, go check them out, leave a comment and add them to your “must reads”. And as always check out Randy Seaver’s “Best of . . .” on Sunday.

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