Follow Friday: My Favorite Blog Posts of the Week

Happy Friday!! It was another great week in the genealogy blogosphere. Here are some posts by some of my fellow family historians that I think you might enjoy. Please click on over and show them some love!

You may not have noticed, but those of us who have our blogs hosted on Google's Blogger site were a bit flummoxed when Blogger went down for over a day late last week. Wonder what some of my fellow bloggers did during the downtime? Read on here, here and here to see what Amy Coffin from The Wee Tree Genealogy Blog, Elizabeth at Little Bytes of Life and Randy Seaver from Genea-Musings did during "The Great Blogger Fail of 2011." Also, Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy Blog brought us a little reality (and some tips) about backing up our blogs in case of catastrophic technical failure! Guess what I'll be doing in the next couple of weeks...

Lorine from Olive Tree Genealogy also shared with us a Civil War-era family photo album that has come into her possession. Color me jealous!!!

Heather at Leaves For Trees is helping a friend find her Mexican family roots - no easy feat! I've been thinking about doing the same for my brother-in-law's family (so my nephews will have a more well-rounded family history), and I'll be following Heather's quest to get some good tips and tricks.

One of my recently-discovered Beals cousins, Travis at TJLGenes: Preserving Our Family History, shared the 1867 tombstone of his 5th great grandfather, Nathan C. Beals, that he found thanks to the efforts of one of the many volunteers at FindAGrave.com.

Greg A. Hoots was the guest blogger at the Flint Hills of Kansas blog this week, and he wrote a great story about the cowboy history in the Flint Hills. Since I have my own cowboys who hail from the Flint Hills of Kansas and worked cattle there, this was a great read for me. Greg has also written a new book about the Flint Hills. It will be available next week, and I look forward to snapping up a copy!

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings offers a great tip about using the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) website to find your own Revolutionary War patriots. Trust me, he's right. The DAR website, and its GRS research system, were instrumental in helping me locate some great information, including a "Record Copy" of another DAR member's accepted application that helped me to prove my own patriot and join this wonderful organization.

I loved this post from Marian at Climbing My Family Tree. When she writes about her mother-in-law, Marian Jane McClure, who was born in 1909 Cleveland, Ohio, she gives us a rich history of that time and place, including demographics of the city, transportation and exploration during that age. I hope she doesn't mind, but I plan to use her idea for some of my upcoming blog posts. Genealogy is so much more than just names/dates/places, so I appreciate that Marian has gone a step further to truly flesh out her relatives' histories.

Finally, my cousin, Jennifer, over at the "other" Climbing My Family Tree blog, had a great time last week at the National Genealogical Society (NGS) conference in Charleston, SC, with her daughter, Ellie. She kept us up-to-date with all the great stuff she learned and the people she met at the conference (and her AWESOME photography!). My favorite post, however, included this wonderful video "news report" that Ellie produced and starred in! Ellie took us on a tour of the conference and introduced us to some of the big influencers in the genealogy community. She's a great interviewer, and I think Ellie may have a broadcast career in her future!

I hope you'll click over to these great blogs that influence and inspire me each week. You might learn something, and you'll certainly be entertained!

Follow Friday: My Favorite Blog Posts This Week!

This has been a busy week in the genealogy blogging world, and I've been having fun catching up on some of my favorite bloggers, as well as checking out some blogs that are new to me! Here's what I found that might also interest you:

My cousin, Jennifer, over at Climbing My Family Tree was on a roll this week. I enjoyed all of her posts, especially her story on Shopping Through Ages. I loved that you could buy a number of fake beards from the 1896 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog! Jen also gave us a glimpse of an old salt dish that has been passed down through the generations of her family, and she shared with us a lovely photo of a church choir at in Lockport, NY, taken at Easter 1925. 

Deb at Adventures in Genealogy offered some helpful links for getting kids involved in genealogy, and made me wish I could get my nephews more interested in our family history. I'm not giving up on them, yet... =)

James at Genealogy's Star explained genealogy "citations" and inspired me to better cite my sources. I'm really bad at that, and I know it's going to bite me in the caboose one of these days. 

Elizabeth at Pulled Through the Knothole of Time (and who is also one of my Knitting Genealogy friends on Ravelry) shared a fascinating story about unusual naming practices in one generation of her family. I don't want to give away the ending of the story, so you'll have to click over to read it for yourself!

I got some good tips and inspiration on cleaning up my blog from Tessa at The Keough Corner. One improvement that I've already implemented is an added link at the bottom of each post that you can click to make the post "printer friendly." Thanks, Tessa!

Finally, Nikki at Family History Teacher caught my eye with her story about finding her great great grandfather's POW records from the Civil War. Congrats on that wonderful find, Nikki!

Thanks again to everyone for entertaining, educating and inspiring me this week. I can't wait to read all your stories next week!

Cheers,
-wendy

Follow Friday: What I'm Following This Week

Here's what I've been reading this week!

Heather at Leaves For Trees has introduced me to another TV program to feed my Civil War habit. It's called Civil Warriors, and it's on the National Geographic Channel. Off to find out when the three episodes air in my area!

Over at Roots Traveler, I got some tips for planning a family research trip. This is on my mind because I'm planning a work trip to Boston this summer and I'm really looking forward to spending some time at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Cheryl at Have You Seen My Roots offers some great tips on using message boards for your genealogy research. And, she's right -- that's how I found my cousin, Jennifer, over at Climbing My Family Tree! Cheryl also suggests having a Facebook Friday blogging prompt to share stories of families reunited on FB. I'm all for that. Yay for Social Media!

Speaking of Jen... I loved her post on Sunday commemorating her own soldier ancestors for the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.

Thanks to Vicki at BeNotForgot.com for sharing her really cool -- and USEFUL -- kinship chart!

Shari at Past & Present also shared her tech tip for using the Voice Memo app on your iPhone (or other smart phone) to record stories as they are being told by family members. I need to remember this one!

I like reading blogs on my iPhone and iPad. Sounds like a lot of others like to read blogs on mobile devices. Thanks to A.C. at Find My Ancestor Blog, I now have some tips to make my own blog more mobile friendly. I know what I'll be working on this weekend!

 Thanks again to my fellow bloggers for your entertaining and enlightening posts this week!

Follow Friday: Check Out These Great Genealogy Blogs!

My fellow family history bloggers have been busy this week. There are so many great genealogy blogs out there (over 2,000, I'm told!). I wish I had time to read them all. Meanwhile, here are some of the blog posts that caught my eye, and my imagination, this week. Enjoy! 

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings reminds us that, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, Ancestry.com is making available -- for FREE -- their Civil War collection of records. He's also been busy sharing his own Civil War treasures, which are so interesting.

Lynn at the Armchair Genealogist has tipped us off that Family Tree Magazine is looking for some family recipes and their stories. I'm thinking that my Aunt Rae's Crabby Potato Salad is worthy of submission.

I'm trying to figure out a way to go on the Welsh Heritage Tour that Roots Traveler writes about. I have cousins in Cardiff, and I'm DYING to meet them!

My cousin, Jennifer, over at Climbing My Family Tree writes about why she loves having Swedish roots. Got me thinking about why I love my Danish/English/Welsh/German roots. =)

The Hibbit Family History Blog offers some Victorian-era tips for housecleaning. My favorite: "Servants are no quicker than we are, and we should know for ourselves exactly how long it takes to do every household task, so that we need not allow laziness, or expect too much from those we employ." Oh, my...

I also loved the picture of Becky's ADORABLE Grandmom doing a little spring cleaning on Barking up our Family Tree. 

Please be sure to check out these great blogs and tell the writers how much you enjoy their stories!

Follow Friday: Here's what I've been reading this week

I've been following some great blog posts this week, and wanted to share them with you. Please check out these fantastic genealogy blogs, many of which inspire me each week.

• First of all, a HUGE congrats to all the blogs that were included in Family Tree Magazine's 40 Best Genealogy Blogs for 2011. I especially want to congratulate my cousin, Jennifer, over at Climbing My Family Tree for being named one of the best new genealogy bloggers of 2011. Jen and I met online last year while researching our shared 3rd great grandparents, and her blog inspired me to start writing about my own ancestry. Yay, Jen!!

• Karen, at Genealogy Frame of Mind, is a woman after my own heart. She shares my fascination with the census and wrote a post chock full o' tips on how to research these amazing documents. Definitely worth checking out.

• Cheryl, from Have You Seen My Roots, is another of Family Tree Magazine's top 40 bloggers (congrats!). This week, in honor of Fearless Females Month, she shared her mom's recipe for Fastnachts. Turns out I'm not the only one who can't resist deep fried dough!

• Midwestern Microhistory's Harold linked to a very interesting article about the pitfalls of genealogy. 

• I'm a sucker for Civil War history, and Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings has been keeping me informed and entertained with his newly-acquired Civil War Pension File for his 2nd great grandfather,  Isaac Seaver.

Thanks to all of my fellow genealogy writers for a great week in blogging.

Follow Friday: Climbing My Family Tree

One of my biggest inspirations to start this genealogy blog was a fifth cousin I met online who has her own AMAZING blog: Climbing My Family Tree. Jennifer and I share the same GGG grandparents: Milton Price Brittain and Nancy Garriott, and we both discovered that we were trying to get into D.A.R. through our mutual patriot, Nathaniel Brittain.

Jennifer is a fantastic writer as well as a crack genealogist. In addition to writing Climbing My Family Tree, she also writes another blog, Sergeant Major Mom, about being an army wife and home schooling her five (5!) adorable kids.

Please click over to both of Jennifer's blogs -- you won't be disappointed!!