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Here are a few recommendations for reading this weekend . . .
1. Marian Wood of Climbing My Family Tree blog had a short but interesting Tuesday Tip this week about using maps to plot visually the residence locations of ancestors and relatives. Read her tip and example here. Marian's tip reminded me of a post I did back in July 2014 about using maps to "pay it forward" by preserving neighborhood resident information that (in our highly mobile modern society) could otherwise be easily lost in just a matter of a few years. See here a resource for over 178,000 USGS maps going back to 1884 and a suggestion of how they could be used in our genealogy research to preserve information for future genealogists.
3. While I am admittedly a notoriously infrequent Facebook user (and often contemplated just deleting my account altogether), a post this week by Nancy Messier of My Ancestors and Me blog discusses the use of Facebook Groups for assistance with genealogy research. Have a look at Nancy's post here and see the various examples she illustrates of helpful groups for genealogy research.
4. At one point or another if you use Ancestry.com, you are going to suddenly notice the "Suggested Records" that are often provided to the right of the window when you have clicked on a hint to view it. This week Amy Johnson Crow posted a piece on her blog explaining what those suggested records are and whether you should use the suggestions. You can read her explanation and advice here.
5. Have you ever heard of a Genealogy Library or Society Lock-In? I have to admit I had not until I read a post this week on UpFront With NGS blog. You can read about these events here and see more information about some that could be going on in your area at this link. I am now going to have to keep my eye out for such events in my area.
6. The Legal Genealogist, Judy Russell, has yet another blog post on the right and wrong of using material obtained online. This is a must-read post that you can access here (and be sure to read the comments and responses too).
7. Have you ever heard of the "King's Daughters" or filles du roi who emigrated to New France beginning in 1663 in order to marry male colonists, have lots of children, and secure a French empire in the New World? Neither had I until I read a suggested article mentioned in The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS this past week. Read this DNA story and about the "Mother's Curse" of Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy that was brought to French Canada.
8. And finally for this week -- just for fun -- maybe you should not talk like a pirate this week, but rather try talking like some of our great, or great great, or maybe great great great grandparents used to. If this sentence embrangles you, and you are put off by the daily rise of snollygosters in your news to the point that it all becomes background skirr, then perhaps you need to skedaddle onto an agrestic vacation where you can exuviate the everyday recrement of modern, high-tech, industrialized living! Reader's Digest provides us here with ten words that will soon be extinct (unless we all mount a campaign to bring back some "ancestor-speak").
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Copyright 2017, John D. Tew
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Hi John, Thanks for including me and thanks especially for the tip about USGS maps, which I have to look at!
ReplyDeleteIt was my pleasure Marian. I have always loved maps and your tip makes a lot of sense to me. There is such to be learned from locating on a map where ancestors and relatives lived in relation to one another. And there is also a lot to be learned from knowing who the neighbors were. We have all heard about the usefulness of noting on census enumerations who neighbors were, but I think having a visual map of locations is very useful and easy to grasp. Thank you for that tip!
DeleteThank you for including my post this week, John.
ReplyDeleteThanks, too, for the link to the soon-to-be-extinct words. Skedaddle is one my mother used often enough for it to become a part of my vocabulary, and one which I still occasionally use. The others were words I had never heard but can imagine seeing in old newspapers.
I too am familiar with skedaddle and have used it, albeit infrequently, over the years. It was the only word I knew of the ones listed, but I like many of them and hope to use them -- especially snollygosters, which is just plain fun to say. ;-)
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