Below are a few suggested reads for your weekend.
1. This week, James Tanner of Genealogy's Star blog asks the question, "Is GEDCOM still relevant in today's online world?" You can read Mr. Tanner's views on the question here. He also posted about the pros and cons of using more than one of the online family tree/database websites. You can read his thoughts here.
2. From time to time I like to mention the blog of Pam Beveridge, Heirlooms Reunited. I have no personal or financial connection to Pam or to her blog/website, but I have surfed her website for years because I find it fascinating and educational. Heirlooms Reunited bills itself as a place that "researches genealogy and family history of orphan heirlooms" and based on the number and variety of items shown on the site, Pam has a truly awesome collection of orphan heirloom items (some of which are for sale). I have never bought anything as yet, but I periodically surf the site in the hope of finding an item that somone in my family once owned or was demonstrably connected to. The site always provides images of the items, quite often with some genealogical information, transcriptions and lists of names shown in items such as autograph books and other documents. Recently Pam has posted a series of newspaper clippings of obituaries, annoucements, etc. for folks from Maine. Surnames include Ross, Merrill, Edes, Tripp, Foss, Presley, Steward, and Webb among others. You can access and browse years of the blog's posts by starting here. [WARNING: You might want to set an alarm to limit your surfing or you could find yourself immersed in scrolling and searching for hours. Good hunting!] 😊
3. Marian Wood of Climbing My Family Tree blog had several posts this week that summarized comments from Twitter #Genchats all revolving around the topic of what will/should happen to your genealogy research and and genealogy material collections. It is worth reading Marian's list format summaries across the five blogs. You can begin at the home page here and scroll through the earlier posts easily and quickly.
4. Judy Russell of The Legal Genealogist blog posted this week about a release of some 2.8 million images by the Smithsonian. The images are now available for use free of copyright constraints under the Creative Commons' option. Read more about this massive image release here.
5. Michael Dwyer recently had a piece on Vita Brevis, the blog of NEHGS, about childhood mortality in America in the 19th century before the discovery of the miracle drugs. It is a sobering read, but one that most genealogists are familiar with–young children dying of diseases such as cholera, TB, croup, diphtheria, etc. My maternal grandmother was one of six children, but three of her siblings died quite young. My paternal grandfather was one of five children (four boys and one girl), but he and his older sister were the only ones to survive beyond age two. Read about the all too common loss of young children to disease in 19th century America here.
6. And finally, The Weekly Genealogist newsletter of NEHGS linked this week to yet another of the plethora of DNA discovery stories. This one is bittersweet. You can read it here.
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Copyright 2020, John D. Tew
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I t's March 7th, not Feb 7th...just saying.. I know how hard this is to get it right every time!
ReplyDeleteRandy -- thanks for the sharp eye and catching that typo. It is corrected now. I have no excuse because it was NOT a cut and paste. I just got lost in time. I'll have to be very careful to spring forward and not fall back when we change the clocks tonight! ;-)
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