As folks recover from the gathering and feasting of Thankgiving, here are a few suggested reads while dealing with the guilt of overindulging. ;-)
1. A little over a week ago there was a post on what I consider to be the premier genealogy-related blog out of Rhode Island. I am referring to One Rhode Island Family by Diane Boumenot and the announcement of her new book about the Rhode Island State Census. Read here about the book and why it could be very useful to you if you have any Rhode Island roots.
2. The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS highlighted a piece this week from mentalfloss.com titled "11 Foods Missing From the First Thankgiving." If you guessed that pizza was missing, you would be correct, but to read about the 11 identified in the article go here.
3. The most recent edition of The Writer's Almanac from Garrison Keillor noted that today is the birthday of critic and writer James Agee (born in 1909). Read here the summary about Agee, but in particular read in the summary an extended quote from his classic book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, that will resonate with those of us who are immersed in genealogy and family history.
4. James Tanner, of Genealogy's Star blog, posted yesterday about the use of live text OCR (optical character recognition). Read here about what this is and what it can do for you in your genealogy research.
5. Ahh, the frustrations that are just an annoying inevitability when doing genealogy research. There is simply no way to avoid them completely and that is why a good rant is cathartic. Jacqi Stevens, of A Family Tapestry blog, got a good rant off her chest this week and just reading it made my latest frustration melt away temporarily because "misery loves company." ;-) Read "A Rant About Really Old Newspapers" here.
6. Janine Adams, professional organizer and author of Organize Your Family History blog, posted this week about abandoning your paper research files and going digital. Read her steps to digital genealogy here. While I agree paper has its real downsides, it has some advantages over pure digital records. If you are going digital in your genealogy record keeping, perhaps rather than scanning and then shredding, one might consider if any other family member might be interested in your paper files and all the work you put into it -- look at it as another "backup" if your hard drive or other backups should fail. If no one is interested in your paper files then by all means go ahead and shred. ;-)
7. Marian Wood, of Climbing My Family Tree blog, reviewed a new book by one of her favorite website authors. Read here Marian's review of the new reference book Learning More About Your Ancestors Online by Kenneth R. Marks
8. Another article highlighted recently in The Weeekly Genealogist of NEHGS, is one about solving the code for an alchemist's recipe for the Philosophers' Stone. Read here about the code, how it was broken, and how modern chemists will soon try to re-create the formula to see what happens.
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Copyright 2021, John D. Tew
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Thanks so much for including my book review post in your finds this weekend!
ReplyDeleteHi John! Thanks for mentioning my book. I hope it will help people with those Rhode Island census records. Smallest state with the biggest census set, I think!
ReplyDelete