Ruth’s Recommendations

Here are my favourite blog posts from this past week.

The British Library has a new blog called Untold Lives Sharing Stories from the Past. They are presenting stories that have been researched from the sources available in the British Library. They had a post called “Credit Crunch leads to Murder” about a bookbinder who committed murder when he had difficulty collecting a debt from a customer in 1832.

Create your Life Story blog had a post called “Reporting Your Family History” where they suggest you try writing your family history as a journalist would write it.

Family history across the seas had a post called “25 years of Family History: reflection and celebration.” There are two parts of this post so make sure you read both. She looks at how researching your family history has changed in the 25 years since she started.

Marian’s Roots and Rambles had a post entitled “A Funny Thing Happened in the Cemetery…” where she describes talking to her ancestors in the cemetery. Go on, you know we all do it.

Irish Genealogy News had a post called “Back To Our Past – what an opening!” where she looks at the first day of the Back To Our Past show being held in Ireland at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). There are two parts to the highlights so make sure you read both of them.

Chris Paton of British GENES (GEnealogy News and EventS) also attended the Back to the Past show and has reported his highlights in a post called “Back to Our Past – report.”

Nancy Anderson of the Fur Trade Family History blog announced that her book “The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson’s Journeys in the West” has gone to the printer for the first proofs. Congratulations Nancy!

This is not a blog but the Lost Cousins website puts out a member newsletter. There is a very interesting article about sharing information online called “Controversy over online trees.” Lost Cousins: Putting Relatives In Touch is a website where you upload the census data for your family and see if you can find “lost cousins” looking for the same family. It is free to sign up and enter your census data but you are charged a fee to contact matches. They occasionally have free member weekends. You can enter census data from 1841, 1881 and 1911 for England & Wales, 1881 for Scotland, 1911 for Ireland, 1881 for Canada and 1880 for the United States.

Brenda Dougall Merriman had a posted called “Loyalists: “O Give Me Land, Lotsa Land…” where she examines the ways in which Loyalists were able to obtain land in what is now known as Canada. She wrote “United Empire Loyalists: A Guide to Tracing Loyalist Ancestors in Upper Canada.” A copy of this book is in my reference library and I recommend it if you have Loyalists ancestors.

Are there any postings in the last week that you think need to be on this list? Let me know in the comments below.

Ruth’s Recommendations

Leave a Comment / By Ruth Blair

Here are my favourite blog posts from this past week.

The blog for the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society had a post written by Mike More called “Volunteering Outside the Box” which laments the lack of volunteers to help run local genealogy societies. This is something which I think all organizations that rely on volunteers to run them are facing at this time.

The NLI Blog has a posted called “The Spectre of Blood” written by Abigail Rieley. It looks at crime reporting in newspapers, in particular murder. The National Library of Ireland has a large collection of newspapers on microfilm. Newspapers are a wonderful wealth of information. I have researched the newspapers on microfilm in the NLI for a murder relating to my Toppin family. You can read more about it here.

TheWildGeese.com…Irish Genealogy and Family History Blog had a post this week called “Irish Custer Writer Discovers 7th Calvary Ancestor!” which is about Robert Doyle’s research into soldiers of Irish origins who fought in Custer’s Last Stand. Imagine his surprise when he found a collateral family link to this very event.

Paula Stuart-Warren of Paula’s Genealogical Eclectica blog had a post entitled “Budget Choices in Life and in Family History” where she looks at how we all have to budget our finances but there are still ways to accomplish some of our research goals without breaking the bank.

There is a new blog called The Paperless Genealogist. His tag line on the blog is “Join me on my quest to reclaim my office and save some trees as I attempt to eliminate as much genealogy paper clutter as I can from my office.” I will be following this blog with interest.

Chris Paton on his British GENES (GEnealogy News and EventS) blog had a post called “How many Scottish church denominations?” This is something that everyone who does research in Scotland needs to know. Many people have told me they can’t find their ancestors in the registers of the Church of Scotland. They are not aware of the other denominations to be found in Scotland or of the secessions from the Established Church. “Burleigh’s chart of Scottish Churches” is another useful document to have in your Scottish research file.

Are there any postings in the last week that you think need to be on this list? Let me know in the comments below.