Weekly Genealogy Picks

Weekly Genealogy Picks -- April 25 to May 1
from genealogy blogs, newspaper articles and elsewhere

Several bloggers have been spending the week at the National Genealogical Society Conference in Salt Lake City.  One of the announcements to come out of that conference is that Ancestry.com is developing a Mac version of their FamilyTreeMaker software.  (hat/tip: AnceStories). 

Diane Haddad at The Genealogy Insider provided pictures of the NGS group viewing of the final episode of Who Do You Think You Are.  She also provides a summary of the episode, and a list of a few statistics they learned about what went into the making of the show

Randy Seaver at GeneaMusings discussed a presentation he attended on The Future of Genealogy Collaboration.

The April issue of Shades of the Departed Magazine has been released.

Denise Barrett Olson at The Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal discusses how to build a cemetery photo archive.

English geneticist, Paul Nurse's recent discovery teaches us where genealogy research should always begin - oneself.  For most of us, our birth certificate will confirm what our parents told us.  But at age 61, his did not.  (Read more at The MyHeritage Blog)

Dan Curtis has 25 No Cost or Low Cost Marketing Ideas for your Personal History Business.

Thomas MacEntee at High-Definition Genealogy has developed a Genealogy Source Citation Quick Reference Card.  Which may be of much help for those confused by source citatons.  I know I tend to use the MLA method, as that is what I learned in school.  But other methods are illustrated.

Monday, May 10th, is Personal Archiving Day at the Library of Congress.  May 9-15 is Preservation Week.

Schelly Talalay Dardashti, at Tracing the Tribe, discussed a new resource to me, Scirus.  "the most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web. With over 370 million scientific items indexed at last count, it allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information."  For genealogists, if you have relatives in the science fields, you may find this particularly useful.  Though the database does cover more than just science, as I found references to relatives who are lawyers and some in artistic fields. [search it yourself].

If your research takes you to New York, you will want to look at Steven Lasky's list of Searchable Cemetery Databases in the New York Metro Area at the Museum of Family History.

Roy Tennant at the Library Journal noticed that it had been awhile since the Wayback Machine archive had been updated.  The Wayback Machine is an amazing resource for seeing what webpages used to look like, but he couldn't find archives more recent than August 2008 for websites such as Microsoft and Amazon.  He received a comment from someone at Wayback that confirmed they are behind in updating, but they have the data, and they are working on a new version that will be released in 'the summer.'

Luckie Daniels at Our Georgia Roots had to write some posts this week, she would rather not have written.  Apparently she has been harassed online by another genealogy blogger who refused to listen to the word 'stop.'  She had a follow-up post on Community Advocacy.  Thomas MacEntee suggested a Geneabloggers Code of Conduct, which has received a lot of commentary pro and con.

Matt Quinn at Poemblaze has a humorous poem entitled Genetic Counseling about a somewhat lazy, but at least honest, genealogist.

Animal Rights group, PETA, purchased ad space on some cremation urns.

The ACLU is supporting a congressional bill to eliminate gene patents.

Other Weekly/Monthly Lists

• Genealogy News Corral - from Diane Haddad at GenealogyInsider

• Follow Friday - from Greta Koehl at Greta's Genealogy Bog

• New Genealogy Blogs and Upcoming Genealogy Blogging Events - from Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers

• May Calendar of Events -from Miriam Robbins Midkiff at AnceStories 

Amanuensis Monday: April 26th participants

Jo Lee Archer Arnspiger at Those Who Went Before 
Terri Buster at Southwest Arkie
Joan Hill at Roots'n'Leaves
Sherry Stocking Kline at Family Tree Writer
Kim at Ancestors of Mine from Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Beyond
John Newmark at TransylvanianDutch
Heather Wikinson Rojo at Nutfield Genealogy

If you participated, but don't appear on this list, let me know.