Weeklky Genealogy Picks: Oct 14-20

Highlights from news stories and blog posts I have read in the past week that deal with my overlapping interests in Genealogy, History, Heritage, and Technology.

• Michele Simmons Lewis at Ancestoring provides some helpful suggestions on researching in other countries.

• At The Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal Randy Seaver discusses the Christian custom of being buried with your feet to the east. The custom of feet facing Jerusalem is also common in Judaism. (Chabad), and Muslims are buried facing Mecca.

• Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak at The Huffington Post says Enough with the Famous Cousins, Already! and Dick Eastman at Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter says We Are All Related, So Get Over It! - Both are lamenting the continual discoveries of celebrities who happen to be 10th cousins, and explaining how this isn't surprising. Smolenyak explains she is only surprised when the relationship is closer than 7th cousins.

• The UK 1911 Census transcriptions are free until November 18th at Genes Reunited and FindMyPast (hat/tip: GenealogyBlog)

• In Is It In Our Genes? at RJ Blog Dr. Susan Klugman discusses the prevalence of Tay-Sachs disease among Ashkenazi Jews, and the genetic impact of "the founder effect." 

• On Letters of Note - a letter Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, wrote in 2006 to Oprah Winfrey on the subject of reading and books.

Other Weekly Lists

• Julie Cahill Tarr's Friday Finds at GenBlog
• Dan Curtis's Monday's Link Roundup at Professional Personal Historian
• Diane Haddad's Genealogy News Corral at Genealogy Insider
• Lynn Palermo's Monday Morning Mentions at The Armchair Genealogist
• Randy Seaver's Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings

Upcoming holidays - religious and secular, national and international - for the next two weeks

Two Week Calendar

Oct 22 - International Stuttering Awareness Day
Oct 23 - Mole Day/Avogadro's Day (Celebrated at 6:02 a.m. or p.m. - 6.02 * 10²³ )
Oct 24 - Dasera (Hindu)
Oct 24 - United Nations Day
Oct 25 - Waqf al Arafa (Islam)
Oct 26-29 - Eid Al Adha (Islam)
Oct 27 - World Day for Audiovisual Heritage
Oct 28 - Reformation Sunday (Protestant Christian)
Oct 30 - Mischief Night (North America)
Oct 31 - Hallowe'en or All Hallows' Eve (Christian)
Oct 31 - Samhain (Neopagan) - Sunset Oct 31 to Sunset Nov 1
Nov 1 - All Saints Day (Christian)
Nov 1 - Day of the Innocents (Mexico)
Nov 2 - Day of the Dead (Mexico)
Nov 2 - All Souls Day (Catholic)
Nov 4 - Mischief Night (UK)