Monday, January 25, 2010

Final Day at Family History Expo Mesa

The final day, Saturday 23 January 2010, of the 2nd Annual Arizona Family History Expo found me awake early again!  As I said before, Miss Holly who runs the show must not know me very well since she scheduled me for an 8:00 am class!

I was able to run into Amy Coffin of We Tree and Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist in the lobby of the Phoenix Mesa Marriott around 7:15 am.  We sat and had coffee and a pastry before heading over to the convention center.  I located my room which sat about 100 people and by time the top of the hour rolled around, there were about 85 people!  The topic: Become A Genealogy Blog User and I have to say the response was great.

My presentation discussed not only the various categories of genealogy blogs (as depicted in the Genealogy Blog Primer over at GeneaBloggers), but also why genealogists should be following genealogy blogs.  In addition, I gave a quick lesson on how to use Google Reader to efficiently follow blogs as well as making sure to leave feedback using the Comments feature.

I want to thank Amy and Lisa for being in the class (and for not being unruly!) as well as all those participants who had wonderful questions.  While I don't think we'll see many of the attendees creating their own genealogy blogs, I do think many of them will look to Google Blog Search when looking up surnames and other research points.

* * *

During the presentation I referenced these great genealogy blogs (see below).  When I present this class again in the future, I will probably change the mix of links so that many different bloggers get a shout out and can be discovered by the class participants.

Getting Started
Genealogy Blog Finder
http://blogfinder.genealogue.com
Google Blog Search
http://blogsearch.google.com

Archives and Libraries
Genealogy Librarian News
http://genlibrarian.blogspot.com

Glenview Public Library
http://gplgenealogy.blogspot.com

Library of Congress blog
http://www.loc.gov/blog

Cemeteries
Association of Graveyard Rabbits
http://www.thegraveyardrabbit.com

Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols
http://cemeteries.wordpress.com

Crafts
Diaries

Education and Certification
The Educated Genealogist
http://sherifenley.blogspot.com

Ethnicity
A Canadian Family
http://acanadianfamily.com

Al’s Polish-American Genealogy
http://polishamericangenealogy.blogspot.com

Our Georgia Roots
http://ourgeorgiaroots.com

Scottish Genealogy Blog
http://scotgen.blogspot.com

Taneya’s Genealogy Blog
http://www.taneya-kalonji.com/genblog

Trace Your Dutch Roots
http://blog.traceyourdutchroots.com

Family Reunions
Rush Reunion Benedicta, Maine
http://rushreunionbenedicta.blogspot.com



Genealogical and Historical Societies
California Genealogical Society and Library
http://calgensoc.blogspot.com

Chula Vista Genealogy Café
http://cvgencafe.blogspot.com

Grey County Historical Society Blog
http://greycountyhs.blogspot.com

Indiana Genealogical Society Blog
http://indgensoc.blogspot.com

Itawamba History Review
http://itawambahistory.blogspot.com

MoSGA Messenger
http://mosga.blogspot.com



Genealogy Conferences
Family History Expos Genealogy Blog
http://fhexpos.com/wordpress

Federation of Genealogical Societies
http://www.fgsconferenceblog.org

National Genealogical Society
http://www.ncgenealogy.org/blogs/ngs2009

Southern California Genealogical Society
http://genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com



Genealogy Industry Blogs
About.com: Genealogy
http://genealogy.about.com

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
http://blog.eogn.com

Family Tree Magazine blogs
http://www.familytreemagazine.com/blogs

Renee’s Genealogy Blog
http://rzamor1.blogspot.com



Genealogy Vendors
Roots Magic blog
http://blog.rootsmagic.com



Geography
CanadaGenealogy, or ‘Jane’s Your Aunt’
http://canadagenealogy.blogspot.com

St. Vincent Memories
http://56755.blogspot.com



Humor
The “You Go Genealogy Girls”
http://yougogenealogygirls.blogspot.com

Uphill Both Ways
http://www.upbothways.com



Individual Family History Blogs
100 Years In America
http://100inamerica.blogspot.com

Two Sides of the Ocean
http://2sidesoftheocean.blogspot.com

What’s Past Is Prologue
http://pastprologue.wordpress.com



Photos and Charts
Dead Fred’s Relatively Speaking
http://www.deadfred.com/blog

Shades of the Departed
http://www.shadesofthedeparted.com

Who Will Tell Their Story?
http://telltheirstory.blogspot.com



Research
Genealogy Roots blog
http://genrootsblog.blogspot.com

Grant Parish Louisiana Obituaries
http://grantparishlaobits.blogspot.com

Olive Tree Genealogy Blog
http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com

Online City, County & Rural Directories
http://sites.google.com/site/onlinedirectorysite



Surnames
A Worthington Weblog
http://worthy2be.wordpress.com

Raeburn Family Odyssey
http://raeburn-family.blogspot.com

Zalewski Family Genealogy
http://www.zalewskifamily.net



Technology
Bootcamp for GeneaBloggers
http://fbbootcamp.blogspot.com

Computer Tips & Tutorials
http://www.genealogy-computer-tips.com

Rainy Day Genealogy Readings
http://rainydayreadings.blogspot.com



Writing Your Family History


© 2010, copyright Thomas MacEntee

8 comments:

Amy Coffin, MLIS said...

Thomas, it was a pleasure to be in the audience. Of course I wanted to support you, but I also attended because I wanted to gauge the audience's reaction to the topic.

They took notes and you held their attention throughout the presentation. I agree with you that they're not going to go out and all start blogs, but they understand what they are and their value now. And that's a giant technological leap.

Are you scheduled to present this topic other places?

Evelyn Yvonne Theriault said...

Thank you, Thomas. It's great to have someone doing outreach for those of us in the blogosphere - especially those of us who live far off the beaten track and will rarely get to attend these events.
Evelyn in Montreal

Janet Hovorka said...

Thomas, There just isn't enough time in the day at these conferences. It was so good to see you even though it was so brief. Honored to be included in your presentation. Hope to be able to catch your presentations in the future too. You are the master. Next time I hope you can carve out some time to talk more. Glad I get to see you online.

The SCGS and Mesa beads hang in a place of honor in my office. I'm going for a big collection. Let me know if you ever need a corporate sponsor for those. :-)

Luckie said...

Thomas thanks for all you do for the Genea-community at large and for including me on this wonderful list of diverse blog resources.

I found myself clicking away & taking notes.

Looking forward to seeing you here in Atlanta!:-)

Cheers,

Luckie.

Miriam Robbins said...

Thanks for including my directories blog with your group of research blogs. Wish I could have attended!

Randy Seaver said...

So you either talk real fast in this 50 minute talk or you don't say much and show the pretty blogs?

Did you show every one of them? If so, wow. I did my Genealogy blog talk on Saturday at Escondido and after showing how to create a blog and how to read blogs there was scant time to visit the 30 blogs I listed on the one-page handout.

Thanks for including three of mine in your list. I'll check my "where did they come from" list and see if my traffic got a bump from your list.

Cheers -- Randy

Thomas MacEntee said...

Thanks everyone for the great comments.

Randy: I don't have time to show each and every blog- I usually pick one from each category. However, I have all the blogs and their respective hyperlinks listed in the syllabus both printed and on the CD.

footnoteMaven said...

Thomas:

Thanks for the shout out for my blogs! How I wish I had been there.

-fM