Looking for the latest news in genealogy? A great way to do that is to subscribe to some of the genealogy blogs that function like newsletters. They are free to subscribe to, and many provide daily updates about news articles relating to genealogy. It sure saves time to have all this information collected in one place, ready for you to read.
I like the genealogy blogs and newsletters because they do more than just provide links to resources that you can search through as you work on your own genealogy projects. The information found on these kinds of websites lets you get a good sense of the historical, and story telling aspects of genealogy. Facts and dates are important when you put together a family tree. But often, it’s the sense of story that makes things more interesting.
Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter is a great place to start. It is updated daily with the latest genealogy related news stories, reviews of new genealogy related products and software, information about genealogy conferences, and more. This website gives it to you straight, and holds “the sugar coating”. In other words, this is not one of those websites that is trying to appear to be a blog, but in reality is trying to sell you something. Eastman’s Newsletter is the real deal.
Geneabloggers is a fun genealogy related blog that encourages reader participation. They have an active Twitter feed, which you can follow to get updates about, and a link to, their most recent blog entries. They have a lot of inspirational ideas to help people who are working on their family’s genealogy. You are encouraged to share the story you wrote on your own blog with Geneabloggers, if it fits the theme. Madness Monday can include a post about an ancestor who suffered from a mental illness, or a way to share your frustration when your genealogy research has hit a dead end. Tombstone Tuesday should include an image of a gravestone of one of your ancestors, and a short story about that person. Wordless Wednesday is for blogs where the main focus was on one photograph, that tells it’s own genealogy related story. These are just a few of many good ideas that you can use to share your genealogy experiences.
Genealogy Jump Start is a great place to find reviews of books that are related to genealogy. You can see a photo of the cover, read a review, learn the price, and see how many stars this book was rated. While there is an Amazon link to where you can purchase the book if you want to, the Genealogy Jump Start website is not designed to sell books. To me, this means that the reviews I read of a particular book on this website is an honest and genuine review.
Image by Carl Beckelheimer on Flickr