She explains the issues clearly and interviews genealogy blogger, Stephen Danko to get his opinion. Lisa also gives the outcome of her interview requests with Ancestry and World Vital Records.

I was excited to hear the interview with Stephen as I have been an admirer of his work for years ever since the Genealogy Guys first mentioned him on their podcast.  Stephen’s genealogy blog is in actuality an online research log where he posts document images, transcriptions and translations from his research. Like all genealogists should do, he cites all sources following Evidence Explained. In fact, I had his website in mind when I created the sample site used in the video. For many months, whenever I visited his blog I would imagine a Download link next to each of his source citations. Stephen is somebody I would love to meet. Maybe NGS 2010 in SLC?

Lisa, thanks for getting the word out.  This is truly a grassroots effort and I cannot do it on my own.  Keep spreading the word and contact the providers of the software and services you use.

Thank you!

At last month’s Family History Expo in St. George, I was interviewed by Lisa Louise Cooke from Genealogy Gems.  We talked about the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) and my presentation, Navigating Research with the GPS.

I had a great time chatting with Lisa and the interview is now available as a podcast that you can listen to as well.

Hope you enjoy it.

We are in class right now talking about blogs and podcasts.

The first line of this blog article was written during our weekly Family History class held during the Sunday School hour at church.  These last two Sundays I was asked to substitute teach the class.  Last week we had each class member bring some documents about their ancestors and we talked about them.  It was fun to see the different types of documents that others had and to learn a little about their ancestors.  That first week, we also talked about the difference between original and derivative sources and primary and secondary information.

This week using an older Dell Inspiron B120 notebook, Sony LCD projector, and a class member’s Blackberry 8330 with internet connectivity, we were able to browse the internet in class and talk about blogs and podcasts.  To illustrate how easy it is to create a blog entry, I started this post during class.  We didn’t have time to write more than the first line.  Our discussion of blogs and podcasts started with a post I wrote back in January highlighting some of the best genealogy blogs and podcasts.  We followed some of the links to give the 9 class members in attendence an idea of what blogging and podcasts are all about.  We first started with the blogs and in addition to those from my previous post, we looked at Stephen Danko’s blog and how he uses it as a research log.  We also talked about how easy it would be to use a site such as WordPress or Blogger to create your own personal or public blog.

For podcasts, I started up iTunes and showed how easy it is to search for genealogy podcasts and then subscribe.  We listened to the openers for The Genealogy Guys, DearMYRTLE, and Genealogy Gems. 

Next we moved to genealogy videos over at RootsTelevision and showed the first part of “Are You Smarter than a Grade School Genealogist.”

We had just a few minutes left so we looked at some websites that we had mentioned the previous week.  One of the sources that I showed was a picture of grave marker.  A few months ago I searched Find A Grave to see if my great grandfather was listed.  He was not, so I entered Worth Tucker’s information and requested for a volunteer to take a photograph of the marker.  I live in Arizona and the cemetary is in Utah and I am not sure the next time I will visit.  I was very pleased by the quick response.  Another class member also had a great experience with Find A Grave, so we spent a few minutes visiting the site.  Last week a number of class members brought homestead documents for their ancestors.  This week we visited the Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office records search to look at some land patents.

That is all we had time for so I am finishing this post today.  We have a good class and a wonderful instructor.  I am happy to be a class member.  It is amazing how both the topics and technology that allowed this class to be taught didn’t exist a few years ago.

1. Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter – Dick Eastman
2. The Genealogy Guys Podcast – George G. Morgan & Drew Smith
3. Genealogy Gems Podcast – Lisa Louise Cooke
4. DearMYRTLE’s Family History Hour – Pat Richley 
5. Family Roots Radio Genealogy Hour – Kory L. Meyerink
6. The Genealogue – Chris Dunham
7. Genealogy Blog – Joe Edmon, Leland Meitzler, et. al.
8. Along Those Lines - George G. Morgan
9. Genea-Musings – Randy Seaver
10.  The Genealogy Tech Podcast – Bill Puller

 There are so many blogs that I am sure I don’t even know all the great ones.  There are probably also some podcasts that I don’t know about as well.  It has been difficult to pick just 10.  My picks tend to have more than a sprinkling of technology along with the genealogy.

Please add a comment with any blog or podcast that I might have missed.  Maybe it will become one of my favorites for 2008.