Ruth’s Recommendations

Here are my favourite blog posts from this past week.

The British Library has a new blog called Untold Lives Sharing Stories from the Past. They are presenting stories that have been researched from the sources available in the British Library. They had a post called “Credit Crunch leads to Murder” about a bookbinder who committed murder when he had difficulty collecting a debt from a customer in 1832.

Create your Life Story blog had a post called “Reporting Your Family History” where they suggest you try writing your family history as a journalist would write it.

Family history across the seas had a post called “25 years of Family History: reflection and celebration.” There are two parts of this post so make sure you read both. She looks at how researching your family history has changed in the 25 years since she started.

Marian’s Roots and Rambles had a post entitled “A Funny Thing Happened in the Cemetery…” where she describes talking to her ancestors in the cemetery. Go on, you know we all do it.

Irish Genealogy News had a post called “Back To Our Past – what an opening!” where she looks at the first day of the Back To Our Past show being held in Ireland at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). There are two parts to the highlights so make sure you read both of them.

Chris Paton of British GENES (GEnealogy News and EventS) also attended the Back to the Past show and has reported his highlights in a post called “Back to Our Past – report.”

Nancy Anderson of the Fur Trade Family History blog announced that her book “The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson’s Journeys in the West” has gone to the printer for the first proofs. Congratulations Nancy!

This is not a blog but the Lost Cousins website puts out a member newsletter. There is a very interesting article about sharing information online called “Controversy over online trees.” Lost Cousins: Putting Relatives In Touch is a website where you upload the census data for your family and see if you can find “lost cousins” looking for the same family. It is free to sign up and enter your census data but you are charged a fee to contact matches. They occasionally have free member weekends. You can enter census data from 1841, 1881 and 1911 for England & Wales, 1881 for Scotland, 1911 for Ireland, 1881 for Canada and 1880 for the United States.

Brenda Dougall Merriman had a posted called “Loyalists: “O Give Me Land, Lotsa Land…” where she examines the ways in which Loyalists were able to obtain land in what is now known as Canada. She wrote “United Empire Loyalists: A Guide to Tracing Loyalist Ancestors in Upper Canada.” A copy of this book is in my reference library and I recommend it if you have Loyalists ancestors.

Are there any postings in the last week that you think need to be on this list? Let me know in the comments below.

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