Inspiring Blogs 300Welcome to the second half of the year … I know it’s a little scary isn’t it. But with July already here, it’s just a matter of time, and Christmas will be around the door.

Anyway I have had the pleasure of reading a whole bunch of fabulous blog posts throughout June, and here are a few of those that I’d like to share with you. For June we cover everything from who owns your own data?, cousin bait, privacy and genealogy, photo sharing, wasting time?,  LGBT family members, and why Twitter is so good! As usual there’s quite a variety!

I know that I’ve mentioned before that I find that reading blog posts helps me keep up with the latest news, products as well as what’s happening in general in the world of genealogy. And if you happen to already follow me on Twitter, and to some extent Google+, you already know that I like to share with you the interesting things I read.

Anyway I hope you find the following Genealogy Blogs … useful, and well, inspiring.

No Time is Ever Wasted Doing Research
“No time is ever wasted doing research, if we learn,” said Marian Smith at the opening session of the 2013 annual conference of the National Genealogical Society.” The title of this post made me read on, and so often I have heard people say “well that was a few hours wasted” simply because they didn’t find specifically what they were looking for. But what they are overlooking is the fact that they have now eliminated sources and have negative evidence, which is vitally important too. Read the full story …

Do You Own Your Genealogy Data?
You may refer to the information you collect as “my ancestry” or “my records,” but that doesn’t mean that you own the information. In fact, most information in the US, Canada and to a growing degree Australia is freely available to everyone in the public domain. Nobody can claim that data as their own. Read the full story …

History vs Privacy: Can they Survive Together?
Mocavo’s Michael Leclerc tells us about the horrifying article he read in the New York Times recently which threatens the very idea of historical research, not to mention destroying genealogy as we know it. And if you think this is overly dramatic, guess again. Read the full story …

EU regulation could restrict genealogical research
Continuing the theme of privacy and restricting record, the Irish Times reports about the Irish records in the National Library that could be restricted because of data protection laws that some are trying to implement. Read the full story …

7 Reasons Cousin Bait Doesn’t Work
Now I’m figuring most of you will have heard of cousin bait, which is where you write about your family on your blog (or website) in the hope that others searching for those people will find you. In many, many cases it does work. In this blog post, Kenneth Marks give 7 reasons on just why cousin bait sometimes doesn’t work. Read the full story …

The Best Family Photo Sharing Option
I think a number of us can identify with Caroline, and have family that out of the blue start asking questions about family history, and in particular family photos. So she’s been exploring photo sharing options, and assessing them all. Read the full story …

Genealogy works as ‘brain food’ for keeping young
Genealogy … “It’s just great fun — and brain food, if you will — for keeping you young,” she said with a laugh. “It’s putting a big puzzle together and finding all the pieces. When you’re missing a piece, you’ve just got to work until you find it.” Read the full story …

The Hidden – LGBT Family Members and Genealogy
This is not a new blog post, but it was referred to recently which is how I found it. In it Thomas MacEntee mentions that he has highlighted the plight of women in genealogy (we all know about that), but a similar story can be drawn about our lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered (LGBT) family members and how, and if, they appear in our family histories. Read the full story …

You Are on Twitter, Aren’t You?
We all know about FamilySearch and Ancestry and the other big name companies. But Jacqi (author of the post) finds that when she asks people about using Twitter for genealogy she gets blank stares. I have to 100% agree with her on this. Twitter it a seriously great resource for genealogy, and is greatly underused. But it is misunderstood by those who don’t use it. Jacqi explains just WHY Twitter is so good for using as a genealogy tool. Read the full story …

Ancestral Lines Pairing System: A New Genealogy Numbering System
This post isn’t new as it’s dated 2011, but once again was a great post I stumbled across during June, so it made it on to my list. In it Dick Eastman tell us of a new numbering system that is different from  the Ahnentafel Numbers, d’Aboville Numbers, Henry Numbers, the Register System, the Dollarhide System, and the NGSQ System. Now, writing in the American Ancestors web site, Capers W. McDonald has suggested using a new numbering system: the Ancestral Lines Pairing System. Read the full story …

Happy reading! 😉