Shakin' the Family Tree

Love. This.

You will too. You gotta read Greta's post, Things I don't Care About in Genealogy.

Take a look at Barbara's photo of the house where Bette Davis was born.

Nancy examines the laborious process of canning before those wonderful Mason jars were created.

No doubt inspired by last week's Hurricane Irene, Maureen Taylor posted some sobering before and after photos of the "granddaddy of all New England hurricanes:the Hurricane of 1938."

Bill West checked out an Ancestry shaking leaf, and found a family connection between his brother-in-law and an old school chum...

First, the good...

For a lesson in looking at all the value of "found" cousins, read Jessica's post, When You Least Expect It: Long Lost Cousins, at her blog, Desperado Penguin.

Susan at Nolichucky Roots may never know when a descendant of Margaret Lee finds her post transcribing Margaret's 1795 petition for freedom in a Google search, but she took the time to put it out there, and that counts for so much.

More lessons for the storyteller in Suz's post, The Story of Ruth...(Well, sort of) Part II at her blog, The Hunt for Henrietta. The lesson here is that sometimes the story you thought you were going to find can be eclipsed by the one that reveals itself.

I love me some old handmade quilts. If you do too, you can satisfy your craving for them in Grammy's Daughter's post, Treasure Chest Thursday: Perryman Quilts, at her blog, Channeling Grammy.

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Now for the bad and the very ugly.

Clicked over to Clue Wagon to see what was on Kerry Scott's mind, and saw her post, In Which I Say “Geni” And “Crap,” But Not In The Way You Think.

Holy crap. What was Geni thinking? That the people they had enticed with a free service would just capitulate when they made their unannounced change in the Terms of Service (TOS)?

And I love how Chris Whitten from WikiTree popped up in the comments, usually responding to people like me who, while intellectually understanding that we all are part of the Tree of Humankind, don't necessary want to fight with each other about sourcing the gazillion records...

I thought this was particularly choice...snip..."...Edit wars develop. Your cousin might insist on tracing your lineage one way and won’t listen to reason. On WikiTree this is where your lineage would fork. The ancestry can go one way for him and another way for you. The ideal is always that you guys work out your differences, eventually, but we know that’s just an ideal."

Sounds even more fun than poking myself in the eye with my mascara wand. Where do I sign up?

A bit later, it was on to find that Footnote is no more. I had to find their blog post to find out that, unannounced, they have rechristened themselves Fold3 and will now be about adding military records only.

My browser has issues with the new bookmark, and the commenters to the blog post aren't any happier about this than I am.

I didn't use Footnote for only military records. I was hoping from their email hype to me that they would expand their death record images, and I use the City Directories all the time.

The non-military records on Footnote Fold3 will stay, but they won't add any more.

They've made budgeting for me quite a bit easier, as I won't renew.

Wonder if Ancestry has promised to compensate them for their lost revenue?

The woman who defined "famuggles" for genealogists

Ever since I read that entry on Margel's blog, I have been a disciple. (Note: even though Google simultaneously asks, Do you mean muggles? the first two results are hits on her blog...)

If she says it's good reading, I read it.

I think the famuggles in my family are really quite hopeless. In addition to getting all glassy eyed when I explain to the curious among them about the 140 year old Burris secret, mine start edging toward the nearest exit.

But it's comforting to know I am not alone.

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The woman making us all ponder whether our blogs are commenter friendly.

Amy's asking some questions in this post.

I replied and then came back and made a couple of changes to the internal workings of my own blog.

And yeah, she's made it easy to comment on her entry...

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Also this week, someone else was giving thought to blog comments...

Nancy gave us the results of the survey she posted in the sidebar of her blog on January 9.

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One of the most detailed (and comprehensive) compilations of internet research resources I have *ever* seen

Look at Thomas MacEntee's research toolbox and see if you don't agree.

I think it's pretty neat that he and I both have bookmarks for money conversion and historic weather events, even if we don't have the same ones...

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A totally cool photo post of successive generations of sisters

Susan has an outstanding blog, and I especially love her photo posts. But this one from yesterday, just really leapt off the page at me.

Maybe because I have two sisters...