Geneabloggers

This column previously addressed the importance of the 1870 U. S. census in African-American research. As noted in that article, this was the first federal census after the end of the Civil War, and therefore the first record group to record personal information about former slaves nationwide. It was not, however, the earliest record group to do so in many localities. Many similar record groups were created that provide information about former slaves between 1865 and 1870.

As we near the end of the year 2009, the African American Genealogy Examiner would like to look back and remember the accomplishments of the past year.

Robyn Smith, of the "Reclaiming Kin" blog, has awarded the African-American Genealogy Examiner with the "Kreativ Blogger" award. This award was created by Hulda Husfrue, a Norwegian arts & crafts blogger on 5 May 2008. [Please note that her site is in Norwegian but you can translate the page using Google Translate.] From these humble beginnings the award has spread like wildfire, and the Geneablogger community regularly recognizes their favorite peers with this award.

During the struggle for civil rights, many brave men and women sacrificed their lives to improve the lives of Americans of all races. Unfortunately, because of lingering institutional racism in the South, the murders of these civil rights workers were not all investigated to their fullest, and quite a few went unsolved. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently announced its "Civil Rights-Era Cold Case Initiative," to try to identify the next-of-kin of some of the victims of these cases.

The PBS program "American Experience" is a wonderful series of documentaries about the history of the United States. The series also has a remarkable online presence, often creating unique sites for each episode of the series.

As a result of a trial partnership with FamilySearch, APG is making available three presentations from the 2009 APG Professional Management Conference, which took place on September 2 at the FGS Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.

My goal is to have a complete listing for historical alumni, business, city, county, farm, Masonic, rural, social, and other types of directories for the United States and Canada, and then go on to add directories for other countries. There are also lists of resources, articles, and ideas of where to find offline historical directories.

From CSI to The Maury Povich Show, DNA and DNA testing has become a part of American popular culture. But what is DNA? In simple terms, DNA is a string of proteins that contain coded blueprints for our bodies. It tells our bodies how to grow. We inherit our DNA from our parents, which is where its genealogical value comes in.

This World Wide Web site presents primary source material from the Civil War era in Illinois. These materials include letters, diaries and reminiscences of Union soldiers. But they also include important documents, images, and other resources from the home front.

Previous posts in this column demonstrated the use of family clusters and neighborhood clusters to identify families in the U. S. federal census. In this post, we will use these same techniques to identify the last owners of a family freed after the abolition of slavery.

At Blog2Print, you can print your blog and turn it into a professionally-published Blog Book. With just a couple of clicks, you choose a cover, the posts you'd like to include, and you're on your way to creating a Blog Book of as much of your blog as you choose. You can edit your book, add/remove comments, and add or remove pictures.

At Blog2Print, you can print your blog and turn it into a professionally-published Blog Book. With just a couple of clicks, you choose a cover, the posts you'd like to include, and you're on your way to creating a Blog Book of as much of your blog as you choose. You can edit your book, add/remove comments, and add or remove pictures.

In an earlier entry, this column reported on several resources available for online African-American research in Virginia. Many more resources are now available, some becoming so just in the past three months since that report, necessitating another visit to the subject.

#genealogy

A list compiled on April 3, 2009

Do you have a favorite few genealogy blogs that you read regularly? Maybe the blogger offers excellent genealogy advice, insightful analysis or a unique point of view. Or the writing especially creative or humorous.\n\nIf so, we want to know about it. In the May 2010 issue, we'll be naming the Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy Blogs ("Family Tree 40" for short).\n\nFirst, we're asking the genealogy community to nominate the genealogy blogs they read most. Later, family historians will vote on their favorite blogs in several categories.