Follow Friday - This is Why We Subscribe to Blogs!

Seriously.  It never ceases to amaze me the number of fantastic blogs/posts that are out there.  There is simply no way to share them all, but each is worth it's weight in gold.  We all have various experiences and our collective knowledge base...wow.  No matter your experience level in genealogy and family history, you can always learn from others.  You just need to allow yourself to!

Here are just a few of the fantastic posts that I've wanted to share from the past few weeks.  I hope you head on over and check them out.  I'm sure you'll enjoy them as much as I did!

Lynn Palermo at The Armchair Genealogist has a rockin' series on Family Reunions.  I'm a family reunion ignoramus having only ever been to one and I rather young at the time...and bored to tears.  That was the Tabor family reunion in the late 70s/early 80s.  We never went to another, which was a shame.  I'm sure there would have been a point when I started enjoying them!  June 2012 is a big event in the Cayemberg Family.  The 75th Cayemberg Family reunion will be held in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  I've been married for almost 12 years now and I've never gone to the annual reunion.  It's not from a lack of desire, but the military has kept us so far away.  Next summer, come hell or high water, we will depart Texas for the trip to Wisconsin.  There's no way I'm missing this one!  Reading Lynn's posts got me so incredibly excited.  I hope we do some of the neat stuff she suggested...and a Facebook page for the event...FANTASTIC idea!  Check out "Family Reunions - Part 2 - Fundraising and Genealogy"...you'll be hooked and going after all the previous posts!

Genealogy Gems brought some exciting news about the 1940 census (who isn't extremely excited about this!).  The census won't be indexed when it first comes out so to search you'll need to do it by address which means that you need to know the enumeration district for the people you're looking for!  NARA has uploaded the maps to their website and Steve Morse has created a search form to help you find the E.D. easier.  Links at Lisa Louise Cook's Genealogy Gems blog!

Got Belgian ancestors?  My husband does and I've got to say, I was delighted to discover the Belgian Laces publication and the "What's New in Belgian Genealogical Research" blog.  I don't tend to hear about Belgian research often so it's great when you find blogs and societies that specialize in them.  Get out there and look.  You'll be surprised at what you find!

Trying to find ancestors that fought in the Civil War?  Lisa Swanson Ellam's (The Faces of My Family) post "Military Monday:  How to Find Possible Civil War Soldiers in Your Tree".  She explains a filtering process she learned at Fort Wayne's Ancestry Days from Anne Gillespie Mitchell of Ancestry.com.  It will narrow down the list of people you have in your tree to those most likely to have served during the Civil War.  I have to adapt it to the filters in my genealogy program, but the concept should still be the same.

At Onward to Our Past, Scott has another tip for "Real World" genealogists about saving and organizing your family trees, photos, documents, etc.  I always love his tips.  Practical for us all!

That's all for now.  There is so much more to share though.  So many impressive blogs...so little time!

Follow Friday - So Much to Do So Little Time!

It's another Friday and I finally got to my mom's house on Thursday evening.  It's good to be with family, but there are never enough hours in the day.  Tomorrow I'll be spending the day relaxing and heading to the theater to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and I'll be seeing it twice.  A matinee and once in the evening after my sister gets off work.  And yes...I'm excited about seeing it twice in one day!  I'm a bit of a Harry Potter dork.

So if you're not heading out to see this epic finale (and it better be good!) then check out some of the posts that caught my attention.  If you are heading out, well, enjoy the day and squeeze these in anyway!

Jenn Woods at Climbing My Family Tree One Branch at a Time just keeps turning out those wonderful genealogy worksheets for kids!  Two additional worksheets since the last time I blogged about her Genealogy for Kids series (unless I blinked and there's a third addition!).  One of the new worksheets is called "My Family History Interview".  A very simple concept...get the kids to write down some questions that they want to ask grandma, grandpa, etc and then send them in!  Jen's got the psyops down in getting through to those difficult family members.  Send in the cute kiddos!  I love it!  Her other worksheet is "My Ancestors in the Civil War".  Jen has a very rich family history with ancestors that fought on both sides.  I'm insanely jealous.  I haven't found one direct line ancestor that participated in the Civil War.  The sheet is a wonderful way for the kids to put on paper a bit of what they know about their Civil War ancestors.  There is room for their name, state they were from and an interesting fact on each.  With the 150th anniversary this is a great time to use her Civil War sheet!

Scott at Onward To Our Past is giving tips on "real world" genealogy and I like it!  All the tips we see everyone sharing are fabulous, but Scott has shown some pretty practical thinking in this series and I would expect that we could all learn something from his ingenuity!  I won't spoil the post, but let's just say that he's got a new use for that ice scraper you aren't using much this time of year!  Sound intriguing?  Head on over and check it out!

Got an invite to Google+ yet?  I'm still stumbling around it, but am forever grateful to Genealogy Tip of the Day's Michael John Neill for sending an invite so I could finally get on Google+.  Since I've been traveling I haven't been able to get on as much as I'd like, but I'll be playing around now that I'm not in a car for 4-10 hours a day.  Still stumbling around it too?  Want to find people on Google+  that share your interests?  Randymajors.com created a search tool to help you find just that!  It's called GPlusSearch.  Give it a whirl!

Thanks to Dick Eastman and Joan Miller for directing me to a very interesting article in PC World called "9 Reasons to Switch from Facebook to Google+"  I can't say that I'm going to "switch".  I have too many friends on Facebook that may not want to head on over so I can see myself trying to straddle both, but hey, we're genealogists...we embrace technology, right!?!?!  The article illustrates some pretty significant differences/improvements that Google+ has.  If nothing else, I'm sure Facebook is going to have to do some pretty fancy footwork if they want to keep up and not fall to the wayside like MySpace.  Time will tell. 

So much more to follow, but it's getting late and it simply won't do to be falling asleep during HP7 so off to bed I must go.  Enjoy these posts and all the other wonderful ones out there.  Until next time, have fun tending those roots!