The word “blog” is short for weblog and anyone can create a blog for free on the Internet. The first “blogs” were usually just random thoughts a person wanted to make public. As time has passed, people have become more creative and “tech savvy”; some blogs are like websites with lots of links and beautiful graphics.
I had visited early blogs and was underwhelmed, so it was years before I started looking again. Many of today’s blogs are very helpful to genealogists. One of the most impressive is www.ancestryinsider.blogspot.com.
I had never thought about foreign blogs, I guess because of the whole, not-speaking-another-language thing. Many blogs now have automatic translators, and Google will also translate entire web pages for you. There are genealogists researching all over the world and many may share a surname or ancestral hometown with people in your database. Most bloggers are already inclined to share, so a goldmine may be waiting in your future. Start your research at www.geneabloggers.com or simply Google the name of the country you are looking for and add the word “blog” to your search.
The thing that got me started on international blog research was my sister Cindy, who always finds the greatest ideas. This latest came from Family Tree Magazine’s September 2012 issue, which contains this year’s “Top 101 Websites” list, and a host of other great tips and features.
One of the best features is that you can now download the magazine for only $6.99, and it’s quite easy to do, then it’s saved on your computer forever. One benefit of doing this is that you can then simply click on one of any of the blogs and websites listed throughout the magazine and you will be taken right to it. This is so much easier than trying to type them in and hope you got all the letters and funny symbols typed in correctly. “Speaking” of which: the website for the magazine is www.familytreemagazine.com. Just click on “current issue” at the top of the screen and there will be an option to purchase it on the right hand side of the page. (Of course you can also still find the paper copy for sale.)
This year, again, the magazine’s top-rated website is www.Ancestry.com which gets my vote also for top website. The second is www.Archive.com which is also a subscription site, but not too expensive, with many vital records and newspaper pages. Www.Familysearch.org gets third place. They have updated it in the last couple of years and the numbers of microfilmed records they have, as well as digitized books for online searching, and vital records from all over, are astounding.
The rest of the top 10, in numerical order are: www.Genealogybank.com, www.heritagequestonline.com, www.rootsweb.ancestry.com, www.worldvitalrecords.com, www.americanancestors.com (used to be NewEnglandAncestors), the Civil War Soldiers and Sailor’s System www.itd.nps.gov/cwss, and 10th website is www.dar.org.
I cannot urge you strongly enough to check out these and the other 91 genealogy sites. (Maine’s Memory Network is in the top 20.) Online research cannot replace those small gems we find in local repositories, but for the sheer wealth of numbers, the Internet cannot be surpassed.
Editor’s note: Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft, who has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com. The Aroostook County Genealogical Society meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501.
