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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

What we need is a genealogy blogger research database, don't you see?

Genealogy bloggers are a rare breed. Not only do we love to conduct genealogy research, but we then love to share our finds with others...including taking the time to craft lengthy posts for our blogs about said research. We do this because we are passionate. I think we need to corral that passion to help each other. I mean, judging from the posts I read from fellow genealogy bloggers, we all put in a lot of effort in our research. We find obscure sources, break down brick walls and follow it all up with posts on our blogs. Thomas MacEntee just posted recently that there are nearly 2,000 blogs listed on the Geneabloggers website. The odds that some of us are related is fairly good. Imagine the kind of in-depth information we could share with each other...if we only knew we were related! Yes, most of us list at least some of our research interests on our sites, but who has the time to pour through each of the 2,000 sites to see who is researching what.

Yes, what we need is a genealogy blogger research database, don't you see?

11 comments:

Barbara Poole said...

I think this is an excellent idea. Just today, I found two bloggers who share one ancestor of mine, and two other bloggers who share two ancestors of mine. All because of two posts recently. Yes, we need something, want to begin it Heather?

Wendy B. said...

I'll second that motion!

Thomas MacEntee said...

I can probably put something together - I see two parts:

a surname database where we list our surnames, dates and locations; and

a specialty area database where we list our specialties - German research, adoption records, etc.

Is this what you mean?

Greta Koehl said...

It's true - I know that I am related to at least two genealogy bloggers, and that is probably only the tip of the iceberg. BTW - I like Thomas' idea for how the research database would be organized.

FranE said...

Great idea. Thomas is always on top of things.

Heather Kuhn Roelker said...

Thomas, that is exactly what I was thinking. I think we could all get a lot out of it. That is, if we find cousins! It's good to see others agree!

Shelley Bishop said...

Great idea, Heather! With Thomas' help, maybe we can make some connections! In the specialty listing, it might be neat to have groupings by locality too, so we can see who's researching and blogging nearby.

zelsersk said...

I'm on board with that! While Ancestry.com can truly suit my needs stateside, researching abroad in places like Ireland and Germany can be challenging. My blog is, in fact, my diary of research but also a collection of other's research who are related to me who are living or have passed away. I consider it a bit of a repository for the future generations. I also have access to some rare research findings like letters. My hope (and I suppose this is playing devil's advocate) is that it does not end up like a hard to search message board as on Ancestry.com or Genforum. I support this effort!

zelsersk said...

Also, privacy is a big deal. I always recommend the the living be kept private! Thanks, and keep me posted. kristin@zelsersk.net

Jennifer said...

Good idea!! :)

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

I tried to do this at home by listing the bloggers I found I had common ancestors with, and it was unmanageable. I gave it up after a while. If you can figure out how to do this in an easy, readable way I can contribute what I started. I like the idea of the ethnic/regional/specialty chart, too.