Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Personal Past Meditations-A Genealogical Blog

I've been thinking recently about genealogy blogs that I really like and would like to share with others.
Dr. Daniel Hubbard has a wonderful blog (IMHO). Lots of wonderful information that is very concisely written and reflects his sense of humor :) http://thepersonalpast.com/
It's not got a huge amount of information about my area of research - Scotland BUT it does have a ton of information that is useful for any kind of family history research.
One of his recent postings entitled "Who Will They Think We Were?" raises some very good points about when a future genealogist might be researching him.
Daniel lives in the house that his grandfather built. There are plenty of records locally indicating that Daniel lived/lives there BUT does that tell the whole truth? In this case ..... NO..... because Daniel has travelled extensively, married abroad and had some of his children abroad also.
So while we are focusing on researching our own ancestry remember that one day one of our descendants might research us. What information will we leave behind in our own paper trail? Will it be accurate or shrouded in family myth?
My descendants might get upset with me because I am not an active journal writer and do not come from a family that does. I have stories that I am writing down and photographs that I am collecting, but will it be enough to flesh out the official documents?

The good doctor has a topics section in his side-bar that takes you to interesting postings on such things as experimental genealogy, forgotten history.
If you live in the USA here's a good resource from his writings that could prove useful - Sanborn Maps. http://www.thepersonalpast.com/2010/06/14/a-memory-trip-down-any-lane/What are they? Fire insurance maps. How many of you would have thought to look there for family history information?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanborn_Maps
And why is the good doctor so interested in the maps himself? http://www.thepersonalpast.com/2011/03/06/taking-walks-with-the-census-taker-and-my-dad/
I love how it links into expanding upon the use of census records AND how it got his dad talking.

Addendum - The British equivalent of Sanborn would be Goad and they can be found at the British Library http://www.bl.uk/.

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