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Celebrating 1000 Genealogy Blog Posts: #4 in the Top 10 Countdown
Lisa Louise Cooke’s free Google Earth for Genealogy online video is so popular, the announcement about it was our #4 genealogy blog post for the year! Guess what? The online video is still there–and it’s still free.
Google Earth is one of Google’s most powerful tools for helping us understanding our ancestor’s world. (And if you read our #6 top post about other Google technologies you can use for genealogy, you know that’s saying something!)
With Google Earth, we can use satellite imagery, terrain maps, 3-D views of city streets and even overlays of old maps to learn about an ancestor’s town, neighborhood and even the very property they lived on. Even better, as Lisa demonstrates in her free video, we can also use Google Earth to share those discoveries with others in multimedia style.
Click here to “fly” (as Google Earth would say) to Lisa’s FREE Google Earth for Genealogy class!
We hope you are enjoying this week’s celebration of our Top 10 blog posts. Don’t forget about our countdown prize this week! Click here to see all Top 10 posts on our genealogy blog–and share that post on your Facebook page by THIS Friday (November 20, 2015). Use the hashtag #genealogygems, and you’ll be entered in a contest to win my Pain Free Family History Writing Project video course download, donated by our friends at Family Tree University. Add any comments you’d like on your “shared” post, like which Genealogy Gems blog post has most inspired you or helped your research. That feedback helps us bring you more posts you’ll love.
Ready, set, SHARE! And thank YOU for helping us celebrate our 1000th blog post here at Genealogy Gems.
Celebrating 1000 Genealogy Blog Posts: #6 in the Top 10 Countdown
We use Google for everything, especially genealogy. From the response we had to our #6 genealogy blog post, I guess many of you love that idea!
Lisa is well-known for teaching genealogists to harness the power of Google to search for ancestors online. Earlier this year, she shared this post to remind everyone that Google searching isn’t just about using the search box (though that’s a great start).
In fact, you can use different facets of Google to schedule your favorite searches to run 24/7. You can digitally dig into books, running an OCR search instead of tracking down the book in print and hoping it has a good buy thrush medication online index. You can find images, news articles and even scholarly articles that may shed more light on your family’s past. Click here to read the post and see how!
Want to see an example of how to use Google searches to locate missing record types? Click here to see how we taught one Gems follower to do just that. Want to read more inspiring posts like these? Click here to scroll through a run-down of all our Google posts.
For the ultimate Google for genealogy education, purchase The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox. This fully-revised 2nd edition for 2015 is packed with hundreds of time-saving, ancestor-discovering Google strategies.
Celebrating 1000 Genealogy Blog Posts: #5 in the Top 10 Countdown
“This is huge!” That’s how DNA expert Diahan Southard summed up major advances at AncestryDNA this past year. Her post was huge, too: it landed the #5 spot on our Top 10 genealogy blog posts for 2015 countdown. See why!
To those who have spent a lot of time doing genetic genealogy, bringing up the launch of significant updates to AncestryDNA earlier this year may seem like old news. But it’s not. AncestryDNA is still the only company with fairly advanced tools for integrating your genetic matches with your family tree. That combo is so attractive, they’ve already acquired more than a million samples in their current DNA database–a huge pond in which to fish for genetic matches.
That’s why Diahan’s popular post on updates to AncestryDNA and DNA Circles is still newsworthy. As she explained, “This is really the first time a DNA testing company has so fully integrated genetics and genealogy. We can now find cousins in the database who do not share our particular genetics, but who do share some of the genetics of our common ancestor.”
Before doing any DNA test, we always encourage genealogists to do their homework. Different tests should be used for different genealogical questions. Each company offers unique tools, perks and sometimes drawbacks for genealogy customers. Unexpected results and unpredictable encounters with genetic relatives may be difficult for some. Diahan’s Autosomal DNA for the Genealogist quick guide can help you find your way. Her other guides include those specific to AncestryDNA and autosomal DNA (the type of DNA they test at Ancestry). Click here to check them out–and see a great value price to bundle her guides.
Once you’re ready to try an AncestryDNA test, click here to purchase, and you’ll support the free Genealogy Gem blog and podcast. (Thank you!)
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!
