Best of 2012 Blog Posts

As you may have noticed, I did really well to post often at the beginning of the year and then by the summertime the number of posts per month had trailed off to almost 1 or 2 per month. This was due to a combination of factors. For one, I joined this great outdoors group for women, so I was busy every weekend doing something fun outdoors, sometimes taking up the whole weekend with NO electronic devices within walking distance. Then in August I started another internship at the library. It’s not for lack of material that my number of posts has dwindled, it’s merely for lack of time. In fact, I will be starting a 2^nd job at a new library this weekend!!! It’s a lot of work and time and energy, but will be worth it in the end. Or at least at the end of May when I finally complete my Master’s paper, graduate from Library School and transition from being a scientist full time to being a librarian. That will be a time for celebration! So now that you are all caught up on my personal and professional life, I’d like to share some of the highlights of my 2012 blog posts with you. Consider these to be the “best of” posts from 2012. The ones worth reading or rereading.

Using a Timeline to Visualize Your Data - this post started off my New Year's Goals in the right direction. I downloaded this quick and easy Excel template which allowed me to enter dates and events in a table and have them automatically populate a timeline-looking chart. The chart was customizable in some aspects, including event description heights and date ranges and it was completely FREE! Check it out! 

Determining No. of Acres of a Land Grant in the State Land States – This post discusses the differences between the State Land and the Public Land States.  The original 13 colonies were considered to be State Land States and measured land using the metes and bounds survey system. Chains and links were used to describe land in this manner. Do you know how many feet are in a chain? If not, read on to learn how to translate a description into a plat.

How I use my Genealogy Software – Susan Clark of Nolichucky Roots blog started this thread back in March by asking why and how do people use a genealogy software program. So I wrote about how and why I use my RootsMagic software. I like this post because it gives specific examples of how I do things, like managing my sources, adding events like census reports, and facts. Are you on the fence about using a genealogy software? If so, read this and make sure to check out other bloggers’ posts at the bottom.  

Genetic Genealogy – What is my Ethnicity? – This was a more recent post discussing some aspects of the ftDNA Family Finder autosomal DNA test. . A lot of people, including my friend Keith, ask whether a test like this will prove or disprove if they have Native American blood in them and if so, how much? In this post, we used the Population Finder tool on Keith’s homepage to show his ethnicity but much to our surprise, it said he was Middle Eastern. How close is that Native American? Read on to see…

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and my posts. I am looking forward to publishing more content in 2013 and look forward to hearing from you. Please don’t forget to take a look around my site. The right hand side has a list of surnames; as well there is a link to my surname page at the top of the page that will provide links to all posts about each of my surnames. I also have posts categorized by location and subject.

If you would like to cite this blog post, feel free to copy the following citation:

Ginger R. Smith, “Best of 2012 Blog Posts,” Genealogy By Ginger, posted 01 Jan 2013 (http://genealogybyginger.blogspot.com : accessed [type in the day you accessed this post here]).

The “Best of 2012” Graphic was created by me, Ginger R. Smith, on 1 Jan 2013 by Microsoft Publisher. Feel free to use it with attribution. In other words, please tell everyone you got it from me and link it to my blog. Thank you.