Monday Recap for January 3, 2011

We were off last week due to the holidays here in the states.  Below you’ll find lots of links from the end of December to start your new year!

The Genealogy Sphere

• 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy: Thanks for Playing (We Tree) – The conclusion of a great series by Amy Coffin.
• GeneAwards 2010 (Tamura Jones) – Geni was awarded the GeneAward for Most Improved Product of 2010 by one of the more astute tech-genealogy bloggers.  As always, Tamura has some very keen insights on genea software.
• Genealogists Help Coroners Locate Next-of-Kin (tonic) – I signed up as a volunteer to see what this service is like.  If it’s active, I’ll provide more details on the blog in the coming weeks.
• Lady Gaga is one celeb people would hate to have as their relative (Daily Star) – The Brits also would prefer not to be related to Paris Hilton, but they’re fine with Johnny Depp.
• New family history and genealogy conference invites patrons to embrace technology (Provo Daily Herald) – More on RootsTech.  A few of us will be attending, we hope to see some Geni users there!
• National Archives helping family trees blossom (Star-Telegram) – It’s great to see these sorts of efforts popping up everywhere.
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: TV in January (Buddy TV) – Just a quick mention of WDYTYA, but Buddy TV doesn’t seem very impressed by the series.
• Learn how to back up and preserve your historic family photographs and negatives (St. Charles Patch) – Some very in-depth tips on preserving family photos.
• Mysterious X Woman finds place on humans’ family tree (Tehran Times) – If our users can figure out how to trace the Big Tree back 640,000 years, we’ll figure out how to handle this use case 🙂

On Geni

• Looking Forward to 2011 – Preview of what Geni users can expect in the new year.
• Deciphering Old Handwriting – Tips for reading old handwritten documents.  Anyone remember ‘cursive’?
• Looking back at 2010 – Our recap of last year.  Lot’s of product and feature updates.
• Family Tree Tuesday – Ted Turner – We highlight the media mogul.
• Featured Project – Legendary Heroines – Geni Pro Malka Mysels walks us through a project dear to her.
• Photographing Gravestones – Tips for snapping photos when you visit the cemetery.
• Introducing Text Revisions – The first feature we rolled out on our new data structure.  Lots more to come.
• Interview with Rehan Allahwala – Interview with Geni Curator and tech entreprenuer Rehan.
• Family Tree Tuesday – Saint Nicholas – Some interesting facts about Ol’ Saint Nick.
• Monday Recap for the Week of Dec. 13-19, 2010 – The last recap.

Last Week’s Highlighted Profiles

• Dick Clark
• Grigori Rasputin
• Salman Khan
• Louis Pasteur
• Elisabeth of Bavaria
• Bing Crosby
• Vanessa Paradis
• Shirley Temple
• Richard Leakey

If you are interested in sharing links with us for our Monday Recap’s, please feel free to contribute by creating a new discussion in the Geni Blog project. Just paste the link to the article and why you think it’s valuable to the community.