Follow Friday Archives - Zalewski Family Genealogy

Follow Friday: Polish

Posted on 25 March 2011by Brian Zalewski

Since I’ve done a lot of Polish/Prussian research this week, I’m going to point at some helpful resources and blogs.

Al’s Polish-American Genealogy by Al Wierzba

This one has been on my blogroll for awhile, since Al posts useful Polish information and interesting tidbits on his blog. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also researching mainly in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. I visit it frequently. I actually just went there to copy the URL and got lost in some other posts. Keep up the good work, Al.

Steve’s Genealogy Blog by Stephen Danko

This one has also been on my blogroll for awhile. Steve mostly posts original family documents, but a lot (or maybe all of them) are Polish and he usually also posts translations and other useful information. It’s interesting to browse the documents and learn about the different areas and records.

Kartenmeister

Kartenmeister is a must bookmark for anyone with German/Polish/Prussian roots. According to its front page it’s “the most comprehensive database of its kind in the world. It contains 88,334 locations with over 38,691 name changes once, and 5,500 twice and more.” Using the site, you are able to search place names by German version or Polish version, get much information about the location and even other researchers looking for ancestors in these places. This is how I found the (hopefully) current location of my ZALEWSKI ancestors using the German name of “Gottschalk.” There is no equal.

Free Research Courses at FamilySearch

There are more than just Polish research classes here, but I really enjoyed the “Intro to Polish Research” course I watched the other day. It was very informative, easy to follow, and it helped me try some new things. I am currently watching the next video, “Advanced Polish Research.” The presenter of the class, Ceil Wendt Jensen, was very well-versed in the subject matter and easy to listen to.

Germans to America (1850-1897) search tool by Steve Morse

While this search tool is helpful by itself, it’s much more powerful if you have access to Ancestry’s passenger lists. You can search by name, origin, destination and then use those results to find the corresponding passenger list image. I found my great-great-grandfather Frank Zalewski’s brother’s passenger list this way. There are also many other useful search tools on his main site, stevemorse.org.

Follow Friday

Posted on 5 March 2010by Brian Zalewski

Here are some good geneablog reads for this week from around the tubes.

Sadly, Elyse’s mother passed away this week. Elyse posted a wonderful, heartfelt post about her mother on her blog, Elyse’s Genealogy Blog. Send your thoughts and prayers her way this week.
Jasia at Creative Gene wrote an interesting post about genealogy as therapy. I know that it can help me calm down and zone out during tough times.
Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings was puzzled, as was I, about some of the genetic genealogy claims on the last episode of “Faces of America.” He analyzes the info in his post.

Follow Friday

Posted on 19 February 2010by Brian Zalewski

Here are some good posts and links I ran across in the last week.

Dan Curtis gives you some helpful steps on how to handle and preserve you old, historic photos. I’ve been doing stuff with old photos lately, so this will be helpful.
Dean at Genlighten has a geeky post about Genealogy sites and their APIs. Since I come from a geeky background, this was an interesting read for me. It’s also a good read for people interested in other ways sites are allowing people to access their huge amounts of data.
Linda at Documenting the Details has a great link on the problems with the “Point-and-Click” Genealogy at some of the major Genealogy websites. I know I have the same issues. Hopefully, the post will help spread the word.
Episode 2 of “Faces of America” is now available to view online. This one talks more about the great century of immigration and what some ancestors went through to get to America.

Follow Friday

Posted on 12 February 2010by Brian Zalewski

Here are some interesting and helpful links I’ve run across recently.

Faces of America – I’m mad at myself for not also mentioning this wonderful show when I talked about NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are. The first episode was shown on PBS on Wednesday night on most PBS stations. Sadly, the local Milwaukee affiliate isn’t showing it until Saturday. Fortunately, you can also watch it online. So, go there and do that.
Donna at What’s Past is Prologue shares a funny post titled, “If Genealogists Ruled the Television Networks.”
A great post over at The Armchair Genealogist written by guest Thomas MacEntee about using Ancestry’s MyCanvas system to make your own family history book. I’d really like to do this at some point.
A very interesting post from Lori at Genealogy and Me that talks about her finding and then solving a mystery about the August Hellmund in her tree.
Denise writes a post over at The Graveyard Rabbit about writing a living Book of the Dead.

Any other interesting posts out there? Feel free to send them my way.

Follow Friday Links

Follow Friday

Posted on 5 February 2010by Brian Zalewski

Here are some useful posts I’ve read this week.

Elyse at Elyse’s Genealogy Blog talks about “Who Do You Think You Are?” coming on NBC in March and how important it is to get the word out.
A guest post over at Mountain Genealogists talks about “Preservation and Interpretation of our Ancestor Stories.”
At Digging Up Stones there is a good post about finally finding that document or piece of information you’ve been looking for. I know I’ve been there.
Over at Stories of My Ancestors, they post about reaching outside of the box when looking for those elusive ancestors. A good idea for any researcher.

Follow Friday Links

Follow Friday

Posted on 29 January 2010by Brian Zalewski

Here are some interesting blog posts that I’ve run across for this week.

Abba-Dad at I Dream of Genea(logy) posts Genealogy – What’s the Point? In the post he wonders why people do genealogy. What keeps them going? After reading it, I see two sections that really drive me. “Where do I come from? How did I get here? What chain of coincidences and historical events came together to give me this life?” and “If you can place one of your ancestors in a significant historical event, then you have a personal connection to it.” What drives you?
Elyse over at Elyse’s Genealogy Blog posts a good overview about organizing your mountain of collected papers. As Genealogists, you know how much paper you collect. It’s a three-post series starting with the initial step of getting everything together. Organizing the Paper Mountain (Part 1). Feel free to follow on to Part 2 and Part 3.
A fairly new blog, Geneapprentice, has recently popped up. Sarah is blogging about her experience working towards her certificate from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies. I know it’s crossed my mind to get certified, so it’s a good read if you’re thinking about it.
NBC is premiering the American version of Who Do You Think You Are? starting March 5, after the Olympics. I am a big fan of the show having watched a few of the British versions from BBC. I enjoy the way they incorporate the personal genealogy of a celebrity with world historical events. History and Genealogy buffs will love the show. I really hope it survives America’s TV landscape (and NBC) like the BBC version has. They’ve just completed Season 7.

Follow Friday Links Tips & Tricks

Follow Friday

Posted on 22 January 2010by Brian Zalewski

I thought I would recognize some helpful posts by the genealogy blogging community.

Creative Gene

Jasia at Creative Gene has a very good writeup on an extremely helpful (depends on your ancestry, I guess) online dictionary that translates from Polish to English and vice versa. It’s not only online, but it’s completely free. She does a good job explaining why this dictionary is as helpful as it is. I learned a bit about the Polish language and I also used it to help another Zalewski researcher with some documents he had that were written in Polish. Check out her I Won’t Be Going Bald Anytime Soon! post.

The Genetic Genealogist

Blaine has a good Q&A post up on his site explaining your two “family trees.” He talks about the differences between your Genealogical Tree and your Genetic Tree and how they each may help you find information about the other one. Read his Q&A: Everyone Has Two Family Trees ““ A Genealogical Tree and a Genetic Tree post.

Kick-Ass Genealogy

Besides the in-your-face blog name, Katrina has a good post on how to deal with roadblocks when interviewing relatives. Sometimes the interviewee may dodge or block a question you ask. Did Great Aunt Erma have more children? Was Uncle Jerry a wild child of the 60s? Read over this post to help you with this issue. Dealing with Roadblocks When Interviewing Relatives

Olive Tree Genealogy

Over at Olive Tree Genealogy, there is a great start to a series of 12 posts looking at some of the less obvious resources in finding information on your ancestors. I know I’ll be keeping an eye on this, since I feel like I’ve exhausted some of the normal resources on some of my lines. The first post is about medical records and how these may be helpful in your research. Check it out at 12 Months of Finding Ancestors: Medical Records (Part 1 of a 12 Part Series)

I hope these posts will be as helpful to you as they were to me.