Follow Friday....13 November 2009

In the Follow Friday tradition, Genealogy Bloggers take their Friday's and mention a blog that they are following, and tell why they choose to follow that particular blog.

This is my very first Follow Friday blog. And so I choose to mention the genealogy blog that I have been following the longest [for a few years now!].

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, known to all of us gg's [genealogy geeks] as EOGN is written daily [yep, you read that right! daily!!!] by researcher Dick Eastman.

Dick Eastman

I love the byline on EOGN website:

"The DAILY newsletter for genealogy consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether the vendors like it or not! "

And believe me, Dick delivers! Straight talk, no punches held back! If he likes something, he'll say so and why. If he doesn't, the same holds true. He's gonna tell you like it is.

I'm not afraid to confide in you and say that there have been quite a few recommendations that Dick has given, and I have used the program, or service, he wrote about. Dick's analysis has been right on with everything I have tried so far.

Dick's EOGN is delivered daily to either your email or news reader [I personally use the Google Reader service, so that I can receive all of my newsletters and blogs in one convenient location. Trying to keep up with reading a little over 80 different sources a day is difficult when you begin going to their particular site's to read! If you're not utilizing a reader service, give it a try! The convenience is wonderful! And yes... another recommendation by Dick a while back!] And his newsletter is FREE!

Dick also offers a Plus Edition which is delivered once a week. It comes at a low cost.[Extremely low for the vast amount of information you receive!]

The Plus Edition is really more of a digital magazine! It's a large resource, that covers all of the previous weeks free edition, plus many more articles that Dick reserves just for this Plus edition! I personally save all of mine, and then every 6 months burn them to CD and have them archived for retrieval. They make a wonderful addition to any genealogy library! [You'll want to keep them!]

Dick covers such items as how to go about performing a genealogy search, to programs to retain the information you have obtained in research, to new computer gadgets and programs, to safekeeping of your computer files! [A few years ago after a particularly bad computer crash, that cost me over a thousand dollars, and an ex-CIA computer wizard to perform a retrieval of lost records, I searched through my old articles by Dick, and found the perfect backup system! It has served me faithfully ever since, running silently in the background with me scarcely noting it is working! Thanks Dick!]

Dick also performs some marvellous interviews with genealogy personality's at various events across the country. He is personable and knowledgeable, making watching one of his interviews a treat. You never walk away from one without having gained knowledge in some area of genealogy.

I personally recommend EOGN and it's Plus Edition. You'll be more than satisfied that you subscribed. My only but in recommending it, is that you learn to save each newsletter [especially the Plus Edition weekly] and archive them for later retrieval. You'll be glad you did!

Happy Follow Friday!