Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Congrès Mondial Acadien 2004

For anyone with Acadian ancestry, next month will probably be the time of your family reunion. Planners expect 250,000 people to visit one or more of the Congrès Mondial Acadien 2004 events. That estimate includes 70,000 to be involved with the family reunions.

America's Story Online

This week I had a chance to look at a Web site that I found fascinating. This is a site that teaches American history in a manner that will appeal to adults and older children alike. The Library of Congress presents "America's Story from America's Library" as a public service in its mission to provide online access to its collections. The Web site contains many documents, prints, photographs, maps, recordings, and other materials from the past.

Pending Crisis in Virginia

The following is a disturbing e-mail that I received from Michael E. Pollock:

I am writing to you so that you can make the greater genealogical community aware the Virginia state legislature in its session earlier this year passed a bill that if not repealed or modified is likely to have disastrous consequences. Lest your subscribers in either Virginia or adjoining states think I am referring to the "Sunday off" law for the repeal of which the Governor has already called an emergency session of the legislature, I am NOT. I am referring to House Bill 509, which gives a county clerk sole discretion to destroy public records which are deemed by the clerk to be inconsequential. While there are provisions which call for microfilming of most of these records, the law does not provide ANY sanction against a clerk who, on the grounds of a lack of money or other reasons, destroys records which have not been microfilmed, a microfilm copy is not always as "usable" as the actual record, and the wording of the law allows the public to be denied access to the microfilm these records by a variety of means for those so inclined to use them, and some are so inclined.

A Tombstone with a Video Screen

Mr. Robert Barrows of Burlingame, California, has filed a patent application for his design of a tombstone that can accommodate video equipment operated by a remote control. "You can go from grave to grave and click on anything that person wanted to say before they died," said Mr. Barrows. Messages could include telling your side of the story, making amends, or saying "sweet things to loved ones," he added. Mr. Barrows declared that it would be a far more "dramatic" way of communicating from beyond the grave than leaving a videotaped message to be played at home.

Mic Barnette's Weekly Column Threatened - Again!

Mic Barnette writes a very popular genealogy column in the Houston Chronicle. He has thousands of readers in the greater Houston area plus more on a Web site. Last spring the newspaper planned to "demote" the column to a smaller publication. A letter and e-mail writing effort from readers convinced the newspaper to abandon that plan.

Now the newspaper is planning to do it again. Here is an e-mail I received from Mic Barnette:

I Lost a Computer Last Night

When I got up this morning, I found one of my computers was dead. Apparently, the power supply died during the night.

NEHGS Members Gain Access to More Than 100 Online Irish Databases

Most members of the New England Historic Genealogical Society now have immediate online access to a huge amount of Irish genealogical and historical Information. The new addition is a result of an agreement between the society and Otherdays.com, an online database provider with headquarters in County Wicklow, Ireland. Not only does Otherdays.com already have more than 100 databases available today, the company typically adds one more per week.

NEHGS Used Book Auction on eBay

A variety of used books from the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library collections will be up for auction on eBay in mid-July. You will find vital records, town histories, genealogies, and some surprises that cover many geographic areas. Condition varies from new to old, but all books are suitable reading copies for reference purposes.

Burr, Hamilton Duel to be Reenacted by Their Descendants

Aaron Burr (pictured here) was vice president of the United States when he shot Alexander Hamilton 200 years ago on July 11, 1804. On July 11 of this year, Burr's family is reenacting the scandalous incident to try to rehabilitate his image. Unlike the original event, the reenactment will be televised.

Everton’s Family History Company is No More

Sadly, one of the oldest names in the genealogy business has folded. Years ago many of us eagerly awaited the arrival of Everton's Genealogical Helper magazine in the mail. The producing company hit hard times and Lee Everton lost control of the magazine and the company some time ago. Now the new owners also have given up.

New Zealand Legal Battle over the FamilySearch URL

Robert Sintes of rural Kerikeri in New Zealand tries to re-unite lost or adopted children with their family members. He does this primarily through his Web site of www.familysearch.co.nz. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often referred to as "the Mormons") says that the use of the letters "familysearch" in the URL constitutes a trademark infringement of their popular genealogy Web site at http://www.familysearch.org.

You can read an interesting story about this disagreement on the New Zealand Herald's Web site at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3577285&thesection=technology&thesubsection=general

Mail Server Problems at RootsWeb

Several people have reported not receiving e-mail from various RootsWeb mailing lists. MyFamily.com has acknowledged the problem. The following notice is posted at http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com:

One of RootsWeb's mailing list servers is temporarily offline. We have no time estimate for the repairs.

Mail bound for mailing lists hosted on the problematic server will be spooled (queued) at our mail hub in the interim. It is not envisaged that any mail will be lost.

Do You Have Rheumatoid Arthritis? Blame Your Ancestors!

It seems that we inherit a lot from our ancestors and not all of that is good. Scientists recently discovered an inherited genetic marker that increases your risk of having Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Civil War Artifacts Returned to Soldier's Descendants

Charles Hopkins won the Medal of Honor for gallantry under fire during the Civil War. He served as mayor, freeholder and assemblyman during a long life that ended in 1934 at age 92. He was an active veteran, campaigning for monuments to soldiers who died in the notorious Andersonville Prison and to a beloved general who commanded the 1st New Jersey Volunteer Infantry.

Celebrity GEDCOM Files

Do you think you might be related to a famous person? Or, are you simply curious about possible connections? The odds are great that you are related to a movie star, an athlete, a U.S. President, or some other person of note. Remember that everyone has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. Altogether, you have about 8,000 ancestors from the past 300 years. So does everyone else, including movie stars, Presidents, and others. The generations go back in a mathematical progression, doubling with every generation. The odds are good that some famous person shares a common ancestor with you.

Ghost Towns in Ohio

They were once colorful characters on Ohio's landscape - communities with names such as Henpeck, Lickskillet, Worstville and even Pee Pee. Today, these ghost towns live only on old maps, erased by the passage of time.

Richard Helwig, owner of the Center of Ghost Town Research in Ohio, said he has uncovered about 6,000 such ghost towns and still is looking. "In Ohio, because of our climate and population density, once a town is abandoned it quickly disappears," Helwig said.

You can read more about Richard Helwig and the Center of Ghost Town Research at http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/07/06/loc_loc1ohgho.html

Dutch Surnames

According to Ralph Blauvelt, Family names in the Netherlands were considered a luxury, reserved mainly for aristocracy. Surnames were based upon qualities of people, geographic related names, occupation, or a father's first name, known as patronymics.

"... most Dutch immigrants did not use their family name in official documents. They used their patronymics, the first name of the father," said Ralph Blauvelt.

You can read more at http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/070604/b0306blauvelt.html.

A Daily Edition of This Newsletter Is Now Available!

This newsletter has been published as a weekly newsletter for more than eight years. I am now delighted to announce that it is converting to a daily publication. That's right: there will be new articles published at least five days a week. You can now expect new articles to be posted Monday through Friday to both the Standard Edition and Plus Edition newsletter blogs. (If you missed my article on Blogs Explained, see http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/06/blogs_explained.html.)

ISBN Explained

In many of the book reviews published in this newsletter, you will read the words, "It can be ordered at most any book store if you specify ISBN 0-8063-5224-8." The numbers will vary, depending upon the book being described. So what is ISBN?

Sprague’s “Braintree Families” on CD-ROM

Waldo Chamberlain Sprague started compiling the genealogies of all the early families of Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1947. Until his death eight years later, he created over six thousand index cards containing information on almost all the pre-1850 population of old Braintree. Some families from nearby Milton and Stoughton (both originally part of the town of Dorchester) were also included in his exhaustive work. These six thousand cards remained in the manuscript collection of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston. The cards were initially microfilmed for the Quincy Historical Society in 1963 and again for NEHGS in 1983. To look at Sprague’s definitive work, you have always needed to visit the NEHGS library or the reading room of the Quincy Historical Society. All of that has now changed, and this valuable collection is available to you, for use in your home, at a modest cost.