Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

MacFamilyTree 4 adds .Mac Integration and More

German developer OnlyMac Software has released MacFamilyTree 4, an upgrade to the company's genealogy application. The update adds integration with .Mac for one-click publishing of family trees to your .Mac Web site, an Export to HTML option for publishing to other Web sites, a redesigned interface, drag-and-drop of images from iPhoto, CD and DVD data burning within the software and more.

The Ancient Olympics

The Perseus Digital Library Project at Tufts University has created an interesting Web-based project called "The Ancient Olympics." In this exhibit, you can compare ancient and modern Olympic sports, tour the site of Olympia as it looks today, learn about the context of the Games and the Olympic spirit, or read about the Olympic athletes who were famous in ancient times.

With the Right Ancestry, You Can Be an Olympian

Seattle native Sean Spencer is a professional baseball player with Greek ancestry. In Spencer's case, his great-grandfather left the Ioanian Sea island of Cephalonia more than 100 years ago, bound for the United States. Right now, that's good enough to play for the home team.

In this case, the “home team” really is the team playing at home. The former University of Washington left-hander and Baltimore Orioles farmhand, who pitched for the Seattle Mariners and Montreal Expos four years ago, is a reliever on the Greek baseball team at the Athens Olympics.

(+) Internet Archive Wants to Store Everything

When Egyptian King Ptolemy I built the Bibliotheca Alexandrina nearly 2,300 years ago, the great library became the intellectual center of the ancient world. Ptolemy hoped to gather as much human knowledge as possible; so, ships anchored in the port were impounded until all the manuscripts they contained could be copied. World leaders lent their scrolls for duplication, and library officials traveled far and wide to purchase entire collections. Meanwhile, dutiful scribes hand-copied the library's awesome collection, which eventually grew to as many as 700,000 scrolls.

Brewster Kahle is a modern-day Ptolemy: he wants to ensure universal access to all human knowledge. And now he thinks that goal is within our grasp.

GEDSTAR PRO for Palm Handhelds

The following announcement is from GHCS Software:

GHCS Software releases PAF Support for GEDSTAR PRO for Palm Handhelds

Sources2Go.com Expands Digitized Record Collection

The following is an announcement from Sources2Go.com:

Over the past two months, FamilyToolbox.net, Inc. has added over 75,000 digitized images to its collection housed at the Sources2Go.com site. Sources2Go.com allows researchers to browse free digitized original records in several categories including census, military, immigration, postal, and American Indian records. The recent focus of the Sources2Go.com site has been state, territorial, and federal census records for the state of Illinois. Recent additions include:

RSS Feeds Explained

This article has been updated and now is available at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/03/rss-feeds-explained.html

AOL Mail Problems

I am no expert on AOL's many mail problems. I know that many newsletters sent to AOL addresses never get delivered, but I am never sure why.

SAA Says It Will Push for Revamped Nomination Process for National Archivist

While extending a welcome to historian Allen Weinstein, should he be confirmed as the next Archivist of the United States, the Society of American Archivists (SAA), in a written comment, again criticized the process by which Weinstein was nominated.

The Archivist of the United States is the head of the National Archives and Records Administration. The recent call for John Carlin's resignation created a lot of controversy in Washington and elsewhere. See this newsletter at http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/08/something_smell.html for details. The Society of American Archivists was one of the groups protesting the selection process for Carlin's replacement.

Microfilm Outperforms Disk Archives

Paul Mullon, Marketing Director of MetroFile, has written an interesting article about archival storage of records. He writes:

For active documents, digital solutions are exactly what the doctor ordered. For archives, however, technology fails to meet organisations' long-term document storage needs.

To effectively meet their archival requirements, companies need to look past technological niceties to proven, reliable solutions, such as microfilm.

John Kerry Has Much Blue Blood

Sen. John F. Kerry has blue blood from all the royal houses of Europe, with even more titled relations than President Bush, Burke's Peerage said Monday.

Burke's Peerage, which researches genealogy, said the Democratic presidential candidate traces descent through his mother, Rosemary Forbes, to the royal houses of Albania, England, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Byzantium, Persia (Iran) and France.

A 2004 Flatboat Journey Down the Ohio River

People on and along the Ohio River were greeted by an unusual sight this week: five nuns on a flatboat, heading downstream. They are members of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph, from the Mount St. Joseph Conference and Retreat Center in Maple Mount, Kentucky. They are re-enacting the voyage that preceded the founding of their house 130 years ago. They are wearing full habits of the period that they sewed themselves and will be eating, sleeping, and cooking on the boat. If it rains, they will have only their small cabin to protect them.

Family Tree Maker 2005 in the U.K.

The following is an announcement from TWR Computing. It is a rather blatant advertisement. However, I'll republish it here as it shows what is available for U.K. users. Notice the statement of "No American data CDs!"

French-Canadian Genealogy Conference in New Hampshire

If you are researching French-Canadian genealogy and can travel to Manchester, New Hampshire, next month, you should attend the American-Canadian Genealogical Society's annual Fall Conference and Business Meeting. I have attended several of these in the past and can tell you that they are worthwhile events.

Cherokee Trails: An Historical Computer Game

Pharos Games has created a computer game that is both fun to play and a way to study U.S. history. The player explores a ghostly trail filled with strange characters from Cherokee legends and history. In fact, at the annual Shareware Industry Conference in Rochester, New York, last month, The Shareware Industry Awards Foundation presented its 13th Annual Shareware Awards and named Cherokee Trails the best shareware "Educational Program or Game" of 2004.

British War-dead Records Go Online

A single line of smudgy black type reads "OWEN, Wilfred, lieutenant, Fifth Battalion Manchester Regiment." It is just one of more than 700,000 reminders of the carnage of the Great War kept in the dusty ledgers of a London archive. But now the entry of the poet Wilfred Owen in the official index of war dead, along with those of his comrades fallen in both world wars, has leapt from the corridors of the General Register Office (GRO) to cyberspace.

Elizabeth Shown Mills Featured in National Article

"When Elizabeth Shown Mills was an 11-year-old grade-school student, she scribbled down a challenging assignment: learn about herself by interviewing others. That schooltime task sparked an interest in her that is still alive today."

Update: Please Help Me Define the Future of this Newsletter

Last week I asked for your opinions in shaping the future format of this newsletter. I am trying to solve problems created by spam filters. I cannot measure the size of the problem with precision, but it appears that roughly 30% of the Plus Edition newsletters sent via e-mail never reach the intended addressees. I continue to send the Plus Edition to each subscriber via e-mail every week, but I have also been experimenting with alternative delivery methods for those who cannot receive e-mail versions.

NGS Regional Conference in Phoenix

The U.S. National Genealogical Society has announced a regional conference, entitled "Warm Up Your Research," will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 20 through 22, 2005. Plans are not yet complete, but the NGS Web site states, "Thursday's one-day workshops will polish up your genealogical software skills, your professional skills and your general genealogical knowledge. Topics on website design, scanning, writing, and a BCG Education Fund workshop: 'How to Communicate With Yourself and Others.' Banquet and luncheons. Speakers include Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FNGS, FASG; Tom Jones, CG, CGL; J. Mark Lowe, CG; and Cyndi Howells. "

Scotland On Line Sold to DC Thomson

Scotland On Line reportedly is the biggest Internet company in Scotland. It is well known in genealogy circles as the owner of the The ScotlandsPeople Web site at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. This popular Web site provides information from the General Register Office for Scotland. ScotlandsPeople contains images of the pre-1855 Old Parish Registers of the Church of Scotland and of the post-1855 statutory register pages, all available on a fee basis.