Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Bennett Greenspan Interview: DNA Testing crosses paths with Genealogy

Bennett Greenspan is the CEO of Family Tree DNA, one of the leading DNA firms that specializes in genealogy applications. He was recently interviewed by the Houston Chronicle newspaper.

I Am My Own Grandpa...

Here is a bit of a mind-bender for any genealogist. Consider the lyrics to the song I Am My Own Grandpa, written by Dwight B. Latham and Moe Jaffe:

Strange But True Relationship

The song lyrics to "I am My Own Grandpa" are whimsical and fictitious, of course. Or are they? Consider the following true story:

FREE Family Tree Legends

I noticed that CompUSA's weekend ad lists Family Tree Legends as free after rebates. The list price is $39.95 but there is an "instant rebate" of $10.00 plus a mail-in rebate of $30.00. The end result is free if you ignore the price of a stamp and an envelope for the mail-in rebate.

Genealogy Cruise in the Caribbean

This looks like an interesting way to learn about genealogy and to see the Caribbean. The California Genealogical Society is sponsoring an eleven-day Genealogy Cruise to the Southern Caribbean. The round trip cruise departs from Norfolk, Virginia, on May 1 and returns May 12, 2005.

Update: the Encyclopedia of Genealogy

I recently created a new, free online service for genealogists, called the Encyclopedia of Genealogy. While I'm the person who created the "shell" of this new service, much of the information within it is written by newsletter readers, such as yourself. If you missed the announcement, you can read it here.

This Newsletter is Nine Years Old!

Boy, the time does fly! It seems like only yesterday that I sent an e-mail message to about 100 people, mostly members of CompuServe's Genealogy Forums. None of them knew in advance that the newsletter would arrive; I simply mailed it to people who I thought might be interested. In 1996 nobody objected to receiving unsolicited bulk mail; the phrase "spam mail" had not yet been invented. I shudder to think if I did the same thing in today's Internet environment.

In that first newsletter on January 15, 1996, I wrote:

Does Cancer Run In Families?

Genealogy has always been thought of as a personal interest: something you do for fun. However, with DNA and genetics becoming more developed, genealogy is now turning into a life-saving activity. The use of genealogy databases makes it easier to see repetitive occurrences of cancer throughout a family.

"Other News" has been Moved

Based upon feedback from a couple of newsletter readers, I have now rearranged the site's layout slightly. I have also converted the "Other News" section to a separate blog that can be read in any RSS news reader. Of course, you can still read it in any normal web browser, too.

One in five Scots has Blood Ties to ancient Iraq

About 20 percent of all Scots have Iraqi blood, according to a new book and television series examining the pre-history of what is now Scotland. The remaining four in five Scots are descended from bands of hunter-gatherers who came from England and northern Europe after the Ice Age. -These revelations purports to dispel the myth of the Scots as a mongrel race made up of Romans, Angles, Vikings, Normans, and other arrivals.

Postcards of Alameda, CA

Old postcards can be interesting and educational if they are pictures of a place where your ancestors lived or vacationed. A rather large collection of postcards from Alameda, California are now available online.

What's in a Name?

An expectant mother in Union, Missouri went into labor this week. The father is stationed in Iraq so the soon-to be grandmother drove her daughter to the hospital. They didn't make it in time. The new baby boy decided to enter this world a bit earlier than planned.

Boston Globe Archive to be Digitized

Anyone researching ancestors in Boston after 1871 will be glad to hear that the complete archive (both text and images) of the Boston Globe newspaper will be digitized and made full text searchable by ProQuest, a well-known database publisher.

Historical Novel Society Conference

The Historical Novel Society is holding its North American Conference in Salt Lake City on the weekend April 15-17. If you are interested in a very professional conference at which you can learn about writing historical materials, including your own family history, this is an event you will want to consider. This is the first time the conference has been held in the U.S. There will be agents there, too.

Seattle Public Library adds RSS Data Feed

I have written a number of articles in recent weeks about all the web sites that are adding RSS data feeds. In fact, the newsletter you are reading right now has been available as an RSS feed for almost eight months. Now the Seattle Public Library is switching to a new computer catalog system that includes RSS. Such data feeds are appearing everywhere, both in genealogy and non-genealogy sites.

For an explanation of RSS technology, read my earlier RSS Feeds Explained article.

Civil War Maps Online

The Library of Congress' new online set of Civil War Maps brings together materials from three major collections. The online set contains approximately 2,240 Civil War maps and charts and 76 atlases and sketchbooks that are held within the Geography and Map Division, 200 maps from the Library of Virginia, and 400 maps from the Virginia Historical Society. The vast majority of the maps were prepared by Federal forces or by commercial firms in the North, but there are also a substantial number by Confederate military authorities and a few by Southern publishers.

Lillie Vertrees Odom: A Daughter of the Confederacy

Lillie Vertrees Odom's family tree makes her a very unusual person. She is one of only a handful of living people who is a son or a daughter of a Confederate soldier. Not the grandson or granddaughter. In Lillie's case, her father, Peter Vertrees, served with the 6th Kentucky Infantry from 1861 to 1865, where he witnessed the ravages of war at Shiloh and Vicksburg, among other engagements.

Microsoft's New AntiSpyware Program

Microsoft's various products have long had a reputation for being full of security holes. Outlook and Outlook Express seem to be the biggest relayers of spam and viruses in the world; Internet Explorer allows rogue Internet sites to steal your personal data and even take over your computer; and the various versions of the Windows operating systems are riddled with security problems. I've written about these issues a number of times and won't repeat it all again here. For a brief look at these problems, do a search on Google for "Microsoft security problems" (without the quotes). I just did that and found more than 8 million occurrences listed, which may, in itself, be a record.

17,340 Relatives?

"Alan Hardisty has discovered 17,340 relatives all over the world." That's the claim of an online site in England in describing its genealogy databases. "I've found I'm related to Hardistys, Hardesties, Herberts and even a Titchmash... Alan... professional gardener and TV presenter," says Alan, a 36-year-old IT consultant.

I have one question: Who says that all the information is accurate? You decide. Read the article on the Sunday Mirror web site.

Indian (as in India) Genealogy Project Announced

I spent some time in India on a business trip last spring. I met with a number of business managers, software developers, taxi drivers, and one tour guide. I found almost no interest at all in genealogy among these people. I could not find anyone interested in tracing his or her roots. However, a new project aimed at Indians living abroad may change that, thanks to a new Internet database being planned with the help of the Indian government and scholars around the world.