Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Quit bellyachin' - these ARE the good ol' days

The world is getting worse and worse, personal service and customer service in the marketplace is disappearing. Yes, the days of our ancestors were better. Or were they?

NGS 2005 Conference - Days 3 and 4

The annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society continued to entertain attendees. The attendance was significantly smaller than previous years although everyone seemed to enjoy the conference. I heard many positive remarks from the attendees. The rain showers that were prevalent in mid-week cleared and many conference attendees were seen in the local restaurants, bars and various stores within a few blocks of the convention center.

Kentucky Digitizes Land Documents

Tucked in the state Capitol's cavernous basement is an office cubbyhole containing volumes upon volumes of large books tracing the history of land in Kentucky. Those books, many of which have been hidden from the public eye for years, are now available worldwide on the Internet.

Butler County, Missouri, Funeral Home Records

The Fitch-Hillis Funeral Home, located in Popular Bluff, Missouri (Butler County) has published a name index of funerals on its website. The time covered is 1906 to 1937.

APG Honors Sherry Irvine for Exemplary Service

The following is an announcement from the Association of Professional Genealogists:

Where could you find an expert in English, Scottish and Irish family history, an outstanding teacher and writer, and exceptional leader? Well, of all places, in the small city of Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada on beautiful Vancouver Island.

NGS 2005 Conference - Day 2

Day #2 of the annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society unfolded as expected. The skies are still overcast in Nashville with occasional showers. However, all was sunny and dry inside the Nashville Convention center.

I managed to roam around the Exhibitors' Hall a bit today and the following items interested me:

A Gold Mine Of Naturalization Records In New England

The search for nineteenth-century naturalization records can be one of the more frustrating aspects of genealogical research. Before September 27, 1906, naturalization was carried out by thousands of courts—federal, state, county, local—and each court kept its own records. Where does one begin to look?

19th Century William Smith O'Brien Petition now Online

The following is an announcement from The Origins Network:

The William Smith O'Brien Petition is list of over 80,000 names and places from 1848/9, the time of the Great Famine. It is a valuable census substitute for that time, as well as an important historical resource. This is now available exclusively to Irish Origins and Origins Total Access subscribers

Read this Newsletter (and more) on Your PocketPC

While riding the train on my daily commute, I often read news articles on my shirt pocket-sized iPAQ computer. It is great to be able to pull this tiny device out of my pocket and read the latest news stories from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, U.S. News & World Report, the Boston Herald and, yes, even from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. I find this to be a great way to pass the time on an otherwise boring daily commute. I also read a lot of articles on the handheld while flying to Nashville this week. I find that reading articles on a handheld computer is easier than from a book or a newspaper, especially on a crowded train.

Fifth Maine Regimental Museum

One of the better Civil War museums around is the Fifth Maine Regimental Museum on Peaks Island (in Portland harbor), Maine.

The building was originally called the Fifth Maine Regiment Memorial Hall when it was built in 1888 as the "Headquarters" of the Fifth Regiment Maine Volunteer Infantry 1861-1864. For nearly sixty years the veterans and their families summered at the headquarters, enjoying the cooling ocean breezes and magnificent view from the verandah of their beloved cottage.

1861 U.K. Census: Eleven Extra Counties Added

1837online.com has announced that the company's online database now contains another eleven counties to the 1861 census records available. The counties that are now available for people to search are:

NGS 2005 Conference - Day 1

This year's annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society opened as scheduled this morning. The 2005 event is co-sponsored by the Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society.

The conference opened this morning under cloudy skies with intermittent rain. It is being held at the Nashville Convention Center, conveniently located in downtown Nashville. Today was "déjà vu" for me as I attended the 1996 NGS conference in the same location in Nashville, co-sponsored by the same local organization. 1996 was a very good conference and the first day of this year's conference was likewise well organized and presented.

Pocket Ancestry for PocketPC Released

A new genealogy program for handheld PocketPC computers has been released, and the program is available free of charge.

Pocket Ancestry is a program for Pocket PC that allows the user to view genealogy information from a GEDCOM format. Genealogical data can be displayed in various layouts: list of all the persons in data file; list of "patriarchs"; information about one person selected from the list; tree of all the ancestors or all the descendants of selected person; family of selected person; parents' family of selected person. The user has the possibility to tune some aspects of program behavior.

Descendants Eligible for $1 Million

This sounds like a great challenge for Australian genealogists: a $1.2 million (Australian) fortune is up for grabs as a result of the death of a Brighton recluse. State Trustees have been searching for months for beneficiaries to the estate of William Overall, 76, who died last June without making a will.