The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
On December 28, I published an announcement stating that the Godfrey Memorial Library in Middletown, Connecticut, is in the process of dropping HeritageQuest Online from its portfolio of offerings. This caused a lot of consternation amongst genealogists, as this had been a very popular offering for the Library.
Many genealogists had joined the Godfrey Memorial Library's membership program for $35 a year solely for the purpose of accessing HeritageQuest Online and its many excellent databases of census records, digitized genealogy and local history books, Revolutionary War pensions, and more. That's a bit ironic as most Americans already could obtain free access to the same databases. The few that cannot find free access can obtain access via several other providers for $35 a year or less.
I am a big fan of programs that are designed to do one thing and then do it well. Ancestral Author is one of those programs. A few days ago, creator Rod Sullivan issued an updated version of Ancestral Author.
The U.S. Public Broadcasting System television network's four part series on African American genealogy starts this week. The official start is on Wednesday, February 1. However, local stations may elect to broadcast it on a different date/time.
In case you haven't seen it yet, the current edition of Newsweek has a cover article on genetic genealogy. "DNA Testing: In Our Blood" is an article by Claudia Kalb that describes some of the successes that genealogists have had when using DNA analysis.
A few months ago, I created a free online service for genealogists, called the Encyclopedia of Genealogy. While I'm the person who created the "shell" of this new service, newsletter readers like you write much of the information within it. If you missed the announcement, you can read it at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/12/encyclopedia_of.html.
I must admit that I am quite pleased with the Encyclopedia of Genealogy. Many newsletter readers have offered new content or have corrected existing information within the Encyclopedia of Genealogy. Here is a partial list of some of the articles added or updated by newsletter readers and myself in the past few weeks:
I want to write newsletter articles that are relevant to you. I am also curious.
I am guessing that the number of people still using Windows 98 is dwindling rapidly, as is Macintosh OS 9. If I am correct, I will spend less time writing articles about software that runs on those systems. However, if my premise is wrong, I certainly want to know about it!
You can help me satisfy my own curiosity as well as help me write articles of interest to the majority of newsletter readers. You can do that by filling out a very short (optional) online survey.
This isn't a pedigree chart drawn to strict genealogical standards, but it is amusing. This is a "must have" for any genealogist who is also a Star Wars fan.
One great resource available from the U.S. National Archives is the World War II Enlistment Records. These records have been transcribed and made available on the National Archives web site. These records are especially valuable as many of the personnel papers of these soldiers and sailors were later destroyed in a fire.
Many small cemeteries in rural areas are located on private land. In many areas, the present landowners may restrict access to the graveyards. A new bill before the Tennessee state legislature seeks to change that.
A long ago unsolved murder of a young Jewish girl in Durant, Oklahoma has haunted a distant relative.
Pauline Amsel, 14, daughter of Jake and Celia Amsel, was brutally murdered Nov. 11, 1914, in the family's home at 501 N. Seventh Ave. The Amsels were described as some of Durant's prominent citizens who owned the Amsel Store in downtown Durant. Pauline was a student at Oklahoma Presbyterian College for Girls.
This week I had a chance to examine an interesting web site, called "The Irish in New York City." It is a history site, not a genealogy site. Nonetheless, anyone with Irish ancestry in New York City will want to look at this one. It is fascinating.
MyFamily.com, Inc., has launched a new Canadian genealogy web site: www.ancestry.ca. The site contains Canadian genealogy data, including the first and only fully indexed 1911 Census of Canada.
Sometimes I think that Steve Morse is God's gift to genealogists. He takes good databases and turns them into great ones. Steve has created excellent indexing tools to the Ellis Island and Castle Garden sites. His search tools generally will perform faster searches with more accurate results than the search capabilities invented by the original database designers.
Sue Phillips asked a question this week. I do not know of a good answer, but I suspect that some of the newsletter readers can help. Here is her question:
Gee, I thought I had heard of all the various genealogy programs available today, but here's one that is news to me: Who Do You Think You Are? It is even available as a "Deluxe Edition" although I cannot find any mention of a "Standard Edition." Strange indeed… Yet the screen shots look very familiar.
AOL users who subscribe to various RootsWeb mailing lists reportedly are not receiving their e-mail messages. I can sympathize with this as I have been fighting a similar battle with AOL for years. At various times, AOL has deleted all the issues of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. Nowadays, AOL seems to be content to simply delete some of them.
I recently wrote an article about how to add a lot of storage space to your in-home or small office network. The best part of all is the price: free, if you happen to have an old PC lying around unused.
The article has nothing to do with genealogy; so, I will not publish it in this newsletter. If you have an interest in adding more computer storage to your in-home network, you can read my article here.
At the suggestion of several newsletter readers, I am now offering the Plus Edition of this newsletter every week in a new version: text-only.
The text-only version is in ASCII text only; it has no advertising, images, HTML code, hyperlinks, font sizes, bold, underline, italics, or other formatting. The text-only version simply has words, nothing else.
The news media is full of stories about the bird flu, AIDS, cancer, and other medical problems of today. With all this publicity, some of us might think that medical problems are getting worse. We might even wonder if the death rate is increasing because of modern medical problems. In fact, today's medical problems pale in comparison to what our ancestors encountered eighty-eight years ago.
The Spanish flu of 1918 killed more people than any other infectious disease in recorded history: at least 25 million people. Some estimates go as high as 100 million. Even the lower number is still more than all the people who died in all the Bubonic Plague epidemics throughout the Middle Ages. AIDS killed 25 million in its first 25 years, but the Spanish flu may have killed 25 million within 25 weeks beginning in September 1918.
At the suggestion of several newsletter readers, I am now offering the Plus Edition of this newsletter every week in a new version: text-only.
The news media is full of stories about the bird flu, AIDS, cancer, and other medical problems of today. With all this publicity, some of us might think that medical problems are getting worse. We might even wonder if the death rate is increasing because of modern medical problems. In fact, today's medical problems pale in comparison to what our ancestors encountered eighty-eight years ago. 
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