The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
1837online.com is one of the most popular genealogy web sites in the U.K. It has thousand of users who pay for access. The company also has a major presence each year at the Family History Fair held in London. In fact, you can see several pictures I took of the big 1837online.com exhibit with many computers connected online at last year's Family History Fair at http://blog.eogn.com/photos/sog2005. The company will again sponsor the 2006 Family History Fair to be held in a few weeks.
CBS News has a story about a new kind of genealogy: finding extended biological families in a manner that no one ever anticipated or dreamed possible until recently. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports that these families are made up of something called "donor siblings," apparently a new term to genealogical dictionaries.
Genealogists normally think of census taking as a peaceful activity. Therefore it seems strange that the taking of the census is almost shutting down the nation of Nigeria. The streets of Nigeria's main cities are still as people have been told to stay at home and wait to be counted in the first census for 15 years. The normally congested streets in the capital of Lagos are eerily quiet as enumerators go from house -to house counting residents.
Would you like to join a few thousand other family tree tracers at a day-long genealogy event in London? The Society of Genealogists will once again hold its annual Family History Fair in just a few weeks. Circle April 29 on your calendar now.
I attended this Fair several times and can tell you that it is the biggest and busiest genealogy get-together I have seen. Two thousand to 3,000 people descend on Royal Horticultural Hall on Greycoat Street, Westminster, on Saturday of the May Day holiday weekend.
The National Genealogical Society, in cooperation with ProQuest Information and Learning, seeks nominations for its annual award to a librarian who has made significant contributions to the field of genealogy and local history. The nominee must have at least five years experience in a public or special library.
I have just learned that a major new online service for genealogists will be announced formally later this week. I managed to get an advance copy of the announcement and then discussed it with the manager in charge of this new genealogy database. I thought I would give newsletter readers advance notice of this new service.
Are you looking for a genealogy business opportunity? If so, read on.
The founders of Pearl Street Software have mostly moved on to a new project and are opening up bidding for their company to interested parties. Cliff, Chris, and Ryan still very much believe in the company they've built but think it would best be left to another party to bring it to the next level. Therefore, Pearl Street Software and its products are now for sale.
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. Even 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.
Are you a genealogy librarian? Are you attending the PLA conference in Boston this week? If so, you will be interested in the following announcement from Tom Kemp of NewsBank:
No, you don't have to enlist to fight. These "volunteers" will serve a different purpose.
A different army of volunteers will soon descend on America's Civil War battlefields -- only this horde of dedicated men and women will be armed with paint brushes, trash bags and weed whackers. This "battle" is called Park Day. The volunteers will be battling the ravages of Mother Nature plus heavy usage by mankind: the volunteers will be sprucing up the historic sites and making them into something that all Americans can be proud of.
Antiquus Morbus may sound a bit silly and even be a bit hard to remember. However, the web site of http://www.antiquusmorbus.com should be bookmarked in every genealogist's web browser.
The Mormon Church is planning to convert almost all its genealogy microfilms to digital images. These images will then be available to genealogists who have computer access, from home and probably even from portable Internet connections in libraries, courthouses or even while riding a commuter train. You can read more about the plan in my article published in this newsletter last September at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2005/09/lds_church_to_p.html.
Writing on the Mormon Church's web site, Brittany Karford of Church Magazines now reports that the project is moving much faster than originally planned.
This week I purchased a new cell phone. One of the first things I did was to load my entire genealogy database into the phone, consisting of full data on more than 3,000 individuals and including all my source citations, text notes, "to do" lists, and more. In fact, I even have a few old family photographs stored in the cell phone that can be displayed on the telephone's built-in screen at any time.
The following is an announcement of a new online tutorial:
A new online tutorial is now available at no cost to students of family history and anyone interested in using Personal Ancestral File (PAF), the widely used genealogy computer program available from the LDS Church. "It is a learning aid and reference for BYU students and others who wish to learn about the PAF family history program," said Kip Sperry, Professor of Family History at BYU.
In the course of a week, I get to see a lot of genealogy data. Some of what I see is abysmal. Many otherwise highly-skilled genealogists do not seem to know that their keyboards have a SHIFT key! Instead, they simply press their CAPS LOCK key and then ignore upper and lower case after that.
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration now provides access to high-resolution images of the Charters of Freedom documents. These files are in JPEG format with the maximum quality setting possible. These images will print at up to approximately 24" wide by 29" high at 150dpi (publication quality).
I received an e-mail from a reader about a Plus Edition article in last week's newsletter. I smiled so much when I received this message that I just had to share it:
In last week's newsletter you recommended [the program] for spam control. You've never steered me wrong before, so I downloaded the file and, I have to tell you, it is better than sliced bread!! :-) What an incredible tool this is and, for me, quite user friendly. I found I didn't need much instruction time before being able to use it.
I love the program, and thank you for recommending it.
The following is a Proclamation by the President of the United States of America:
The histories of Ireland and the United States are deeply intertwined. For generations, the sons and daughters of Ireland have come to America with a spirit of determination and optimism that has strengthened our Nation's character and enriched our history. During Irish-American Heritage Month, we celebrate Irish Americans and the significant contributions they have made to our Nation.
Every March 17, millions of people pause to reflect on their Irish heritage. Conceived as a Saint's Day in the Catholic Church, Saint Patrick's Day is now a time of celebration for millions. However, many of us have little knowledge of the man whose name we celebrate.
First of all, Saint Patrick wasn't even Irish. He was a Roman citizen. The place of his birth is dispute although everyone agrees that he was not born in Ireland.
1837online.com is one of the most popular genealogy web sites in the U.K. It has thousand of users who pay for access. The company also has a major presence each year at the Family History Fair held in London. In fact, you can see several pictures I took of the big 1837online.com exhibit with many computers connected online at last year's Family History Fair at http://blog.eogn.com/photos/sog2005. The company will again sponsor the 2006 Family History Fair to be held in a few weeks.
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