Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Huguenot Society gets Grant for Restoration

Gerry Charitable Trust recently awarded $20,000 to the Huguenot Historical Society of New Paltz, NY to restore the north wall of the Jean Hasbrouck House, which is separating from its internal support structure and threatening to collapse.

NJ Awards Millions for Public Records Preservation

New Jersey's 21 counties, along with 40 municipalities, are set to receive $27.8 million in state preservation and security aid for their public records and archives under funding announced by the Secretary of State's office earlier this week. The aid can be used, among other things, for funding manpower and training, microfilming and the duplication of both old and current documents.

Ghana to Offer Lifetime Visas to U.S. Slave Descendants

Ever since Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, invited his classmates from Pennsylvania's Lincoln University to come home with him to help build Africa, African-Americans have been coming to Ghana to visit, work, volunteer, invest, or live in what has become the quintessential African homeland. W.E.B. Du Bois lived here. So did Maya Angelou. Today the country, once at the heart of Africa's slave-trading routes, has the largest community of African-Americans in West Africa, most of whom have come looking for their roots and a sense of purpose.

WWII Draft Cards Coming Soon

Ancestry.com is in the final stages of work on a new database collection of World War II Draft Cards. This database is an indexed collection of draft cards from the Fourth Registration, the only registration currently available to the public. The Fourth Registration, often referred to as the "old man's registration," was conducted on 27 April 1942 and registered men who were born on or between 28 April 1877 and 16 February 1897 - men who were between 45 and 64 years old and who were not already in the military.

My Credit Card Number Was Stolen!

I have written a number of articles over the years about credit card safety. Links to some of my earlier articles are available at the end of this article.

I have always stated that the safest form of payment, especially for payments online, is a credit card. Despite the myths that still float around, credit cards are the safest form of online and offline payment. In fact, stealing credit card numbers on the web is very difficult. It is far easier to steal credit card numbers in person at stores, restaurants, gas stations, beauty shops, and other local business establishments. Security experts report that credit card theft is far more common in person than it is online. Of course, stealing checking account numbers is even easier.

DeCode Starts Late-stage Drug Trial

Thanks in part to an extensive genealogy database, on Wednesday Iceland-based drug developer deCode Genetics Inc. said it has begun a late-stage trial of its DG031 candidate to prevent heart attacks.

2005 SCGS Family History Writing Contest Winners

The Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS) has announced the award winners, honorable mentions, and finalists in its 2005 Family History Writing Contest, now officially known as the GENEii Awards.

African American Reference now Online

Oxford University Press today announced the immediate availability of the Oxford African American Studies Center.  The company called the new service "a milestone in African American studies and online publishing."

How to Change the E-Mail Address on your Newsletter Subscription

Some newsletter subscribers do not realize how easy it is to change the e-mail address on their subscriptions. In fact, you can change your e-mail address within seconds.

(+) Free Telephone Calls via the Internet

Note: The following article has very little genealogy-related information, other than information on how families and genealogy societies can save money. It is a description of a service that I recently started using. I decided to share my impressions with anyone who might be interested. Depending upon your requirements, this article could save you a lot of money in telephone calls.

New Ancestry.com Card Catalog

Ancestry.com has 23,775 databases available to search and the number keeps getting bigger. That can be confusing! The company has now released a new Ancestry Card Catalog to help you find the database you need. The Card Catalog is a free tool.. You can search by keyword or title and narrow that search by date or location.

Scan This Book!

The New York Times has an article about the mass scanning of books, which argues that actions such as Google's Book Search project are an inevitable outgrowth of the internet. The article states:

Montreal City Directories Online

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec has added a new online collection of interest to anyone researching ancestors in Montreal. The Lovell directories of Montreal and its suburbs (1842-1999) are now available online.

Combining Travel and Genealogy

Writing in the Wichita Eagle, Mary Ann Anderson has written about places that you should see in your lifetime. The article is full of references to Kenya's Maasai Mara (a game preserve within the grassy plains of the Great Serengeti region), riding a camel to see the Pyramids at sunrise, paragliding over the Alps, floating down the Nile and experiencing the gastronomical delights of Paris.

Clooz 2.0

The following is an announcement from Ancestor Detective, LLC:

The all-new Clooz 2.0 has been released! Clooz 2.0, the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, has been completely rewritten and now includes more than 100 templates for specific genealogy records, plus the ability to use generic templates for those records without a specific template. Clooz is not a genealogy program, it's a utility that can be used in conjunction with your genealogy program to keep track of all the papers and electronic documents that you collect during the research process. In fact, this version of Clooz can work directly with Legacy Family Tree 6.0, directly saving people and sources added to Clooz. But users don't need to use Clooz with Legacy--it works on its own as well.

(+) Scanning Old Books

Genealogists love old books. Many of us would love to scan some of these books for our own use or to make them available to others when copyright laws allow. Scanned books can easily be distributed on CD-ROM disks or via online web sites. The only difficult part is the scanning of the original books.

Almost any scanner can be used to make images of old books. However, using a desktop scanner purchased at the local computer store has significant disadvantages.

1851 Canadian Census Now Online

The 1851 Canadian census covered Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The National Archives of Canada has now announced that the 1851 census has been scanned and placed online. It is available at no charge at the National Archives' web site.

Courthouse Indexes Illustrated

Christine Rose has written a new book entitled Courthouse Indexes Illustrated. I have been doing genealogy research for years and thought I knew how to read an index. However, I must say that I learned a lot more by reading Christine's new book!

This slim, 58-page booklet describes the various kinds of indexes in great detail. One would think that an index was a simple list of words in alphabetical order. Not so!

Remembering Historical Jewish Graceland Cemetery in Chicago

Why would anyone be interested in a cemetery whose first burial was in 1851 and where there have not been many recent burials? For Jewish genealogists, Jewish Graceland is a treasure of Jewish heritage. It documents members of the earliest Jewish community that helped build Chicago.

Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness

I must say that one web site has an intriguing name: Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. From what I hear, the site also produces excellent results.