The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
More than two years after acquiring one of the largest privately held genealogical collections in the country, Logan city is preparing to open it to the public for the first time. “I’m excited about the possibilities, but there’s a lot we still need to do,” said Logan Library Director Ronald Jenkins.
The city is about to give public access to the 82,000-piece Everton Collection. Opening day has not yet been set but it is expected to be within the next few weeks.
Beth Gay was fired from her job at the Odom and Moultrie-Colquitt County (Georgia) libraries. She is well known in genealogy circles as the former editor and publisher of genealogical newspaper The Family Tree. Now Beth Gay is seeking back pay from the libraries and city and county governments that contribute to the libraries’ funding.
This week I had a chance to use a brand-new CD-ROM disk with a long title: The Ricker Compilation of Vital Records of Early Connecticut - Based on the Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records and Other Statistical Sources, compiled and edited by Jacquelyn Ladd Ricker. The disk was just released within the past week or two by Genealogical Publishing Company. After using this Windows and Macintosh disk for a couple of hours, I am very impressed.
If you have Connecticut ancestry, you will be pleasantly surprised by the resources on this disk. It contains more than 1.5 million records of Connecticut residents prior to 1850. The records include:
After walking the Great Wall of China and making plans for a trip to Russia, Shirley Greening-Jackson thought signing up for a new Internet service would be a simple task. But the young man behind the counter had other ideas. He said she was barred - because she was too old.
Berne, New York is a small town with a lot of history. The Berne Historical Project has created a great web site that captures much of that history online, making it available to descendants of Berne residents and others worldwide. This site could serve as a model of "how to do it right" for other town historical projects.
Reminder: The next “general purpose” Genealogy Skypecast will be held Thursday evening at 10 PM Eastern, 9 PM Central, 8 PM Mountain and 7 PM Pacific time. In much of the world, this will be early on Friday.
This will be an “open session” with the only items on the agenda being those items that YOU bring up.
Subtitle: Unlike Paper and Microfilm, Digital Documents Can Last Forever
This is the second part of a two-part article for Plus Edition subscribers.
Today's headlong rush into digitizing everything in the world provides many solutions but also more than a few new problems. Indeed, converting old documents to digital images is a rather simple process. However, the long-term storage requirements produce even more complex problems than the storage requirements of paper and microfilm.
I have written several times about the advantage of Skype's free service that replaces telephone calls. We also often have genealogy-related Skypecasts which are loosely the equivalent of conference calls. Now the bLaugh cartoon strip has a Skype-related entry that some people here might appreciate:
The above image is used here with the permission of bLaugh.
Scholars who work on large archival projects have struggled during the Bush administration. The president has repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is one of the two federal programs that supports the intense, decades-long projects that involve editing and publishing of collections of documents. Congress has saved the program, but just barely.
Subtitle: Unlike Paper and Microfilm, Digital Documents Can Last Forever
This is the first part of a two-part article for Plus Edition subscribers. I will post the second part in a few days.
“Conventional wisdom” amongst genealogists, historians and archivists states that digital media is a poor method of storing data for decades or for centuries. This “conventional wisdom” claims that the only practical method of storing information for many years is to do so on paper or on microfilm/microfiche. There's only one problem: “conventional wisdom” is wrong!
There is an exciting, new project afoot, and I am looking for some friends and neighbors in the Long Beach/Orange County, California, area to join me in helping a company that is building a huge, new web site. Your participation could make a difference in the customer experience including the look and feel of this new web site as well as the business plans of this huge new online service.
A 3-hour worldwide genealogy conference call was held on Saturday, September 16 (early Sunday morning in some parts of the world). We had participants from England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In fact, I think there were more New Zealanders in the conversation than any other nationality.
We did not use telephones. Instead, we all plugged headphones and microphones into our computers' sound boards and conversed across the Internet. The 3-hour conversation was free: no toll charges involved.
Beginning Monday, the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation of Salt Lake City will open its database of more than 5,000 samples of mitochondrial DNA to the public. (Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to both sons and daughters. Men never pass it on to their children, however. The result is very accurate tracing of maternal lines, if DNA data is available.)
The following was written by the GPC Award Committee:
Call for Nominations
Nominations are solicited for the ALA History Section/Genealogical Publishing Company Award, 2007. The award, established in 1992, consists of $1,500 cash, with a citation, to a librarian, library, or publisher who has achieved excellence in historical reference and research librarianship. Sponsored by Genealogical Publishing Company, this award may be a career achievement award for persons who have made ongoing contributions to the local history and genealogy fields over many years and who have been active in the History Section. Current membership in RUSA and the History Section is required. The nominations will be evaluated for exceptional accomplishment in such fields as bibliography, book reviewing, indexing, professional association leadership, programs, and training. The list of previous winners can be viewed here.
On Tuesday, I wrote about the Iowa Genealogical Society's difficulties in obtaining a $600,000 interest-free loan from the Polk County (Iowa) supervisors. You can read that article here. Now the county supervisors have decided to delay the decision.
Would you like to protect your Windows, Macintosh, Linux or handheld computer from known “phishing” web sites? Would you like your computer to correct typo errors when you enter web addresses? Would you like your computer to run faster when surfing the web? One service can do all that. Best of all, it is available free of charge.
Study that family tree chart closely. If you are a direct descendant of any of 340 specific men, you, your children, grandchildren, and even later generations may be able to obtain free tuition to Northwestern University. That is a present value of more than $134,000 over four years.
As I wandered the aisles in the Exhibits Hall at the recent Federation of Genealogical Societies' conference, one word stuck in my mind: maps. Everywhere I looked, there were vendors exhibiting maps. There were companies selling maps of villages in Ireland and England, other books showing land grants in the public lands states in the U.S., and many more. One product that caught my eye was software that allows you to create your own maps that show your ancestors' locations and migrations. I obtained a copy of the program and used it once I returned home this week.
This is a quick reminder that we now have regularly scheduled genealogy Skypecasts. These are genealogy "conference calls," but we do not use telephones. Instead, you may join in by plugging a headset into your computer's headphone and microphone jacks, then downloading the free Skype software from http://www.skype.com. The software is available for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux computers. All Skypecasts are free of charge with no toll calls involved, even though participants are often on different continents. Instead of talking over telephone lines, we are talking over the Internet.
The Massachusetts Archives has created a FREE online index for all recorded deaths in the state from 1841 through 1910. If you are looking for information about a Massachusetts ancestor, this can be a great resource.
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