Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

1841 Census on British Origins Now Complete

The Origins Network has announced that its online 1841 Census is now complete. The final counties are now all available for searching on the 1841 England and Wales Census. This brings the final 1841 data count to 15,791,795 records online.

EOGN Web Site is Now (Almost) Fully Operational Again

It has been two long days. I moved this newsletter's web site to a new hosting service and then spent the next two days fighting with a problem installing and configuring the web site's SSL certificate. That certificate is required to handle credit card payments securely and also is necessary for the subscription management software that grants access to restricted areas of the web site to Plus Edition subscribers. After a few telephone calls to the new hosting service's technical support department, the problem is now resolved.

Amusement Park Encroaching on Graveyard

Funtown in Saco, Maine, is building a water slide right next to an old cemetery in violation of a 25-foot law. The amusement park owner even says that the airspace over the cemetery isn't included in the 25-foot rule. The district attorney says that the law doesn't indicate whose responsibility it is to enforce the law, so it is basically unenforceable. The Maine Old Cemetery Association is working with other interested parties to promote the protection of this and other old cemeteries, which hold so much of our historic records. The cemetery is the final resting place of several veterans of the Civil War, probably some veterans of the Revolution, a person of Native American blood, and early settlers of the town. 

Allen County Public Library is Closed

The second largest genealogy library in the world is closed. However, in a few weeks, the library will re-open in a $64 million building in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The downtown library's genealogy department closed Saturday, and about 100 employees began moving the genealogy department's 750,000-piece collection to the new library on Tuesday. The microfilm machines and microfiche cabinets had already been moved. The remainder of the library's departments will close on January 8 so that workers can begin moving the rest of the materials to the new location.

FGS 2008 Conference Call for Papers

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO February 7, 2007

The FGS 2008 Conference in Philadelphia has extended the deadline for the call for papers.  The new deadline is February 7, 2007.

Graveyard Tourism in India

Tourism authorities in the Himalayan Indian state of Himachal Pradesh are inviting British tourists to visit to the state's many European graveyards is an added 'bonus' on their itinerary.

According to official estimates, there are some 10 main 'European' graveyards in the state, which mainly house the remains of British people who died in India. The London-based British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (Bacsa), however, estimates the state has a total of 42 such cemeteries. Many of them are open to the public, although new burials no longer take place there.

Curious about your Genealogical Origins?

The Genographic Project can help. Writing in the Arizona Daily Star, Dan Sorenson describes how the Genographic Project can trace your ancestry back tens of thousands of years for a cost of $99.95. To be sure, you will not obtain any ancestor's name or even a birth record, but you will obtain a report showing a high probability of where the ancestors lived.

According to Sorenson:

A Pilgrimage to a Hospital for Black American Ancestry Information

The Ganges brothers, Tendaji, Larry and Kelly, traveled to Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania in August in what history buffs hope was the first of many pilgrimages to an early American quarantine station there. The red-brick lazaretto, as it was called, was built in 1800 as a way to screen ships on the Delaware River for infectious diseases. As such, it gave immigrants their first contact with the new world. In the case of the Ganges family, the lazaretto was the final act of a close call.

(+) A Free Web Authoring System

Would you like to create web pages for your ancestry or perhaps as a project for your local genealogy society? Every society needs a web site to both "get the word out" and also to sell the publications produced by the society. For several years Microsoft FrontPage and MacroMedia's DreamWeaver have been the two most popular tools for creating Web pages. These two powerhouse programs allow almost anyone, novices as well as professional Web designers, to build nice-looking Web pages in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment. If you can use a word processor, you probably can create Web pages with either FrontPage or DreamWeaver. Yet both products have powerful tools that will also appeal to the advanced user.

Buy Books from a Vending Machine?

Soon buying a book should be as easy as buying a pack of gum. After several years in development, the Espresso vending machine from On Demand Books is nearly consumer-ready and will debut in 10 to 25 libraries and bookstores in 2007. The New York Public Library is scheduled to receive its machine in February.