Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Check Your Irish Roots in London

A special Irish genealogy day is being arranged for March 10 in London with expert advice on tracing your Irish family history. The day features talks by experts from the National Records Office in Kew, Britain's Family Records Centre, as well as a host of others. The Family Records Centre has joined forces with Tourism Ireland and the British Postal Museum & Archive to bring you a one-day conference dedicated to tracing Irish ancestry.

The event entitled Across The Irish Sea takes place at the Phoenix Centre in Mount Pleasant from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM and will give the chance for people to find out all they need to know about starting to investigate their Irish family background. The day will feature lectures from some of the biggest names in Irish family history (including John Grenham, Paul Gorry, and Michael Gandy) and will cover sources for research on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Zooof.com Announced

This certainly sounds a lot like the Geni.com site that launched a few weeks ago (click here to read the announcement). However, it appears to be a different effort, led by different people. I took a look at the site and found that it is not what I would call a traditional genealogy site. Instead, it appears to primarily be a social networking site.

The following was written by Zooof.com:

The rapidly growing online genealogy service and social networking site, Zooof.com, has officially gone beta. The site's goal is to bring people closer together through family and show how closely related they are to everyone else around the world - even celebrities, kings and presidents. With this announcement it is now opening its doors to the public and ending its previous 'invitation-only' trial period.

Ancestry.com Launches a Large Collection of African-American Historical Records

The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:

PROVO, Utah, Feb. 21 -- In celebration of Black History Month, Ancestry.com, the world's largest online resource for family history, today announced the launch of the largest collection of African-American family history records available and searchable online.

TV Show to Explore Royal Love Children

The U.K.'s ITV television network is launching "Lost Royals," a show that will explore the lives and psyches of the blue bloods who could never hope for a place in the royal families from which they sprung. It will document the lives of the royals, their mistresses, and the illegitimate children they produced. It will also mention many of the descendants of these "love children."

"Scribe of Death" Retires After 20 Years with Library

Tom Kemp, Director, Genealogy Products at NewsBank Inc., sent along an article that I'd like to share with everyone. Tom writes:

As genealogists, we are grateful for the genealogy-minded librarians who have made our work easier. There is a nice article in the Spartanburg Herald about Winnie Walsh who has just retired from the Spartanburg (SC) County Library.

In Memoriam: David E. Gardner

David Ensign Gardner was born November 17, 1915 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England to Captain John Gardner and Mary Caldwell. David was the ninth child of 10 and is the last child to live to 2007. David had a love for genealogical research, and during the 1930s and 1940s, in the British Isles, became a great British researcher. He lived in the Liverpool area until 1943 when he moved to America and settled in Salt Lake City, Utah where he joined the Genealogical Staff of the LDS Church.

Filby Prize Call for Nominations

The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Genealogical Society:

Filby Prize for Genealogical Librarianship

The National Genealogical Society, in cooperation with ProQuest CSA, 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.

UK Outbound Passenger Lists Available from 1890 to 1909 on ancestorsonboard.com

In October, I wrote about  a new web site called ancestorsonboard.com. You can see the original article here. Now ancestorsonboard.com is announcing the addition of another decade:

Available for the first time online

Records of 30 million passengers on thousands of ships sailing to destinations worldwide

findmypast.com, in association with The National Archives, launched ancestorsonboard.com in January 2007, a new database featuring BT27 Outward Passenger Lists for long-distance voyages leaving the British Isles. 

Sony Reader

Futurists have long predicted the death of paper books. The "conventional wisdom" has been that books are too expensive to print and distribute. Reading from a handheld device is the obvious answer. Predictions have existed for years that "the world will switch to electronic books real soon now." There has been only one problem: consumers have paid no attention to the forecasts!

In fact, the year 2006 saw more printed books published than in any previous year in history. Paper is still firmly entrenched as the most popular publishing medium. However, this week I saw a device that may change all that. I now believe that e-books have a chance of succeeding.

Presidential Ancestry

With Presidents' Day in the U.S. this week, this is a good time to look at the ancestry of the U.S. presidents. After all, if your ancestors have been in the U.S. for 100 years or more, there is a strong possibility that your ancestry intersects with at least one of the U.S. presidents. The same can be said for many others of Canadian, British, Scottish, or Irish ancestry, as well as a few from the European continent.

RootsMagic Caribbean Cruise Announced

RootsMagic, Inc., the producer of RootsMagic genealogy software, Personal Historian, and Family Atlas, has announced a company-sponsored genealogy cruise later this year. You do NOT need to be a user of any of those programs to attend. Here is the official announcement:

It's official.  The RootsMagic Cruise 2007 will be sailing to the Caribbean from November 11-18, 2007 aboard Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Sea.

Practical Archivist Call-In Radio Show

The following announcement was written by Sally Jacobs:

Sally Jacobs, The Practical Archivist, plans to take over the airwaves the first Monday in March. Her one time only radio call-in program will include tips on how to organize your photographs and conquer the clutter once and for all. Sally will also take call-in questions about protecting your one-of-a-kind family treasures from the ravages of time.

(+) Still Another Automatic Offsite Backup Option

I have written numerous times about how to make backups easily. Yet I still receive e-mails from newsletter readers that say, "I recently lost all the data on my computer and…" Such a data loss certainly is inconvenient, but it shouldn't be a disaster. Sooner or later, you will suffer a significant data loss. If you take steps now to make automated backups, you will be able to retrieve all your data. There is no need to lose your genealogy database, family photos, checkbook, or other important files.

This week I discovered still another backup service that (1.) stores your data either at your location or off-site or both, (2.) is either free or very cheap, depending upon which options you choose, and (3.) works on both Windows and Macintosh systems. In fact, I am now using this company's software to back up data on my PowerMac laptop. Even better, the company promises to add Linux systems "real soon now."

The Last Muster

Did you know that many of the men and women of the American Revolution sat for photographs in the mid-nineteenth century? These Revolutionary War veterans were old men and women by the time photography was invented. However, it is believed that many of them had their photographs taken. As elders and as veterans, it was a sign of respect to record their images. Now Maureen Taylor is looking for those pictures.

Ancestry.ca Offers Three Days of Free Access to Its Worldwide Collection

In recognition of Canada's Heritage Day, the Canadian site of The Generations Network (better known as Ancestry.com) is offering three days of free access to the company's World Deluxe collection. The following announcement was written by The Generations Network:

Jewish, Ukrainian and Finnish Immigrants in Canada now Online

The following announcement was written by Library and Archives Canada:

Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the completion of the database regarding the Likacheff-Ragosine-Mathers collection (LI-RA-MA).  This database contains documents created between 1898 and 1922 by the consular offices of the Tsarist Russian Empire in Canada.

Another One Million Historic Newspaper Pages Are Now Online

The following announcement was written by SmallTownPapers, Inc. and World Vital Records, Inc.:

Seattle, WA – February 14, 2007 - Under a partnership between SmallTownPapers, Inc. and World Vital Records, Inc., one million exclusive newspaper pages from small towns across America are now available on the World Vital Records website.  The newspapers, part of the SmallTownPapers collection, represent unique historical content which has never before been available on the Internet and is not available from any other source.

Izard County Historian Magazine Seeks New Volunteer Editor

The Izard County (Arkansas) Historian magazine is published by the Izard County Historical and Genealogical Society. The Society is seeking a new volunteer editor. Juanita Stowers has edited the quarterly journal since 1996, but due to health problems, must step down. She is willing to serve as assistant editor.

PhpGedView

I have installed various genealogy programs onto Windows computers, Macintosh systems, and Linux desktop systems. I have even installed genealogy programs onto PocketPC and Palm handheld computers. This week I used a program that didn't install onto any of those; it is installed on a web server. 

The program I used is also an excellent tool for "collaborative research projects" among distant cousins or other groups. You can easily have several people in different locations editing the database simultaneously. You cannot easily do that on a standard desktop genealogy program! This program is great for family societies and other group projects.

National Genealogical Society Announces One Million Names Online in One Year

The following announcement was written by the National Genealogical Society:

Arlington, VA--12 February 2007

Just under a year since the first Member Ancestry Chart (MAC) became available to members on its website (http://www.ngsgenealogy.org), the National Genealogical Society (NGS) today uploaded the millionth ancestral name from its MAC collection. All of the names are searchable, including separate entries for women's maiden and married surnames.