Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Google to Help Make Public Records Available

By providing free consulting and some software, Google Inc. is helping state governments make reams of public records that are now unavailable or hard to find online easily accessible to Web surfers. The Internet search company hopes to eventually persuade federal agencies to employ the same tools -- an effort that excites advocates of open government but worries some consumer privacy experts.

Linux Genealogy CD 3.0 Released

The Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System, or GRAMPS, is a popular free genealogy program for use on Linux. It is powerful and easy to use and is released in conjunction with a Linux "Live CD." That CD has now been updated to Version 3.0.

LostCousins is Free for a Week

The following is an announcement written by LostCousins:

To celebrate the 3rd Birthday of the LostCousins website on May 1 all users will be offered completely free access for a week!

When LostCousins ran a similar offer on the site's 2nd birthday a record number of members discovered previously unknown living relatives (or 'lost cousins'), and it is anticipated that this year's celebrations will be even more successful.

On the Road Once Again, This Time to London

I am traveling almost constantly throughout the month of May. This week I am off to the "Who Do You Think You Are?" conference in London, England. The event features the Society of Genealogists Family History Show, the Military Zone (supported by The History Channel, the UK's leading broadcaster of historical entertainment and documentary programming), House History and more. Speakers will include Dr. Nick Barratt, Bettany Hughes, Dan Snow, David Starkey, Guy Grannum, Jonathan Foyle, Saul David, Paul Crooks and more.

Although I will be carrying a laptop computer and various wireless networking devices, there is always a possibility of being left incommunicado. Don't be surprised if there are no new articles posted to the daily newsletter for a few days. Next Sunday's weekly Plus Edition e-mail newsletter also might be delayed by a day or two.

NERGC 2007 Wrap-up - Pictures Are Available

I just returned from the New England Regional Genealogical Conference in Hartford, Connecticut. As expected, this was a great conference. I believe the total attendance was more than 700, not bad for a regional conference covering only six small states. The event featured presentations by top national and regional genealogical experts. The Connecticut Conference Center is a first-class facility although the attendees, lecture rooms and exhibitors' hall only filled a small part of the available space.

The convention opened under sunny skies on Thursday although I think that was the last time the sun was seen. The remaining days were overcast with frequent showers. Those of us who stayed at the nearby Marriott Hotel didn't mind because we didn't need to go outside. The hotel, restaurant, coffee shops, convention center, and parking garage were all connected.

(+) Host Your Own Genealogy Web Server at Home - Part #3

In the past two weeks I have published "how to" articles describing how to set up a Web server on your in-home Windows or Macintosh computer and how to obtain a domain name for that web server at little or no cost. For many people, this is all the information needed to place web pages on a home computer that anyone else can access. However, anyone with sophisticated network routers or firewalls in their homes may find that access to the web server is being blocked; anyone from the outside world cannot gain access to the web server you have installed behind the firewall/router.

Luckily, there are easy solutions for this problem. A bit of technical expertise is required. However, if you have already succeeded in setting up the web server and getting it registered with a dynamic DNS service as described in the first two articles, you will probably already possess that expertise. If so, you will find this last part to be simple.

In Memoriam: Robert Warner, Sixth Archivist of the United States

Many long-time genealogists will recognize the name Robert Warner. He died Tuesday in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the age of 79.

President Jimmy Carter appointed Warner to be the Sixth Archivist of the United States in 1980, a position he held for the next 22 years. Warner is perhaps best known for presiding over the release of Oval Office recordings.

Update: Encyclopedia of Genealogy

This newsletter sponsors the Encyclopedia of Genealogy, a free online service. While I'm the person who created the "shell" of this new service, much of the information within it is written by newsletter readers like you.

I must admit that I am quite pleased with the Encyclopedia of Genealogy. Many newsletter readers have offered new content or have corrected existing information within the Encyclopedia of Genealogy. Here is a partial list of some of the articles added or updated by newsletter readers and myself in the past few weeks:

Free On Ancestry.com Closed Down by Legal Threats

If you go to the web site FreeOnAncestry.com, you will find the following sad words:

The website "FreeOnAncestry.com" was forced offline by The Generations Network, the parent company of Ancestry.com.

FreeOnAncestry.com was originally built with the approval of the previous affiliate marketing staff of MyFamily.com, the same company before the name change to The Generations Network. They felt a site like FreeOnAncestry.com was a great way to create a positive image and branding to the genealogical community by highlighting the free tools and databases available to the public. It was a way to show genealogists that Ancestry.com was not just a big greedy cash cow that everyone seems to think it is, but a site that does in fact give back to the community.

St. Louis Genealogical Society Website Surpasses 500,000 Names

The following announcement was written by the St. Louis Genealogical Society:

The St. Louis Genealogical Society (StLGS) is proud to announce that its website at http://www.stlgs.org now contains more than half a million names. Over 100 dedicated volunteers have spent tens of thousands of hours entering and proofreading data on past St. Louis area residents. Completely redesigned and released in January 2006 after a year of research and development, and “tweaked” again in January 2007, the StLGS website now encompasses more than 800 web pages with surname data, in about 120 separate data sets, plus three separate databases.  Search for your ancestors today.