Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

FGS Conference in Fort Wayne

One of the larger annual genealogy conferences in North America is that of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). Held in a different city each year, FGS conferences typically attract 1,500 to 2,000 attendees over a four-day period. I have attended most of the FGS conferences of the past twenty years and must say that I have enjoyed them. From what I hear, this year's conference will be as good as any of the past events, possibly better.

The 2007 annual FGS conference will be held at the Grand Wayne Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 15 through 18. Fort Wayne is especially appropriate this year because the nearby Allen County Public Library contains one of the largest genealogy collections in the world with more than 50,000 volumes of compiled genealogies, nearly 5,000 genealogies on microfiche, numerous family newsletters, and access to almost all significant online genealogy databases. Best of all, the library is housed in a brand-new, state-of-the-art complex that opened only a few months ago.

Wi-Fi Internet Access at the FGS Conference

Attention 2007 FGS Conference attendees: if you have wireless network capabilities in your laptop or handheld computer, you will be able to check your e-mail, the news, and online Web sites at almost any time in the Exhibitors' Hall. This free service will be provided by Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter.

The wireless mesh network should work most anyplace in the Exhibitors' Hall. However, if you stop by the newsletter's booth, I suspect you will be pleasantly surprised at what you find there. I will invite you to stop by and relax.

If you have a laptop computer with a network connection but no wireless capability, you will be able to find a wired network connection in the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter booth. Please feel free to use it for a while.

(+) How to Make Money Selling Genealogy Information - Part III

This is the third of a five-part series of articles.

In the first article in this series, I described how to create web sites and CD-ROM disks of genealogy information that others will be interested in purchasing. In the second article, I described how to advertise your products online and how to create a "web store." This week I will address another requirement that can be more complex than the other two: how to collect the money.

For this week's article, I will describe taking payment for CD-ROM sales. Payment collection for information on web pages and other "electronic delivery" of information will be described in a later article.

The Wayback Machine

Despite its name, the Wayback Machine is not a time travel machine from a science fiction movie or from a television cartoon. Instead, it is an archive of Internet pages.

Would you like to look at a Web page as it existed several years ago? Perhaps you want to look for information that was available on the Web at one time but has since disappeared. The Wayback Machine may be the tool you need. Now you can surf the Web as it was.

Roots for Kids: A Genealogy Guide for Young People

We generally think that an interest in genealogy starts in middle age or perhaps later. Yet those of us who have spent a lot of time in genealogy libraries and in courthouses almost always can tell you of exceptions. One of the leading professional genealogists I know is now in his late twenties but got started before he was old enough to obtain a driver's license. His mother used to drive him to the libraries and courthouses. He reports that he was interested at an even earlier age but delayed until his early teens simply because he didn't know how to get started when he was younger.

Professional genealogist David Lambert is very proud of another genealogist in his family: his eleven-year-old daughter, Brenda, is an accomplished researcher, capable of doing high-quality research, even when her father isn't around.

Build a Book Scanner from Lego Bricks and Assorted Material

I wrote recently (at http://tinyurl.com/2pvdap) about the Kirtas APT BookScan 2400 book scanner. I watched one of these $120,000 units in operation at the recent American Library Association annual conference. However, my checkbook was a bit short of $120,000, so I did not pick one up to take home.

Now, after searching the web, I found that Muranushi Takayuki faced a similar problem but came up with an innovative solution: he built his own out of Lego blocks, two electric motors, 2 kite strings, and a five-yen coin used for weight. (A five-yen coin has a hole in the center, which makes it useful for many purposes.) He also modified an Epson desktop scanner for this purpose, turning it upside down.

The Generations Network Expands to France and Italy

The following announcement was written by The Generations Network:

Growing Global Interest in Family History Spurs New French and Italian-Language Websites; Number of Ancestry Sites Climbs to Seven

PROVO, Utah, June 27  -- The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource, today announced two new additions to the Ancestry network of sites in France and Italy -- Ancestry.fr and Ancestry.it.

New Jersey Museum Offers $1,000 Reward

Many genealogists are also historians and know many local history buffs. Therefore, I thought it appropriate to post a message here about the stolen artifacts.

The board of Cape May County (New Jersey) Historical and Genealogical Society, which operates the county Historical Museum, 504 Route 9 North, Court House, has approved a $1,000 reward for the recovery of a collection of stolen whaling implements.

DSL Service for $10 a Month

The Associated Press is reporting that AT&T is now offering DSL broadband service in 22 states for the unheard-of price of only $10 a month, cheaper than any other advertised plan. However, the article neglects to give a list of which states. I did find a list elsewhere: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, California, Nevada, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

The same company charges $19.95 a month for DSL where I live.

USF Africana Heritage Project & WeRelate.org Collaborate on Slave Genealogy Research

I have written several times about the WeRelate genealogy wiki. (See http://tinyurl.com/2oszld.) Now the non-profit web site has launched a collaboration with USF Africana Heritage Project to provide genealogy information available to everyone at no charge. The following announcement was written by the USF Africana Heritage Project:

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - The USF Africana Heritage Project and WeRelate.org announced today that they will collaborate on groundbreaking historical research sponsored by the Magnolia Plantation Foundation of Charleston, SC. In the first-ever project of its kind, Magnolia Plantation is funding genealogical research in the plantation journals of the Drayton family of Charleston. The USF Africana Heritage Project will reconstruct the lineages of enslaved communities on Drayton family plantations, and build family files which anyone may access for free on the Internet.