Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

(+) What I Use for Long-Term Data Storage

I recently wrote a Plus Edition article about long term storage of genealogy data. (See http://www.eogn.com/blogplus/2007/08/_preserving_data_separating_fa.html or http://www.lulu.com/content/1134427.) Of course, the information in the article applies to all stored data, not just genealogy information. In a follow-up message, a subscriber asked, "What is your media of choice today (and for the next few years)? Do you use gold DVDs?" I then decided to write this follow-up article to address the specific question.

In short, I think the use of high-cost DVD-ROM and CD-ROM disks makes for a waste of money when your only concern is backup storage. Sure, if you want to have good quality media and if you would like to make sure that you can read your data tomorrow or next week, then good quality media is probably a good idea. But if you plan to read that disk five years from now or twenty-five years from now, no disk is going to do that reliably. That's true regardless of how much money you spend. Neither will any floppy disk, jump drive, ZIP drive or any other form of electronic media that I can think of.

Interview with Chris Haley

I recently met Chris Haley, Director of the Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland. He also was the keynote speaker at the recent annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, held in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a polished speaker, as you can see if you watched the earlier video of the keynote speech, available on this newsletter and at RootsTelevsion.com. He is also the nephew of the late Alex Haley, author of the renowned book, "Roots: The Saga of an American Family, " which was the basis for two TV miniseries.

Getting the Most Out of The Master Genealogist - Electronic Version

In the July 21, 2003 of this newsletter, I wrote a review of "Getting the Most Out of The Master Genealogist," a book by Lee Hoffman. If you use The Master Genealogist, you need this book! Sadly, you cannot but this book right now as it is out of print. However, the latest Wholly Genes Newsletter reports that an electronic version is now available:

Many users were disappointed to hear that the second printing of "Getting the Most Out of The Master Genealogist" (frequently mentioned on discussion lists as "GTM") is out of stock.  This popular book was written by many well-known TMG experts and edited by Lee Hoffman, the owner of TMGTips.com and administrator of the TMG-L mailing list.  Lee tells us that a new edition of the book isn't expected until some time next year. 

Update: NeoOffice for Macintosh

In the April 2, 2007, newsletter, I wrote about an excellent free suite of office programs for the Macintosh, called NeoOffice. Now the producers of NeoOffice have released an update that adds many nice features.

If you are a Macintosh owner looking for a good word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program that is available FREE of charge, you might want to read my earlier article at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/04/office_software.html. The program has since been updated with support for the native Mac OS X spell-checker and address book; support for high-resolution printing (more than the 300 dpi that previous versions allowed); and the ability to open, edit, and save most Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

Next, go to http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php to download this great, free suite of programs.

Footnote.com Named One of PC Magazine's Top Undiscovered Web Sites of 2007

I was pleased to learn that Footnote.com has just been honored by the prestigious PC Magazine as "One of the Top Undiscovered Web Sites of 2007." First of all, Footnote.com is the exclusive sponsor of this newsletter so it always nice to read something nice about one's sponsor. Next, I was impressed with Footnote.com's business plans when I first heard those plans more than eighteen months ago, nearly a year before the site went live. It has been fun to watch an idea in CEO Russ Wilding's mind grow into a major service for historians, genealogists and others. Even better, other organizations, including PC Magazine, seem to agree that it is a great service. As PC Magazine wrote, "Footnote is the quintessential Web-2.0 example of how to use your Web-browsing time wisely"

The following is the announcement, as written by Footnote.com:

Lindon, UT - August 30, 2007 - What may be considered an "undiscovered web site" may not be for long, having been named as one of PC Magazine's Top Web sites of 2007.  This recognition comes on the heels of being named as Editor's Choice by the publication, receiving four-and-a-half out of five stars in that review.

Zoho Launches One-Click Document Sharing

I have written several times about Google Documents, an online word processor and spreadsheet service. However, Google has a very powerful competitor at Zoho. Zoho offers essentially the same features as Google Documents plus a lot more.

Zoho is a free online office suite that is able to host Adobe PDF files and presentation documents, in addition to word processor and spreadsheet docs. Writing about Zoho in PC Magazine, Natali Del Conte stated, "It is a wonder Google hasn't acquired the company yet."

Zoho recently introduced new features that may be of interest to genealogists who want to share documents.

New "Great Migration" Volume Now Available from NEHGS

The following announcement was written by the New England Historic Genealogical Society:

The New England Historic Genealogical Society is happy to announce that the new book, The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634–1635, Volume V, M-P, is now available for shipment.  This volume covers surnames from M-P, including: John Mansfield, Thomas Marrett, Christopher Marshall, Edmond Marshall, Thomas Marshfield, Matthew Marvin, Emma Mason, Hugh Mason, Richard Mather, Nicholas Merritt, Joseph Metcalf, Thomas Millett, Matthew Mitchell, Isaac Mixer, Isaac More, Anthony Morse, Joseph Morse, Samuel Morse, William Morse, Adam Mott, Edmund Munnings, George Munnings, Joseph Mygate, Robert Nanney, William Nash, Thomas Newberry, Francis Newcomb, Walter Nichols, John Niles, James Noyes, Nicholas Noyes, Thomas Olney, Robert Onion, Christopher Osgood, John Otis, William Paddy, Thomas Page, William Paine, Ann Pankhurst, Thomas Parish, George Partridge, Edward Payson, Giles Payson, Francis Peabody, Robert Pennoyer, Hugh Peter, David Phippen, Henry Pinder, William Potter, and John Prince.

Internet Biographical Collection Removed from Ancestry.com!

It certainly had a short lifespan. The controversial Internet Biographical Collection (a specialized genealogy web search engine) has now been removed from Ancestry.com. The following announcement was posted a few minutes ago on the Ancestry.com web site:

Earlier this week we launched the Internet Biographical Collection on Ancestry.com. Our goal was to offer members a search engine that focused primarily on genealogy resources. We intended this collection to help surface family history information that many people would not be able to find easily because it is often scattered among numerous websites across the Internet. We cached individual Web pages in an effort to preserve history - if a Web page featuring important family history information were taken down in the future, a cached version would still be available.

MyHeritage Takes 180 Million People Profiles To War With Geni

The TechCrunch web site has an interesting comparison between online sites MyHeritage and Geni. The article starts with, "Israeli startup MyHeritage was a bit of a sleeping giant. Until newcomer Geni came along and shook up the genealogy world with its slick new viral family tree application. Geni quickly reached 5 million people profiles and a monster $100 million valuation just a few months after launching."

Internet Biographical Collection is Free at Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com recently introduced a new genealogy-specific web search engine, called the Internet Biographical Collection. The service looks great but created a bit of controversy amongst web site owners whose sites were being indexed and cached. Today, Ancestry.com converted the new search engine to a free service, available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. That conversion to a free service should eliminate most of the concerns.

Users must first register before using this free service, which seems like a trivial issue to me.