Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

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.

NewspaperARCHIVE.com Partners With World Vital Records

The following is an announcement written by NewspaperARCHIVE and World Vital Records Inc.:

Provo, UT -- 08/28/2007 -- NewspaperARCHIVE.com, the largest newspaper database available online, has partnered with World Vital Records Inc.’s Web sites (WorldVitalRecords.com and FamilyLink.com) in a unique way to provide increased access to a half billion records from newspapers ranging from 1759-1923.

"Historical newspapers contain valuable information about our ancestors, which may not have been preserved in any other form. By making these records easily accessible, we hope they can become a part of someone's family history," said Jeff Kiley, General Manager, NewspaperARCHIVE.com.

The uniqueness of this partnership stems from the way in which World Vital Records, Inc. will extract vital record information from the newspapers and place it on its site.

Looking for Navy Seaman Second Class Byron A. Traviss of Detroit

The USS Grunion submarine sank during World War II with 70 men on board off the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Searchers have been looking for the submarine's wreckage, and now they may have found it. Quoting from the search team's web site, "We found a submarine tonight. ... But we have now lost it, despite documenting location. Nevertheless we have photographic documentation showing prop guard of Grunion style. It imploded dramatically and is a tangle of pipes."

The search team is also searching for living relatives of the men lost on the USS Grunion on July 30, 1942, and have found most of the families. One that is conspicuously absent is the family of Navy Seaman Second Class Byron A. Traviss of Detroit. Genealogists are skilled at locating families, so the search team is appealing to genealogists and others who may be able to help.

Original Montreal Village of 1642 is Discovered

If your ancestors were among the first settlers of Montreal, you may be interested to know that the original village has been found. Archaeologists believe they have found the first permanent buildings of the settlement that later became Montreal. These are the remains of Fort Ville-Marie, the lost, original French settlement in Montreal.

Council of State Archivists Project

The following is information found on the web site of the Federation of Genealogical Societies at http://www.fgs.org/rpac/?p=17. Given the importance of this project, I feel it deserves even wider publicity:

The Council of State Archivists received a two year grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to study and analyze the current conditions of preservation of records at the local level and to make recommendations as to the best standards and funding strategies to ensure long term preservation and access to local government records.

Slave Descendants Freedom Society Selects Community Advocates in Nine Cities

The following announcement was written by the Slave Descendants Freedom Society, Inc. (SDFS):    

Slave Descendants Freedom Society, Inc. (SDFS) recently announced the launch of its community advocate initiative, naming advocates in Boston, Raleigh, Hartford, Chicago, Norfolk, Baltimore, Oakland, Washington D.C. and Wilmington, Del.

SDFS community advocates will assist in moving forward the goals of Slave Descendants Freedom Society, help to recruit members in their respective cities and support programs such as SDFS’s free community meetings that discuss strategies for reconnecting African American families through genealogy and history.

Family Heritage Jamboree in Ogden, Utah

My Ancestors Found and the Ogden Regional Family History Center are joining forces to bring a genealogy and family heritage jamboree to northern Utah. The conference will be held September 15 at the Ogden Marriott Hotel in Ogden.

The Generations Network Receives Patent for Correlating Genealogy Records

The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, has been granted a U.S. patent for a "method of consolidating genealogy records [that] includes partitioning the records using at least one index file to form one or more partitions, sorting the records in a partition based on a data element in the records, comparing records within a sort range, based on the comparison, identifying same person records, consolidating information in the same person records, receiving a request from a user to view at least a portion of the consolidated information for a particular group of same person records, and sending a file that includes the portion to the user."

That is a mouthful, but I think it means that the software finds probable matches in a huge database in order to find the same person in more than one entry.

BCG Announces Contest Winner

The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists:

The Board for Certification of Genealogists is happy to announce the winner of the recent contest for purchasers of Elizabeth Shown Mills' newest book, "Evidence Explained." Purchasers, both at the BCG exhibit booth at the recent FGS conference in Ft. Wayne, IN, and those who purchased from the BCG website, were allowed to guess the number of books that were sold at the conference from the booth. The number sold was 115. Out of the 124 entries, Ceil Jensen, CG, of Michigan, with a guess of 112 will receive a refund of her purchase price of the book. Copies of "Evidence Explained" containing Elizabeth Mills' signature are still available from BCG while supplies last. Click on the "Publications" link on the BCG website, www.BCGcertification.org.

(+) Can You Trust Online Genealogy Data?

"I found it online, so it must be true!"

Of course not. If you have been involved in researching your family tree for more than a few months, you already know the truth about online genealogy data. Or do you?

You Are Descended From More Women than Men

Most of us assume that an equal number of men and women amongst our ancestors. Not so, says John Tierney, writing in the New York Times. He quotes Roy F. Baumeister, who delivered a speech on the subject on Friday at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco. Fear not: Baumeister and Tierney are not suggesting that we re-write the laws of biology.

Origins Network Adds Additional Counties to England & Wales Census Databases

British Origins has announced the addition of Lancashire, Somerset and Essex to the company's online 1871 census records. More than 3.7 million additional names are now available for searching, bringing the total number of names on all the British Origins Censuses to over 50 Million. All these records are fully indexed with images.

For full information, including the counties covered, look at http://www.originsnetwork.com/help/popup-aboutbo-census1871.htm.