Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

BBC Genealogy Show Tops Ratings

"Who Do You Think You Are?" is a popular television show in the U.K. In fact, its season opener this week proved to be more popular than ever. More than 6 million viewers tuned in to see BBC newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky attempt to discover the fate of her grandfather's Jewish family in Eastern Europe.

Cook County Records Going Online

Genealogists researching Cook County, Illinois ancestors will be interested to learn that many of the records they seek will soon be available online. This beats the old method of ordering by mail or traipsing down to a musty office in Chicago's Loop. If all goes as planned, newly digitized versions of county records such as birth and death certificates and marriage licenses will be available beginning in January.

The Web site is part of a massive yearlong effort to digitize the county's 24 million vital records, which date to 1871, when record-keeping began after the Chicago Fire wiped out previous stockpiles.

Girls Prefer Pink, Boys Prefer Blue, or Do They?

I always thought that the colors for pink and blue were something dreamed up by modern marketing agencies, maybe working for the Hallmark greeting card company. In recent weeks, stories have been circulating in the media that a new study "proves" that "girls prefer pink because they need to be better at hunting berries." See http://tinyurl.com/ypq48e for details.

"Hogwash!" says Ben Goldacre, author of the "Bad Science" column. He holds that the study is severely flawed and points out that our ancestors in the not-too-distant past reversed those colors. As the Ladies Home Journal wrote in 1918: "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

GenealogyBank: a Video Interview

At the recent FGS conference, I had a chance to talk with Tom Kemp of GenealogyBank. This online database is less than one year old and already contains more than 200 million items of historical and genealogical interest. RootsTelevision videotaped our conversation and you can watch it now on your computer. In this video, Tom describes in detail the contents of GenealogyBank and how useful it is to genealogists.

Genealogist Identifies Deceased Impostor

Be careful who you claim to be. Dave Lambert might be "on your case."

83-year-old Bill Henry of Lakeland, Florida died of a heart attack last week. News of Henry's death appeared first in a paid obituary in The (Lakeland) Ledger on Thursday. On Saturday, a brief news item about Henry's death appeared in The Ledger's sports section under the headline "Major League Relief Pitcher Bill Henry, of Lakeland, dies at 83." That item was picked up by The Associated Press, which distributed it nationally.

The obituary and follow-on stories all contained information that Bill Henry had told his family, friends and neighbors for years: he had been a pitcher in baseball's major leagues for 16 years, even pitched in two games of the 1961 World Series while playing for the Cincinnati Reds.

David Lambert, a genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, is always on the alert for news of deceased professional baseball players. (You can find an earlier article about one of Dave's previous searches at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/09/genealogist_fin.html.) When he caught wind of Henry's death he noticed a discrepancy in the age mentioned in the obituary.

Suitable Attire for the Lady Genealogist

In February, I wrote an article entitled, "Suitable Attire for the Genealogist." It describes the outerwear available from Scott eVest. I wrote:

Getting dressed for a trip to the local courthouse, library, or archives? How about getting dressed for an airline trip? You will want to have several high-tech devices with you, right?

Let's see. There is the laptop, the PDA, the digital camera (for taking high-resolution pictures of documents) and perhaps even a pocket scanner. If you are a photography buff, you may want to take lenses, a tripod, a remote flash, and other doodads. Don't forget the cell phone; you never know when you might need to make or receive a call. You may also want to add a "low tech" item or two, such as a water bottle. For an airline trip, you might want to carry a magazine or a good book for reading. An iPod music player with earphones helps make the trip shorter as you listen to music.

Of course, you can stuff all this into a briefcase or book bag, but what about when you are "in the stacks?" Carrying a briefcase with you every moment is awkward, to say the least. Of course, if you leave the briefcase with all the high-tech goodies back in the reading room, you will have some security concerns. More than one laptop has "walked out" of a library without the owner's permission!

Cheer up! There is a solution for you.

Judge Says, "Record DNA of Everyone In the UK"

Lord Justice Sedley, a senior UK Appeal Court judge, has proposed that everyone in the United Kingdom should have their DNA recorded in the national database — including visitors. Privacy advocates may object but it certainly would simplify many genealogy questions and problems, assuming the database were to be available to all.

Sedley referred to the U.K.'s current DNA database as "indefensible" because it contains a hodge-podge mix of people, including children and those who have been in contact with the police. The Government has admitted that about one-eighth of all records on the DNA database are false, misspelled, or incorrect — over half a million records. This raises a problem with the Data Protection Act 1998 that requires "Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date."

Gun Control in Plimoth Colony

Modern day life is full of laws with which we may or may not agree. Our legislators seem to delight in telling the voters who elected them how to live their lives. Actually, that's nothing new. Restrictive laws have been with us for centuries.

We may think that gun control laws are rather new. Not so! Even the Pilgrims had gun control laws in Plimoth Colony in the 1600s.

Well, there was one difference: if you were a member of the Plimoth militia, there was a twelve pence fine for NOT bringing your loaded gun to church with you.

Findmypast.com to host the Federation of Family History Societies’ Family History Online Data

The following announcement was written by Findmypast.com:

The Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) has today announced that it is joining forces with premier UK family history website findmypast.com to host the FFHS’ pay per view data service at www.findmypast.com.

Until now the FFHS has provided online access to data submitted by local family history societies at its own pay per view website www.familyhistoryonline.net. These records will now gradually be transferred to the findmypast.com website, joining a collection already exceeding 500 million records.

BBC Launches "Who Do You Think You Are" Magazine

The very successful genealogy program, "Who Do You Think You Are," will begin its fourth year on BBC on Thursday. In conjunction with the new season, the show is also launching a glossy printed magazine, complete with an attached DVD or CD containing clips of the BBC show and archive material. A website to support the magazine will go live later this week.

Legacy Family Tree Now Available in 5 Languages

Legacy Family Tree, one of the more popular genealogy programs for Windows, continues to grow and attract new customers. In fact, is now becoming available in more and more languages which should increase its popularity even more. Even more languages will appear in the near future. Here is the announcement:

Surprise, Arizona, September 4, 2007 -- Millennia Corporation, a leader in family history software, today announced that its software, Legacy Family Tree, is now available in three new languages: Nederlands (Dutch), Norsk - Bokmål (Norwegian) and Norsk - Nynorsk (Norwegian).

The software, used by beginners and professionals to record, plan, and share their family trees, is now the premier choice for Dutch and Norwegian researchers. It is also available in Danish and English editions.

Sex in Middlesex: A Book Review

Centuries ago, our ancestors were all staunch, conservative people, the pillars of society. Right? Everyone attended church and rigidly followed the dictates of religious and community leaders. Puritans exhibited "tolerance, mutual regard, affection, and prudent common sense." It is only in recent years that morals have decayed, crime has increased, and promiscuous sex has become commonplace. Correct?

Yeah, right.

Genealogy Society Christmas Ornaments

Here's a great fund-raising idea for your local society: this year's Putnam County (Ohio) Genealogical Society ornament has the Leipsic City Hall and the 1895 Fire Department steamer on it. Leipsic, Ohio, is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year. In honor of their celebration, the local genealogical society is selling the ornaments now. The cost is $7.50 each, tax included. The ornaments may be purchased at the Ottoville and Fort Jennings branches of the Fort Jennings State Bank. This is the latest addition to the collection of annual ornaments that have been sold for years.

OneGreatFamily.com - A Major Update

Seven years ago, OneGreatFamily.com introduced a revolutionary new service: an online genealogy database containing data contributed by users. Best of all, the data was shared by all and instantly updated when any user added or corrected any data within the single database. It was a revolutionary concept at the time.

Subscribers to OneGreatFamily.com accessed the service by first downloading a bit of software into their Windows computers and using it in a manner that was somewhat similar to other genealogy programs of the time, with one major exception: the data was stored in an online database instead of in individual "islands" on users' own hard drives. All the users shared one genealogy database. Any new data added to the centralized database was instantly visible and fully usable by others.

OneGreatFamily.com has continued to grow, and the company has occasionally added new features. You can read my past articles about the company at http://tinyurl.com/yuwykq.

This week OneGreatFamily.com introduced several major new features, perhaps the biggest upgrades ever. I had not looked at the service for a while, so I went back to see what's new. OneGreatFamily.com V.P. Rob Armstrong was kind enough to take me on a "tour" and point out the new features. I must say that I was impressed. The OneGreatFamily.com service has matured into a great product that will please many genealogists.

To Cache or Not to Cache: The Definitive Answer

Message boards on genealogy sites and blogs lit up this past week as Ancestry.com announced the new Internet Biographical Collection. The pros and cons have been discussed ad infinitum elsewhere, so I won't repeat them here. If you have not yet read about this controversy, perform a Google search on the words "Internet Biographical Collection."

Many of this week's discussions debated claims and counterclaims about copyrights, legalities and such. I read a lot of these messages but never found any written by anyone who claimed to have a law degree or other appropriate credentials. It seems a lot of people, including me, were writing about legalities without having the academic qualifications to back up their claims. To be blunt, I don't know if anyone was correct. I also noticed that nobody cited legal precedent, at least not with a case title and source citation.

Shame on all of us! We genealogists should know better than to make claims without source citations.

I have now found one case where a court ruled on the exact issue of the legality of caching other web sites' content and on the copyright laws involved. This landmark case should be required reading for all of us who posted messages either for or against the recent ill-fated Ancestry.com product.

Clare County Library Announces a Major Online Genealogical Database Expansion

The Clare County (Ireland) Library provides a major online resource for genealogists researching ancestors in that county. The library's Surnames Database allows members of the public to find information on the frequency and spread of surnames in County Clare over a period of almost one hundred years. The three genealogical sources used on the website are the Census of Population of 1901, Griffith's Valuation of 1855, and the Tithe Applotment Books compiled between 1823 and 1837.

In fact, if your ancestors' names were McMahon or McNamara, you feature in the top two in County Clare at all times between 1820 and 1901. O'Brien and Kelly come in third and fourth respectively, while Ryan and Moloney vie for fifth place. You can also peruse a combined alphabetical list of every surname that occurs in the surveys, which will help people browse for variations in surname spellings.

DNA Ancestry Beta

The following announcement was written by The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com:

Introducing DNA Ancestry

We want you to be one of the first to know we’re adding a powerful new dimension to genealogical research by integrating the world’s largest online collection of historical records and family trees with DNA testing. Currently in beta, DNA Ancestry is another way we’re helping people expand their family trees and connect with family across distance and time.