Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Ancestry.co.uk to Host Archive CD Books' UK Collection

The following announcement was written by Ancestry.co.uk:

Leading UK family history website Ancestry.co.uk has reached an agreement with Archive CD Books to host many of its records as it has now ceased to trade in the UK following the decision by its founder Rod Neep to retire from the business.

More than 1300 Archive CD Books collections will now be hosted on Ancestry.co.uk including one of the largest collections of county and city directories going back hundreds of years, a variety of 18th, 19th and 20th Century military records, parish registers from 1500s and Gazetteers and Pedigrees from across the UK.

World Vital Records, Inc. Changes Name To FamilyLink.com, Inc.

The following announcement was written by FamilyLink.com, Inc.:

PROVO, UT, January 14, 2008 – A new year brings a new name to the world's fastest growing genealogical and family history corporation, World Vital Records, Inc. World Vital Records, Inc. has changed its name to FamilyLink.com, Inc., a name which better reflects the company's mission of connecting families to one another through innovative online tools.

Website Launched For Reuniting & Identifying Lost Photos

Photo Grafix has launched "Lost and Found Photos." Quoting from the company's announcement:

Many customers have asked us if we could identify photographs they inherited from relatives or rescued from the garbage dump.

We have also met skilled and generous people who have helped others confirm locations, dates, and sometimes names of people in those kinds of photographs. The goal of Lost and Found Photos is to facilitate such connections. Those who would benefit from using this site:

NetNewsWire for Macintosh is Now Free

I have written a number of times about the advantages of using RSS newsfeeds in place of normal web surfing as done with a web browser. For news-oriented web sites that you plan to visit often, RSS newsfeeds can save a lot of time as well as add convenience. In fact, the slower the connection, the more valuable an RSS newsfeed becomes. If you are using a dial-up connection to read articles such as this one, you can save yourself a lot of time by using an RSS newsfeed reader!

(+) e-Books: An Invasion of Privacy?

I must admit that I am a technology buff. I enjoy staying abreast of the latest technology advances, especially anything that can potentially make genealogy research and record keeping easier. For years I have been closely monitoring the advances in e-books: the publishing of books and other materials in electronic media instead of on paper. I have generally been enthusiastic about this developing technology, even writing a lengthy review of Amazon's new Kindle e-book reader.

Irish Genealogy Cruise

Genealogy cruises seem to be popping up all over the place, and for very good reasons: they are great fun, educational, and reasonably priced for the most part. The Irish Ancestral Research Association, a non-profit genealogy society often referred to as TIARA, is now organizing an Irish genealogy cruise to be held about a year from now. The time to start planning this vacation is right now.

The Irish Genealogy Cruise will feature leading presenters from the U.S. and Ireland.  All the presenters are experienced speakers at national genealogical conferences.

You Can’t Believe the Census Records!

Census records are amongst the primary tools of genealogists. Even so, those of us who have been reading them for a while can tell you that the records are not as reliable as we would wish. I am still trying to find great-great-granddad in the 1850 census although he appears hale and hearty in the enumerations of 1840, 1860, 1870 and 1880. His absence in 1850 is still unexplained. Still, my quandary is minor compared to some others. For instance, the 1990 census is thought to have missed one native American in eight. Thousands of others – perhaps millions – have been missed in census records taken over the past two centuries.

Madison County (Illinois) Genealogical Records will go Online

The genealogical records of Madison County will be available online soon. The Edwardsville Public Library has received a $6,200 digitization grant from the Illinois State Library to make the records of the Madison County Genealogical Society available online. The materials cannot be checked out, so putting them online will allow more people to research their family trees.

You can read more about this future onlione offering in the Belleville News-Democrat web site at http://www.bnd.com/news/local/story/224869.html.

BYU Adds New Technology to Make Thousands of Genealogical Documents Available Online

The following announcement was written by ebrary:

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Families and individuals throughout the world will soon have greater online access to information about their ancestors and family histories.

ebrary®, a leading provider of e-content services and technology, today announced that Brigham Young University (BYU) has licensed its technology to locally host portions of the university library’s digital collections including genealogical records and art materials. BYU is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which maintains the world’s largest repository of genealogical resources, with approximately 4,500 family history centers in 70 countries. BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries.

Did I Marry My Cousin?

Do you know all your cousins? How about all your second cousins? The third cousins? The fourth cousins? Most people not know their extended relatives out to fourth or fifth cousins. These relatives may or may not have the same last name as yours, depending upon whether or not the cousin is on your paternal or maternal side.

When you pick a mate, how do you know that the two of you are not related? If you do not know all of your extended cousins, how do you know that you are not marrying "within the family?"

Pages and iWork ‘08

This week I installed Apple’s new office suite of programs on my Macintosh systems. Called iWork ‘08, this is the Apple equivalent of Microsoft Office. The programs in this suite include:

Pages ’08 (a word processor that is roughly equivalent to Microsoft Word)
Numbers ’08 (a spreadsheet program that is roughly equivalent to Microsoft Excel)
Keynote ’08 (a presentation program that is roughly equivalent to PowerPoint)

I only have a few hours’ use on these programs so far, but I am impressed.

Geni Introduces Timelines and Family News

The following announcement was written by Geni.com:

Top rated genealogy and family networking website, Geni.com, introduces new ways for families to preserve their history and stay connected. Timeline and Family News are the latest features to be added to it's growing list of site enhancements. The launch of these features enables family and friends to begin working together to build digital scrapbooks of their lives and the lives of their family.

January 7, 2008 -- Geni.com, the website that combines genealogy with family networking, today announced the launch of two new features to help families preserve their history and stay connected: Timelines and Family News.

On the Road Again

I am packing my bags and hitting the road again. I'll be at the American Library Association (ALA) winter meeting in Philadelphia for a couple of days and then will fly on to Salt Lake City for some meetings.

Since I will spend the next week traveling, don't be surprised if some of the daily editions of this newsletter and even the weekly Plus Edition get delayed a bit. I will be traveling with a Mac laptop and a variety of wireless networking equipment. However, good ol' Murphy of "Murphy's Law" fame is never far away.

I hope to bring back some news items from Salt Lake City. Stay tuned!

The DAR

The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) was founded in 1890. Today this women’s lineage organization has about 168,000 members. Any woman 18 or older who can prove a lineal bloodline descent from a patriot of the American Revolution is eligible for membership. The DAR promotes patriotism, preservation of American history, and education. As a sideline of those goals, the DAR also collects and makes available a lot of genealogy information.

In order to "prove a lineal bloodline descent from a patriot of the American Revolution," members must study their family trees closely, find a patriot, and then submit carefully documented proof of that descent. As such, many of the newer membership applications contained the highest-quality genealogy research you can find.

Expert Links: English Family History and Genealogy

Need help finding your English ancestors online?  A group of professional genealogists in Salt Lake City recently released a list of its 500+ favorite English websites used to solve family history riddles titled Expert Links: English Family History and Genealogy.  The site is available for free to the public. 

New Learning Center at Ancestry.com

The Generations Network has redesigned Ancestry.com’s learning center. The Learning Center focuses on the newcomer –  those who are new to the site as well as those who are new to genealogy. I don’t classify myself as a newcomer; but, when I checked out the redesigned Learning Center, I must admit that I learned a few things, too.

The revamped Learning Center includes numerous short videos, featuring Ancestry.com’s Chief Family Historian, Megan Smolenyak. Megan walks the viewer through a number of “how to get started” topics, including:

NGS 2009 Call for Papers - Raleigh, NC

The U.S. National Genealogical Society has issued a call for papers for the 2009 Conference-in-the-States to be held 13–16 May 2009 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Among the topics being considered are lectures on the history, records, repositories and ethnic and religious groups of North Carolina and neighboring states with special emphasis on migrations into, within and out of the region and the origins of the early settlers. Other regional topics of interest include land and military records (especially the French and Indian Revolutionary and Civil wars).

NGS Seeks Hall of Fame Nominations

The U.S. National Genealogical Society is asking for nominations to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame. The following was written by the NGS:

The National Genealogy Hall of Fame is an educational project sponsored by the National Genealogical Society. The entire genealogical community is invited to participate in this project. Nominations should come from organizations, not individuals and are due by February 15, 2008.

(+) Who Was D.B. Cooper?

Genealogists are experts at identifying deceased people. In fact, the same skills often work well at finding living people as well. Many genealogists find employment that involves locating missing heirs, finding criminals, or what is called "skip tracing:" finding people who skipped out of town with no known forwarding address. The ultimate challenge, however, would be to find D.B. Cooper. After all, the FBI has been looking for him for more than 36 years. Nobody even knows if he is dead or alive. Can you find him?

Very little was known about D.B. Cooper. However, within the past week the FBI has released several new documents that offer just a bit more information about this mysterious hijacker. It is theoretically possible that a skilled genealogist, using today's computer databases, might be able to figure out who this man was.

NGS' Writing Competition Deadline Nears

The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Genealogical Society:

The National Genealogical Society Writing Competitions Deadlines for Entry Submissions is 31 January 2008

The NGS Genealogical Writing Competitions program recognizes excellence, scholarship, and achievements in the field of genealogy by presenting awards to individuals and nonprofit organizations for significant contributions to the field of genealogy or for a specific, significant, single contribution in the form of an article, book, or other publication which serves to foster scholarship and/or otherwise advance or promote excellence in genealogy. Nominees need not be members of NGS. The publication must have been published during the past three years.  There are two categories of awards: