Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

John McCain's Links to Scottish King Shot Down by Experts

Gibson Square, the publishers behind Senator John McCain's new book, Hard Call, have announced that "John McCain's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and related to the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, on his mother's side". One problem: a group of professional genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".

You can read more in the (U.K. Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/20/johnmccain.uselections2008

Formation of the Keeping Genealogical Records Open Workgroup (KGROW)

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists:

WESTMINSTER, Colo., March 21 – The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) contends that there is no proof that open records significantly contribute to ID theft or terrorism. In a position paper that outlines the case for open public records, APG asserts that open records are rarely used by identification thieves and maintains that the benefit of open access to records far outweighs any potential abuse.

APG has joined forces with other genealogical organizations including the National Genealogical Society (NGS), The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) in endorsing the position paper and calling on legislators to keep records open.

MacFamilyTree 5.1 Final

A few weeks ago I wrote about the beta releae of MacFamilyTree 5.1 at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/02/macfamilytree-5.html. Now Synium Software has released the final version. Here is the company's announcement:

Mainz, Germany - After less than a month and more than one release a week, MacFamilyTree 5.1 today makes it "out of beta"! Download the newest update to our popular genealogy application and enjoy the many new features and enhancements added to the user interface as well as to overall functionality.

Newspaper Abstracts from the Villages of Columbiana and East Lewistown, Ohio

Genealogists looking for information from the Columbiana area have a new resource tool. Compiled by Columbiana resident DeWayne McCarty, “Newspaper Abstracts From the Villages of Columbiana and East Lewistown, Ohio” was published by Clossen Press in January.

On the Road Again

It's travel time again. I am headed to the Phoenix, Arizona, suburbs to visit a few newsletter readers in their homes or offices. I'll be traveling with a group of software developers from Footnote.com as they perform “usability testing” of some new software they are developing. Thanks to this newsletter's readers, the next release from Footnote.com will already be well tested before it is released.

You can read more about the planned in-home and in-office visits at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/02/attention-mesa.html. As I wrote in that article:

(+) “Stand by Your Man” by George G. Morgan

You don’t have to be country music fan to know the name of Tammy Wynette. Ms. Wynette was one of the greatest country stars in the last half of the 20th century. Two of her greatest hit songs were, ironically, “Stand by Your Man” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” She sang each with great emotional conviction because she had lived through marriage with a physically and psychologically abusive man who cheated on her. She ultimately divorced him and went on to become a great star and an icon for many abused women.

It is difficult today for us to separate ourselves and our emotions from news stories of murder, robbery, kidnapping, sexual crimes, political corruption, drug and alcohol abuse, battered spouses and children, hate crimes, and worse. Today’s media thrives on the sensationalism of each offensive act and plasters it before us.

As genealogists, we have a similar difficulty understanding the actions of people in previous generations that seem similar to or worse than some of the events we see on the nightly news, in the newspaper, and on the Internet. It is perhaps easy to judge our ancestors by our contemporary laws and moral beliefs. Should we condone or condemn them, using these tenets?

Irish Descendants in the United States

As we approach St. Patrick's Day, it is interesting to note the U.S. Census Bureau's statistics on Irish descendants in America:

• 34 million U.S. residents claim Irish ancestry. This number is almost nine times the population of Ireland itself (3.9 million). Irish is the nation's second most frequently reported ancestry, trailing only German.
• 24% of Massachusetts' residents are of Irish ancestry, about double the national percentage.
• There are 3 states in which Irish is the leading ancestry group: Delaware, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Irish is among the top five ancestries in every state but two (Hawaii and New Mexico).

This Web Site Has Moved! (and Certificate Errors Have Also Been Fixed)

The eogn.com web site has been plagued with certificate errors in recent weeks. Any attempt to read the Plus Edition online or to subscribe to the Plus Edition or to renew an existing subscription was met with an “SSL certificate error” message.  The root cause was an expired SSL certificate. I obtained a new certificate but could not get it to work. The hosting service wasn't much help; they never got it to work either.

I fired that hosting service.

Steve Morse Adds Indexes to NARA's Latest Germans/Italians/Russians Data

On March 3, I published an announcement from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The announcement at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/03/nara-makes-some.html describes the 5.2 million records of some passengers who arrived during the last half of the 19th century at the ports of Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia. These records have now been placed online for the first time.

The records can be accessed through NARA’s online Access to Archival Databases (AAD). The records include the name of the ship, the port, and the date. As several commenters pointed out after the announcement was published, the process of finding all that information is not intuitive, especially the use of the Manifest File. Now Steve Morse of "One-Step Genealogy" fame has created a trio of One-Step tools to simplify the use of the NARA databases. 

Footnote.com Adds Millions of Historical Newspapers to its Collection

The following announcement was written by Footnote.com:

- The SmallTownPapers Collection details the lives and histories of people and events across the United States

Footnote.com announced today a new partnership with SmallTownPapers, Inc. that will add millions of pages of historical newspapers to the site. With over 28 million images of original documents already on Footnote.com, the historical newspapers will prove to be a valuable addition, providing a unique view of our nation’s history.

(+) How to Copy a Web Site

There are many different reasons for copying all or part of a web site. First of all, if it is your site, you need a backup! More than once I have talked with people who lost their entire site when their hosting service had a hardware problem or even went out of business. Another reason is that you wish to move your site. Perhaps you are responsible for a RootsWeb site and wish to move it elsewhere instead of participating in the transfer to Ancestry.com.  Another reason is that you want a copy NOW just in case you wish to move it later.

Web site backups protect against hardware failures as well as “political issues.” You may have your site hosted now on a free genealogy web service, but what happens when that service changes its policies to something you don’t like? You never, ever want your data to be held “hostage” by some faceless corporation. Take control of your data! Keep a local copy.

RootsWeb to be Moved to Ancestry.com

The following was written by Tim Sullivan, CEO of The Generations Network, Inc. and is posted here at the RootsWeb blog:  http://blogs.rootsweb.com/newsroom/

As you know, The Generations Network has hosted and funded the RootsWeb online community since June 2000, thereby maintaining RootsWeb as the world’s oldest and largest free genealogy website. TGN remains committed to this mission and believes that RootsWeb is an absolutely invaluable and complementary resource to Ancestry.com, our flagship commercial family history site. We believe in both services and want to see both communities prosper and grow.

As part of this goal, we have decided to “transplant” RootsWeb onto the Ancestry.com domain beginning next week. This move will not change the RootsWeb experience or alter the ease of navigation to or within RootsWeb. RootsWeb will remain a free online experience. What will be different is that the Web address for all RootsWeb pages will change from www.rootsweb.com to www.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Again, the RootsWeb experience is not changing.

AGES-online Releases New GEDCOM Export Process

The following announcement was written by AGES-online:

LENEXA, KANSAS (March 13, 2008) AGES-online has just released an all new Genealogical Data Communication (GEDCOM) file export process.  Subscribers can generate a GEDCOM file containing all of their own family data and transfer that file to their computer.

The new GEDCOM process can be accessed only by paying subscribers through their password protected account using the side File menu.  No one other than the password holder can access the subscribers' data or download that data to a GEDCOM file.

1871 England & Wales Census now Complete on Origins Network

All counties of England and Wales 1871 Census, plus the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and Royal Navy At Sea, are now complete on British Origins - over 22 million searchable names and images ot the original census documents. We believe our census indexes to be the most accurate available, and over 60 million names from three censuses (1841, 1861 & 1871) are now available on British Origins (www.britishorigins.com)

(+) Update: The Latest Practical (?) Gadget: A Two-Pound Laptop

On December 2, 2007, I published an article entitled, "The Latest Practical (?) Gadget: A Two-Pound Laptop." I described the Asus Eee laptop computer. I purchased one a few weeks before publishing the article and must admit that I have fallen in love with the tiny device. I wrote a Plus Edition article about it, which is still available at http://www.eogn.com/blogplus/2007/12/_the_latest_practical_gadget_a.html.

The Asus Eee is so tiny that it slips into an overcoat pocket, and I barely know that it is there. I have taken it on several trips, including a two-week trip to the west coast. I have checked e-mail, surfed the Web, written newsletter articles, and paid my bills online from hotel rooms and from a rental car in a number of different cities. Of course, I wasn't driving down the highway when operating from the rental car. I was typically parked, using a local Wi-Fi wireless network connection. The Asus Eee includes built-in “Wi-Fi” wireless networking as well as a standard ethernet network connector. It is easy to connect to the Internet at high speed from most hotel rooms and from the parking lots of many truck stops, coffee shops and from most Staples stores.

I am told these tiny computers are selling like hotcakes: the little $399 laptops are becoming hard to find. Asus is having difficulties manufacturing enough of them to meet the demand. Some dealers are now charging a premium above the $399 list price.

"Who Do You Think You Are?" to Appear on U.S. Television

NBC Television will soon launch a US version of the hit BBC genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" The new program will be co-executive produced by Friends star Lisa Kudrow.

I have written many times about "Who Do You Think You Are?" which is a very popular television show being broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Television. It also has been exported to Canada, Australia and elsewhere for locally-produced programs that follow the same format. To read my earlier articles on "Who Do You Think You Are?" look at http://tinyurl.com/2sk59n.

Florida State Genealogical Society Conference Call for Lecture Proposals

The following announcement was written by the Florida State Genealogical Society:

Submission Deadline: 1 Apr 2008

The Florida State Genealogical Society (FSGS) is accepting program proposals for the 2008 Conference (the 32nd Annual FSGS Conference) which is scheduled to be held 14-15 November 2008 in Maitland, Florida.

Familybuilder Passes 2 Million Registrations and 7 Million Online Profiles

The following announcement was written by Familybuilder:

New York, NY -- New York City-based Familybuilder™ (formally iFamily™), has announced it has launched its popular Family Tree Application on Bebo.  Bebo’s 40 million-plus members will now be able to access and build their family trees through the Bebo network.

The launch of Family Tree on Bebo comes on the heels of surpassing 2 million registered users and over 7 million profiles on Facebook since launching there in June 2007.  This further reinforces Familybuilder’s status as the fastest growing genealogy application on the Internet today.   The company expects to exceed 8 million profiles in less than 8 months of operation.

NARA Proposes to Digitize Content in Cooperation with The Generations Network (Ancestry.com)

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is giving public notice of a proposal to enter into a non-exclusive agreement with The Generations Network, Inc. (TGN), owners of Ancestry.com, to digitize and further expand public access to archival holdings in NARA's custody. Please note: this is for a NON-EXCLUSIVE agreement and will not replace any of several other agreements with other companies that are already in place.

(+) Fabulous Family Reunions by George G. Morgan

I am so excited! I’m going to a family reunion in April! Some people think that a family reunion is boring although most genealogists consider any family get-together as an opportunity to ask questions and gather more information and research clues.

A few years ago, the children of my mother and her sisters decided that we needed to spend some quality time together. I was enthusiastic and jumped into the planning right away. Altogether, there are seven of us who are first cousins, and various combinations of us have gotten together once or twice a year for the last three years, along with our spouses or significant others. We’ve chosen birthdays or holidays (the last two Thanksgivings), and we’ve rotated around to different places. We’ve included friends in our reunions because they, too, are special members of our family. We are a fun-loving group of cousins who are not afraid of the occasional comical greeting card or e-mail, a good-natured practical joke, or sending or receiving what we call “the dreaded brown paper package” that might contain something funny, silly, or altogether impractical. (Recent packages have included a huge hairy spider for a cousin bitten by a nasty arachnid, a glow-in-the-dark dolphin Christmas tree, and wadded newspaper that buried a loving birthday card.) It’s a fun group that has adopted the fun name, “The Blackhearts.”

Let me tell you more.