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The Doty Tavern in present-day Canton, Massachusetts, was the location where rebels gathered in August of 1774, safely out of sight of their British rulers, to discuss the revolutionary principles that would become the Declaration of Independence. (The town boundaries have since moved: in 1774 the tavern was in Stoughton.). A photo of the tavern taken in the 1880s shows a sign in front. The tavern burned down in 1888, but the sign survived. Local historians kept loose track of it until 27 years ago, when it fell off their radar screen. No one knew where it was – until last month, when the sign appeared on eBay.
The Doty Tavern sign is a wooden board with two iron rod stanchions along the sides, 71 inches along and 44 inches wide. One side of the sign depicts a lion standing up on its hind legs with a collar and chain around its neck – believed to be an allusion to the British government. The other side is ornamented with a faded image of a horse and traveler. The name of the inn's proprietor, T. Doty, appears below this image.
New Zealander Kevin Anthony Osborne had a lucrative scam going. He applied to District Courts for birth certificates, sometimes ordering large amounts of data, claiming he was conducting genealogy research. He looked for males with birth dates near his own who had died. He then assumed their identity, applied for admission at various universities, and then applied for student loans.
“A couple of occasions they wrote to the courts saying they were conducting a genealogy research, and could they have the birth certificates for x amount of people, and they were subsequently supplied with them,” says Detective Sergeant Nigel Hughes, from Christchurch police.
The following announcement was written by BYU University:
Provo, Utah (March 6, 2008) - The Computer Science Department of Brigham Young University announced today the program agenda for its Eighth Annual Workshop on Technology for Family History and Genealogical Research. The day-long workshop will take place on March 13, 2008 in the BYU Conference Center, 770 East University Parkway, Provo, Utah.
The following announcement was written by GenealogyBank:
Over Four Million New Articles Available for Family History Research
NAPLES, FL -- GenealogyBank, a leading online provider of newspapers for family history research, announced today the addition of over 4 million historical newspaper articles and modern obituaries to its online digital archive.
GenealogyBank is the fastest growing newspaper archive for family history research with over 3,400 U.S. newspapers in all 50 states. The exclusive collection features newspapers from the 1600s to the present day with over 26 million obituaries and more than 112 million historical newspaper articles. Each article is a single digital image that can be printed and preserved for family scrapbooks.
On February 19, I wrote about the plight of Laura Todd of Nashville, Tennessee. It seems that another woman died in Florida eight years ago, and someone entered Laura's Social Security Number into the death record. The assumption is that it was a simple clerical error. Laura Todd has had problems ever since. You can read that article at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/02/being-dead-ruin.html.
MSNBC now says that the problem is much bigger than what I had reported.
I was looking at some computer ads recently and marveled at how far the prices have dropped. One ad was for a $199 PC. As I read the specs, I realized that a similar computer would have sold for $2,000 a very few years ago. It contained an 80-gigabyte hard drive, 512 megabytes of RAM memory, a combination DVD and CD-ROM disk drive capable of watching movies, a 1.5-gigahertz processor, stereo speakers, keyboard, and mouse. As is typical with most desktop systems, this system is sold without a monitor, which must be added at extra cost. Instead of paying $2,000 or more for this amount of power as any of us would have done a few years ago, the system now sells for $199.99 plus a monitor for another $100 to $150 or so.
In fact, only a few years ago, an 80-gigabyte hard drive alone cost more than $199! Now you get an entire computer attached to the drive!
On February 19, I published an article describing a $1,075 device that converts microfilm to digital images. It should be the perfect device for your local society or museum to computerize their microfilms.
I ended the article by writing, "Has any newsletter reader tried the ST Genie or a similar low-cost device? If so, could you let me know of any successes or failures you have had with it? I'd love to write a follow-on article based on your experiences."
John Cardinal has released a new version of his popular TMG Utilities, designed to work with The Master Genealogist (TMG). Here is the announcement:
This version is compatible with TMG v7, which is the only major new feature. The only other significant enhancement is the ability to modify Research Log fields using Find and Replace.
Many of us knew Chuck Knuthson, a professional genealogist who was a popular speaker at many conferences, a busy instructor, and a member and leader of several genealogy societies. Sadly, he passed away February 27. You can read my earlier article about Chuck at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/03/chuck-knuthson.html.
While many of us knew him for his genealogy expertise and enthusiasm, very few of us knew about his “other life.” I recently learned that Chuck was a retired police captain, a Viet Nam veteran, recipient of a bronze medal of valor by the Placer County Law Enforcement Association, and also a husband and the father of five children.
The following announcement was written by Millennia Corporation, the producer of Legacy Family Tree:
New family tree charting software now available for download. Create ancestor charts, descendant charts, mother’s trees, father’s trees, fan charts, hourglass charts, bow tie charts, and DNA charts.
Surprise, AZ – March 4, 2008 – All genealogists are invited to take a free test drive of the newest wall chart software. Compatible with Family Tree Maker, Personal Ancestral File (PAF), Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic, and GEDCOM files, Legacy Charting takes publishing your family tree to a new level.
Michael Sherrod is a V.P. at Ancestry.com, part of The Generations Network. I guess V.P.s do genealogy research also since Michael and co-author Matthew Rayback must have spent a lot of hours looking at census records. The two have now authored a book, entitled Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With, and You Can Too!
Bad baby names? How about Carr Chase? Well, we can't blame the parents as young Carr was born many years before the invention of the automobile. Likewise, Mr. and Mrs. Pack named their little girl Fanny before that phrase meant a favorite fashion accessory. But how about Mr. and Mrs. Royd who named their young daughter Emma?
Then there is Fat Meat Fields, Pickle Parker, Harry Pigg, Panties Moberg and Toilet Queen, to name a few. And, yes, those are all real names. They come straight from U.S. census records, and the authors have copies of the census records to prove each one.
An interesting photo essay in the online magazine Slate explores the question of how to build a public library in the age of Google, Wikipedia, and Kindle. The grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments are giving way to a new library-as-urban-hangout concept, as evidenced by Seattle's Starbucks-meets-mega-bookstore central library and Salt Lake City's shop-lined education mall.
This week, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced that it has made available for the first time online more than 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. The records can be accessed through NARA’s online Access to Archival Databases (AAD).
The following announcement was written by the National Genealogical Society:
The National Genealogical Society will be holding its annual Conference in the States and Family History Fair from 14-17 May, 2008.
The Beginner’s Workshop will take place on Saturday 17 May, from 8am – 12 Noon, at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center Hotel, 2345 McGee Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Registration will commence at 7am.
Genealogy is a remarkable odyssey. It’s an adventure that takes us many places in our quest to follow the lives and fortunes of people to whom we are related (and some to whom we are unrelated). We must research history and geography, sociology, economics, architecture, transportation logistics, agriculture, weather, handwriting analysis, foreign languages, and any number of other disciplines.
Maps have always held a special fascination for me. Beginning with the road maps that my father obtained from the local Esso station decades ago, I marveled over the details of the terrain and highways we traveled. As I became interested in our family’s history, I started looking at these maps to determine and try to picture where my ancestors and their families had lived. Then came the moment when I encountered the first contradiction that suggested the maps I was reading were incorrect! It didn’t take long for our town librarian to set me straight. She explained that I needed to beware of boundaries that changed over the centuries. She showed me how to compare contemporary maps with historical maps of places as they existed in my ancestors’ lifetimes. This would help me determine the political jurisdictions in which my forebears had lived and, in that way, I could more accurately determine the correct locations to search to locate records of their lives.
Inkjet printers are really cheap these days. Or are they? To be sure, local computer stores sell inkjet printers for $29.99 (see BestBuy's site for one such example). You can't get much cheaper, right? Well, sort of. In fact, I purchased a Macintosh computer last year, and Apple even included a “free” inkjet printer. You can't get much cheaper than free.
However, all printers have hidden costs in the form of ink or toner. In fact, most manufacturers lose money on the sale of the printers but make huge profits on the sale of inkjet cartridges. Would you believe that the “low cost” inkjet printer you use is consuming ink at the rate of roughly $3,000 a quart? That's a higher price than the very best cognac or ladies' perfume!
Facebook is a very popular social networking website with more than 64 million active users worldwide. The site is free for everyone as it generates revenue from advertising. Users create profiles that often contain photos and lists of personal interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends. Now OneGreatFamily.com has created Relatively Me™, a genealogy application for use with Facebook.
Here is the announcement:
OneGreatFamily is excited to introduce you to Relatively Me™, a free application developed to use with Facebook. Relatively Me takes advantage of the engaging social networking elements of Facebook like news feed, friends and photos while using the OneGreatFamily backend to create a fun and interesting family history experience.
Many genealogists will be saddened to learn of Chuck Knuthson's passing. He was a very popular genealogy lecturer at many of the national conferences. He was also a prolific writer. He received Certificates of Appreciation from the National Genealogical Society, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the Federation of Genealogical Societies.
As a professional genealogist, Chuck had been researching for more than thirty years. He retired as a police captain after thirty-two years of service. He was president of the 1,300-member Sacramento German Genealogy Society and a board member (including a Program Chair) of others. Chuck was a member of numerous organizations, including the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Genealogical Speakers Guild, the National Genealogical Society, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and the California Genealogical Society.
It might be the ideal job for many of us although the position is available only on a part-time basis. OneGreatFamily.com is advertising in the Help Wanted sections for a genealogy software tester.
OneGreatFamily.com is well known as a provider of an interconnected online genealogy database of thousands of individuals. You can read my review of the service at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/09/onegreatfamilyc.html. Now the company is looking for a part-time software tester in its Springville, Utah office.
The Missouri State Archives, a division of the Secretary of State's office, has created a new online resource for anyone researching African-American ancestry in the state. While the focus is on Missouri, most of the information in this video applies to other states as well.
African-American Genealogy: Putting Together the Pieces of Your Past is a five-part video featuring Family History Research Consultant Traci Wilson-Kleekamp. Traci provides tips on accessing the best Web sites, which records are most beneficial, and how to get the most out of original records.
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