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Chinese-Canadians searching for their roots have had a tough time. Now a new wiki will help Chinese-Canadians, and others, research their ancestors and tell their stories. The Vancouver Public Library and Library and Archives Canada have partnered to sponsor the Chinese-Canadian history wiki, a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content.
This is way off-topic but I thought some readers here might be interested in my new car. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see a larger picture. The picture was taken with an Apple iPhone cell phone camera.
Yes, it is tiny but it already gets better than 40 miles to the gallon around town and should do significantly better on the highway once the engine is broken in. It has two seats, four wheels, a convertible roof and not much else. It is called a SmartCar and is made by Mercedes.
If you would like to join this year's cruise, now is the time to make reservations. The following is an extract from the latest Wholly Genes newsletter:
I suspect that a number of newsletter readers will recognize the name of Emily Wilbur Alley. Anyone who has ever met her probably remembers her constant smile and very professional manner. When I first met Emily at a genealogy conference, she was representing the family history department of her college, Brigham Young University.
Last summer, Emily married an Air Force Academy graduate, John Alley, and moved to Pensacola, Florida., while he began his flight training. Within a few months, she told friends and family that she was expecting her first child.
Over Memorial Day weekend, Emily's husband was missing. A day or so later, tragic news arrived: the body of Emily’s husband was found on Memorial Day.
You need to make a backup copy of all your genealogy data. Ask Glenna Butler of Tooele, Utah. The rain came down this week in Tooele, and the water rushed into basements of homes in an area known as The Maples. There was so much water that basement windows shattered, allowing water to rush into at least five basements. Residents say they were powerless to do anything but sit back and watch.
"I could hear the water running before I got downstairs. I could smell the moisture. I couldn't believe what I saw," said Glenna Butler, whose basement was flooded. "We watched it all coming in. It was like a waterfall."
One of the important rules in genealogical research is to make note of the families that live in the immediate surrounding area of your ancestral family. The surnames and given names can help you locate your ancestors again and again, especially if they've gone missing. While you may think they have been abducted by space aliens, the truth is probably that they have either migrated elsewhere or died.
The decision to migrate or emigrate was a difficult choice. There had to be one or more compelling reasons to leave an area familiar to one's family. There also had to be some rationale for choosing a particular destination. This is the "push and pull" that you should try to understand, and there are ways to approach this.
I received a sad note in the mail recently. It came from Debbie Roberge, Editor and Publisher of "The Pine Cone and Tassel," an excellent newsletter devoted to genealogy research in the State of Maine. I have subscribed to this newsletter for several years and was saddened to read Debbie's note. She wrote (in part):
It is with deep regret that I must inform you that "The Pine Cone and Tassel" will cease publication.
Debbie went on for a bit more to explain the reasons for her decision. She specifically cited the cost of gasoline required to do research trips around the state and stated that she could not pass those expenses on to her subscribers. She didn't cite printing and postage costs although I suspect those were also significant. Whatever the root causes, she states that she is unable to continue publication due to financial reasons.
It's official: Millennia Corporation has now released Legacy Family Tree version 7.0, the latest version of a popular genealogy program for Microsoft Windows. Here is the announcement from Millennia:
New version 7 Continues 10-Years of Innovation and Quality; Now Offers Wall Charts, Automated Mapping, SourceWriter and a Host of New Features
Millennia Corporation, a leader in family history software, today announced the release of Legacy Family Tree 7.0. The new release contains dozens of significant new features and enhancements, including the first-ever SourceWriter, automated family mapping, and brilliant wall charts.
In one software package, Legacy Family Tree 7.0 provides tools to help users record their family's history, organize their pictures, perform their research, and share their findings.
SHELBURNE, Nova Scotia, June 5, 2008 -- The 225th anniversary of the first Loyalists landing in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, will be celebrated, thanks to an investment by the Government of Canada.
Gerald Keddy, Member of Parliament (South Shore-St. Margaret's), on behalf of the Honourable Josée Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages and Minister for La Francophonie, today announced funding for the Shelburne County Archives and Genealogical Society.
More than 50 years ago, a librarian at Xavier Junior College began collecting documents related to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia people and the island’s Gaelic history. Sister Margaret Beaton left the school’s library in 1966 to work at the archives when it became obvious that the growing collection needed a permanent manager. The archives were renamed in her honor after she was killed in a car crash in 1975.
Today, more than 1.5 kilometres of archival material is stored at the Beaton Institute, which has moved to Cape Breton University. Resources at the Beaton Institute include about 3,000 manuscript collections, more than 150,000 images and about 4,000 audio and video recordings. Its staff gets more than 3,500 research requests each year, some from scholars and others from the public.
A new genealogy centre in Dunfermline, which helps people to trace their family trees, was officially opened last week by Fife provost Councillor Frances Melville. The Fife Council centre, in the City Chambers, will be open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings for the public to carry out research or ask the local authority's service to commission a 'family tree package'.
Details of millions of Britons who traveled to Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century in search of economic success were released online Wednesday. Ancestry.co.uk has compiled the details of 8.9 million so-called "free settlers", or economic migrants to Australia, which the website says gives the average Briton a 25 percent chance of having a free settler ancestor.
Contrary to what you may think, cemeteries and their markers do not last forever. It is for that reason that it is imperative that we work to canvass, transcribe, and preserve cemetery stones and documents for posterity.
The impermanence of cemetery markers has become abundantly clear to me in the more than four decades that I have been involved in genealogy. I was shockingly reminded of this truth when I read a disturbing new article in The Tampa Tribune on 27 May 2008, titled "Vandals Wreak Havoc at Cemetery." The Serenity Meadows Memorial Park and neighboring Hackney Cemetery in Riverside, Florida, were vandalized the previous evening. More than 22 grave markers were pushed over, destroyed, or significantly damaged. Sheriff's office investigators have estimated the damages at more than $50,000. This is not the first instance of vandalism or theft at Serenity Meadows. This time, however, a surveillance video camera captured the perpetrators in action inside the cemetery. Within hours, two teenagers (ages 14 and 15) were tracked to the home of one of the boys. They were taken into custody and brought to a juvenile detention center. They told the deputies that they vandalized the cemetery for fun.
The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Genealogical Society:
2008 National Genealogical Society Hall of Fame
The National Genealogical Society, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is pleased to announce the 2008 election of Lowell M. Volkel to the National Genealogical Society Hall of Fame, who was nominated by the Illinois State Genealogical Society. Born in 1936, Mr. Volkel was a Danville, Illinois High School teacher whose interest in genealogy began at an early age. He was instrumental in establishing and promoting an interest in genealogy in Illinois, but his efforts in making records available also impacted other states. In 1962 he began a genealogy column “Illiana Ancestors” for a local paper, instructing the public on how to do research and where to find records.
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