The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
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the vendors like it or not!
The following announcement is from the Board for Certification of Genealogists:
Judy Kellar Fox, CG, has donated her certification application portfolio, and it is now on the BCG website. Genealogists have an opportunity to view successful portfolios when they attend national conferences. They also can view a portfolio in the comfort of their home. Go to the BCG website, http://www.bcgcertification.org; click on "Become Certified" and scroll down to "Sample Application Portfolio."
I changed the color scheme of the newsletter's web site today. I think it is now easier to read than the old green color scheme. However, I admit to being a bit color blind so I'd appreciate your comments. I can revert back to the old colors in a few seconds, if necessary.
This is just a reminder: many of the past Plus Edition articles, although not all, are available from the "newsletter archive" on Lulu.com. The articles are available for $2.00 each. The articles are stored there as PDF files and may be viewed on any Windows, Macintosh or Linux computer as well as printed on your local printer.
Julie Miller is a certified genealogist, researcher, lecturer and a prolific writer. She recently wrote:
The year is only half over, and already there have been numerous natural disasters that have hit close to home: The tornadoes in northern Colorado; the floods in the Midwest; the wildfires in California.
Watching the people on the news who have been affected has been heart-wrenching. Many folks have lost everything. Some of their possessions can easily be replaced, such as clothes, appliances and dishes. But what about all those things that cannot be replaced? I look around my house and see the wedding quilt made by Great-Grandma Ivy, the baby photo of my mother, the file cabinets of family history documents and notes. No amount of insurance money could bring those items back.
There is a precaution to safeguard your family history should disaster strike. I recommend creating and implementing a written genealogy disaster plan.
GenealogyToday.com has an article that questions the ancestry of our 16th president. It claims that Honest Abe wasn’t really a Lincoln at all. The document, available in its entirety on line, was written by R. Vincent Enlow, a former marketing executive of Ford Motor International, a political cartoonist, artist, sculptor, and member of the family that he says is the true paternal lineage of Abraham Lincoln.
I’m happy to report that I purchased an Apple iPhone on Friday, 11 July 2008. And yes, I waited in line from 4:30 AM with a nice group of other eager consumers until the Apple store opened at 8:00 AM. In less than an hour, at least the first 50 of the several 300-400 customers in the queue had been greeted, helped, sold, and their phones had been activated. Now the learning curve begins.
As I waited in line before dawn on Friday morning, I thought back to my childhood in the 1950s in small-town North Carolina and considered the long history of communication in America. Take the historical journey with me and consider how our ancestors communicated with one another.
Footnote.com has millions of records online of historical interest. Most of those records concern events in American history. However, there are a few exceptions. Monday is Bastille Day in France; so, it seems appropriate to focus on one of those records that is an eyewitness account of the biggest event in French history. The letter was written in English and is easy to read.
In the 1780s, the Bastille was a prison in Paris. The king kept political prisoners there, along with criminals of all sorts. The Bastille was an irregularly-shaped fortress, 220 feet long (70 meters) and 90 feet wide (30 meters) with walls of up to 80 feet high (25 meters), surrounded by a broad moat.
Following several days of disturbances, a crowd stormed the Bastille on 14 July 1789. Their purpose was not so much to release the prisoners as to capture or destroy the gunpowder and arms being stored there. The people of Paris believed that French troops would use the gunpowder and arms against the local population. In fact, on that day, only seven prisoners were incarcerated at the Bastille.
Monday is Bastille Day in France; so, it seems appropriate that a French web site lists 18,000-plus victims of the guillotine.
All victims are listed in alphabetical order. My ancestors all left France before the guillotine was first used in France in 1791. However, I was able to find a few victims listed with the same surnames. Perhaps they were distant cousins although I doubt if I'll ever know for sure.
One of the units of measure of a digital photograph is the number of megapixels. This measurement is the number of dots (pixels) used to store the image. More dots make a picture clearer. Therefore, generally speaking, an 8-megapixel camera will take better pictures than will a 6-megapixel camera. A 10-megapixel camera should take better pictures than either of those with lower megapixel capabilities. (I am ignoring lens quality and other factors.)
For the past ten years or so, we have seen the number of pixels constantly increase in consumer-grade cameras. Long ago, two-megapixel cameras were common, then four and then five and then six and so on. Nowadays, 10- and 12-megapixel cameras are available for $100 to $150 or so. Now Kodak has announced a major step forward: a 50-megapixel sensor for use in digital cameras.
ther than the Mormon Church, how many religions take the effort to computerize the genealogies of their members? It seems that one other church is doing just that: the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem has taken steps to computerize and preserve the genealogical records of community members dating back over a century and a half, rescuing them from oblivion and the ravages of time and weather.
These efforts have resulted in the compilation of a database listing close to a hundred Kaghakatzi clans, covering more than 2400 names. But only as far back as 1840.
The following announcement was written by brightsolid (and it looks like they deliberately use a lower case "b" in the corporate name):
NEW NAME AND NEW ORDERS SIGNAL
UK EXPANSION FOR SCOTLAND ONLINE
brightsolid future for leading internet services business
Scotland Online, the leading internet services business and the parent company of family history website findmypast.com, has re-branded as brightsolid, in recognition of its evolving position in the UK business market and growing range of online expertise and products.
The company is experiencing significant growth, helped by new business across the range of its activities.
In 1940, Encyclopaedia Britannica Films created an educational film that shows the life of the early settlers of Naumkeag, a village that later was renamed to Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the lifestyles of 1626 through 1629. This video is now available online and certainly will interest anyone who had ancestors most anywhere in New England. You can see how your ancestors lived.
Writing in theday.com, a Connecticut web site, David Collins warns that the Indian & Colonial Research Center in Old Mystic, Connecticut, is in danger of closing. Funds and volunteers are both hard to find these days.
Built around the original papers and works of the late Eva Lutz Butler, the collection is as interesting as it is varied, from an impressive collection of local arrowheads, some many thousands of years old, to a genealogical library so complete it's been established as a Connecticut Registered Genealogical Research Center.
Many genealogists know Richard Black as the Director of Godfrey Memorial Library in Connecticut for the past three years. Now he has changed employers. Richard has accepted a position in content partnerships at FamilyLink.com, Inc., the parent company of WorldVitalRecords.com. Richard’s new role at FamilyLink.com, Inc. will be to work primarily with content providers who have U.S. genealogical content.
Ah, yes. All of our ancestors were peaceful, law-abiding citizens, right?
Perhaps not. If you had ancestors living in Boston in 1837, you might want to check the court records. The following is extracted from the 1838 Boston Almanac but with my notes added:
On June 11 1837, a Great Riot [occurred] in Broad Street. It commenced between a Yankee engine company returning from a fire, and an Irish funeral procession.
The following announcement was written by WorldVitalRecords.com:
PROVO, UT — More than 500,000 records from hundreds of Jewish cemeteries across the United States, Canada, Germany, and Israel have been indexed and are now searchable at WorldVitalRecords.com through Jewish Data, a new partner of FamilyLink.com, Inc. The database also includes thousands of Declaration of Intention documents filed by Jewish immigrants as well as rare books, and other records.
Quoting from the Society of Genealogists web site:
The Society of Genealogists is extremely disappointed to hear that the General Register Office has delayed the proposed Digitization of Vital Events Project (Dove) and improved online indexes of Civil Registration known as the MAGPIE project (Multi Access to GRO Public Index of Events).
RootsMagic has joined the blogging world. The new blog is called the “Insider” and has exactly one article as of this time. However, that article is most interesting: it announces the upcoming release of RootsMagic version 4. This is perhaps the worst-kept secret in the genealogy world, but it is nice to see an official announcement from the company.
Last weekend I attended one of the best conferences in the United States. It was the Southern California Genealogical Society’s annual Jamboree in Burbank, California. The spirit of volunteerism is alive and well there, and the society members made every one of the attendees feel welcome and appreciated. There was literally something for everyone in every lecture time period. The vendor exhibit hall had all manner of software, books, maps, magazines, Internet databases and social networks, and so much more. The work on the part of the SCGS members made everything seem to flow very well indeed. I heartily recommend this conference to anyone who can get there next year.
Scotland Online is an Internet company that offers a number of different services. Of interest to genealogists, Scotland Online runs the Scotlandspeople.gov.uk web site. That site provides access to vital records and other information under license from the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), the National Archives of Scotland, and the official heraldic authority, the Court of the Lord Lyon.
Scotland Online is a division of Brightsolid, which earlier this year purchased a competitor: Findmypast.com. Both websites make money by charging people to search census and other data so that customers can compile their family tree. Charges on Findmypast.com range from £6.95 for 60 search credits to £89.95 for a 12-month subscription.
Now the sites may face a new competitor: the Scottish government
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