The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
This is an amazing time to be a genealogist! There are so many wonderful records that are being digitized and being placed online by so many companies, libraries, archives, government offices, groups, and individuals that it’s now becoming difficult to keep up with what all is available.
There are other technologies available these days that facilitate our genealogy research, too. Software programs and new applications are being introduced all the time. Some of these can help us travel through virtual space and time to help us get a sense of place and context. Indeed, you can take a virtual tour of physical locations from the comfort of your armchair. Let’s explore a few of these ways you can take some free virtual tours.
Following the Presidential election of Barack Obama, Public Broadcasting featured an interview with an African-American woman whose father was born a slave. For someone alive in the 21st century and so close to slavery in the United States, her pedigree spanned but two generations before special research techniques and methodology need to be implemented for her genealogy. For younger African-Americans, their slave forebears may well be their great-great-great-grandparents.
The following announcement was written by Familyrelatives.com:
New military collection released online commemorates the 90th Anniversary of First World War I
In commemoration of the 90th anniversary since the end of the First World War Familyrelatives.com is proud to announce the release of a new military collection online today.
The Artists Rifles Roll of Honour, the Anzac Roll of Honour and the New Zealand Roll of Honour as well as the Waterloo Roll call, Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 and the British Naval Biographical Dictionary 1849, all form part of the new collection.
I was saddened to learn of the death of Paul McGrath. Paul was the staff genealogist for the Canadian family history television show “Ancestors in the Attic” (now in its third season) on History Television. Paul suffered a heart attack in Scotland working on an episode of the program. He passed away on Wednesday, October 22, 2008. He was 49 years old.
According to the Times-Tribune, a newspaper in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the newspaper owns the copyrights on all obituaries that they write. I'm no lawyer, but I think that newspaper has a strong case.
It seems that the Times-Tribune sued the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Co. and The Times Leader on Wednesday, claiming the Wilkes-Barre paper plagiarized more than 50 obituaries written and published in The Times-Tribune starting in late October. The suit, filed in Lackawanna County Court, lists seven claims, including misappropriation, unfair competition, fraud, breach of contract and unjust enrichment.
Tens of thousands of Jewish genealogical records will be made public under initiatives by the Manchester Council of Synagogues and the city's Jewish genealogical society. People will be able to access the records over the internet through a pay-as-you-view facility.
By examining newspapers of the 1800s era through the present, volunteers and Marshfield, Wisconsin Public Library staff have created an award-winning archive that contains more than 234,000 records of people who live and have lived in the community.
"Old newspapers are full of information, but there isn't an index for them," said Don Schnitzler, an archive volunteer and member of the Marshfield Genealogy Group that first proposed the project to the library in 1982. "Usually, you need to look at a lot of newspapers to find a piece of information you need," he said. "But this online index of births, marriages and deaths makes family research a lot simpler."
The following announcement was written by The Generations Network, the parent company of Ancestry.ca:
600,000 records of our World War One heroes, including famous Canadians - John McCrae, Tommy Douglas and Frederick Banting
(Toronto, ON – November 5, 2008) Between 1914-1918, more than 600,000 Canadian men, most untrained civilians, braved foreign soil to join the Allied Forces in an effort to restore peace and freedom to the world, with more than 60,000 making the ultimate sacrifice.
WorldVitalRecords.com has made a number of changes to the web site in an effort to make information easier to find. The following was written by WorldVitalRecords.com:
WorldVitalRecords.com Undergoes Facelift to Make Finding Ancestors Easier
Improved Search and Browsing Functionality, Expanded Collections, and Increased Value
Finding an ancestor within a collection that includes 1.2 billion names across more than 11,000 databases can at times feel like finding a needle in a haystack. That’s not the experience WorldVitalRecords.com wants for its guests and customers. You are invited to visit WorldVitalRecords.com to see how focusing on the needs of genealogists has led us to create a better experience for finding your ancestors online.
The following announcement was written by the American Society of Genealogists:
At their meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, on 1 November 2008, the American Society of Genealogists voted to give their annual Donald Lines Jacobus Award to Wayne G. Tillinghast for his book, The Tillinghasts in America, The First Four Generations.
Published in 2006 by the Rhode Island Genealogical Society (www.RIGenSoc.org), this work is a classic genealogy, tracing the descendants, both male and female, of Elder Pardon Tillinghast (ca. 1622–1718), who settled at Providence in or before 1645. Despite the subtitle of the book, many descendants in the fifth and sixth generations are treated, Intermarriages with other Rhode Island families make this genealogy almost a Who’s Who of colonial Providence. Thoroughly documented, extensive biographical detail includes much Rhode Island history and corrects previous errors. As noted in a review in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (161 [2007]:73), “The discussion of difficult problems is impressive.”
The following announcement was written by Library and Archives Canada:
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to announce the launch of In Quarantine: Life and Death on Grosse Île, 1832-1937, a project funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage through its Canadian Culture Online Program.
Featuring a variety of documents preserved and digitized by LAC, such as lists of births and deaths at sea, hospital registers, journals, letters, photographs and maps, this virtual exhibition tells the story not only of the quarantine station, but also of the individuals who experienced life on the island.
Immigrants at Grosse Île, a database containing thousands of digitized documents related to individuals who lived on Grosse Île, is now available through this website.
Every genealogist’s work today should include a combination of original documents, printed materials, Internet resources, materials from online databases, and the exchange of information with other genealogists. Only by working all these sources in tandem can we begin to hope to work effectively.
Unfortunately, there are many people who believe that “the best stuff is on the Internet.” Yes, there has been an explosion of information placed online in the last ten years, especially with the digitization of images at many libraries’, archives’, and online subscription databases’ websites. However, that does not mean that you should only conduct research on the Internet.
This article is a repeat of one I wrote on June 12 of this year. This week, I had requests to publish it again for several people who missed the earlier version.
I occasionally receive questions about this newsletter similar to one in my in-box this week: "Please tell me how to enlarge this article ... I cannot read this small print." I thought I'd answer here so that everyone will see the answer.
You can change the print size on ANY web page at any time. That is, you can change the print size not only on this newsletter's site, but also on almost every other web page you visit. The command is already built into your web browser. The exact command will depend upon which web browser you use:
The 2008 Genealogy Conference and Cruise sponsored by Wholly Genes Software came to an end this morning in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Two hundred or more smiling genealogists joined the other passengers departing the Caribbean Princess cruise ship at the San Juan cruise ship terminal. All the genealogists that I talked with seemed to enjoy themselves.
The Caribbean Princess left New York City a week ago, on October 26. It seemed fitting that we weighed anchor and immediately steamed past the Statue of Liberty and also past Ellis Island, the focus of so many of our research efforts.
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