The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
Bad times and bad decisions could have been hard on your ancestor. If family was unable or unwilling to care for them, difficult decisions had to be made. With social agencies few and far between, your ancestors easily could have found themselves at the local poor farm or county almshouse. If they were physically unable to care for themselves and needed more intensive care, they might have been institutionalized in a state hospital. Whether their residence was temporary or permanent, these records may shed a different light on your ancestors. This week we look at some difficulties with these records and ways in which you can access them.
The Springfield, Missouri, library has a unique reference for genealogists: about 39 linear feet of shelving packed with what staff appreciatively and respectfully refer to as Dr. Hall's Index. These 225 volumes represent one of the most important and valuable tools the Springfield-Greene County Library District can offer its genealogical patrons, according to Local History Librarian Michael Glenn.
Officially called "Abstracts and Index of Items of Genealogical Interest," the books contain something like 3 million clippings of obituaries, marriages, births, and divorce announcements printed in Springfield newspapers between 1865 and 2006.
Toss a paper keepsake into a pile, and in months it can yellow and crumble like papyrus from Tut’s tomb. But there are things you can do to keep paper keepsakes safe.
Most printed paper “contains the seeds of its own destruction,” says University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries archivist Michael Doylen.
A new article in the Foresight Institute's web site describes a new method of DNA sequencing. The article is quite technical so I will leave it to others to describe the "3000 ZMWs (waveguides)" and other techniques used. What caught my eye is a claim that "Company founder Stephen Turner estimates that such a chip would be able to sequence an entire human genome in under half an hour to 99.999 per cent accuracy for under $1000."
A bit of history died last week. The last company in America to produce player piano music has ceased production of the paper rolls. QRS Music Technologies halted production of player piano rolls 108 years after the company was founded in Chicago. Some of the machinery that was shut down last week had been built in the 1880s.
To be sure, this is not the end of automated music: the company
continues to make digitized and computerized player-piano technology
that runs on CDs. The company’s fortunes in recent years have been tied
to Pianomation, the digitized player-piano system that can be
retrofitted on most acoustic pianos. QRS also pre-installs the system
on some of its own Story and Clark grand pianos.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
5 January 2008
New International Projects/Two New Languages
Several new international projects were added to the list of active FamilySearch indexing projects (see chart below). There is now a need for volunteers with an interest in or knowledge of the new Norwegian and Russian records—Norway 1875 Census and Ukraine Kyiv 1840–1842.
The indexing program’s interfaces have not been translated into Norwegian and Russian yet; however, the instructions for the Ukrainian project are available in Russian and English.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
FamilySearch added about 4 million new records to its Record Search pilot over the holidays. Patrons will find records from Brazil, Hungary, Czech Republic, Southern Bohemia, Třeboň, West Virginia, and the much anticipated Indian Territory records from the 1900 U.S. Census. See the chart below for more details. The new records can be searched for free at FamilySearch.org (Click Search Records, then Record Search pilot).
Perhaps the world's largest gathering of genealogists, history buffs, and military re-enactors, along with more than 200 exhibitors, will be held in a few weeks in London. The Who Do You Think You Are? Live! 2009 event will be the third annual exhibit and promises to be even better than the first two.
If you have been to either of the first two Who Do You Think You Are? Live! events, you already know what it will be like. However, be aware of the date change this year: instead of being held on the May Day bank holiday weekend as before, the 2009 event will be held much earlier: February 27 through March 1. This year's event will again be held in the Olympia National Hall, London.
NOTE: Part #1 and Part #2 of this series of articles are both still available at http://plus.eogn.com.
The last two weeks’ columns have addressed land and property records research in the United States. The last column of this three-part series will focus on several helpful methodologies for locating a chain of property ownership, interpreting the contents of deeds, and mining some of the clues found in these wonderful documents.
Tracking Down the Land and Property Records
Your research will initially involve locating the actual indexes and records before you can begin trying to access and work with them.
You can read an interesting "thread" of messages in the EOGN Forum right now concerning the use of digital cameras for genealogy purposes. I was especially interested in A. R. Wilson's detailed description on how to obtain high quality pictures and also with JGR's and John R.'s comments about how they take photographs of documents and then process them with a free OCR program, converting them to text.
You may notice something new at the end of each article on this newsletter's web site at www.eogn.com: a link that is labeled "Share This." This new link gives you an easy way to send an article to a friend or post it to your own blog or Facebook account or elsewhere.
This new piece of software allows you to share articles from this newsletter with your friends via e-mail or to post it to your own blog (Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger, etc.) or to post it to any of the popular social networking sites (MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, Google Bookmarks, etc.)
Sharon Tate Moody has published an article in the Tampa Bay Online web site that should be required reading for all beginning genealogists. She writes:
Genealogy is all about names. We find most records through surnames, and then narrow the search with given names. But too many of us search only for the perfect match. Close counts not only in horseshoes but also in heritage hunting.
The following announcement was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:
Federation of Genealogical Societies President J. Mark Lowe Resigns; Vice President of Administration Pat Oxley Becomes FGS President
AUSTIN, Texas – Saturday, January 3, 2009 – The Federation of Genealogical Societies today announced the resignation of its President, J. Mark Lowe, effective immediately. Mr. Lowe, who was elected to the position of President in the 2008 FGS elections, resigned due to personal reasons. In accordance with the Bylaws of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, Vice President of Administration Pat Oxley has assumed the presidency of FGS.
MyBlood is a brand new genealogy program from Belgium. It is so new that it is not even in beta test yet. The latest available version is referred to as Alpha 2.1.
The program has several unique features. First of all, it is available in two versions: Windows and Macintosh. There aren't many genealogy programs that can make that statement! Next, it is multi-lingual. English, French, and Dutch versions are available today and the program includes a Translator Tool to help you translate everything in the application. You can modify the program to create a new language if your preferred language is not yet available. All reports are also translatable. MyBlood encourages people to share their language files, and will put them on the MyBlood web-site and forum for further use.
The EOGN Forum has evolved into a rather impressive discussion board since it was created in October. It now sees many new messages per day covering a wide variety of genealogy-related topics. It is a place where newsletter readers will tackle your questions on a wide range of genealogy-related subjects.
The EOGN Discussion Forum is available FREE of charge to everyone. In fact, everyone may read messages in the forum without registering. However, in order to post a new message or to reply to an existing message, you must register first. Registration is free, and you are never asked for a credit card number. As always, I will never share your registration information with any vendors. You will not be spammed because of participation in the EOGN Forum.
Now THIS is a family tree! On New Year's day, the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee (CGCC) announced that it is "closing the book" and is now sending the fifth update of Confucius' family tree to the printers. The new publication will contain more than two million documented descendants of the Chinese philosopher who was born in 551 B.C.
Your paperboy just got smarter. This article will tell you how to read more information on the Internet in a shorter period of time. In short, you can use the Internet without all the clutter.
I used to spend 2 or 3 hours per day visiting specific web sites over and over in an attempt to find new information. I regularly visited CNN.com looking for news, weather.com looking for the latest weather forecast for my home town, various stock market web sites, and, of course, genealogy sites looking for information about a variety of topics.
Today I can accomplish the same thing within a very few minutes instead of spending hours searching for elusive information.
The central stacks in the Humanities and Social Sciences section of the the 42nd Street New York City Public Library are closed while the library works on a project related to the façade restoration. 65% of the General Research Material is not available, including the Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History & Genealogy.
The following announcement was written by MyHeritage:
MyHeritage Makes Family History Research Easier With Launch Of Family Tree Builder 3
New software makes it easier to automatically find long lost relatives, publish content to MyHeritage.com, and print your family tree on one page
Tel Aviv, Israel – January 2, 2009 – MyHeritage, one of the world’s most popular family Web sites, today announced the launch of Family Tree Builder 3, a powerful software program that MyHeritage members can download and use to build family trees, research family history and add content like photos and videos.
MyBlood is a brand new genealogy program from Belgium. It is so new that it is not even in beta test yet. The latest available version is referred to as Alpha 2.1.
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