Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

(+) Casefile Clues by Michael John Neill: Getting the Most from a Christening

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Michael John Neill.

For some of our ancestors, church membership and ceremonies were important. And if the church was important to our ancestors, the records of their church membership should be important to our research. This week we take a look at a foreign language baptismal entry and see what it does (and does not) tell us about the child and its family. In this case, avoiding misinterpreting the handwriting is important as well.

Windows 7 Will Be Free For a Year

Microsoft is effectively giving away Windows 7 free for a year with the launch of the Release Candidate. The Release Candidate is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and will go on unlimited, general release on 5 May. The software will not expire until 1 June 2010, giving testers more than a year's free access to Windows 7.

GeoCities to Shut Down. Now What?

Thousands of private individuals host their genealogy sites on the free GeoCities service. Some of the sites have been there for years with little or no updates from the owners. Now parent company Yahoo is ending the free service.

Yahoo has posted the following notice at http://www.geocities.com:

Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available.

Current GeoCities customers:

After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer. For now, please sign in or visit the help center for more information.

Yahoo is encouraging these customers to upgrade to Yahoo's paid Web Hosting service.

Teen-Aged Genealogist Wins $10,000 College Scholarship

Despite the troubled economic times, paying for college just got easier for at least one Utah student. Bingham High School senior Brad Jencks is the Utah winner of the 2009 AXA Achievement Scholarship In association with U.S. News and World Report. Brad is one of 52 students nationwide -- one from each state plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico -- to win the $10,000 scholarship.

UPDATE: Time to Get Rid of Adobe Reader?

This is an update to the article I wrote on April 23, available at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/04/time-to-get-rid-of-adobe-reader.html:

Adobe Systems has now acknowledged that all versions of its Adobe Reader, including editions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, contain at least one, and possibly two, critical vulnerabilities.

Rome, Georgia Cemetery Burial Data Now Online

Thanks to a new burial data program on the city of Rome’s web site, genealogy researchers and loved ones may have an easier time locating their ancestors buried in Rome’s public cemeteries. The service can assist those looking for the plots of ancestors, family or friends buried in city-owned cemeteries — Eastview, Oakland and Myrtle Hill.

"Ugliest Sign" Contest Pays Off for Genealogy Society

Last year, the West Valley (Arizona) Genealogical Society was selected as the winner of the FASTSIGNS Ugliest Sign Contest. Entrants were required to submit a photo of their existing sign, along with a 500-word essay answering the question, "Why does your business need a sign makeover?" Entries were judged by a panel of FASTSIGNS Phoenix co-op professionals. The winner received up to $5,000 in new signage.

Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms

For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: Virtually without exception the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

Old Massachusetts Portuguese-Language Newspaper Now Online

In what is seen as a boon to genealogists and local scholars, UMass Dartmouth announced Tuesday that more than 50 years of the former New Bedford Portuguese-language newspaper, Diario de Noticias, affectionately known as the Portuguese Daily News, is now available online at http://www.lib.umassd.edu/archives/paa/diario.html.

The newspaper began as the Alvorada (The Dawn) on January 25,1919 when Guilherme Luiz purchased a weekly Portuguese-language newspaper with the same name that had been published in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1927, the board changed its name to Diário de Notícias and began publishing a Fall River version of the paper. João R. Rocha acquired half ownership in 1940, and then bought out the paper, becoming publisher and sole owner in 1943. The paper enjoyed great success and a circulation that spanned the entire county. It ceased publication when Rocha retired in 1973. Its local successors are the Portuguese Times and O Jornal.

Known as the Ferreira Mendes Portuguese-American Archives, the project includes the digitizing of 84,010 pages or 16,641 issues of the newspaper, covering the period from 1919-73, so they can be viewed on the Web.

American Flag of Faces™ Launched Online

The following announcement was written by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation:

Will Be Featured Exhibit at Ellis Island

Ellis Island, NY (April 2009) – The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. today announced the official launch of its new American Flag of Faces™ website at www.FlagOfFaces.org. This interactive website invites all Americans to submit photos of their families, their ancestors, even themselves to become a part of this living, ever-changing American mosaic.

Family Historian Version 4 Is Now Available

Family Historian is a very popular Windows genealogy program produced in the U.K. but with users all over the world. Now Calico Pie Limited has released Version 4 of the program. It is available right now as a download on the company's web site and UK resellers will receive boxed sets of the product this week. Resellers in other countries will be receiving boxes shortly.

Family Historian 4 will, when installed, automatically detect and upgrade any previous versions of Family Historian you may have installed. Customers who purchased a licence for the download version of version 3 since November 26th 2008, will be emailed a link for a free upgrade to version 4.

As an extra bonus, each boxed copy of Family Historian 4 comes with a 30-day subscription to WorldVitalRecords.com.

Ancestors Magazine Offers Past Articles For Download

Produced by The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Ancestors is a monthly magazine full of tips and guidance for family and other historians. Now the publishers are offering selected past articles for a modest fee. Most articles are four to five pages in length, and have been scanned in colour from the original magazine. Downloads are supplied in PDF format.

The National Archives’ Documents Online service has a selection available from recent issues, with more to be added shortly. Subjects covered include parish magazines, convicts in Bermuda and an introduction to the Archives and its work.

Ancestry.com Offers More Relevant Searches

The search mechanism on Ancestry.com has had problems recently but the site's owners say that the problems are fixed and the site has been improved, starting today. Writing in the Ancestry.com blog, Anne Mitchell states:

There is a long list of things we want to improve in search (and in new search in particular) – and we’ve started with what you’ve told us is the most important – getting relevant results; and relevance is our top priority this year in search.

Pharos Adds Four New Teachers

Pharos is a British genealogy company that offers online genealogy classes. You can read my earlier articles about Pharos at http://www.google.com/cse?cx=003715150024579880844%3Aulyzue1ivzu&ie=UTF-8&q=Pharos&sa=Search. Now the company is expanding with the addition of four more teachers:

Penn State's La Vie Yearbook from 1890 to 2000 Available Online

Penn State alumni and their descendants will be interested in this new offering: Penn State's La Vie yearbook from 1890 to 2000 is now available online. La Vie, the Penn State University annual student yearbook, has been in production documenting student life continuously since 1890. The project is a collaboration between the Penn State University Archives and the University Libraries Digitization and Preservation Department. It features about 51,000 pages of yearbook content.

(+) From Lloyd’s Library by Lloyd Bockstruck: Tracing Loyalist Ancestors

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Lloyd Bockstruck.

In 1763 the British Empire acquired the former French colony of Quebec by conquest. Its western portion became Ontario in 1791. Between those years Americans had many contacts with Upper Canada. In 1783 ten thousand Loyalist refugees arrived. The term Loyalist designated a resident of one of the colonies in rebellion by the 19th  of April of 1775 who joined the Royal Standard before the treaty of peace in 1783. An ancestor could have served in a Loyalist regiment or could have demonstrated loyalty to Crown. He or she also had to opt to resettle in another British-held territory. Besides Quebec and Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were other Loyalist destinations in Canada.

Even though the Loyalists were on the losing side in the American Revolution, they are a significant part of the American genealogical fabric. In early 1780 there were 8,000 Loyalists bearing arms for King George III. At that time George Washington’s Continental Army numbered only 9,000.

New Librarian and Archivist of Canada Appointed

Daniel J. Caron has been named as the new Librarian and Archivist of Canada. He is replacing Ian Wilson who announced his retirement earlier this month.

The following was written by Libraries and Archives Canada:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper Announces Appointment of New Librarian and Archivist of Canada

Census Taker Associated with Possible Spread of Swine Flu

Mexican officials have reported the first confirmed fatality of Swine Flu: a 39-year-old woman from Veracruz who worked as a door-to-door census-taker and may have had contact with scores of people. Maria Adela Gutierrez died April 13 in the southern city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name.

Storage Breakthrough Puts 100 DVDs on a Single Disc

According to a report in the New York Times, GE has made a storage breakthrough that allows a density on a single disc high enough to store 100 DVD movies. If it can store that many movies, how many genealogy books can it store? I don't have a precise answer but obviously the answer has to be in the tens of thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of books. Can you imagine an entire library of genealogy books shipping on one disk? There would probably be enough room left over for all the U.S. census records images and lots of other material as well.

“This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm.

EXTENDED: Special Offer for Newsletter Readers: Discover Your DNA with Familybuilder DNA

I earlier wrote about a special offer from Familybuilder DNA offering a low-cost DNA testing service at 10% off as a special price only for readers of this newsletter. I am told that the Familybuilder folks have been pleased with the response and have decided to extend the offer for a few more days until May 3rd. The offer will positively end on that date.

As I wrote earlier: Familybuilder DNA, the lowest priced genealogy DNA test kits on the planet, is now offering an even lower price exclusively to readers of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter.

Familybuilder offers a YDNA test kit for males only, and an mtDNA test kit for both males and females. The regular prices for those two tests are $59.95 and $89.95 respectively. For the next few days, readers of this newsletter may order them for only $53.95 for the YDNA test kit for males only or $80.95 for the  mtDNA test kit for both males and females.

That's a savings of roughly 10% for each!