The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
Paper of Record is a great database of newspapers from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. It is very useful to genealogists as well as to sports historians and to many others. It has been available online before but has been hard to find and expensive to access. Now the service will soon be available at World Vital Records, a company best known for its genealogy offerings.
The following was written by Rod Nelson, Founder of PaperofRecord.com:
Would it surprise you to learn that 36 million Americans claim Irish ancestry? That’s almost nine times the population of Ireland itself. And more and more, they’re travelling over there to untangle their family roots.
Cahir O'Doherty of IrishCentral.com has written an article that lists books that will probably interest anyone with Irish ancestry.
Roots Television has a great online video taken from old movies of Memorial Day in 1920. This particular video shows Cornwall, New York although I suspect that similar scenes were found all over America.
This is a silent movie but is accompanied by music of the era. I was fascinated by the clothing styles of the bystanders, by all the folks on horseback, and by the dirt streets.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Lloyd Bockstruck.
Genealogists are dependent upon others for the access and retrieval of information. If it can be demonstrated that a body of records exists and that abstracts have not been meticulously prepared, the only alternative is to do so oneself. When the locality involves a major settlement and migration pattern, a book of abstracts will have wide appeal. If neighboring jurisdictions are also lacking records, the value of such a work is even more greatly enhanced.
A new web site has a lofty goal: to revolutionize time keeping, planning, and the experience of history with a vehicle for exploring time that feels rugged, subtle, and profoundly easy to use.
I can verify that TimeGlider is easy to use. It could be used by an 8th grader for a history assignment. It is also subtle, perhaps a bit simplistic. However, it is a very good tool to use for documenting the life of an ancestor, for tracking families' migration patterns, or any events in history. Timelines built with TimeGlider can be viewed on the web and can be shared with others, should you wish to do so.
Flames destroyed parts of the 154-year-old Jefferson County Courthouse today. The Indiana state fire marshal has completed a preliminary investigation, but has not yet issued a report.
Decades of history may have been lost as flames ripped through the courthouse. The third floor partially collapsed and the basement sustained significant water damage.
Naples, FL May 21, 2009 -- GenealogyBank.com, a leading online provider of newspapers and historical documents for family history research, announced today the release of thousands of U.S. Military records. The historical documents collection at GenealogyBank.com now features over 200 years and millions of U.S. Military records and reports. In honor of Memorial Day, the list of officers that served in the Revolutionary War is now free online at www.genealogybank.com/free/.
A new Russian language website – www.Jekl.ru – is helping Jewish families discover their ancestors and visit their gravesites in St. Petersburg’s Preobrazhenskiy Jewish Cemetery.
The extensive site, developed by the Jewish Community of St. Petersburg and supported by local businessman Mikhail Khidekel features a searchable archive and photographs of headstones and gravesite.
The following announcement was written by Calico Pie Ltd.:
21st May, 2009 - Calico Pie today formally announced the release of version 4 of Family Historian, the UK’s leading genealogy software program.
“The new release is designed to make Family Historian as easy to pick up and learn, and as easy and fun to use, as we could make it”, said Simon Orde, managing director of Calico Pie. “We’ve got a completely new component window called the Focus Window which is the new hub of the program. It’s a big step forward in user interface terms. At the same time we’ve completely re-written the Property Box – the main data entry window – to make it much easier and nicer to use too. There are also a lot of new features relating to pictures and multimedia which is another big focus of the new version. And there are loads of other great new features. Family Historian has always been a very innovative program, and there’s a lot of innovation in version 4”.
The crown of New York's Statue of Liberty is due to reopen to visitors for the first time since it was closed after the 2001 September 11 attacks.
Reporters and photographers caught a glimpse of the view which will open to the public again on July 4, American Independence Day. You can watch the video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8060540.stm.
"HCommerce: The Business of Hacking You," is as a documentary online video (sponsored by McAfee) in five segments posted every two weeks at www.stopHcommerce.com, which puts the focus on a family that lost $400,000 in a complex genealogy-related e-mail scam.
The Spears family of Portland, Oregon, lost about $400,000 when Janella Spears fell for the scam promising the lost fortune of a dead relative, J.B. Spears, in Africa. The documentary tells how Janella Spears, avidly interested in genealogy, was convinced the lost fortune of J.B. Spears was out there as the crime group going after her money even showed her a death certificate for him.
For sale: 13 acres, 4.5 of them undeveloped. Easy access to public transportation. Walking distance to the waterfront. Historical details. Lush landscaping. Well maintained by its landlord of more than a century.
One last thing: It’s a cemetery, one that comes with 6,500 filled graves.
I have written before about tiny "netbook" computers. You can read my earlier article, Is a $400 Netbook Useful?, at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/12/is-a-400-netboo.html. I took my 2.2-pound MSI netbook to the recent NGS Conference and demo'ed this newsletter to many conference attendees on the tiny system. Now Amazon is accepting orders for what appears to be the hottest new netbook on the market but is not yet promising a ship date.
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA is being sold for $409.99 and includes Windows XP, a 160 gigabyte hard drive, one gigabyte of memory (expandable to two gigabytes) and a 10-inch screen. It also includes built-in wi-fi wireless networking, a wired ethernet networking connection, and a 1.66 gigahertz Atom CPU (central processor). It has a keyboard that is 92% the size of a standard keyboard which should be sufficient to meet the needs of touch typists. It also has a 9.5-hour battery! Yes, you can use it for nine and a half hours before charging it.
The acting director of the National Archives and Records Administration will not appear tomorrow before a House subcommittee to explain the possible theft of a hard drive with one terabyte's worth of sensitive data from the Clinton administration, according to congressional staffers. Lawmakers instead will receive regular updates from the NARA inspector general's office as they continue their investigation.
Genealogies recorded in family Bibles have been compiled into a resource guide under the care of the Tennessee Society Daughters of the American Revolution. The result is "Genealogy Bible Treasurers," subtitled "A Digital Photo Preservation and Index of Pre-Depression Era Bible Records."
Online service Geni has added options to the Advanced Search interface to help you find profiles that previous searches may have overlooked. The first option lets you search names using soundex or metaphone to find profiles with alternate spellings. Each uses a different matching technology, so you can try the same search with each to see what works best for your particular search terms.
Thirteen collections were added or updated on the FamilySearch Record Search pilot—over 3.5 million new records. International researchers will be excited to know that collections were added for Brazil, Czech Republic, and Italy.
In the United States, collections were added for Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
The following was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:
The Federation of Genealogical Societies and Arkansas Genealogical Society invite you to four full days of genealogical education (and fun) surrounded by others who understand what you do and actually want to talk about it. The 2009 Conference “Passages through Time” will be held September 2-5, 2009 in beautiful and amazing Little Rock, Arkansas. Four days? Arrive on Tuesday, September 1st and make it 4.25 days!
I recently had a chance to talk with Dr. Donna Walcovy about her work restoring and preserving tombstones and cemeteries. She also reveals some secrets for cleaning and protecting different types of stones. Donna also spent some time describing the activities of the Association of Gravestone Studies.
Roots Television recorded our conversation and has now made it available online.
The following announcement was written by Familyrelatives.com:
The world's largest collection of Canadian Civil Service records are now available on the internet.
Familyrelatives.com today launched over 200,000 Canadian Civil Service records for the period 1872-1918. The fully searchable records offer a fascinating insight into the machinery of government - from the Governor General's office and those employed in Parliament (House of Commons & Senate) to the 10 people in the "Slide and Boom" Service of the Inland Revenue all of whom are meticulously accounted for. The online records reveal the civil servants name, position, department, length of service, salary and date of appointment.
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