Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Genealogy Programs for the iPhone

NOTE: THis article has been updated extensively and republished at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/11/genealogy-programs-for-the-iphone-ipod-touch-and-ipad.html

32nd Annual Acadian Festival in Madawaska, Maine

The 32nd Annual Acadian Festival will take place June 25-28 in Madawaska, Maine. The festival celebrates the culture and heritage of the Acadians who, driven from Nova Scotia during the 18th century, ultimately arrived in the St. John Valley and established settlements that later became American and Canadian towns.

Much of the Festival will take place at St. David Church on U.S. Route 1. I paid close attention when I read about that location as I have many ancestors who were christened, married, or eulogized in that church. I have been to the church myself for a couple of family weddings. If you don't know where Madawaska is, get out a map of Maine and look at the northern part of the state, the very northernmost tip. That's where you'll find Madawaska.

Price Changes at Footnote.com

Footnote.com (one of the sponsors of this newsletter) is increasing the company's annual membership fee.  On August 1, 2009, the cost of a Footnote Annual Membership will increase by $10 (about 83 cents per month).  This slight increase should help the company to continue to add more valuable content to Footnote and make things easier to find and use. 

However, there is an opportunity to keep your membership costs lowered.

Jewish Genealogy Seminar Calls for Papers

The Israel Genealogical Society (IGS) and the Jewish Family Research Association (JFRA) announced a call for English or Hebrew academic papers in advance of the fifth annual Jewish Genealogy Seminar. The December 1 seminar will take place at the Museum of the Diaspora on the Tel Aviv University campus. This year’s theme is “Preserving Memory: Family and Community” and will discuss various methods of recording and transmitting family and community history.

US Tries to Stop Geronimo Lawsuit

According to the BBC, US officials have moved to block a legal bid by descendants of Apache leader Geronimo to have his remains reburied. Geronimo's relatives say some body parts were stolen almost 100 years ago by members of a society linked to Yale University to keep in their clubhouse.

The relatives want to rebury the warrior, who died in 1909, near his birthplace in New Mexico. But the justice department has asked a federal judge to dismiss their lawsuit.

The society, known as Skull and Bones, is alleged to have stolen some of Geronimo's remains from a burial plot in Oklahoma in 1918.

Government lawyers want to remove the U.S. goverment as a defendant in the case, saying that the government was not involved in the alleged theft of bones. The same lawyers have no objection to the lawsuit's claims against the other defendants: Yale University and the Order of the Skull and Bones.

Shrubs: a Genealogy Program for the iPhone

I like to carry my entire genealogy database with me at all times, and now I can do so with nothing more than my cell phone. My database is sitting inside my iPhone, the cell phone from Apple. If I owned an iPod Touch, I could use the same program on it. Any time I want to look at something in my genealogy database, I can grab the iPhone, enter a few "clicks" with my finger, and find what I want within seconds.

I find that having my database with me at all times is a great convenience when at a library, a courthouse, or even at a local genealogy society meeting or a genealogy conference. Many times I've run across an ancestor that I wasn't researching at the moment and knew that we were related but couldn't remember the connection. Perhaps I met someone else who is researching the same family or the same county, and I wanted to compare notes. I've found that having all the info at my fingertips lets me do a quick query and know for certain if "John Doe" is really my John Doe or someone else's.

Still Another Concord Coach

I have always been interested in Concord Coaches, long considered to be the best stagecoaches ever built. I certainly am not an expert, but I have done some reading and have been fortunate enough to see several of these beautiful stagecoaches in various museums. A few weeks ago I interviewed Tom Howard, who IS an expert on Concord Coaches. You can watch and listen to that interview at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/05/video-interview-tom-howard-and-the-concord-coaches.html.

You can imagine my surprise today when I walked into a small, privately-owned museum about ten miles from my house and found a Concord Coach on display. This is a real Concord Coach, manufactured circa 1867. This one is not an immaculate museum display piece; it was a bit dirty and had grease smeared all over the axles. The upholstery is just a bit frayed. This is a working coach that is brought out several times a year to participate in parades and other events in the area. Even more interesting to me is that this particular Concord Coach is on loan from the Wayside Inn, a historic restaurant that is about five miles from my home. I never knew there was a Concord Coach in this area!

Index of Hubbard County, Minnesota's Oldest, Largest Cemetery is Now Complete

Indexing of Park Rapids’ Greenwood Cemetery’s headstones – from 1892 to the present – is now complete and the information accessible on a Web site. Greenwood Cemetery is the culmination of a countywide cataloging project that began in 1990, Marion Town spearheading the initiative. (Lakeport Cemetery’s index is complete, but is yet to be added to the site.)

Genealogist Darryl Hensel began work on the Greenwood project in 2000 and last year, Beth Waller and Rod Nordberg volunteered time for its completion.

What’s This FamilySearch Alpha Thing?

Dan Lawyer has written a short article in the FamilySearch Labs blog that gives a quick preview of what I believe will be a revolutionary new tool for genealogists. Dan writes:

FamilySearch Alpha is the beginning of a great new world. The purpose of the project is to replace the current www.FamilySearch.org website with a new site at the same address that integrates all of the new technologies and record sets we’ve been working on (like Record Search, Family Tree, Research Wiki, etc.) into one easy to use experience.

You can read the full article and some readers' comments at http://labs.familysearch.org/blog/?p=110.

Ancestry.com Pre-Announces Member Connect

Writing in the (official) Ancestry.com blog, David Graham has described a new feature that will be soon be added to the online service. It sounds like a service that will help people who are researching the same families connect with each other.

David writes:

iPhone 3G S First Impressions

Apple started selling the latest version of its popular iPhone this morning. Rather than wait in line at a local Apple store, I ordered mine online a couple weeks ago with a promise of delivery today. Sure enough, the UPS driver appeared in my driveway at 9:05 AM.

As I signed for the package, the UPS driver asked, "New iPhone, eh?" Then he started asking lots of questions. I think he was more excited about the iPhone than I was. He also told me it was his first delivery of the day to a private residence, and he decided to deliver to me first as he realized the package contained a new iPhone. The driver had other deliveries to make, so he didn't wait around for me to open the package.

Newspaper Archive Hits Million-Page Milestone

Through an extensive database launched two years ago, decades of the country's newspapers can be searched online for major events and history-making names, as well as family connections and local celebrations. The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities have worked together for 20 years to preserve old newspapers, first through microfilm and now digitization.

The Chronicling America project (http://Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) has now posted its millionth page. Eventually the organizers hope to post 20 million pages of newspapers from 1880 to 1922. Best of all, access to the site is available free of charge. "The newspapers provide firsthand and sometimes the only account of local news," said Deanna B. Marcum, an associate librarian at the Library of Congress. The library estimates that 140,000 newspapers have been published in the United States since 1690.

Brant County, Ontario Local History to go Online

The following information comes from the County of Brant Public Library:

The County of Brant Public Library has hired a professional archivist to create a special local history digital collection.

The County of Brant Public Library is excited to announce that Misty De Meo has joined the library to help create a comprehensive digital archive of Brant’s history. Misty is a professional archivist with a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto. Her specialty is in creating accessible and lasting digital images from the precious historical documents that tell our community’s story.

US Cities May Be Bulldozed in Order to Survive

This radical proposal may have a huge impact on historic landmarks and other sites. The Telegraph reports that dozens of US cities may have entire neighborhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered to tackle economic decline.

The government is looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, Michigan, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature. Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent in Flint and the total population has almost halved to 110,000. Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

New Assistant Editor at Ancestors Magazine

Karen Wicks has taken over from Penny Law as assistant editor of Ancestors Magazine, published by The National Archives of Great Britain. Her appointment fills the vacancy that I mentioned in an article on April 04, 2009.

The Ancestors Magazine blog at http://www.ancestorsmagazine.co.uk/?page=blog#170 states that Karen Wicks has just graduated from the NCTJ course at Harlow College, having originally been a primary school teacher.

Welcome aboard Karen!

NEHGS Receives $7.5 million Gift

The New England Historic Genealogical Society has received its largest donation in its history -- $7.5 million. As the oldest and largest genealogy society in the U.S., the non-profit can't believe its good fortune. In the midst of a recession it gets the largest donation in its 164-year history.

"I was of course blown away," said Brenton Simons, president and CEO of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Break from Microsoft Office with Free Alternatives

I have written several times about free alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For my word processing needs, I mostly use OpenOffice.org and a Macintosh variant of the same program called NeoOffice. I am writing this article in NeoOffice. When traveling or when I need to collaborate with others, I use Google Docs or Zoho Docs. Now Scott Spanbauer has written a rather detailed side-by-side comparison of these and other free programs in the Windows Secret newsletter.

Scott writes:

Entire 1911 Census Now Available Online for the First Time

The following announcement was written by findmypast.com:

Records for Wales, Channel Islands and Isle of Man and military serving overseas now online

Following the initial release of the Southern English records in January 2009, 1911census.co.uk now hosts the complete 1911 census records for people living in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. What's more, for the first time in a British census, full details are available of British Army personnel and their families stationed overseas. There were 135,866 people serving in the British Army and 36,804 people serving in the Royal Navy across the British Empire in 1911, including 69,785 serving in India.

(+) Organize Your Life With a Wiki

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.

A wiki is a website that allows for easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.

The biggest example is Wikipedia.org, the huge online encyclopedia that has articles written by and updated by tens of thousands of contributors. Genealogy-specific wikis include the Encyclopedia of Genealogy at http://www.eogen.com, We Relate at http://www.werelate.org, and the new and still-under-development FamilySearch Research Wiki (The beginnings of the New FamilySearch Wiki can be found at https://wiki.familysearch.org).

Many businesses use wikis to create documentation (online user manuals) or to track the progress of a project.

FBI Seeks Owners Of Stolen Artwork

I have written several times about William M.V. Kingsland, a well-known New York City genealogist. You can read my earlier articles here,  here and here. It seems that Mr. Kingsland was more than a genealogist; he was also an art thief. Now the FBI is trying to find the rightful owners.

William Kingsland was not even his given name — he was born Melvyn Kohn and spent his early years in the Bronx before legally changing his name to Kingsland. He thought it had a more literary sound to it and would help him gain acceptance among Manhattan's upper crust.

On a bizarre side note, a mover hired by the public administrator's office to transport the contents of Kingsland's apartment to a warehouse was charged with stealing two Picasso sketches, each valued at approximately $30,000. And, it turns out that was not the first time those two sketches had been stolen…sometime before they ended up in Kingsland's collection they were stolen from a New York art gallery around 1967.