Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Ancestral Embarrassment or Entrepreneur?

John Reiniers has written an article in Hernando Today that describes the embarrassment of finding an ancestor who was a bit less than an upstanding pillar of the community. As John writes, "It came as quite shock to me that one of my Dutch ancestors was known as 'Manhattan's first and most famous prostitute.'"

Yes, if your ancestry includes anyone in New Amsterdam in the 1630s, now is the time to pull out your pedigree charts and look for the name Grietje Reiniers (sometimes Reyniers). It seems that she had quite a few children but the fathers are not well documented. We can assume that most of these children married and spawned more generations, resulting in many thousands of descendants of Grietje Reiniers being alive today.

Ellis Island 1906 - The Video

What was Ellis Island like when your ancestors arrived? Well, they didn't have instant video and various newscams around in those days, but there were a very few motion picture cameras available. One of those cameras was used on Ellis Island in 1906 and the video is now available on YouTube.

The video depicts scenes at the Immigration Depot and a nearby dock on Ellis Island. The video appears to show, first, a group of immigrants lined up to board a vessel leaving the island, then another group arriving at the island and being directed off of the dock and into the Depot by a uniformed official.

19th century British Library Newspapers Online

The following announcement was written by the British Library:

June 17, 2009 -- Available for the first time at http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs, The British Library, in partnership with JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and Gale, part of Cengage Learning, has today launched the public version of its 19th century British Library Newspaper website.

Bathing machines, children as young as nine smoking and drinking, Vesta Tilley - London's very own Pop Idol, the banking collapse of 1878 and zero percent income tax are just a few of the fascinating items researchers can now look at online.

FamilySearch Record Search Update: Louisiana and Idaho Death Indexes - Part of Six Million New Records Added

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

17 June 2009

Six million new records were added to the FamilySearch Record Search pilot this week. The much anticipated Louisiana and Idaho death records are now available. The states of Delaware, District of Columbia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Mexico were added to the 1920 U.S. Census collection. Digital images of church records were also added for Mexico (Baja California, and Baja California Sur).

Ontario's Archives Relocated to a Safe Place

Ontario's provincial archive, which was deteriorating because of poor storage conditions downtown, is now safe in a state-of-the-art facility at York University. The long-awaited facility, which officially opened yesterday, is being leased by the province for $5.3 million a year and will house a $400 million treasure that dates back to 1729.

More Information About Google Wave

Two weeks ago  I wrote about a newly-announced product from Google, called "Google Wave." In that article, I wrote, "The Wave may offer tremendous potential for genealogy projects, especially for group efforts when multiple people are working towards a common goal."

The Google announcement at that time sounded great but gave very few details about the inner workings of Wave. Now Stephen O'Grady has spent some time evaluating Google Wave and has published his thoughts. The article is not specific to genealogy although I suspect that any experienced genealogist can read O'Grady's article and then envision future projects.

Family Petitions Town to Dig Up War of 1812 Hero

About 200 people, all a part of a group called the Pike Family Association, are looking for answers about their most famous namesake.

Brigadier General Zebulon Pike was a War of 1812 hero who discovered the famous Pike's Peak in Colorado. His grave sits in Sackets Harbor, New York, at the Military Cemetery, but a recent study showed that officials are not 100 percent sure it's actually Pike's body in the grave. They're hoping for closure.

"When we found out that the Army wasn't totally sure who was buried in the grave, we said DNA can answer that question,” said Stu Pike of the Pike Family Association.

So, the Pike Family Association is asking the Village of Sackets Harbor for permission to dig up the grave and test any DNA.

Obama's Records to be Measured in Petabytes

And you think YOU have record keeping problems!

Paul Bedard, writing in Washington Whispers, notes that the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration has to copy, sort, file, and organize a huge collection of presidential records, most of which are electronic.

FamilySearch Indexing Update: New User Tools and 4 International Projects Added

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

16 June 2009
Overview

Significant updates were made recently to the FamilySearch Indexing application and Web site. Batch Sharing seems to be the most popular of the new features. Following are brief descriptions of the updates:

(+) Casefile Clues by Michael John Neill: A Widow Proves Her Marriage

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

From a genealogy standpoint, the best pension file is one for a widow who can't remember where she got married. In this "Casefile Clues" column, we look at one such case which I found quite by accident.

The Revolutionary War Pension files are one of the really nice databases on Footnote.com. The microfilmed copies of these records were converted to digital format and placed on the Footnote.com subscription website. When these images were first uploaded, I almost did not search them. I thought I had already searched the pension files adequately for my families during that time period. I had used Virgil White's Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pensions and had searched them for all the names of my Revolution era ancestors. But I went ahead and performed a search.

Opera Releases an Updated Web Browser That Puts You on the Web

Knowledgeable Windows users have known for years about the various security issues associated with Internet Explorer. Macintosh users quickly stumble across the shortcomings of the free Safari web browser. Users of both operating systems usually upgrade to better web browsers, namely Firefox or Opera. The producers of Opera have now released a major update that includes several features not found in any other web browser.

Opera 10.0, dubbed Opera Unite, radically extends what you are able to do online. The new version even includes a full-fledged Web server. You can use your Windows or Macintosh system as a web server while you continue to use the same system for all the other tasks you normally use.

Family History Expo Call for Papers

The following announcement was written by Family History Expo:

Colorado Family History Expo June 12-13, 2009 Submissions ~ closed	Wyoming Family History Expo July 17-18, 2009 Submissions ~ closed	Salt Lake City Family History Expo August 28-29, 2009 Submissions ~ closed
California Family History Expo October 16-17, 2009 Submissions deadline ~ June 19, 2009	Mesa, Arizona Family History Expo January 22-23, 2010 Submissions deadline ~ July 20, 2009	St. George, Utah Family History Expo February 26-27, 2010 Submissions deadline ~ August 31, 2009

Submissions will close once schedule is fully selected. Don't delay submit today!

Find Genealogy Books For Sale on Biblio.com

Biblio is a book search engine which indexes more than 50 million books from over 5,500 independent bookstores. You can find everything from rare first editions to books which are less rare but still definitely out of print. You can search for used, rare, and out of print books as well as textbooks. I used Biblio today to search for out of print genealogy books. I really looked at the site out of curiosity but I guess it was more effective than I had expected: I bought a book.

Jeff Kintop Appointed Nevada's New State Archivist

Longtime state employee Jeff Kintop has been named Nevada's new state archivist. Kintop, 58, has been the state archives manager since 1991 and worked in university, state history and archives positions since 1979. He replaces Guy Rocha, who retired in February after 28 years in the position of running the Nevada State Library and Archives.

National Genealogy Hall Of Fame

The following announcement was written by the (U.S.) National Genealogical Society:

The National Genealogy Hall of Fame program honors outstanding genealogists whose achievements in the field of American genealogy have had a great impact on our field. The 2009 selection is Willard C. Heiss, an Indiana Quaker scholar.  He was born in 1921 in Randolph County, Indiana and attended Indiana University and during World War II served in the Navy. After 25 years as administrator of the Records and Microfilm Division of the City of Indianapolis, he retired in 1986 after bringing order out of chaos in the city’s archives. At the same time he also retired as chairman of the Family History Section of the Indiana Historical Society and editor of its publication Genealogy. He died two years later in 1988 at 67 years of age.

BBC1 asks again Who Do You Think You Are?

Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, Big Brother presenter Davina McCall and Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles are to all feature in the new run of BBC1’s genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?

Nine Years of Genealogy Grants

Nine years ago -- back in May 2000 -- Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak started the Honoring Our Ancestors Grants Program.  It's a modest program run and funded by Megan with the help of her good-natured husband, Brian.  The only requirement is that the grants be for some sort of genealogically-oriented initiative.

What To Do When Your Web Site Moves

A newsletter reader asked a question this week that I was able to answer. However, I bet many other folks have the same question so I decided to publish the answer here so that everyone can see it.

Geocities has announced the online hosting service is shutting down. This has been a very popular provider of free web pages, especially amongst genealogists. I suspect there are there are thousands of genealogy sites stored on Geocities. All of them will disappear within a few months. Some other free web hosting services have also closed their doors recently and I wouldn't be surprised if more such services close up within the next few months. As a result, thousands of genealogists are moving their web sites to other hosting services.

The question asked this week was simple: "What is the best way to let people know about the link update? I have so many sites that link to my [old] site. I hate those dead links."

NARA Proposed Rule Changes Published Today

In the June 12, 2009, Federal Register on page 27956, the National Archives and Records Administration has published a proposed rule to change the hours open to the public for the Kansas City, Missouri, and New York City regional archives.

U.S. Immigration Files Will Get New Home

The U.S. government was prepared to destroy millions of files documenting every person who immigrated to this country, or tried to, over the last century.

Instead, those records will be saved and the vast majority of them will be kept in the Kansas City area, providing invaluable information to historians, genealogists and the merely curious. They’re called A-files, as in alien registration files. They are the paperwork of the wretched refuse and the huddled masses and everyone else who yearned for a better life in America.