Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Facebook Privacy Flaws Dangerous, Says Report

Facebook is an online social networking service with a very active genealogy community. The company has had some security problems in the past but a new report from Canada raises many more questions.

After a thirteen month investigation, Canada's Privacy Commissioner has announced its finding that Facebook's policies and practices violate Canadian privacy laws. According to Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, there are "serious privacy gaps" in Facebook's operations.

(+) Best Online Backup Tools for Windows and Macintosh

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

I have written often about the need for backups. Indeed, backups are important for any computer user; however, I believe they are doubly important for anyone who records information on a computer and wishes to preserve that information for years, perhaps for decades. That description includes genealogists, historians, and many, many more people who care about their data.

If you are making a backup now, it is not enough! Having only one backup is an invitation for disaster. Anyone who has a single backup stored in one location is only marginally better protected than the person with no backups at all.

GedView for the iPhone

NOTE: This is the third in a series of articles I have been writing about genealogy programs for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The first two articles were "Shrubs: a Genealogy Program for the iPhone and iPod Touch" and "FamViewer, Genealogy Software for iPhone and iPod Touch."

GedView by David Knight is another viewer for your genealogy database. The program runs in an Apple iPhone or an iPod Touch. It reads any GEDCOM file created by any modern Windows, Macintosh, or Linux genealogy program and displays the information in an easy-to-understand manner. You can carry your genealogy data with you all the time. To view your information, simply take the iPhone or iPod Touch out of your pocket or purse, touch the appropriate icon, and then view your data. All the iPhone genealogy programs have search capabilities, and some of them will display pedigree charts. However, not all of them contain charting capabilities.

The advantage of using a program that reads GEDCOM files is that you can use it in conjunction with any desktop or laptop genealogy program, including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux programs.

Godfrey Library Launches Cemetery Project

The following announcement was written by the Godfrey Library:

Godfrey Library in Middletown, Connecticut has begun a long term project to preserve, update and expand cemetery tombstone information originally included in the Hale Collection’s tombstone inscriptions from Connecticut’s 2,200 cemeteries completed in the 1930’s. The Godfrey Library project includes photographs of most tombstones and also includes information often not on the tombstones themselves as well as two to three additional generations of burials.

Video: Burr Oak Cemetery Desecration

I wrote a few days ago about the illegal actions of workers at Burr Oak Cemetery near Chicago. The workers apparently dug up graves, discarded the bodies, and then sold the burial plots,  pocketing the cash. The discovery has outraged those who had loved ones buried there as well as the American public. WGN Television and the Chicago Tribune have now released a news video of this tragedy.

(+) Casefile Clues: A Wrong Last Name Hides a Marriage by Michael John Neill

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

Assumptions can get us into all kinds of trouble.

We've seen Eleanor Frame in "Casefile Clues" before. The native of Whitehaven, County Cumberland, England, was the wife of Robert Frame. She appeared with him and their children in every census in Carlisle, County Cumberland, from 1841 through 1871. Until 1861 she appears as Robert's wife, providing ages that give a birth year of approximately 1815. Those censuses that provide a specific place of birth indicate she was born in Whitehaven, County Cumberland. Robert Frame died in the 1860s, and Eleanor apparently appeared in her last census record as a 53 year old widow in 1871. Despite trying a variety of creative search approaches, I could not locate Eleanor in any post-1871 census. Based upon this, my conclusion was that she died sometime between the 1871 and 1881 census enumerations.

Of course, a death for Eleanor Frame could not be located in the 1871 through 1881 time frame. This search was conducted using the FreeBMD website (http://freebmd.rootsweb.com). Given that it was possible she was overlooked in 1881 (by either me or the census taker), my search of deaths continued after that year. Still no Eleanor. Users of FreeBMD should note that it is not 100 percent complete, so the possibility also exists that her death record had simply not been indexed. First-time users of FreeBMD are encouraged to learn more about it before spending hours searching it.

How DNA Proved My Family Tree Connection

I must admit that I have always been a bit embarrassed to admit that I cannot prove the origins of my own surname. I have been researching my family tree for more than thirty years and have found most of my ancestors back into the 1700s with quite a few families traced even further back. Yet there has always been one glaring exception: the origins of my EASTMAN ancestors. I once remarked in a video interview, "Well, for years I've had this mystery. I have a great-great-grandfather who was deposited by a Martian spaceship...".

Obviously, that's a bit of a joke; but this man's origins remain a mystery to me. It is as if he had come from another planet. I have not been able to prove his origins. Along the way, I have traced the origins of other families in his area who shared the same surname. Indeed, I have strong conjecture and circumstantial evidence of his origins, but I have never found the one scrap of paper that ties him into the other Eastman families in the area. Now, thanks to some great assistance from Katherine Hope Borges and from the folks at Family Tree DNA, I have that proof.

Why Retracing Our African Roots Is So Difficult

Tony Burroughs is a professional genealogist and author. He recently wrote an article for the Anderson Cooper blog, AC360, that appears on CNN:

Many African Americans have longed to know their African roots, especially because our language and heritage have been destroyed by colonizers.

Historians have long documented that large numbers of Blacks were brought from different areas in Africa to what is now the United States. But in genealogy research, researchers have to prove the identity of specific individuals, and then document and prove relationships of them to their ancestors.

Call for Speakers for Toronto Conference

The following was written by the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society:

“Disease, Distress and Disaster” Workshop
28 November 2009
North York Central Library Auditorium
5120 Yonge Street, Toronto

The Ontario Genealogical Society, Toronto Branch and the Canadiana Department of the North York Central Library will be co-hosting a one-day workshop on the adversity that shaped our ancestors’ lives.

The Millennial Disk

You've spent years compiling your family history, scanning old photographs, copying ancestral journals and writing biographies of your parents. Completing each project, you store the information on a CD or DVD disk. Mission accomplished. The data will be there for generations to come.

Or will it?

Today's CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks have an average life expectancy of anywhere from 3 to 12 years.

Who Killed the Men of England?

Harvard Magazine has an interesting story concerning history and, for many of us, our distant ancestors. The article is subtitled, "The written record of history meets genomics, evolution, demography, and molecular archaeology.'

Historians know that something dramatic happened in England just as the Roman empire was collapsing. When the Anglo-Saxons first arrived in the fourth century A.D.--whether as immigrants or invaders is debated--they encountered an existing Romano-Celtic population estimated at between 2 million and 3.7 million people. Latin and Celtic were the dominant languages.

Why Cloud Computing Makes Sense for Genealogy

One of the newer buzzwords in the online world is "cloud computing." You can probably find dozens of definitions of this new technology, but I think the simplest is that cloud computing refers to a computer application running on a distant computer. Your local desktop or laptop works as a "remote terminal," with your local video screen showing what is happening on the distant computer and your local keyboard and mouse being used as input devices for the same distant computer. All the computing power and disk storage is being provided by a powerful computer or perhaps a bank of powerful computers in some distant data center. Your local desktop or laptop simply provides your "view" of that distant application. You can use the application program running in the distant computer in the same manner that you run applications in your own computer. However, you benefit from the power and storage capabilities of those distant, powerful computers.

Note: For simplicity's sake, I will often state “a distant computer.” However, it might not be a single computer, and it might not be in one single location. Many cloud computing applications operate on banks of distant computers that may be located in different data centers around the world. Those details will be invisible to you and will remain unimportant for this discussion.

The word “cloud” refers to the Internet. I am sure you have seen various drawings over the years depicting home computers connecting to distant web servers via the Internet. The Internet is almost always drawn as a cloud to indicate there is a massive collection of routers, switches, and cabling connecting the computers. However, all the complexity of the Internet is hidden from the user. Therefore, it is a cloud. The phrase “cloud computing” really means “running programs on distant computers via the Internet.”

US Civil War Roll of Honor 1861–1865 Published Online by Familyrelatives.com

The following announcement was written by Familyrelatives.com:

One of the largest and most complete Rolls of Honor for the US Civil War has been released by Familyrelatives.com. It is the first time that all 27 volumes have been made available online.

Familyrelatives.com continues with more data additions this month with over 276,000 Roll of Honor records for those soldiers who died in the defence of the Union during the American Civil War.

Ancestry.com Launches Collections of Caribbean Slave Records

The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:

PROVO, UT -- 07/16/09 -- Ancestry.com, the world's largest online commercial resource for family history, today announced that the company, in collaboration with Virgin Islands Social History Associates (VISHA), is launching a significant online collection of Caribbean slave records detailing nearly 200 years of St. Croix-Virgin Islands history.

NC Coastal History Center Receives Grant for Archivist

The Outer Banks History Center is a regional archives and research library administered by the North Carolina State Archives and located in Manteo, on historic Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Its holdings document the history, development and growth of the North Carolina coast.

Each year the Center responds to between 3,000 and 4,000 research requests from scholars, writers, historians, journalists, genealogists, the general public, and such national broadcast media as the History Channel, the Weather Channel, and National Public Radio.

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Archives Go Online

More than 250 years of documented Cumberland County history is now available online. Barbara Bartos, county archivist, said nearly 13,000 historical documents dating from the county's founding in 1750 have been placed on the county Web site. The Cumberland County Archives is dedicated to preserving, protecting and making accessible archival records created by the various county government offices.

Video Interview: Drew Smith

I recently had a chance to talk with Drew Smith, author of the recent book, Social Networking for Genealogists. I described Drew as a "high energy guy" because he is involved in so many genealogy-related activities. He is a genealogy expert, president of a local genealogy society, a prolific author and lecturer, podcaster, editor of the FGS Voice (published by the Federation of Genealogical Societies), and he frequently makes presentations at genealogy conferences all over the country. He is also well-known for being one-half of the team (with George G. Morgan) that produces The Genealogy Guys podcasts.

In this interview, Drew talks about the strengths of local genealogy societies and some of the resources they provide. He also describes the many activities of the umbrella organization: the Federation of Genealogical Societies.

Pocket Genealogist Version 3.40

The following was written by Northern Hills Software:

Pocket Genealogist Version 3.40 is now available for download from the Northern Hills Software website.  This is another free update for all version 3 customers, simply download and install 3.40 on top your current version.  (As always the update is a complete version of Pocket Genealogist.  You can update any V3 release with this version)

Downloads can be found at http://www.northernhillssoftware.com/download.htm.

This version has the following changes:

Michael Jackson in the SSDI

Wow! That didn't take long. Tom Kemp points out that Michael Jackson's entry has already appeared in GenealogyBank's copy of the Social Security Death Index. Details may be found at http://bit.ly/15CeRV.

Governor Eliminates Michigan State Library

This could have a huge impact on genealogists researching Michigan ancestry. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has signed an executive order eliminating the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries and eliminating about $2 million in associated, annual costs from the 2010 budget.