Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

FamilySearch Wiki

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also often called “the Mormons”, owns the very popular FamilySearch.org web site. This web site has extensive online records, downloadable software, and a huge amount of "how to" information. Best of all, everything on the site is available free of charge. Indeed, it is one of the most popular genealogy web sites in the world.

One item added a few months ago to FamilySearch.org is called a wiki. Many people may find that word to be a bit confusing, as "wiki" is not yet a common word in the English language. I would suggest it should be, as a wiki is a very powerful, yet easy to use, online resource. The FamilySearch.org wiki is devoted to genealogy.

U.S. Version of "Who Do You Think You Are?" Inches Closer to Reality

The following was noted in an article in Reuters today:

After securing a product placement deal for the U.S. edition of the television programme Who Do You Think You Are?, Shed Media (SHDP.L) hopes the government will change its stance and allow similar advertising in the UK. The arrangement with NBC and genealogy company Ancestry.com will see each episode make a limited number of mentions of Ancestry.com's research services. For its part, Ancestry.com has made a significant investment in the programme's budget -- both in terms of cash and in kind by carrying out most of the research.

National Archives and Footnote Put Paper Records Online

BusinessWeek has an interesting article by Stephen Wildstrom that describes the efforts of the National Archives & Records Administration in digitizing old records. Wildstrom writes:

The Obama Administration has won kudos for making much of the government’s wealth of data and current publications available to all via the Web. But what about the billions of pieces of information that predate the digital era and exist only in paper form? It’s going to take a while, because digitizing this information is a tedious and expensive chore, but it is gradually happening.

A Geek Funeral

Live the life of a geek, die like a geek. And be buried like one also. While short on details, several photos on Flickr claim to show the final resting place of a true geek: inside a Sun Sparcstation computer (like a PC only much more powerful).

Using a pseudonym of Sam 3.14, the person who took the photographs writes, "I've not seen this topic covered here before even though it's one that will concern us all at some time: what to do with our corporeal remains after we've left for that great data bank in the sky. For my recently departed brother (long illness, don't smoke!), I thought this nice SPARCstation would be a cool place to spend eternity. Yes, he's really in there (after cremation).

FamilySearch Indexing Update: Rhode Island 1905 and 1935 State Censuses and more International Projects Added

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

28 September 2009

Volunteers with Rhode Island roots will be excited about the new indexing projects this week. The Rhode Island 1905 and 1935 State Censuses were added. New international projects for Argentina, Germany, Philippines, Spain, and the U.K. were also added.

New Projects in the Past Week

Thieves Take Hundreds of Cemetery Bronze Nameplates and Vases

Three people have been charged after police in York Region of Ontario investigated hundreds of thefts from local cemeteries over the summer. Investigators say more than 600 bronze nameplates and vases were taken from Beechwood Cemetery and Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Vaughan as well as Holy Cross Cemetery and Christ the King Cemetery in Markham since August.

Police say two men were seen using a pry bar to remove bronze name plates from several headstones on Sept. 15 at around 7 p.m. Authorities were called to the scene and two suspects were arrested. A third suspect was arrested the next day as police executed a search warrant at a Toronto-area warehouse.

National Archives and Footnote.com Announce New Digital Holocaust Collection

Footnote.com has now announced a major new online collection of scanned images of original documents. The following announcement was written by Footnote.com:

Collection includes Holocaust-related photos and records available online for first time

Washington DC and Lindon, UT -September 29, 2009 - The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Footnote.com (www.footnote.com) today announced the release of the internet's largest Interactive Holocaust Collection.  For the first time ever, over one million Holocaust-related records - including millions of names and 26,000 photos from the National Archives- will be available online.  The collection can be viewed at:  http://www.footnote.com/holocaust.

NARA Proposed Regulation 36 CFR 1254

The following notice was received from Marilyn Redman of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is proposing a revision to the current NARA regulations on Researcher Identification Cards.  The proposed rule will require researchers using original records, NARA microfilm, and public use computers at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, to obtain a researcher identification card. Researchers at regional archives are also required to obtain a researcher identification card when there is no separate research room for the use of microfilm and public access computers. The proposed rule also updates our regulations to reflect changes in available technology and research room practices, such as abolishing the three-hour time limit for using microfilm readers.

FamilySearch Record Search Update: 7 International Collections Updated

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch

28 September 2009

Family researchers seeking their Mexican heritage have two million new records at their fingertips this week with an update to the 1930 Census collection. There are also new indexes and images for France, Italy, Slovakia, Argentina, and the United States. These collections can be searched for free at the FamilySearch.org Record Search pilot (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot).

unpaper - Post-Processing Scanned and Photocopied Book Pages

Have you scanned bound books, only to find that the pages are curled near the center binding? You also may have noticed that some of the pages are skewed. A program called "unpaper" may solve those problems. Please note that the software only runs on Linux systems. I haven't yet used unpaper but it looks promising.

Quoting from the unpaper web site:

NERGC Call for Papers Springfield 2011

The following announcement was written by the New England Regional Genealogical Consortium:

11th New England Regional Genealogical Conference
Exploring New Paths to Your Roots
6-10 April 2011

Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place and Springfield Marriott
Springfield, Massachusetts

Lecture proposals are now being accepted for the 11th New England Regional Genealogical Conference to be held 6-10 April 2011 in Springfield, Massachusetts. The deadline for submission of proposals is 1 March 2010. Lecture proposals may be submitted at any time prior to that date by email or regular mail to the addresses listed below.

(+) Publishing Your Genealogy Book on Demand

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

Would you like to publish the results of your genealogy research? Does your genealogy society or family name organization want to publish data in book form? Publishing genealogy books has long been an expensive proposition. Genealogy authors often have paid book publishers $5,000 to $10,000 or more in advance in order to have a book published. However, new business models today can reduce those "up front" expenses to zero, thanks to online services.

There are a number of publishers specializing in short-run books; that is, the publication of small quantities of books. These short-run publishers traditionally have charged the author for publication costs. Most genealogists who wish to publish their findings as books use short-run publishers for printing. Family organizations also use short-run publishers to reprint old family genealogy books that have long been out of print. These are the books you often see on the shelves at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, in other genealogy libraries throughout the world, and in the homes of many genealogists.

Updated Confucius Family Tree Unveiled

Does your family have documentation of most of the descendants of one person, listing two million names and filling 80 printed volumes? The world's largest extended family does and has just released a new update to the documentation.

Confucius (pronounced Koong Fuzi in Chinese) is believed to be the ancestor of all Chinese people with the surname of Kong (pronounced koong). The family clan yesterday released the first updated edition of their family tree in more than 70 years. The Kong 'Clan Register,' which stretches back more than 1,000 years, had not been updated since 1937. According to custom, it should be revised at 30-year intervals but in 1967 the terror and persecution of the Cultural Revolution made that impossible.

Grass Roots Organizing at Its Best

I had a great experience last night. I attended the formative meeting of what will probably become a new genealogy organization. It was an interesting process to watch, and I learned quite a bit.

The meeting was held at the Southborough (Massachusetts) Public Library, where Library Director Jane Cain invited area residents to discuss the possible formation of a genealogy club. I think she was hoping for ten or fifteen attendees. About 65 people walked in, and the meeting room was standing-room only.

One of the first things Jane did was to ask each person to introduce themselves and tell how long they had been researching their family trees and also what ethnic origins they were researching. A very few people reported they had been researching for more than twenty years; most said a few months or years, and one fellow said he had now been involved in genealogy "for about twenty minutes."

As I listened to the introductions, I realized that we "old fogies" who have been involved in genealogy for some time often forget what it's like to be a newcomer. As I listened to each introduction and many stories of families' origins, I was reminded of my own experiences when I started.

Google Books versus Traditional Libraries

Alexis Madrigal is a scholar and writer. His areas of interest are quite focused, so he spends a lot of time in research, both online and in traditional libraries. He has now written an interesting article entitled, A Writer’s Plea: Figure Out How to Preserve Google Books.

Madrigal's article has nothing to do with genealogy or history; but, as I read it, I kept thinking about the implications to genealogists who also use traditional libraries and online resources. Madrigal focused on Google Books, but most of what he wrote applies equally to the Internet Archive, JSTOR, arXiv, and newspaper archives like Proquest and Chronicling America.

The article claims that libraries are sometimes providing a disservice to patrons as "... many libraries are managing their works as if information wanted to be kept cloistered and expensive in both time and money."

Bombay Soldiers Go Online At FIBIS

The following announcement was written by the Families in British India Society (FIBIS):

The Families in British India Society (FIBIS) is pleased to announce that it has placed details of about 15,000 European soldiers who served in Bombay (now Mumbai) into its online database, FIBIS Search, and that these are freely available at www.fibis.org.

The World’s First Footnote Webinar

With a lot of help from the great folks at Family Tree Magazine, Footnote.com has introduced a Footnote Webinar.

Disclaimer: Footnote is one of the sponsors of this newsletter although I think I would still publish this article even if they were not a sponsor. Still, you should know this is not a totally unbiased announcement.

The new free 30-minute introduction to using Footnote covers:

Unemployed Man Finds Anglo-Saxon Gold and Silver Treasure with Metal Detector

For the jobless man living on welfare who made the find in an English farmer’s field two months ago, it was the stuff of dreams: a hoard of early Anglo-Saxon treasure, probably dating from the seventh century and including more than 1,500 pieces of intricately worked gold and silver whose craftsmanship and historical significance left archaeologists awestruck.

When the discovery in Staffordshire was announced Thursday, experts described it as one of the most important in British archaeological history.

Gale and The British Library Produce Nineteenth-Century Online Newspaper Archive

The following announcement was written by Gale Digital Collections:

Archived Publications Provide New Resources for Genealogists

Farmington Hills, MI, September 24, 2009 – Gale, part of Cengage Learning, along with The British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), have made nineteenth-century British newspapers available on the internet. The database, known as British Newspapers, 1800-1900 and available at http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/, gives users access to over two million newspaper pages from 49 different national and regional newspapers from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Chosen by leading experts and academics, the newspapers represent a cross-section of nineteenth-century society and contain illustrated materials on a variety of topics, including business, sports, politics and entertainment.

APG Honors Five Members

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG):

WESTMINSTER, Colo., September 24 – The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) honored five members for outstanding contributions and achievements at the 2009 Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) Conference held September 2-5 in Little Rock, Arkansas.