Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

A Sad Experience of Online Data Loss

I have written many times about the need to frequently back up the information on your computer. This morning's news tells of one more sad experience by tens of thousands of consumers. This time it involves personal information that was lost by a failure at a major corporation. In fact, I am amazed that this corporation (a division of Microsoft) didn't have proper backups.

T-Mobile has had great sales success with their Sidekick brand of devices, a handheld computer and cell phone and camera and video player and e-mail device and instant messaging system. Yesterday the online servers that store all the contact names, phone numbers, and more had a failure and apparently no useable backups are available. The T-Mobile web site has a notice this morning that says (in part):

Finally, a Proper Funeral for Edgar Alan Poe

Edgar Alan Poe, the inventor of the detective story and creator of horror writing, is one of the most influential American writers ever. After a tumultuous career, in 1849 Poe was found, delirious and in distress, outside a Baltimore tavern. He was never coherent enough to explain what had befallen him since leaving Richmond, Virginia, a week earlier. He spent four days in a hospital before he died at age 40. Fewer than ten people turned up for his funeral in 1849. His original tombstone was destroyed. An enemy wrote his obituary and damaged his reputation for decades.

As if to make up for all these disasters, Poe is being royally treated this year. Baltimore, where Poe died and is buried, will host a double celebration in honor of Poe's 200th birthday.

(+) Geotagging Photographs

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

This may not help much with old family pictures, but geotagging can be a major addition to digital photographs. In short, geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification to digital photographs, video, websites, or even RSS feeds. The information added typically consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, but it can also include altitude, bearing, accuracy data, and place names.

The Great Miramichi Fire

File this article under “history.” It also may explain why your ancestors left New Brunswick in the late 1820s.

We often forget just how difficult life was for our ancestors. Oh, we may talk about their "trials and tribulations," but what does that mean? Just how tough was it? For thousands of residents of New Brunswick, Canada, the summer of 1825 and the succeeding years were indeed terrible. I had ancestors in Miramichi, New Brunswick, at that time, and apparently so did tens or even hundreds of thousands of today's citizens.

National Archives Lax in Records Management Enforcement?

The National Archives and Records Administration on Oct. 2 issued new regulations that provide more information on managing electronic records. The guidance also tries to make the somewhat arcane subject matter more comprehensible through a question-and-answer format.

But some specialists and open government advocates said the problems that NARA and other agencies experience with storing and retrieving a growing number of e-records are due to a lack of policing, not an absence of rules.

Tom Joyner Seeking Pardons for Executed Uncles

Syndicated talk show host Tom Joyner will appear in a state appeals court in Columbia, SC, on October 14 to seek posthumous pardons for two great-uncles who were put to death for what he says is a crime they didn't commit. Joyner learned the story of his uncles when noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, PhD, announced the results of genealogy research conducted on Joyner's family as part of Gates' PBS special, "African American Lives II."

Volunteers Sought for the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey

The Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey has completed its move to the Barnert Medical Arts Complex in Paterson and is looking for skilled volunteers, including an archivist, to help sort its vast store of Judaic material.

Google Sites Adds Picasa Imports, RSS Feeds, and Templates

Would you like to create a genealogy web site? Free of charge? With no advertising? Actually, it can be for genealogy or any other purpose. Google Sites is a free service that doesn't seem to get much publicity. Yet it is a great place to host web pages for any purpose free of charge. Now Google has added even more reasons to use Google Sites.

Google Sites is a service that allows consumers to easily create web pages by using an editor that is about as easy to use as a word processor. You do not need to know any HTML code at all in order to create great-looking web pages. (A little knowledge of HTML won't hurt, however.)

Each free web site also includes 10 gigabytes of storage which should be more than enough for 99% of all personal web sites. You could create tens of thousands of pages on your web site, if you wish. Google doesn't specify any maximum for the number of pages but all the pages must fit within the 10 gigabyte storage maximum. You can also upload files up to 10 megabytes in size.

Sons and Daughters of the Southern Cross

An amateur historian with a ''bean counter's approach to history'' is leading Australians to an unsung group of ancestors, the first generation of home-grown colonists. These sons and daughters of the Southern Cross have become the devotion, if not obsession, of a Canberra family doctor, Craig James Smee.

Some surprising statistics:

Forty-eight per cent of these children were ''illegitimate'';

(+) Genealogical Privacy

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

Many times I receive messages from people who write, "I sent my genealogy information to person X, and now it is published all over the Internet! How can I stop that?

The quick answer is, "You cannot."

Predictions Best Forgotten

Caution: This article contains personal opinions.

Once upon a time, Microsoft said that Windows Vista would transform life as we knew it. I don't know about you, but my life hasn't been transformed. If Vista transformed your life, please let me know how that happened.

Microsoft also said that Vista would transform the way people worked and played, and address the “needs and aspirations” of people worldwide. Now Microsoft can't even get people to upgrade from XP to Vista: many PC manufacturers sell PCs with Vista installed and then also offer voluntary "downgrades" to XP, due to customer demand. So much for the "aspirations of people worldwide."

Microsoft isn't the only company to have its predictions turn into pixie dust. Circuit City said firing its most experienced salespeople would save the company. Have you been to a Circuit City store lately? Right. They aren't there any more. So much for saving the company.

New Project to Digitize Ship's Logbooks

The BBC reports that researchers are digitizing the captains' logs from the voyages of Charles Darwin on HMS Beagle, Captain Cook from HMS Discovery, Captain Bligh from The Bounty, and 300 other 18th and 19th century ships' logbooks. Nearly 300 Royal Navy captains' logs from voyages dating back to the 1760s. The logbooks will be available on the National Archives website next year.

Michelle Obama's Roots

In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.

In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time. Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.

Powder found at LDS Church's Granite Mountain Vaults is Harmless

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stores millions of records in an underground vault near Salt Lake City. A suspicious white powder caused quite a scare in the Little Cottonwood Canyon vaults this afternoon. However, the powder  turned out to be harmless.

Around noon, 45 workers were inside the vault. Two of them were moving pallets when they found the white powder. Both made contact with the powder, and one got it all over his arm.

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Facebook Suspends Genealogy Applications Over Ads

Facebook suspended several applications supplied by third-party vendors, including genealogy services. Facebook sent email messages to the respective developers, "Your application contains ads that link to landing pages completely unrelated to the content in the ad and thus are misleading." Among those affected were FamilyLink's We're Related and Familybuilder's Family Tree.

NGS Family History Writing Contest: December 31st Deadline

The following was first published in the NGS e-newsletter, UpFront:

Want to win a great award with many benefits? Then it is time to enter your family history in the NGS Family History Writing Contest! The deadline for submitting is December 31, 2009. The winner receives a certificate as well as prizes with an estimated value of $1500, including travel to and from the NGS Conference and Family History Fair in Salt Lake City April 2010 (not to exceed airfare purchased 60 days before the Conference), up to five nights’ hotel accommodations, complimentary conference registration, and a complimentary banquet ticket.

NEHGS Provides Online Access to Leading Genealogical Journals

The following announcement was written by the New England Historic Genealogical Society:

Boston, MA, October 6, 2009 – The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) announces the launch of a new Web page connecting members to a number of the country’s premier scholarly journals, giving them access to some of the most important research conducted during the past 150 years. The new Web page, Genealogical Journals Online: A National Collection represents one of the premier collections of scholarly research available anywhere in the field of genealogy.

Mac Owners also Own PCs

In the recent article, "Survey Results: Please Tell Us About Your Experiences" at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/10/survey-results-please-tell-us-about-your-experiences.html, I expressed surprise at how many genealogists use Macs. As a couple of readers pointed out in the comments, my beliefs about the number of Mac users were out of date. A new survey by the NPD Group found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac which is slightly more than the percentage of Mac-using genealogists reported in my recent survey.

A similar survey conducted last year by the NPD Group listed Mac ownership as 8%.

Teach History Blog

Dan Lynch sent along a link to a very interesting web site created by Ben Edwards: Teach History. The blog proclaims, "Teach History is a blog dedicated to educators of Colonial American history. We provide information about resources, products and multisensory learning methods that can help you inspire your students."

The latest articles include: