The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
18 November 2009
More free online records for Brazil, Massachusetts, Mexico, Spain, and the U.S.
The states of Texas, Ohio, and Iowa were added to the U.S. 1920 Census at FamilySearch’s Record Search pilot. Spanish researchers will enjoy new civil registration images for the provinces of Cadiz, Granada, Malaga, Spain, from 1837–1870. Over 500,000 new digital images were added to the Brazil Catholic Church Records Collection. These birth, marriage, and death records are from the states of Bahia, Menas Gerais, Paraná, Pará, Pernambuco, and Sao Paolo. Over 400,000 Massachusetts marriage records were added for the period 1906 to 1915, and Catholic baptismal records were added for the Distrito Federal of Mexico.
See the chart below for a list of all the newly added collections.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
18 November 2009
Indexing Projects for 25 Countries Canada, Colombia, France, Guatemala, Jamaica, U.K., U.S. Venezuela. Those are the countries for which FamilySearch Indexing has recently added new volunteer projects. In all, FamilySearch has active indexing projects from 25 different countries currently with plans to add new projects from more countries throughout 2010. Volunteers can help 24/7 by registering and downloading a project of interest at FamilySearchIndexing.org.
Completed projects and digital image collections can be searched for free at pilot.familysearch.org.
I'd consider this to be a major new announcement. The following was written by RootsMagic, Inc.:
SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — November 18, 2009 — RootsMagic, Inc. announced the immediate availability of RootsMagic Essentials, free desktop genealogy software based on their award-winning RootsMagic 4 system. RootsMagic Essentials contains many core features found in its namesake that allow the public to easily start tracing their family trees.
Essential Features for Everyone “Many of our users have told us that they have friends and family members who are interested in getting started in family history but aren’t ready to invest in a more comprehensive package like RootsMagic,” said Bruce Buzbee, president. “RootsMagic Essentials gives them the features they need to start researching and recording their family tree at a price that can’t be beat—free!”
Do you have genetic diseases in your family, such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease, or hypertension? Have you been asked to undergo genetic testing after receiving a medical diagnosis? If so, you may benefit from the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a law that goes into effect at the end of this week. The act prohibits discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment.
Genetic information is broadly defined under the law not only as personal genetic traits — such as having a gene associated with cancer, diabetes, or anything else — but also as family medical history. Health insurers and employers will no longer be allowed to include questions about the health of family members on mandatory applications or even to offer incentives to fill out voluntary questionnaires on the subject.
The provincial government is looking at how to better preserve Saskatchewan's 3,500 known cemeteries and burial sites, some of which are overgrown or even nearly forgotten.
Appointed to lead a review is Al Dwyer, who previously served as registrar of cemeteries in his former role with the province's consumer protection branch.
Here is a "get rich not so quickly" scheme that apparently is legal. It is possible to finance your cryogenic preservation by using life insurance and then leave a huge death benefit to your future thawed self. So by taking the right steps, you can look forward to waking up one bright future morning from cryopreservation the proud owner of a bank account brimming with money.
CNN has a story that every genealogist can identify with: verifying the accuracy of death information is critical. Two weeks ago, on a day celebrated in many countries as the "Day of the Dead," Ademir Jorge Goncalves, a Brazilian bricklayer walked into his own funeral.
The sight of Goncalves alive shocked relatives, some of whom tried to jump out of the windows of the funeral home in southern Brazil.
An article by Michelle Pfister in the Ancestry.com blog describes an update to Family Tree Maker 2010. The update has not yet been released but apparently is imminent. Here are some of the highlights:
DeCode Genetics, a pioneering company that used the Icelandic population and the country's excellent genealogy records as its guinea pigs in detecting disease-causing mutations, filed for bankruptcy today.
The following was written by the Devon Family History Society and by the Friends of Devon’s Archives:
In November 2008, an open letter was sent from the Chairmen of Devon Family History Society and the Friends of Devon's Archives to Plymouth City Council and signed by a coalition of 42 Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall County heritage societies and prominent private individuals. It expressed concern regarding the Plymouth & West Devon Record Office building in Plymouth, which has been designated fundamentally unsuitable by the National Archives and the Historical Manuscripts Commission.
Starting this week, hundreds of Pennsylvania state employees will be getting pink slips. Museums across the state are especially hard hit. The Somerset Historical Center is one of the museums set to have layoffs.
Residents in the county use the center to help them trace their genealogy. The center also hosts a Mountain Craft festival during the fall that draws thousands of people every year.
Megan Smolenyak is a genealogy and DNA expert who has been mentioned many times in this newsletter. She has now written an article for the Huffington Post that describes a number of things. She briefly describes her discoveries about Michelle Obama's roots, information that wound up in the New York Times.
Megan than describes "pedigree collapse," known more casually as "kissing cousins." Perhaps the major emphasis is on about 23andMe’s new Relative Finder, which is a rather amazing service.
A burst pipe at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives has soaked about 1,000 publications and dampened up to 30,000 more. Officials closed the department's research room and the state library reference room.
With MobileTree, New Family Search customers can access their FamilySearch data directly on their iPhone or iPod Touch. In short, you can have your online database in your pocket at all times, and the information is automatically updated without any involvement from you. There is no copying of files, no GEDCOM files, and no other systems tasks involved. Just turn the handheld device on and use it.
Keep in mind that MobileTree only works with New Family Search, the database owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. New Family Search is still in beta test and is available only to members of that church plus a few others. If you do not have a user name and password to New Family Search, the MobileTree program will be useless to you - for now. New Family Search will someday be released to the general public. When that happens, MobileTree and similar programs will become useful for everyone.
MobileTree directly accesses the New Family Search Database for its information, allowing retrieval of the Church's genealogy records. You can access those records from any location, as long as your iPhone or iPod Touch can connect to the Internet via a wireless connection. If Internet access is not available, you may view information that is already displayed on MobileTree. However you may not search for new information without Internet access. The Internet is available on the iPhone through 3G or wi-fi wireless networking. The iPod Touch only works with wi-fi.
If you live in or near Southborough, Massachusetts, you might be interested in attending a meeting of the Genealogy Club this Thursday evening, November 19. I will be the guest speaker at this month's meeting and will be talking about "Google for Genealogists." I hope to show a few tricks for using everyone's favorite search engine.
The Clerical Whispers web site has an article of interest to anyone with Kerry ancestry. The site states:
Almost 600,000 Kerry church records have been handed over to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism as part of a major genealogy project.
They include documents relating to baptism, marriage and death, some of which date back to the 1750s. The records will now appear free of charge on the irish-genealogy.ie website and will allow people to trace their Kerry roots more easily.
During the upcoming Black Friday sales event (the day after Thanksgiving), BestBuy is going to be offering the following system for sale for only $299:
Paint.NET is a free, fast, and powerful image editor for Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. Paint.NET is a giant leap above Microsoft Paint, and a serious alternative to bigger, bloated image editors like Photoshop or GIMP. Being mean and lean, Paint.NET doesn't do everything that its expensive competitors can do; yet, it's a great value for the price (zero).
Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, Paint.NET has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It handles most of the basics you'd expect from advanced image editors, and the latest version has added new effects (including new blurs and distortions), better performance, and a complete refresh of the user interface.
Millions of American families will sit down to dine together in this month's annual Thanksgiving Day celebration. Menus will vary a bit but most will feature turkey along with stuffing, gravy, squash, cranberries, and other vegetables. Pumpkin pie has always been popular with my family as well. Did you ever wonder what the Pilgrims and their Wampanoag Indian guests ate during their first Thanksgiving in 1621?
Unfortunately, we cannot be certain. The Pilgrims did not print menus for their guests. After all, none of their Indian guests could read, nor could very many of the Pilgrims themselves. Most were illiterate. Luckily, several colonists who were literate wrote personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and those accounts have survived. These accounts give a few hints as to the menu.
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