Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Happy New Year

Heading into 2010, I would like to thank the readers of this newsletter for a great 2009. The year that’s passed was great for me. I got to travel around the world, to meet many nice people, to play with new gadgets, and to learn more about my ancestry. I can’t wait to see what’s in store in the year to come.

Thank you all for another great year. I hope you and yours have a terrific 2010!

Why Isn't It Free?

The following was published as a Plus Edition article a couple of weeks ago. At the suggestion of several newsletter readers, I am now republishing it in the Standard Edition newsletter for all to see. If you wish, you do have permission to forward this article to others or to republish it elsewhere for non-profit use. For details, look at the menus on the upper right side of this web page and click on COPYRIGHTS.

One topic that surprises me has appeared several times recently in comments from this newsletter's readers. Some people have questioned the idea of placing public domain data online and charging for access to that information, as is done by Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, FindMyPast, WorldVital Records, and others. One person claimed that it is illegal to charge for access to public domain data, and another reader stated that the online sites are "violating my constitutional rights to view the census."

Sorry, folks, but that simply isn't true.

Roof Collapses at Iowa Genealogical Society Library

Officials with the Iowa Genealogical Society Library said Thursday that the roof of the building that houses their library partially collapsed. The collapse happened during the first major blizzard of winter, officials said. The library at 628 East Grand Avenue in Des Moines suffered extensive damage.

Ten Years Ago Today: Y2K

Do you remember December 31, 1999? I certainly do. Most of my co-workers and I spent the day and evening in the data center of our employer, waiting for the Y2K bugs to appear.

Of course, the bugs never appeared. Instead, we enjoyed pizza and beer, supplied by our employer.

More Search Options Added to the Irish Census Website

The National Archives of Ireland census website has been updated to provide new search options for the 1911 census, including: Relation to Head of Household, Literacy, Occuptation, Marital Status, County/Country of Origin, Language Proficiency, Specified Illnesses, Number of Years Married, Number of Children Born, and Number of Children Living. All thirty-two counties for 1911 are now available on the site.

Fire Destroys Much of Indiana Historical Collection

The Bartholomew County (Indiana) Historical Society estimates it lost as many as 75,000 items in a fire that destroyed the United Way building in Columbus. Historical society director Julie Hughes called the fire a "devastating blow" as the group might have lost up to 80 percent of its collection in Thursday night's blaze.

Hughes says all the society's photographs and most of its correspondence survived as they were stored at its downtown museum.

NGS Website is Experiencing Technical Difficulties

The following is posted on http://www.ngsgenealogy.org:

The NGS website is experiencing technical difficulties and we are working to correct this as soon as possible. Access to the Members Only section of the website is not currently available.

1 Million Hamilton County (Ohio) Documents Now Online

More than 1 million Hamilton County (Ohio) documents - some dating to 1791 - now available online from the Probate Court that will be a boon to genealogy buffs, history researchers and anyone trying to see what happened to great grandpa's belongings when he died. The newly available documents, some 219 years old, include birth, death, marriage, estate, naturalization and other records.

The project started after Probate Court Judge James Cissell took office in 2003 and decided to preserve 1,600 books, each weighing 30 pounds, and their 1.1 million pages by digitizing them and putting them online. Before this, only documents after 1983 were available online. All of the work to place the 1.1 million documents online was done by Probate Court workers except for the $95,000 cost of a private contractor to digitize each page.

Bedford, Virginia Genealogy Society and Museum Resort to Litigation

The Bedford Genealogical Society Inc. has filed a lawsuit against the Bedford Museum accusing the museum of "deceptive" acts. In its written response, the Bedford Museum and Genealogical Library, as the museum is officially known, calls the society's leaders a "disgruntled" group out to "hijack" the organization. At issue: how much independence from the museum the society actually has. The society considers itself autonomous, yet museum officials contend that the society was created as a research arm of the museum.

At stake: ownership of a database of roughly 1,500 county cemeteries, along with more than 37,000 names carved into tombstones. The database is a gold mine for researchers, who can use birth and death dates to find lost branches of family trees and peer into forgotten corners of local history.

9,000 Lane County, Oregon Historic Photos Scanned, 11,000 To Go

More historic images of Lane County will be saved, thanks to new grant money for the Lane County Historical Museum. Fading negatives from the museum archives are being digitally processed and preserved. The project so far is about two years old.

They have 20,000 old nitrate negatives they're trying to save.  Digital Archivist Rachel Byers says, "We're able to capture the image before it disappears and it's also -- what we're doing is we're putting our collection online [at http://lanecounty.pastperfect-online.com/33692cgi/mweb.exe?request=ks]."

Missouri State Historical Society Cuts Hours and Services

Due to a 25 percent withholding in its fiscal year 2010 state appropriation, the State Historical Society of Missouri has decreased its hours open to the public to Mondays through Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

The society will no longer be open for research on Fridays or Saturdays. The withholding ($364,010), caused by the continued downturn in Missouri state revenues, was made public Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Convert an Address to Latitude and Longitude

You can pinpoint any place on Earth using a single set of coordinates: latitude and longitude. These coordinates look like a string of numbers. Once you have those numbers, you'll be able to plug them into a web map, GPS, or other mapping device and find what you're looking for in an instant -- no matter where on the planet it is.

Using latitude and longitude information makes it easy to find your ancestors' homestead, your own house, the county courthouse in a distant city, or any other location of genealogical interest.

The coordinates are similar to the Xs and Ys you used to plot in algebra class. Imagine if the surface of the Earth could be stretched flat. Then suppose you place a grid on top of the flattened world. You could pinpoint any location by finding the spot where the horizontal and vertical grid lines intersect. The horizontal x-axis is the equator, while the vertical y-axis is the Prime Meridian, which runs through the Greenwich Observatory in England.

Geographic coordinates can be expressed in three different formats:

    * DMS Degrees: Minutes:Seconds (49°30'00"N, 123°30'00"W)
    * DM Degrees:Decimal Minutes (49°30.0', -123°30.0'), (49d30.0m,-123d30.0')
    * DD Decimal Degrees: (49.5000°,-123.5000°), generally with 4-6 decimal numbers.

Free Online Foreign Language Courses

Would you like to be able to read documents written in your ancestors native tongues? The Foreign Service Institute is the US Government’s primary training institution for officers and support personal of the US Foreign affairs community. Through the use of language programs and studies, the FSI prepares future diplomats and other professionals who are advancing US foreign interests overseas and around Washington, via communication and whatever else those people do. These foreign language courses are published using federal money, which basically means they are public domain, and thus, available to any citizen who’s interested in learning a new language.

Follow-up: Photos Found of Ellis Island’s First Immigrant

Yesterday I wrote about two photos that have been found that probably were of the first immigrant to arrive at Ellis Island: Annie Moore. Now Megan Smolenyak is asking for your assistance with a third photo. Megan writes:

But there's still a bit more to the story, and that's why I'm issuing this plea for help. Michael Shulman, Annie's great-nephew, found yet another photo - and it appears to be Annie and her brothers at Ellis Island. The problem is that while there is plenty of evidence to support this belief, we can't prove it, so I'm seeking assistance to determine once and for all whether this third photo is Annie.

New York State Military History Online

The following was written by the New York State Military Museum:

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (12/29/2009) -- There are now 53,671 more pages of New York National Guard records available online on the New York State Military Museum website.

Printed out, that much information would take be 18 feet high if the pages were stacked up, or reach more than 9.7 miles laid end to end..

The digital files include 197 issues of the New York National Guardsman Magazine published between 1924 and 1940, and National Guard annual reports from 1858 to 1955.

It's a treasure trove of information available to genealogists, historians, and military buffs with the click of a computer mouse.

Photos Found of Ellis Island’s First Immigrant

The first immigrant to set foot on Ellis Island when it opened on Jan. 1, 1892, an Irish girl named Annie Moore, did not go west and die in Texas, as had long been believed, but spent her days as a poor immigrant on the Lower East Side, dying in 1924. Now, relatives have found two photographs of the woman they believe is the real Annie Moore.

Canadian Headstones Photo Project

The following announcement was written by James A. McKane of the Canadian Headstones Photo Project:

The mission of the Canadian Headstones Photo Project - CanadianHeadstones.com - is to capture digital images of  headstones, and transcriptions of the text on those headstones, of our ancestors. As decades pass -- many stones are becoming harder, if not impossible, to read the inscriptions they originally contained. By archiving the images, we can help save these important records and also assist researchers using this valuable resource.

Growth of the site has been very rapid since inception, expanding to over 23,000 indexed records since July. We have a large group of steadfast volunteers which is ever-expanding. There are a number of volunteers on the cusp of large volume additions to the database at this time.

Thousands of Historic Irish Land Files to be Shredded

Writing in the IrishTimes, Suzanne Lynch warns that hundreds of thousands of Irish land documents, some dating from the late 19th century, are to be destroyed as part of the Property Registration Authority’s move towards e-conveyancing. All this has no legal ramifications for banks or property owners as all documents will be converted to electronic information in a database. Although the majority of land certificates date from the 1970s, some of the land certificates are more than 100 years old.

Old Kentucky Records Resurface

Kentucky land, census and marriage records from the late 1700s to the 1900s have recently resurfaced and are being prepared for public inspection. The books are important for genealogists who want to document history and traditions of family members. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported the books are being indexed to make information easier to find and documents are being scanned so they can be made available for public viewing. The original record books will not be available for the public.

Dictionary of Dublin Dissent – Dublin’s Protestant Dissenting Meeting Houses 1660-1920

The following announcement was written by A & A Farmar:

The launch of Dictionary of Dublin Dissent – Dublin’s Protestant Dissenting Meeting Houses 1660-1920 by Steven C. Smyrl took place in the Unitarian Church, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on the evening of Tuesday, 1st December. The book was launched by Prof. Raymond Gillespie, NUI Maynooth, who said:

“As a work of reference this book is one which readers will find themselves returning to again, and again, and again. It represents many years of painstaking enquiry and will prove invaluable to those involved in historical research. As such it joins the classic work of H.A. Wheeler and Maurice Craig, ‘The Dublin city churches of the Church of Ireland’ in enlarging our understanding of the geography and role of religion in the evolution of the modern city. The book is more than just a work of reference, however. It could just as easily be described as a ‘Companion’, and many readers will enjoy dipping into its pages to learn more about the history of Dublin’s dissenting congregations and their places of worship.”