Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Metes and Bounds 1.4.1 Adds iPad Support

Metes and Bounds by Sandy Knoll Software, LLC is available for Windows, Macintosh, iPhone, iPod Touch, and now is available in a special iPad version that takes advantage of the larger screen. Metes and Bounds is an application that can be quite useful for some genealogists as it allows you to take a property deed or other such land description that you may come across in your genealogy research, and turn it into an actual plat drawing.

Metes and Bounds supports many units of measurement, including: feet, meters, and varas. It calculates the area, perimeter and closing error of the plot.

Details of 19th-Century Businesses Now on Ancestry.com

Writing in the Ancestry.com blog, Heather Erickson describes the newest offerings on the giant online service. If your ancestors owned a business between 1850 and 1880, you’ll now be able to learn the details of their company, or even their farm, in the Non-Population Census Schedules, 1850-1880 that are now online. This unique collection of agriculture, industry/manufacturers, and social statistics contains the names and details of more than 4 million people and businesses from the late 1800s.

Included in the industry/manufacturing schedules are the company name, a description of the type of business, amount of capital invested, the quantity and value of resources used, the quantity of yearly production, and the number of individuals hired.

Kindle Goes Brick-And-Mortar With Target

I have written several times about ebook readers, including the Amazon Kindle. I expect these ebook readers, or some future, improved version of the readers, will eventually revolutionize the publishing industry. Someday, in the not too distant future, we won't be reading books on paper. We will find that ebook readers are (or will be) more convenient, significantly cheaper, and better suited for displaying books, magazines, and newspapers. Indeed, ebook readers have the capability of saving the dying newspaper industry, although I am not sure that will actually happen in time to save the newspapers.  (I read the Wall Street Journal every day on a Kindle ebook reader.)

If you haven't yet tried an ebook reader, you now have a chance to try one for yourself briefly. Simply visit your nearest Target store.

Sherwood Electronics Launches Branches

The following announcement was written by Sherwood Electronics:

A Genealogy Program that has a Google Earth-like Graphical Viewer for Genealogy and Family History Data

Branches is a full-featured Windows ™ genealogy software program that solves the problem of handling the large amounts of data found in genealogy and family history applications. Branches combines database and graphics software to produce a modern approach to storing, viewing, managing and sharing genealogy information. Branches allows all information in a genealogy database to be viewed on one screen using techniques similar to Google Earth™, from a global view down to a signature on a source document.

Class Now in Session at Family Tree University

The following announcement was written by F+W Media, Inc.:

Genealogists who want to improve their research skills—and make family history progress in the process—will find guidance on the new virtual “campus” of Family Tree University.

This genealogy education website, located at http://www.familytreeuniversity.com, features courses designed to help students learn about genealogy topics on a flexible schedule. Each course lasts four weeks, and students can log in any time of day or night during their course session to complete lessons and interact with instructors.

Harvey Wolf, R.I.P.

Harvey Wolf of Wolf's Head Books passed away last month in St. Augustine, Florida. Harvey had three distinct careers: physicist in the aerospace industry, professor of public administration at West Virginia University (Go Mountaineers!!!), and was co-owner of Wolf"s Head Books in St. Augustine. He was pleased to be a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and to be on the board of the Miami Book Fair International.

You can read his full obituary at http://www.legacy.com/StAugustine/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=141316745

Eternos Launches Automated Life Archive

I haven't yet used this brand-new service, but it sounds interesting. The following announcement was written by Eternos:

Seattle, WA - April 20, 2010 – Eternos (www.eternos.com) announces the public beta launch of its automated life archiving service. Eternos capitalizes on the tremendous growth within the social web, providing users a means to backup online interactions for future personal viewing and sharing with generations to come. Once setup, Eternos automatically and continuously archives Facebook activity, Twitter (tweets), blog posts (Wordpress, Tumblr, any RSS feed), Picasa albums, and Gmail for posterity. Online activity and uploaded files are displayed visually on an easy-to-navigate timeline.

Plus Edition Subscribers: You Can Check on Your Account

The following is for Plus Edition subscribers only: Do you have questions about your subscription? Do you want to know when your subscription expires? Would you like to change the email address on your subscription?

You can do all that and more at http://www.eogn.com/amember/member.php. You then will need to enter the user name and password you created when you subscribed. If you have forgotten your user name or password, there is an option on the same page (http://www.eogn.com/amember/member.php) to have them sent to you in email.

Albuquerque, New Mexico Library Offers a Trove of Hispanic Genealogy

The library, housed in a historic elementary school building, offers resources ranging from New Mexico land grant documents and 200 years of records of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe to censuses and church and government records from El Paso, Texas, and Chihuahua and Durango in Mexico.

The El Paso and Mexico documents are important because “nearly everybody who came this far north went through those areas, so if people work back far enough they’re going to need to look at that information,” said senior librarian Greta Pullen.

Davy Crockett's Marriage License Returned to Jefferson County, Tennessee

In the January 03, 2010 edition of this newsletter, I reported that a 90-year-old woman inherited the 1805 marriage license decades ago, after her uncle claimed to have found it outside a Tennessee courthouse. The county asked her to return the marriage license, claiming that it was stolen and is still county property. The woman refused.

Now, thanks to the hard work and persistence of officials in Jefferson County and the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville, the document has been safely returned to the Jefferson County Clerk’s vault.

River Thames Photography History Unlocked

The Port of London Authority (PLA) has embarked on a three-year project that aims to make it easier for historians and river lovers to search and view the images in future years.

"The PLA archive collection is unique. It covers everything from the initial grand development schemes through to the details of day-to-day life in the docks," said Museum of London archivist Claire Frankland.

"It is an archive of international significance, an invaluable resource for social, economic and maritime historians, as well as those pursuing interests in local and family history."

The Port of London Authority Archive currently includes:

Geneticist Inherits A Mystery: His Own Genealogy

Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse recently applied for a Green Card to work in the United States. He had no reason to suspect that he would be deemed an undesirable. He had not only lived in America for three years, but he is also president of Rockefeller University New York – a powerhouse of American research. When his application was turned down by the Department of Homeland Security, he assumed that it was nothing more than a bureaucratic blip. He was wrong.

The problem was that the details on Sir Paul's birth certificate did not carry the names of his parents. He applied for a fuller version of the birth certificate from Britain's General Register Office. He was not prepared for what was returned.

Cherokee Ancestry Conference in June

The ninth annual Cherokee Ancestry Conference will be June 11-12 in the Osiyo Training Room, 17725 S Muskogee Ave., Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Speakers will include Marybelle Chase, Cherokee author, genealogist and historian; Linda Donelson, Cherokee Nation Real Estate Services director; Catherine Foreman Gray, Cherokee Nation cultural tourism interpretive supervisor, and Gene Norris, certified genealogist, Cherokee National Historical Society Inc.

Call To Action - Boston Public Library

The following announcement was written by genealogists Alice Kane and Marian Pierre-Louis.

ALERT: The Microtext Department and Newspaper Room at the Boston Public Library are in danger of being closed and their resources distributed to alternate locations within AND outside of the Central Library in Copley Square.

According to a memo given to department heads last week, it appears that the Microtext Department and Newspaper Room at the Boston Public Library are slated to be closed.

Senator Orrin Hatch Wants to Create Grants to Preserve Records for Genealogists

Senator Orrin Hatch wants to create a grant program to help libraries, universities and local and state governments to preserve their records for future genealogists.

He and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., introduced on Monday the "Preserving the American Historical Record Act." It would authorize spending $50 million a year for five years for grants to governments around the country to help preserve records, whether in paper, electronic or other form.

Podcast: An Interview with David Rencher about the NGS Conference in Salt Lake City

I recently had a chance to talk with David Rencher, Chief Genealogical Officer at FamilySearch. David talked a lot about the upcoming conference of the National Genealogical Society, to be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah on 28 April through 1 May 2010. David talks about the number of attendees expected (pre-registrations are already at  a large number), the exhibits, the presentations, the Thursday evening events, the keynote speeches, and especially about the GENTECH events.

You can listen to our conversation by clicking on the following link:

David_Rencher_Interview_2010_04-19

NOTE: A transcription of this interview is available at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/04/transcription-of-david-rencher-interview.html

Your Suggestions About Podcasts

A few hours ago, I had a chance to talk with David Rencher about next week's annual conference of the National Genealogical Society. I recorded the conversation and that recording is now available on this newsletter's web site at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/04/podcast-an-interview-with-david-rencher-about-the-ngs-conference-in-salt-lake-city.html

I do have a couple of questions and would appreciate your opinions.

Genealogy Conference Coming to Knoxville

The following announcement was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:

Many viewers of the NBC series “Who Do You Think You Are?” wish that they could learn about their own family history. The Federation of Genealogical Societies in partnership with the East Tennessee Historical Society and Kentucky Historical Society is hosting their annual conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, August 18-21, 2010. Some of the genealogists featured on the hit NBC show are making presentations at this conference.

Newspaper Death Notices May Be a Dying Business

Newspaper publishing is a difficult, possibly dying, business. The newspapers are trying to produce revenue wherever they can, sometimes in ways that don't make sense. Many newspapers are price gouging bereaved families with exorbitantly priced death notices in an inept way to try to make ends meet. The result will probably be the opposite of what the newspapers want: death notices will probably disappear, leaving the newspapers with no revenue at all from that source. Of course, future genealogists will also lose a valuable resource.

George Washington's $300,000 Library Book Fine

He supposedly never told a lie, but it seems George Washington was not without his faults. The first president of the United States of America borrowed two books from the New York Society Library in 1789 but failed to return them. Adjusted for inflation, he has since racked up $300,000 in fines for being some 220 years late.

On 5 October 1789, the first president borrowed two books from what was then the only library in Manhattan - "Law of Nations," a dissertation on international relations, and a volume of debate transcripts from Britain's House of Commons.

George Washington did not even bother to sign his name in the borrower's ledger. An aide simply scrawled "president" next to the title to show who had taken them out.