The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
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Understanding our family history can help us understand from whence we've come and who we are. During April vacation week, the National Archives at Boston (in Waltham) will offer two free opportunities for families.
On Wednesday, April 21st at 10 a.m., a free 1.5-hour program for young people (grades 3-8) and their chaperones will explore Genealogy for Kids. A behind-the-scenes tour of the Archives concludes the program. Then, participants can research their family history. Volunteers and staff will be available to help out. The program is free; reservations are required, as are adult chaperones.
I received an e-mail this week that bothered me. In fact, I often receive e-mails asking similar questions. The questions usually are more or less like this example:
My organization has been entering data for a long time in a general-purpose database program, not a genealogy program. We use Microsoft Access (or FileMaker Pro or MySQL or some other general-purpose database program) or Excel spreadsheets. We have thousands of entries in our database. We now want to put this information on the Web (or on CD-ROM or in a book), and we want to use the report generation capabilities of the Brand X genealogy program. Can we convert our Access (or other) database to GEDCOM and import it into the genealogy program?
The Library of Congress has acquired the entire Twitter archive. Every 140-character-or-less tweet that you have ever sent since Twitter launched in March 2006 will now be available at the Library of Congress. More than 50 million tweets will be available.
If you have hundreds or even thousands of documents that you wish to scan and enter into your genealogy program, Paperless may be just the program for you, if you are a Macintosh owner.
Paperless (formerly known as ReceiptWallet) allows you to scan in and manage your documents and receipts. When you scan in each receipt or document, you enter a few pieces of information about it and then you can quickly and easily locate your receipts and documents. All the digitized images are stored as PDF files and are added to Paperless' database. You can later sort and/or extract whatever documents you wish. You can export individual documents to a genealogy program. Paperless also works well at tax time if you have scanned all your needed receipts, W-2 forms, 1099 forms, and other required tax documents.
The following announcement was written by Family History Expos:
Sandy, Utah – August 27-28, 2010 Pleasanton, California - October 8-9, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia – November 12-13, 2010
Presenters on our speaker list receive direct email with details on our upcoming Expos as they are added to the event calendar. If you would like to be added to our speaker list please submit your current email address to expos@fhexpos.com. Insert "Add to Speaker List" in the subject line. In the main body of the message include a bio of 50 words or less and a brief description of your expertise.
Save Ellis Island, a nonprofit charged with restoring that historic immigrant gateway to America, may not be able to save itself. The group has run out of money and is in danger of closing.
NOTE: this is NOT the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation, but a different group that is the National Park Service fundraising and programmatic non-profit partner for the rehabilitation of the twenty-nine remaining buildings on Ellis Island, with the mission and mandate to raise the funds necessary to create and sustain, within these buildings, the Ellis Island Institute and Conference Center.
The following announcement was written by the Ontario Genealogical Society:
Proposals will now be accepted for the 2011 Ontario Genealogical Society Conference, to be held in Hamilton, Ontario, 13–15 May 2011.
Deadline for Submissions—31 May 2010
2011 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Ontario Genealogical Society. We are very proud of our accomplishments in the past 50 years, but also wish to emphasize future projects.
You may have read about the flooding in the past couple of weeks in the northeastern United States. The waters have now receded in most places but the situation was serious for many.
A homeowner not far from where I live has had a 30 or 35-foot boat parked beside his house for months. The house and the boat are on the side of a normally small stream that flooded far beyond its banks in recent weeks. A sign on the front lawn has said, "Boat For Sale." The homeowner recently replaced that sign with the following:
A new, computer-based search engine for Napa County, California, marriage records from as far back as 1850 is now available thanks to efforts by the Napa Valley Genealogical and Biographical Society and the Napa County Recorder, county officials say.
Though officials are addressing privacy issues so searches can be eventually be made available online, the newly-expanded marriage records can now be searched only on the public computers in the Recorder Division, officials said.
Last Sunday afternoon marked the official ground breaking for the Santa Barbara County (California) Genealogical Society's Sahyun Library addition. First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal, major expansion donors, top SBCGS officers and expansion chairpersons, and the project architect turned the first shovels-full. Each person who attended this groundbreaking also took their turn with a golden shovel.
Grant Brünner has written a nice review of one of the most popular genealogy programs for the Macintosh. He describes not only the Macintosh product, but also Leister Production's add-on routine for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. (It works on the iPad also but only as a small display.) You can carry your genealogy database in your iPhone.
The following announcement was written by Archives.com:
PALO ALTO, Calif. - In response to Americans' growing interest in family history and genealogy, Archives.com, which makes researching family history simple and affordable, has expanded its collection to include more than 1.2 billion historical records and has added a number of new features, including Free Internet Search. Now a single search on Archives.com can locate records from several popular online genealogy resources - for FREE.
I have written quite a bit lately about the new Apple iPad, often called a "slate computer." A slate computer is one that has no keyboard, uses a finger or stylus in place of a mouse, and is handheld.
The iPad certainly is not the only such computer. Other manufacturers have either recently released slate computers or are about to release such systems. The one competitor to Apple that seems to be obtaining a lot of publicity is Hewlett-Packard which expects to ship a new slate system shortly. The system is called "the Slate," an appropriate name. When compared to the Apple iPad, there are several advantages and disadvantages to the Slate. Perhaps the most notable difference is that the HP Slate will use Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. I'll leave that to others to decide if that is an advantage or a disadvantage.The biggest difference for genealogists probably is the fact that the HP Slate should be able to run any of today's Windows genealogy programs. (That has not yet been proven.) The Apple iPad is able to run programs written for the iPad or iPhone, programs that are significantly less powerful than the Windows genealogy programs.
Here is a side-by-side list of the HP Slate features versus the Apple iPad:
Gramps is a genealogy program primarily developed for Linux and UNIX-like operating systems, but it is also available for Windows and Mac OSX. Gramps is easy to use and does a great job of organizing your genealogy research. Best of all, Gramps is available free of charge. Now the program has a newly-designed web site.
In 2082, your descendants will be able to check your handwriting. For the first time ever, original census forms filled out by residents will be preserved and scanned. Digital images will be kept and will be released to the public in 72 years.
The original pieces of paper will be scanned, then shredded. The digital images will be preserved.
130 million household forms will be converted into permanent electronic records. The images will even include notes scribbled in the margins. You DID write some extra information that will benefit your descendants, didn't you?
The mighty British man-of-war HMS Somerset was wrecked off Truro, Massachusetts in 1778 during the Revolutionary War. With 64 mounted guns and a crew of about 400, the Somerset was was a very large British warship. It was involved in several notable battles of the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War.
On the night of 18 April 1775, Paul Revere rowed across Boston's Back Bay, quietly passing the anchored HMS Somerset in the darkness. Once he reached land, Revere jumped on a horse, and rode to spread the alarm of the next day's battles in Lexington and Concord. Had the night sentry on board the HMS Somerset been more alert to the nearby rowboat, the course of American history could have been dramatically different.
The following announcement was written by the Guild of One-Name Studies:
The Guild of One-Name Studies has set up a Fellowship Scheme in order to recognise those Guild members considered especially worthy of honour, either because of their level of expertise in genealogy and one-name studies, or for their contribution to the running of the Guild - or both.
In keeping with the concept of a Guild, each individual recognised in this manner will be known as a Master Craftsman of the Guild (MCG). This is the first year in which this award has been given, based on nominations by Guild members and a voting process carried out by the Guild Trustees.
The following announcement was written by the Ohio Genealogical Society:
The Ohio Genealogical Society is accepting proposals for their 2011 Annual Conference at the Hyatt on Capitol Square in Columbus, Ohio. Deadline for submissions is 30 June 2010. Lectures will be one hour long, including a ten minute question and answer period. Submissions for workshops, especially for Thursday afternoon, will be considered.
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