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The following announcement was written by Vertical Horizon:
Vertical Horizon announces update of its family tree application MyBlood 1.3
Extra navigation options further increase the intuitive user experience in MyBlood
Antwerp, Friday 30th of July 2010. Vertical Horizon, the Antwerp based software company, releases its genealogy software MyBlood 1.3. In this new release new navigation options were added to further improve the already intuitive user experience.
In the 1940s and '50s hundreds of thousands of Jews, many still reeling from the Holocaust, arrived in France. Officials urged Jewish emigres to change their names to sound more French. There was no legal obligation for them to drop their family names, but they often were encouraged to do so.
Two generations later, Jews are feeling a need to reconnect with their roots. They are trying to persuade France's State Council to allow them to return to the family names their parents and grandparents gave up when they arrived here after World War II. There is but one problem: French law doesn't allow for reverting to "foreign sounding" names.
The findmypast.co.uk blog tells of new records recently added to the site: 277,834 new Thames and Medway parish baptism records on the site for the period 1721 to 1970.
These baptisms are transcriptions, not indexes, and include, among others, such key London historical periphery parishes as those in Brentford, Deptford, Ealing, Greenwich and Rotherhithe. As well as the Thames-side parishes, the coverage extends down the estuary and the north Kent coast to the Medway towns. This release of records represents the first part of a collection licensed from local specialist Rob Cottrell.
Newsletter reader Jim Anderson wrote to point out a story that should be of interest to officers and members of all genealogy societies in the US. As of October 15, thousands of small non-profit organizations, including many genealogical and historical societies, may lose their tax exempt status if they don't take advantage of a “one time relief” for missing their filing date.
The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Some PDF files can be searched for any word or phrase. Other PDF files cannot. Until recently, the ability to allow searches was at the PDF file creator's option: anyone who created a PDF file could decide whether or not to make the files searchable. That option has now become moot as several companies have created solutions to convert any non-searchable PDF files into searchable PDF files, regardless of what the file creator intended.
Why should you care? I would suggest there are many needs for genealogists to search PDF files. For one example, the books you download from Google Books are non-searchable PDF files. Wouldn't it be a help to be able to search every word in those books for specific names, locations, or even occupations? That is but one of hundreds of reasons you might want to search a PDF file.
In a series of articles, I will describe three of those solutions:
I have written quite a bit lately about ebook readers. I started with an Amazon Kindle several years ago. Amazon has since introduced newer models and has dropped the price several times. Only a month ago, Amazon dropped the Kindle's price from $259 to $189 in response to the introduction of Barnes & Noble's new $140 WiFi-only Nook ebook reader. Today, Amazon announced a brand-new Kindle. The third-generation member of the Kindle family will sell in two versions: a 3G wireless version for $189 and a Wi-Fi-only version for $139.
100 years ago this month, Hawley Crippen was an American homeopathic physician who was arrested for the murder of his wife in London, England. His wife had disappeared and a dismembered body was found under the basement floor of their home Camden Road, Holloway, London. The body could not be identified.
Of course, DNA did not exist 100 years ago. Crippen was arrested, convicted, and later hanged for murder at Pentonville Prison, London. The mild-mannered murderer became a national celebrity and his waxwork stands in Madame Tussauds to this day However, a recent DNA analysis of preserved body parts of the victim have cast doubts on the case. The body found in the basement clearly wasn't that of Hawley Crippen's wife, Cora. In fact, it wasn't even the body of a woman! The 100-year-old piece of skin skin contains Y-chromosomes, clearly indicating it was a man.
FindMyPast.co.uk has just added 184,650 records and 1,003,794 images to the company's Chelsea Pensioners collection for the period 1760-1854. This brings the total amount of Chelsea Pensioner records and images on findmypast.co.uk to 691,520 records and 4,200,729 images.
These records are of men pensioned out of the British Army from 1760 through 1913. It is not limited to residents of The Royal Hospital at Chelsea. The records are referred to as the ‘Chelsea Pensioners’ because the office that administered the pensions was located in The Royal Hospital at Chelsea. That office kept the records for Chelsea Hospital residents (referred to as "in-pensioners") and non-residents (or "out-pensioners") alike. The great majority of pensioned soldiers were out-pensioners and did not reside at the Hospital itself.
I'm almost willing to travel to Fairbanks for this garage sale! If you live in or near Fairbanks, you might not want to miss this event. Candy Waugaman and her friends are again hosting a garage sale of historic proportions this weekend.
The noted Fairbanks collector and archivist of Alaskana will be offering books, photos, postcards, magazines, certificates, brochures, buttons, pins, panoramic photographs, glassware, furniture and “all kinds of ephemera” from Friday through Sunday.
With all the genealogical information being made accessible on the Internet, some might think this is the golden age of family history. To Curt B. Witcher, however, we may be entering a new dark age where vital records and the memories of people alive today are lost forever.
"At the same time we have more (technological) ability we are losing interest and focus on keeping the thoughts and the words for future generations," Witcher said.
Are you planning to attend the FGS conference in Knoxville? If so, bring your old family photographs! The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
Schedule a Free Photo Detective Consultation at FGS with Maureen Taylor!
FamilySearch will be hosting Maureen Taylor, Photo Detective, as a free service to FGS conference goers in Knoxville, Tennessee August 18–21. The Photo Detective services will be offered as part of the FamilySearch booth’s activities in the exhibit hall during the conference. Interested individuals can register for any available 10 minute session now online. There are limited sessions available. Don’t delay! Register at http://photodetective.eventbrite.com/.
Ancestry.com Inc., the world's largest online family history resource, today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2010 and the news was all good news:
Ancestry.com Subscriber Growth of 32% Year-Over-Year Total Revenue Up 36% Year-Over-Year
"Greater than anticipated subscriber additions drove impressive performance in the quarter and boosted our revenue and EBITDA expectations for the full year," said Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Ancestry.com. "It's particularly noteworthy that retention rates and customer behavior trends are remaining consistent despite the rapid subscriber growth in the first half of 2010. As we move forward, we will continue our focus on building awareness of the family history category, improving the customer experience and adding important content collections to Ancestry.com."
The following announcement was written by the National Park Service:
NEW YORK, New York, July 28, 2010 - The National Park Service has awarded more than $29 million in contracts to repair the seawall on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, remove contaminants from one of the island's historic buildings and upgrade the communications infrastructure.
Opened on January 1, 1892, Ellis Island became the nation's premier federal immigration station, processing more than 12 million immigrant steamship passengers before it was closed in 1954. Today, over 100 million Americans, one third of the population, can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America at Ellis Island.
MacFamilyTree 6 has arrived. The latest version of the Macintosh genealogy program has been in public beta test for several weeks. (See my earlier article at http://tinyurl.com/2awyyb3.) Now the beta period has ended and the program is declared ready.
MacFamilyTree's new version 6 is claimed to be the most significant update in program's 12 year-long product history. Notable new features include:
GedView is an iPhone/iPod/iPad viewer and recording tool for your genealogy database when you are out and about researching local records, or visiting locations such as graveyards looking for information. GedView acts as a way to quickly check up on family relationships, dates/locations of events, sources of information, and view your notes, or record newly found information while you are out researching. It is compatible with all iPhone/iPod/iPad devices running iOS 3.0 or above. Now author David A Knight has released a new version: 2.14.2 .
GedView works with any desktop genealogy program for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux. It imports data from standard GEDCOM files. All of today's genealogy programs can create GEDCOM files. GedView will:
Ancestry.com Inc. (ACOM) is scheduled to announce earnings after the market closes on Thursday, July 29th. The consensus amongst most analysts is that ACOM is going to announce a profit of about 15 cents per share.
ACOM has gained 37 cents (2.04 percent) during the past week and is currently trading above its 20-day, 50-day and 200-day moving averages.
The following was written by the Michigan Genealogical Council:
Dear Genealogists,
There has been some confusion and some misinterpretation about the MCIR Board report released by Governor Granholm. With so much uncertainty surrounding the collections and the Library of Michigan this past year, rumors and misinterpretations increase exponentially each time they are repeated.
The 1802 Militia Survey is more than just a military record - it's a list of every man in the Burgh of Perth aged 18 to 45 in the area who was suitable for service, 40 years before the first official census. Each return includes the address, the householder's name and occupation, and a list of the eligible inhabitants. It serves as a great census substitute.
In 1802, a form was sent out to householders within the Burgh of Perth requiring them to list the name of every man in their house aged 18 to 45, who was liable for service with the militia. The returns may include:
The following announcement was written by Art.com Inc.:
Seasoned Marketing Executive Andrew Wait Joins as Chief Marketing Officer for World's Leading Online Specialty Wall Art Retailer
SAN FRANCISCO, July 27 -- Art.com Inc., the world's leading online specialty provider of wall art products and services, today announced the hiring of Andrew Wait as chief marketing officer. Wait brings more than twenty years of marketing, merchandising, and product development experience to this position. He will oversee Art.com Inc.'s overall marketing operations and strategy, including online marketing, international marketing, user experience and product management, branding and business development.
The following was written by the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree:
42nd Annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree Friday through Sunday, June 10 through 12, 2011 Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel Burbank, California
The Southern California Genealogical Society announces a call for lecture proposals for the 42nd Annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree, to be held at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, Burbank, California, Friday through Sunday, June 10 through 12, 2011. With over 1700 participants, volunteers, speakers and exhibitors in 2010, Jamboree is the second largest genealogical conference in the United States.
Vertical Horizon announces update of its family tree application MyBlood 1.3
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