The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
OneGreatFamily is seeking an Online Marketing Director who can hit the ground running in managing our Internet advertising programs (all except the Affiliate program) in order to grow revenue profitably. The successful candidate will aggressively grow monthly new subscription revenue by being customer-centric and working to ensure that our internet advertising effectively reaches and converts new subscribers. This position reports directly to the Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales at the company's headquarters in Springville, Utah.
A muster roll from the Thomson Guards, a McDuffie County company that had been part of the 10th Regiment of Georgia Volunteers of the Confederate Army, has been found. This document apparently had been in a box at the Augusta Genealogical Society and seems to not have been opened for many years. The list of names is a human snapshot of local Confederate soldiers.
Other documents in the box include member applications for the now defunct Ida Evans Eve United Daughters of the Confederacy chapter in Thomson, which formed three decades after the Civil War. Also included are old UDC charters and scrapbooks of the group's activities during the early 1900s.
Arriving about 8 PM this evening at exactly 7 pounds, I would like to introduce you to Sadie Anne Raffaele. She is my first grandchild, the daughter of my daughter and son-in-law, Kelly and David Raffaele.
Sadie was my mother's name (the great-grandmother of the new-born) and she was named for her Aunt Sadie so the name goes back in the family to the 1870s.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
SALT LAKE CITY—A major 2010 highlight in Salt Lake City was definitely A Celebration of Family History—a once-in-a-lifetime event that will never be forgotten by those fortunate enough to have attended. Now, all can enjoy this remarkable, inspiring event on DVD. To purchase the video (which will sell for $4.50, includes shipping and handling) or watch video highlights, go to celebration.familysearch.org.
The following announcement was written by GenealogyBank:
Reports Over 700 Million Family History Records Now Online.
Naples, FL - October 26, 2010 – GenealogyBank, a leading online newspaper archive for family history research, reports explosive growth in its collections. Celebrating its fourth anniversary, GenealogyBank now has over 700 million family history records and is actively digitizing more newspapers—adding records daily.
Michigan State University is using a federal grant to help preserve some of its most important digital records, including its catalog of academic programs. The three-year, $251,079 grant is from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and is funding the “Spartan Archive,” a prototype of an electronic records archive for what are known as “born-digital” records.
Today I downloaded and installed a new iPhone application created by Pattie Schultz: Everyday Genealogy. This cute desk calendar provides a genealogy tip a day. It also allows you to bookmark dates of interest and to research off that list. Finally, the program maintains a "genealogy to-do list."
Installation was simple, the same as any other iPhone application. Tap APP Store, search for Everyday Genealogy and then tap the price of $3.99 to purchase the application. The entire process required only a few seconds.
Talk about ancient history! Google and the Israeli Antiquities Authority have teamed up to digitize and make high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
Google has been scanning books and documents for years as part of its partnership with libraries around the world. Several million dollars will now fund a special implementation of the technology, as the Dead Sea fragments will all be scanned using a NASA-developed imaging system. The scans will be hosted by Google, which will pair them with translation tools.
In the October 08, 2010 newsletter at http://goo.gl/lhtn, I wrote about the explorations of Christopher Columbus. I also wrote, "There is modern scientific evidence that Columbus' men also brought syphilis back from the New World." A new article in The Daily Mail Online disagrees. The article, by Niall Firth, claims, "...now scientists have found evidence that the disease existed in Europe long before Columbus was even born."
In the April 15, 2010 (at http://goo.gl/tNsK) and again in the May 23, 2010 (at http://goo.gl/YB28) newsletters, I wrote about the new Slate computer reportedly being designed by Hewlett-Packard. I reported, "Now an HP exec has confirmed that the company is developing a WebOS slate computer which 'should be available by October.'"
The company lived up to its promise. It is now October and Hewlett-Packard has announced the new computer is now available for sale. However, the new computer is targeted primarily at businesses and HP doesn't expect to sell many to private individuals.
(Click on the image to the right to see a larger picture.)
The century-old two-story Victorian house on Holland Island in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay collapsed last week. It had been the last house left standing in the abandoned watermen's community. Now, it too, is gone.
The tale of the house illustrates the Chesapeake's problem with rising oceans and sinking land. It has already erased life on most of the bay's islands and now is threatening to erase the islands themselves. Once thriving communities are now abandoned. In fact, most of them are under water at high tide.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
I had a great time last week in Salt Lake City. I attended a couple of meetings, including one all-day meeting in which I took a lot of notes. I also visited the Family History Library three times and, again, I took a lot of notes. In fact, I have pages and pages of notes.
I wrote all the notes on an iPad, using Apple's optional external keyboard. The 1.5-pound iPad is a great note-taking system if you use the $69 external keyboard dock. However, what really pleased me this time was the note-taking software that I used. Not only were my notes stored in the iPad, but within seconds the same notes were simultaneously stored on my laptop computer that I left running back in the hotel room, and another copy of each note was also stored on my desktop computer at home 2,500 miles away.
In short, I wrote my notes on the iPad and identical copies of the notes were stored on the other computers I specified, including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux systems.
The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
I have a question. None of my living relatives knows the answer to this question. I have not found the answer to this question in any public records, nor have I been able to find the answer in cemeteries. I have read a few magazine articles and Internet pages about the topic, but none of them have directly answered the question.
The question is… “Why do we study genealogy?”
What makes anyone so curious about his or her family tree? What drives us to dedicate time, effort, and sometimes expenses to go find dead people?
What is it inside of us that makes us spend hours and hours cranking reels of microfilm, then we go home and report to our family members what a great day we had?
The following announcement was written by Library and Archives Canada:
Ottawa, October 21, 2010-Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new guide to its vast collection of federal and provincial publications which were published prior to 1867. The guide lists the publications, which are available in various formats, in chronological order and by geographical area.
The following was written by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:
In response to user requests, for the month of November, 2010, the National Archives at College Park, MD (Archives II) will undertake a pilot program to provide archival records retrieval service for textual records on Saturdays. This pull service is only for records that have designated retrieval information, do not require screening for personal privacy and other sensitive information, and are housed in open, unclassified stack space. This pilot program is for the Textual Research Room at Archives II only. Records will be retrieved for use in the Textual Research Room at the following “pull” times: 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 2:30 p.m.
What ever happened to Uncle Louie? Perhaps you can find him in this new online database! The following was written by Ancestry.com:
Find the Black Sheep in Your Family: Records from Alcatraz and Other Federal Prisons Now Online at Ancestry.com
One in Eight Americans has a Felon in their Family Tree; Find out Where They Did Time for Their Crime
PROVO, Utah, October 21, 2010—Does every family really have a “black sheep?” According to Ancestry.com, one in eight Americans has a felon in their family tree. If you’re curious whether your ancestor is among those who did time for their crime, Ancestry.com has made available online a collection of nearly 75,000 records of prisoners from several of the nation’s most infamous U.S. penitentiaries, including Alcatraz, Leavenworth, McNeil Island and Atlanta. The prison record collection spans 1875 to 1963 and even includes photo ID cards of nearly 3,500 inmates who did time in McNeil Island.
I have written several times about the advantages and disadvantages of storing records digitally for many years, both your personal records as well as the holdings of major archives and records repositories. Now Gary Wright, an employee of FamilySearch, has written a definitive whitepaper on the subject that explains the issues involved with digital archiving. He describes in detail the pitfalls of digital storage of priceless paperwork and of old family photographs that have been digitized. As he explains, if done right, digital archives will last for decades. If done wrong, they may not last three years.
I had a chance to read this whitepaper a few weeks ago when Gary circulated it amongst a number of people in the industry, asking for our comments. I told Gary at that time that he had to publish it on the web and, when he did, to please let me know the address so that I could inform the readers of this newsletter. After all the comments were in, Gary did exactly that. White Paper: Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally is now available on the FamilySearch.org web site at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/White_Paper:_Preserving_Your_Family_History_Records_Digitally
The following announcement was written by iArchives, the parent company of Footnote.com:
Several weeks ago Footnote.com (as part of iArchives) agreed to be acquired by Ancestry.com and that transaction has officially closed today. As we join forces with Ancestry.com there is a huge opportunity to leverage each other’s strengths and move even faster toward our goals. You may be curious about how this deal effects members of Footnote.com? The plan is to continue to run Footnote.com the way we have always run Footnote.com — continuing to do what we believe is best for our customers, our business and our brand.
This morning I received a message from a newsletter reader that disturbed me a bit. He wrote, "I have been doing genealogy research for 10-15 years but only through the Internet." He then went on to describe some of the frustrations he has encountered trying to find information.
I read the entire message, but my eyes kept jumping back to the words in his first sentence: "... but only through the Internet."
Doesn't he realize that 98% of the information of interest to genealogists is not yet available on the Internet?
Maurine Pool wrote an interesting article in the Orange County Register describing her experiences carrying her genealogy database plus more than 200 old family photos in her iPhone cell phone. She attended a family reunion "to meet relatives we had met once or twice before. Some had never met before."
Maurine writes, "During the reunion weekend, it was as if the iPhone was attached to my hand – I even took it out on the dance floor with me."
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