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The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
I admit that I can be cheap at times. That's deliberate. I don't like paying excessive fees when there are cheaper methods available for an equivalent service or product. I had such an experience during my trip to London. My "solution" was a bit expensive, but still significantly cheaper than paying the standard fees.
I stayed at a Hilton hotel this week that is very close to the exhibition hall where the Who Do You Think You Are? Live! show is held. I have stayed in the same hotel several times in past years and know the hotel's policies and prices well. This year, however, I decided to not pay the outrageous fees.
NOTE: This article contains many pictures. You can click on any of them to see a larger image. You can also save any of them to your own computer if you right-click (Macintosh users can Command-Click) and follow the menus that appear on the screen.
Greetings from cold and rainy London! In other words, it is a typical winter day in the city. However, everything has remained warm and cozy inside the Olympia Exhibition Hall, site of the annual Who Do You Think You Are? Live! show.
Days #2 and #3 have continued in much the same manner as Day #1 (see my earlier report at http://goo.gl/gLL1y.) The hall continued to buzz with a large crowd. Unlike most American genealogy conferences, the majority of attendees at this "expo" attend for one day or for part of a day, not for all three days. The format is designed for this as it is an "expo," not a "conference” as is held in many other locations. FamilySearch Chief Genealogical Officer David Rencher made a comment that I thought was a perfect description. This isn't an exact quote as I didn't write his words down at the time, but it is close:
One of the more amusing stories came from a foreign attendee at this year's Who Do You Think You Are? Live! show. I'll leave her name out of this but I did hear the story from the person directly.
Upon landing at Heathrow, she went through the normal inspections at Immigration and at Customs. When approaching the Immigration inspector, the first question asked was, "What is the purpose of your visit to England?" The response was, "Who Do You Think You Are?"
Megan Smolenyak has published an interesting article on the growth of genealogy on television. Amongst other things, she predicts even more genealogy on the tube next year, including a cooking show where "The chefs create food fare on the open water. Later, they journey to Ellis Island to whip up dishes based on their family tree."
Who says there is a recession? Investor's Business Daily is reporting that Ancestry.com recently saw subscriber growth even larger than expected. The company reported late Thursday that it ended the year with 1.4 million subscribers, up 31% from Q4 2009, and up slightly from the third quarter. It had forecast 1.38 million subscribers.
NOTE: This article contains a number of pictures. You may click on any of them to see a larger image.
Today the long-awaited Who Do You Think You Are? Live! expo, in association with the Society of Genealogists' Family History Show, opened at the Olympia Exhibition Hall in Kensington, a section of London. As expected, the crowds were huge.
I snapped a picture outside the exhibition hall a minute or two before the doors opened. As you can see, the crowd waiting to get in had formed a queue that went up the street and around the corner! Every train that pulled in to the nearby Underground station discharged hundreds more people. The line kept getting longer and longer. I ducked into a nearby coffee shop to wait for the line to thin out.
Friends of Matt Garner will be interested in his latest adventure. Matt presently is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Software Engineer at ReadyMicro, Inc. He has been involved in other genealogy-related businesses in the past. His profile is available on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewgarner, and I have mentioned him a couple of times in past newsletters at http://goo.gl/kYOOs
This week Matt flew from the United States to London to attend the "Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE!”conference. A couple of hours after take-off, a drunken Russian seated a few seats away from Matt started having an argument with a flight attendant. I am not sure of all the details on how it started, but the inebriated Russian soon knocked the 58-year-old flight attendant to the floor. Matt decided to step in.
NOTE: This article contains several pictures that I took. Click on any of them to see a larger image.
I had an opportunity yesterday to visit one of the great genealogy resources found in London: The National Archives. Although housed in a modern building at Kew, The National Archives contains the official public archive of the United Kingdom government, including records covering more than 1,000 years of history.
Many of the records are being digitized, but the conversion of everything is a Herculean task requiring many, many years to complete. Instead, the focus is on first digitizing the most-requested items from the collection, then working down the list towards those of less interest.
The following announcement was written by the National Institute for Genealogical Studies:
(Toronto, February 25, 2011) Louise St. Denis, Managing Director of the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, announces the appointment of Sheena Trait as the new Director of the Institute’s Scottish Certificate Studies Program.
Sheena Tait, born of Scottish parents, grew up in Scotland. Just after Sheena’s father died, someone sent the family an article about her paternal grandfather proposing to submit to a genealogical magazine. This triggered the realisation that Sheena knew very little about her father’s family. The genealogical journey started.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
24 February 2011
FamilySearch Helping Preserve and Provide Access to African Records and Family Histories
SALT LAKE CITY—This month, millions of individuals of African descent are celebrating Black History Month by exploring their family history roots. In the U.S., FamilySearch volunteers have been busy helping digitize historic documents and create free, searchable indexes to them online. Throughout Africa, from Accra to Zimbabwe, where irreplaceable family information and traditions are at risk of being lost due to neglect, war, and deterioration, FamilySearch volunteers are also helping preserve this valuable history so Africans can connect with their roots. Researchers can search the millions of African-related records as they are published online at FamilySearch.org.
The National Archives has posted two new senior executive positions: 1) Legislative Archives, Presidential Libraries, and Museum Services; and 2) Research Services. Applications for both positions are open through March 15, 2011.
The Research Services Executives reports to the Chief Operating Officer and is charged with providing world-class services to customers wanting to access NARA’s accessioned Federal records. This executive is responsible for integrating the scope and management of archival and preservation-related functions for Federal records currently performed by the Office of Records Services-Washington, DC and the Office of Regional Records Services. This consolidation fosters a cohesive, collaborative national program, oriented toward public access of Federal records, that relies upon collaboration of staff teams across geographic and unit-specific boundaries, and a formal management team uniting oversight of archival operations nationwide. Fundamentally, program priorities are founded upon new, formalized methods of listening to, identifying, and meeting customer needs.
Today's newsletter articles come to you from London, England. I arrived in London about midnight local time last night. After a visit to The National Archives this afternoon, I will spend the next three days at the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE! show in London. The organizers expect about 17,000 attendees at this year's event.
I have written often about small, battery-powered computers that can easily be taken on genealogy research trips and elsewhere. These handheld computers are great for portable uses but I often wonder "How small can a computer be and still be useful?" Researchers at the University of Michigan apparently have succeeded in downsizing even further: their new computer fits on the tip of a pen.
To be sure, this is a special-purpose computer designed for one specific task. It does not contain a keyboard or a video screen. All output is performed by a wireless radio with an antenna that can transmit data to an external reader.
NOTE: Photo by Gyouho Kim. Click on the image to see a larger picture.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Once upon a time, such as last week, the normal method of placing a web server online was to pay money to a hosting service and to use that company's servers and high-speed Internet connections. Indeed, that is still the most popular method, and I would recommend it for any serious projects where you want industrial-grade reliability and performance. However, you have other options as well. For instance, you can install a web server on your home computer and let others in your home or even around the world access your web pages. You can even do this while you simultaneously use the same computer for other purposes, such as surfing the web, reading and writing email messages, writing Word documents, or even playing games. Best of all, you probably can do this without spending a dime.
The following announcement was written by the Southern California Genealogical Society:
The Southern California Genealogical Society is proud to announce a new program, the Jamboree Extension Series, that provides family history and genealogy educational webinar (web-based seminar) sessions for genealogists around the world.
Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero issued a proposed plan last week to reduce spending levels at the National Archives and Records Administration. This plan is based in response to the Obama Administration’s proposals for the Fiscal Year 2012 Federal budget. I wrote a follow-up article expressing my opinions about one piece of Ferriero's plan, the proposed closing of the National Archives at Boston-Pittsfield Annex, located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Apparently, a lot of concern has also been expressed about other pieces of the proposed plan, pieces that were not addressed in my article.
Several stories have since circulated about the various National Archives libraries. Apparently, some of the stories in circulation are not based on facts. Today, David S. Ferriero issued a new statement that seeks to clear some of the misconceptions. The following press release was issued by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:
The following announcement was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:
22 February 2011 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announces the establishment of the Sandra H. Luebking Memorial as a way of remembering the work and achievements of an influential leader in the genealogy community, the late Sandra Hargreaves Luebking.
With Sandra’s passing on 17 February 2011, we lost a teacher, a mentor, a colleague and a dear friend who made numerous contributions to the field of genealogy and family history.
The following announcement was written by Ancestry.ca:
Prime Ministers, war heroes, RCMP officials among the names of those found in the records from Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery Registers
Famous names include Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden, James Creighton, the father of organized hockey in Canada, and several of Canada’s most prominent poets
Indexes will complement Ancestry.ca’s existing collection of Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia vital records
February 22, 2011 (Toronto, ON) - In a world-first, Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading family history website[i], today launched the Beechwood Cemetery Registers, 1873-1990, a collection of more than 115,000 names of those buried in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa between 1873 and 1990.
The 2011 Census of England and Wales will take place on March 27. For the first time ever, British householders will have the opportunity to submit their census answers online.
25 million household questionnaires are being mailed by the middle of March, one to every residence in England and Wales. People will be able to complete the questionnaire online beginning March 4 at www.census.gov.uk. The paper questionnaire has a code on the front that will be the key to unlock the online questionnaire.
Like many other archives, the small island nation of Niue preserved their records on paper. Unfortunately, a category 5 cyclone devastated Niue, 1500 miles northeast of New Zealand, in 2004. The cyclone destroyed almost all the paper records. The island's museum, the repository of almost all Niue records, was a total loss. You can see what was left of the museum in the image below.
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