The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
Would you like to print your digital pictures and then preserve those prints for years? It can be done but you must be aware of several issues involved. Newsletter reader Jim Loudon found some excellent online articles that describe those issues. Jim writes:
Hi Dick.
Enjoy the column, been reading it since your ancestry.com days.
I don't know if you or your readers would be interested in this, but Mike Johnston over at his blog, The Online Photographer, has two recent columns nominally concerning the permanence of inkjet-printed photographs but really more about the long-term survival of photographs in general. The URLs are:
Anyone using Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 8 probably is already aware that it is a bit buggy. One of the bugs affects the pages on this web site: http://www.eogn.com. Internet Explorer 8 does not properly display all the pages, even though version 7 of the same program worked perfectly. Microsoft did insert a "back door workaround" called "Compatibility Mode" to make version 8 compatible with all the other web browsers. Luckily, version 9 reportedly has fixed the bug.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer version 9 release candidate (RC) yesterday. A "release candidate" is believed to be the same as the final version. In effect, it is expected to be the last beta test version and will become the production release if no last-minute show-stopper problems are found. With tens of thousands of beta testers already exercising the beta versions, I doubt if any show-stopping bugs will be found at this late date.
The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland:
APGI – the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland – marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding this year. For the past quarter-century it has been at the forefront of developments in Irish ancestral research and heritage-related developments.
APGI was formed primarily to set standards and protect the interests of both genealogists and their clients. Over the years its role has evolved and broadened. As an active constituent member of CIGO – the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations – APGI is loud among those seeking greater access to genealogical resources for the general public.
146 people died in the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 in New York City. Most of the dead were young immigrant workers. The fire was one of the worst disasters since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The fire was a wrenching event in New York’s history, one that had a profound influence on building codes, labor laws, politics and the beginning of the New Deal two decades later.
Most of the dead were soon identified by relatives and funerals were held. However, six bodies were so badly burned that they could not be identified. Their relatives knew the loved ones never returned from the fire at the factory but could not identify the badly charred bodies. Now, 100 years later, thanks to the persistence of amateur genealogist and historian Michael Hirsch, all the dead have been identified.
George Washington's name is inseparable from America, and not only from the nation's history. It identifies countless streets, buildings, mountains, bridges, monuments, cities — and people.
Most of the people named Washington are black. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name.
The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Genealogical Society:
(21 February 2011) — Register now for the conference and save! The NGS 2011 Family History Conference will be held 11–14 May 2011 at the Charleston Area Convention Center, 5001 Coliseum Drive, North Charleston, SC 29418. More than seventy-five nationally recognized speakers will provide over 180 lectures on a wide variety of topics including research in South Carolina and the surrounding states, migration patterns, religious records, research methodology, and problem solving. The conference program will also include lectures about researching various ethnic groups including Germans, Cherokee, African Americans, Irish, and Scots-Irish. Participants who register for the conference by 11 March 2011 will save thirty-five dollars on an early bird full-conference registration.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
A newsletter reader wrote recently, asking about a rather common problem. She asked, "I am unable to reinstall the CD-ROM disks of the New England Historic and Genealogical Register on my new computer which runs on Windows 7. Is there an update for the installation or a new installation program available? I would hate to have to give up this valuable aid."
In fact, the New England Historic and Genealogical Register on CD-ROM disks and many other older programs were created back in the days of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, or other versions of Microsoft's operating system. Over the years, numerous upgrades have been released for Windows, and compatibility with older versions of the operating system has not always been maintained for every option and feature. In other words, if you try to install older programs on a newer version of Windows, you may hit the same problem my correspondent encountered: it won't work.
As mentioned in the article on Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE! in London, I plan on being in London this week to attend this huge event. I'll fly to London this week and stay at a hotel near the Olympia Exhibition Hall, returning home the following Monday.
I'll be traveling with a 2.3 pound MacBook Air laptop computer, and the hotel I stay in does provide wi-fi (for an outrageous fee!). I should have Internet access. I'll also be carrying an audio recorder, a camera, and a video camera. I hope to capture some of the show's highlights digitally and will provide them in this newsletter's web site in the following days.
David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, has issued a proposed plan 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. The proposed budget includes roughly $422 million for operation of the agency, a significant reduction of an 8.2 percent decrease from the FY 2011 plan.
In the new plan, Ferriero proposes several cutbacks in services. The one that caught my eye is the elimination of the National Archives at Boston-Pittsfield Annex, located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, has proposed closing the National Archives at Boston-Pittsfield Annex, located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This facility is used to store Federal records that usually are not of interest to genealogists, such as the records of the use of asbestos in Federal buildings. However, the same facility does have an Annex, or "front room," that is equipped with computers, microfilm, and microfilm readers that serve the general public. The microfilms are all of frequently-used Federal records that are stored elsewhere, such as census records, immigration records, and the like. Many genealogists in western Massachusetts and several nearby states use this facility as it is the closest library with such records. The proposal is to close this Annex, sometimes called the Microfilm Reading Room. The remainder of the Pittsfield facility will remain in operation.
Normally, I would be against any proposal that reduces services available to genealogists. In this case, however, I might agree that closing the Pittsfield facility is a good idea.
If this can work in Japan, why not in the U.S.? Yusuke Ohki lives in a small apartment, as do many others in Japan. He found it wasn't practical to store thousands of books in his tiny space, so he purchased an iPad. He then was disappointed at how few of his books were available electronically. He soon discovered that an iPad without e-books wasn’t much of a solution.
Taking matters into his own hands, Yusuke Ohki scanned all 2,000 books in his library onto his iPad. Now, six months later, he is helping others do the same through Bookscan.
If your local or county government is struggling with questions about increasing tourism, you might suggest using genealogy as an attraction.
Dr. Nick Barrett, an expert from BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? programme, will be the keynote speaker at a conference in England aimed at promoting family tree tourism. Despite having all of its funding slashed by Lincolnshire County Council, VisitLincolnshire is to hold its annual tourism conference on March 1. The conference, taking place at the Lincolnshire Events Centre, will aim to give businesses the tools for success in the absence of the county's official tourism board.
Barrett said: "Ancestral tourism is absolutely huge.
I haven't tried this yet as I don't need a new printer. However, if I did need one, I'd buy the Brother Printer HL2270DW. Amazon.com is selling it right now for $89.99, a bit less than the price for a toner cartridge alone for my present Hewlett-Packard printer! This thing prints at up to 27 pages per minute (single sided) and can be wired to a computer or used as a wireless (wi-fi) printer serving several computers simultaneously. Best of all, it prints on both sides of the paper which is called duplex printing.
At this price, I wouldn't expect the highest quality or the sharpest reproductions. Yet the specs claim that it prints up to 2400 x 600 dpi resolution for high-quality output. I doubt if you will find a better laser printer for $90. At these prices, there's no sense in ever repairing it, should it break. A printer at these prices is disposable; it is cheaper to replace it than to repair it.
RootsMagic is a very popular genealogy program for Windows. However, one of the common questions asked of the developers is, "Do you make a version for Macintosh?" The answer has always been "no" but recently has changed to, "Well, sort of..."
Actually, RootsMagic has always worked well on a Macintosh if the Mac owner first added virtualization software. I wrote about that several times over the years. However, the RootsMagic web site has a new page that gives further details for the Mac user. The following is a copy-and-paste from http://www.rootsmagic.com/mac/:
Confederate descendants and re-enactors dressed in soldiers' uniforms and hoop skirts marched down the main avenue in Montgomery on Saturday to mark the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
They started at a fountain where slaves were once sold, past the church that Martin Luther King Jr. led during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and ended at the Capitol steps, where Alabama's old and modern history often collide.
Have you ever wanted to hold an online meeting? This is an eventthat lets you share your computer's screen with one or more other people. All participants can stay at home or in their offices and yet all view the same computer screen at the same time. In most cases, all participants are also talking with each other in a telephone conference call or via Skype or some other VoIP solution. Online meetings are great for classroom instruction, meetings, and one-on-one troubleshooting of technical issues.
Several national genealogy societies that I know of hold their board of director meetings via online meetings. The use of such high-tech tools can save a lot of time and money in travel expenses.
Online meeting products have been available for several years. The better-known products include WebEx, GoToMeeting.com, Microsoft Office LiveMeeting, and several others. However, most of the popular meeting services tend to be rather expensive to use, often $50 a month or more. A new service from SlideShare, called Zipcast, promises to reduce those expenses significantly.
A newsletter reader asked a good question today, one that I cannot answer. I am republishing it here in hopes that someone else can help:
I have gotten far enough into researching German roots that many of the church records from the eighteenth century microfilms are very difficult to read. I have searched without any success for tutorials or programs (Mac OS X is my preferred OS) that can tease more information from microfilm copies of old, faded, and sometimes abused documents.
I have written a number of times about computers that keep getting smaller and smaller. For anyone who travels a lot, such as myself, the newest wave of laptops, netbooks, and handhelds from the many manufacturers is a great convenience. This week I caved in and purchased a new computer to be my primary traveling machine: an Apple MacBook Air
The MacBook Air has been around for more than three years although Apple just updated the product line with a couple of new models a few months ago. I purchased the smaller of the two, the model with an 11-inch screen.
The February 18 edition of Who Do You Think You Are? featured Rosie O'Donnell as she researched her family tree. I had a chance to talk with Rosie about her experiences a couple of weeks ago. You can read my earlier article at http://goo.gl/crqLt. Her appearance on Who Do You Think You Are? closely followed what she had predicted.
Rosie was the middle of five children. She was ten years old when her mother died of cancer. Nobody in the family ever spoke of her mother again. The family was Catholic and, with a name of O'Donnell and a number of other Irish names (Murtha, Murtaugh, McKenna) for all her close relatives, Rosie knew her ancestry must be Irish. However, she knew almost nothing else about her heritage.
The first goal was to learn more about her mother's family. A second task was to identify the picture of a woman whose portrait was always displayed in the home when Rosie was growing up. In her searches, Rosie visited New Jersey, New York, Montreal, and Kildare (Ireland). She had great success with her search.
Recent Comments