Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Genealogy Help Wanted in Salt Lake City and Elsewhere

ProGenealogists, a subsidiary of Ancestry.com, is hiring. The company is looking for part-time and full-time employees. Full-time positions include a "Genealogist Case Manager" (a professional genealogist) and an "Assistant Genealogist" (an entry level position) Both of the full-time positions are for employment in Salt Lake City.

Here is an excerpt from the job description for the Genealogist Case Manager:

Obituary of Joann Nichols

As mentioned in this newsletter yesterday, professional genealogist Joann Nichols of Brattleboro, Vermont, passed away on Sunday. Her obitury has now been published at http://goo.gl/ohopU.

Complete 1930 Mexico Census Now Available Online for Free

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

May 23, 2011

25 Million New Records and Images for 19 U.S. States and 16 Countries

The FamilySearch volunteers did it! With the completion of the state of Veracruz, they indexed the entire 1930 Mexico Census—almost 13 million records. Add the census to the millions of Mexico church records FamilySearch also has online for free, and FamilySearch patrons now have a phenomenal, fundamental asset for their Mexico ancestral research. There were 59 collections updated in this release, comprising 25 million new images and records for 19 U.S. states and 16 countries. See the table below for more details. You can search all of these updated collections now for free at FamilySearch.org.

Crowdsourcing Helps Holocaust Survivors Find Answers

"Crowdsourcing" is a buzzword that means to obtain information by making an appeal to the general public on the Internet. In other words, ask the question publicly and rely on others to answer. It has worked well for this newsletter recently and now the Holocaust Memorial Museum also reports success.

About a thousand times every month, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum receives a request for information about a victim of the Holocaust. The museum houses more than 170 million documents naming more than 17 million people targeted by the Nazis, including Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, political prisoners, and many others. Researchers rely on a combination of historical knowledge and guesswork to pick through the proverbial haystack of microfilm documents. Sometimes it takes weeks to answer an inquiry. Sometimes the question is never solved.

Joann Nichols, R.I.P.

While traveling today, I heard that Joann Nichols died yesterday in Vermont. Joann was a professional genealogist and well-known expert on Vermont history and its people. I don't know the details yet but will post a link to her obituary as soon as it is published.

Joann apparently was in bad health only for a short time. She was at the New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC), held a few weeks ago in Springfield, Massachusetts. Click on her picture to see larger image. That photo was taken a few weeks ago at the NERGC conference. She apparently became ill sometime after that conference.

Looking Back: GenealogyBank Is Almost Five Years Old (and a Special Offer for Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Readers)

The following article was written by Thomas Jay Kemp, NewsBank’s Director of Genealogy Products. Mr. Kemp also offers a special price for readers of this newsletter near the end of the article:

It’s amazing to me how fast—and how large—GenealogyBank has grown since we launched 4½ years ago, on Oct. 19, 2006. Since the day we began, we’ve never stopped digitizing and adding more and more content. Our newspaper collection has grown from 2,700 titles to over 5,000. Our entire content is nearing one billion articles, documents and reports!

Every week we receive letters from researchers excited at having discovered new details about their family history in newspapers. All this got me to thinking…just what exactly have we built with this genealogy site? How does it all work together?

What can you expect to find in GenealogyBank?

Can you find the average person?

I decided to put our site to the test by going on a genealogy adventure. My approach was to pick a name completely at random and then see what I could find in GenealogyBank about that person.

(+) How to Check Up on Your Genealogy Society’s Financial Affairs

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.

How much do you know about the inner workings of your genealogy society? Such organizations would include the larger societies, such as National Genealogical Society or the New England Historic Genealogical Society. It also includes smaller societies, such as the African-Atlantic Genealogical Society, the Charlotte County (Florida) Genealogical Society, and the Dallas (Texas) Genealogical Society.

Do you know how much money is collected each year by your society? Are the total fees collected increasing or decreasing each year? Do you know how much of that money is spent? Even more important, do you know HOW it is spent? How much of it is spent on members’ services versus on the building or on salaries? In fact, just what is the salary of the executive director, CEO, or whatever the position is called? How about the salaries of the other senior executives of the society?

On the Road Again: to the BlogWorld & New Media Expo

I am packing my bags again. As usual, I'll warn newsletter readers that I may not be writing as many articles in this newsletter in the next few days as I will be a bit short on time. I will be traveling with a 2.3 pound MacBook Air laptop computer, a one-pound tablet computer, and a 4G/3G wireless modem. The hotel I am staying in also provides wi-fi coverage. I should be able to connect to the Internet from most anyplace. The problem will be time: I expect to be busy!

This trip is not genealogy-related, at least not directly. I will be attending the BlogWorld & New Media Expo. This conference is aimed at those who write blogs and online newsletters.

Presentations scheduled at this expo include such things as How to Write For and Engage the 50+ Marketplace, Naughty, Naughty Blogger: Legal Implications for Blogging, How to Grow Your Blog Now Via Social Media, The Business of Digital Broadcasting, The Future of Blog Platforms, and much more. I figure it's about time I learned how to do this blogging thing!

Albert Cook Myers Elected to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame

The following was written by the U.S. National Genealogical Society:

For twenty-five years, the National Genealogy Hall of Fame program, administered by the National Genealogical Society, has honored outstanding genealogists whose achievements in the field of American genealogy have had a great impact on our field. Qualified nominations are solicits yearly from genealogical organizations. Those nominated must have been deceased for at least five years and have been actively engaged in genealogy for a minimum of ten years. Their contributions to the field of genealogy in this country need to have been significant in a way that was unique, pioneering, or exemplary. Such contributions could have been as an author of books or articles that added significantly to the body of published works, served as a model of genealogical research or writing, or made source records more readily available. Nominees could also have been a teacher or lecturer, or contributed to the field through leadership in a genealogical organization or periodical.

NOAA Unveils Special Collection of Civil War Maps and Nautical Charts

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2011, NOAA has assembled a special historical collection of maps, charts, and documents prepared by the U.S. Coast Survey during the war years. The collection, “Charting a More Perfect Union,” contains over 400 documents, available free from NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey website.

“People are planning now for their visits to Civil War sites next year, and we want to give them an opportunity to visualize the terrain, ports, and coasts as they were from 1861 to 1865,” said Meredith Westington, NOAA’s chief geographer. “Most people wouldn’t think of turning to NOAA for historical Civil War documents, but the agency has an amazing legacy.”

Dowsing in a Cemetery: Does It Work? Here's a Challenge for All Dowsers

It's not witchcraft. It's not black magic or "the work of the devil." In fact, many people claim that it works. Some individuals claim to be able to find unmarked graves by dowsing (sometimes called "witching"). Others claim it doesn't work. I'd like to make an offer to prove or disprove it once and for all.

The typical method is for the dowser or "witcher" to hold copper or brass rods or even coat hangers in his or her hands; others use a forked stick. The dowser walks over an area of possible buried bodies. When on top of a grave, the rods will cross or the stick will suddenly be pulled downward. Some dowsers claim they can even tell if it is a male or female body.

Does it really work? Some people will dismiss such activities as wishful thinking, and yet others will point to numerous examples of graves successfully located by dowsing, including a number of cases in which police departments found unmarked graves of murder victims by using the services of a dowser.

Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan Reconstructs Records at Detroit Cemetery

Thousands of missing burial records at Sacred Heart of St. Mary Cemetery's in Detroit is nearing its end. The Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan tackled the mystery 20 years ago after it found out that  burial records were gone. The effort was set to draw closer to a finishing point on Saturday, when the society's members, assisted by a Boy Scout troop, are to uncover 1,000 buried gravestones.

Early burial records were destroyed by a flood of the church basement and a fire at the cemetery office. The genealogical group filled the void by scouring death certificates and monument company sales records and collecting information from each gravestone in the three-block-long cemetery.

40,000 More Scottish Burial Records Added to Deceased Online

The following announcement was written by Deceased Online:

Two Aberdeenshire coastal town cemeteries and a small Aberdeen City graveyard added to growing Scottish burial database:

Negative Camera Effect for the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch

Jim Anderson sent along a trick that might of interest to some readers who have an iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch: while digging through some old boxes of family papers, Jim discovered a packet with several hundred film negatives. These were all black and white shots made back in the 1930s and 40s. He didn't have the pictures; only the negatives. He recognized some of the photos from prints that were in an old album but many others were of people and scenes that he could not easily identify because they were in a negative image.

Of course, it is always possible to have the negatives developed but that's expensive when there are hundreds of negatives involved and the suspicion is that not all of them are of value. He thought about scanning them with his flatbed scanner, but his scanner would only hold three of the the 3” X 5” negatives at a time. Scanning hundreds of them would be a tedious process. Jim found a faster and better solution: take a picture of the negatives with an iPhone, using a program to display negatives. Each negative requires only a few seconds to convert to a normal image. If desired, he can save a photo in another second or two.

BCG Application Guide Now Available as a Free Download

The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists:

The Board for Certification of Genealogists is pleased to announce that one of its key publications, The BCG Application Guide, is now available as a free download from BCG’s website.

The Application Guide, in which the Board describes its requirements for certification, was previously available only in print form by purchase. The decision to provide it to all interested parties at no cost is a significant change in approach for the certifying body. It means individuals will more easily be able to answer questions they may have about the certification requirements and process. The change may especially benefit individuals as yet only casually interested in certification.

Podcast: An Interview with Melinde Lutz Byrne of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate Program

I recently had an opportunity to interview Melinde Lutz Byrne, Director of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate program. These courses teach "how to do it right." Topics covered include basic to very advanced genealogy research techniques, including Genealogy Foundations, Techniques and Technology, Evidence and Evaluation, Forensic Genealogy, and Ethnic and Geographic Specialties. The instructors include Melinde Lutz Byrne, Elissa Scalise Powell, Allison Ryall, Thomas W. Jones, Pamela Sayre, and Mary Ann Boyle. The program has now graduated more than 400 students.

This is a high-powered program that is highly respected by professional and advanced genealogists alike.

Melinde Lutz Byrne

You can listen to our conversation by clicking on the icon above. You can also save it to your computer's hard drive or to iTunes to listen to it later on your computer or iPad or most any other MP3 music player.

Podcast: An Interview with Lee Maxey of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate Program

I recently had an opportunity to interview Lee Maxey of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate program. Lee's work focuses primarily on remote students, those from around the world who want to significantly improve their genealogy research techniques. This is a high-powered program that is highly respected by professional and advanced genealogists alike.

Lee-Maxey

You can listen to our conversation by clicking on the icon above. You can also save it to your computer's hard drive or to iTunes to listen to it later on your computer or iPad or most any other MP3 music player.

Malware Found on Macintosh Systems

Mac users have always felt smug that their systems were immune from viruses, trojan horses and other malware (malevolent software). Those were always problems for Windows users, not for anyone else. Unfortunately, the world has now become a bit more complex. I encountered a Mac infected file this morning.

Luckily, it is easy for Mac users to avoid the problem or, if already infected, to remove it within seconds.

The piece of malware that’s currently making the rounds is called Mac Defender (there are other variants called Mac Protector and Mac Security). It’s not particularly sophisticated. Infections occur because of the following sequence of events:

Google Abandons Plan to Archive the World's Newspapers

This sounds like a major blow to genealogists as old newspapers will no longer be accepted on Google. The web search giant has informed partners in its News Archive project that it would cease accepting, scanning, and indexing microfilm and other archival material from newspapers, and was instead focusing its energies on "newer projects that help the industry, such as Google One Pass, a platform that enables publishers to sell content and subscriptions directly from their own sites."

Google Docs to Become Available Offline

I use Google Docs and Zoho Docs often for word processing and sharing of files. These are cloud-based applications that easily allow my editor and I to share files while we are working on them, before publishing in this newsletter. We also occasionally share files with guest authors and others. It is a great convenience and we find it much more useful than sending attached files in email. However, both services require you to be online to use them That's not a problem most of the time, but how do I access the files when at 34,000 feet on an airliner?

Google is creating the solution. Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president of Chrome, recently said, "We will make them [Google Docs offline apps] available this summer. We've all been using it internally. It's imminent. We want to make sure they're good."