Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

New Research Reveals President Obama’s Closest Irish Relatives

The following was written by Eneclann in Dublin, Ireland:

• President Obama’s closest Irish relatives hail from Ballygurteen, Co. Tipperary
• They have been invited to meet the President in Moneygall next week
• Dublin-based researchers, Eneclann, conducted the research
• The story of the Benn family will be told on Nationwide, RTE 1 on Friday and available on the internet thereafter

Genealogists from Irish historical research company, Eneclann, have identified President Obama’s closest living Irish relatives in Ballygurteen, Co. Tipperary.

Family History Expos Call for Papers

The following announcement was written by Family History Expo:

Looking for a chance to speak to an audience of family historians?  Have a topic you are passionate about? Want to share your knowledge?
 
We are looking for speakers to present at our Northern California and Georgia Expos happening October 7-8, 2011 and November 11-12. 2011.
 
Our Expo theme for 2011 is Where Ol' Dogs Learn New Tricks! Expos feature exciting presenters who have expertise in a subject and want to share their specialties with others. Presentation proposals are being accepted for all levels of expertise: beginner, experienced, and advanced researchers. Topics should revolve around genealogical methodology, research repositories, history, record types, technology, immigration and ethnic research. We are always interested in topics that are cutting edge and speak to the diverse experiences of our ancestors. We encourage proposals from presenters new to genealogy conferences.

Fully Searchable Death Records now Online at findmypast.co.uk

The following announcement was written by findmypast.co.uk:

Leading UK family history website www.findmypast.co.uk has today launched a quicker way to find the deaths of your ancestors, completing a two-year project to make the birth, marriage and death records of England and Wales easier to use. Over 1,000 people have worked on this project, rescanning 170 years of records and transcribing the quarter of a billion names they contain.

This final instalment means that over 85 million death records can now be searched with as little as a surname. This will return a list of individual names, so you’ll no longer need to search through pages of results to spot your ancestor. Finding a death record will take a fraction of the time that it used to.

OOOPS! The Virginia Historical Society's New Display Attracts CDC Representatives in Full Biohazard Gear

Smallpox was a serious disease that spread throughout the country years ago. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants to make sure it doesn't happen again. The Virginia Historical Society in Richmond put together an exhibit of "bizarre bits" that were added to the society's collection since its founding in 1831. Included were Confederate president Jefferson Davis's cigar, a wreath made of human hair, and a letter, handwritten and dated 1876, with what appeared to be a smallpox scab pinned inside.

A concerned government scientist in Maryland notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency dispatched two CDC representatives to Richmond. They donned disposable surgical gowns and gloves, lifted the scab from a display case, sealed it in bio-bags inside a red cooler and whisked it back to a high-security lab deep within the CDC's Atlanta headquarters.

Are You In? Citizen Archivists, Crowdsourcing, and Open Government

Last week, the Archivist of the United States, David Ferrerrio, gave a talk at the annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society, held in Charleston, South Carolina. I was fortunate enough to be in the audience and listened to the Archivist speak about a number of topics. My notes are available at http://goo.gl/7WLoo.

In my notes, I wrote:

David Ferrerrio invites everyone to become citizen-archivists to become familiar with specific records of interest and to contribute insights and even lists of names on various documents. With NARA's limited resources, it is impossible for the staff members to index records. However, interested citizen-archivists could perform those tasks for record sets in which they are interested.

Today, David Ferrerrio continued to describe his vision of citizen-archivists by writing about it in his own blog. He wrote:

Origins.net Adds Electoral Registers Index

The following announcement was written by Origins.net:

Electoral registers are the only records that provide frequent, regular and authoritative information on an ancestor’s property. They can therefore be used to trace changes of address year by year.

The geographical organization of the original printed volumes can make finding an individual difficult, not least since you need to be familiar with the electoral geography of Somerset for the relevant year in order to know where a particular town or parish is listed. Even if you have a "home" address for ancestor from other records, he might claim his vote on the basis of some other piece of qualifying property elsewhere in the county.

Geni.com Continues to Expand and Promote

The following announcement was written by Geni.com:

Collaborative Genealogy Site Promotes and Adds Essential Team Members

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - Geni, the collaborative family history community and home of the "World Family Tree," today announced continued strong growth including the promotion and addition of key team members across the organization.

With a growing user base and more than 100 million family profiles added by the Geni community, 55 million of which are connected to the World Family Tree, the company promoted two essential employees to the executive team:

The Internet of Things

This has nothing to do with genealogy but I found it to be interesting.

Our world is becoming more and more connected online every day. Not only are computers and cell phones connected to the Internet, but so are burglar alarms, video cameras, refrigerators, vending machines, and even automobiles. Many futurists tell us that every device will eventually be connected to the net.

One problem is the lack of available addresses. When connected to the Internet, each device needs a unique address so that other computers can find it. In fact, the world has already exhausted the supply of Internet addresses.

(+) Is Your CD-ROM Data Disappearing?

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

Genealogists are generally concerned with long-term data preservation. A lot of genealogists believe that the only method of preserving data is to print the information on paper. Yet, many of us have handled old pieces of paper that are decaying, crumbling, or fading to the point that the information is not readable. In fact, most paper manufactured in the past 75 years or so contains acids that will hasten the deterioration of the information you wish to preserve.

As we have seen recently in several places around the world, paper is especially fragile. Paper documents are easily destroyed by fires, floods, earthquakes, or building collapse. On a couple of recent occasions, valuable paper documents have been lost forever due to simple burst water pipes.

Tennessee's Beck Center Faces Potentially Lethal Budget Cut

The archives of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center contain thousands and thousands of photographs, books, news clippings, journals, and other ephemera documenting the life and culture of black Knoxville over the past two centuries. Eventually, the Beck Center would like to have all of its records in a searchable online database.

That was the plan until a few weeks ago, when Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett released his proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year. Burchett has recommended a 92 percent cut in county funding for the Beck Center, from $150,000 to $12,000. The center has a total annual budget of about $300,000 and the loss of so much county money would effectively shut it down.

Do You Remember the Slide Rule?

It wasn't all that long ago that engineers, astronauts, mathematicians, and students proudly carried the original pocket calculator. I had one and thought I was proficient at it. Sadly, I misplaced it years ago.

The slide rule was a simple device with one sliding part that could do complex mathematical calculations in moments. Multiplication, division, roots, logarithms, and even trigonometry could be performed with ease. But as technology marched forward with sophisticated computers and graphing pocket calculators, the lowly slide rule was forgotten.

Much of the engineering of the world we live in was designed with the use of slide rules, and yet they are almost forgotten today. Do you have a teen-aged child or grandchild? If so, ask him or her what a slide rule is. I suspect he or she won't know.

Casting Call: Looking for WWII B-24 and B-17 Crewmembers

The following is an excerpt from the Collings Foundation newsletter:

The Collings Foundation is in the process of pitching The Last Liberator as part of a larger series to a couple major TV networks. We are looking for B-24 and B-17 crewmembers to participate in a series of interviews. Are you a WWII Liberator Veteran or do you know one that would make a great interview? Let us know! Please send a short biography and picture to Hunter Chaney at hchaney@collingsfoundation.org.

[We] hope to pitch this in June. If you are interested, please send a brief email as soon as you can.

Click on the picture to see a much larger image. All of these aircraft are owned by the Collings Foundation and are flown regularly.

From the In-box: How to Find an Old Book

A newsletter reader asked a question today that has me stumped. I am hoping that someone else will read this and be able to offer a useful suggestion.

I identified two books through Google Books/WorldCat that could help my research. I have checked numerous sites (30+) and can't find copies for sale. Interlibrary loan told me no libraries would loan their copies. The book is not on anyone's Books We Own lists. I can't afford to travel across the country. Any other ideas?

Thanks! 

If you have a suggestion, please add a comment in the space below this article.

NGS 2011 Conference Wrap-up

The annual conference of the National Genealogical Society came to a close on Saturday, May 14. This year's event was co-sponsored by the South Carolina Genealogical Society and was held at the North Charleston Convention Center in North Charleston, South Carolina.

I'd say this was a great conference. I know I enjoyed it and most of the people I talked with made similar comments. I never did hear the final attendance numbers, although I suspect it was about 1,900 or 2,000, based on my own very unofficial estimates. That doesn't include the several hundred additional attendees who came to a one-day free event sponsored by Ancestry.com on Saturday. The free Ancestry Day included presentations on "Getting the most of Ancestry.com search," "Overlooked Secrets in Census Records," "Searching Your African-American Roots on Ancestry.com," and "Getting the Most from Family Tree Maker." Since attendance in the exhibits hall was available to everyone free of charge, the Ancestry Day attendees also were able to spend time with the vendors. I saw a lot of people on Saturday walking around in the exhibits hall, wearing the distinctive Ancestry Day name tags.

EOGN Dinner Held on Saturday Evening after the NGS Conference

At the end of many of the larger genealogy conferences, I often host a dinner for readers of this newsletter. The dinners are always held after the conference closes as I don't want to compete with any of the conference activities. I hosted such a dinner last Saturday evening in Charleston, South Carolina, following the close of the annual conference of the National Genealogical Society.

(Click on any picture to see a larger image.)

Thirty-three newsletter readers assembled in the Hilton Garden Inn, a few hundred feet from the convention center where the NGS conference had just ended. The plan was simple: food, drinks, door prizes, and great conversation. I think we succeeded.

Another Reason to Make Off-site Backups

Bill Buchanan recently posted a comment at the end of an article in this newsletter's web site (see http://goo.gl/E65Bd) commenting that 40% of the Town of Slave Lake, Alberta (town population about 7,000) burned to the ground Sunday night in a huge forest fire. The people all survived, but their homes and everything in them are gone! You can read more about the tragedy at http://goo.gl/XlP5g.

As sad as this story is, one can assume that a percentage of these people owned computers and that perhaps most of them did not store backups off-site, away from the fire. I have written many times about the need to make backups and to store them both locally and off-site. Once these people can get their lives back together and re-establish the basics of food, shelter, and clothing, I would assume they will want to re-establish the records in their lives. While we genealogists always think of family history records, we also should be thinking of family photographs, checking account records, insurance policies, income tax records, and other documents that could be and should be stored on a personal computer.

Where are YOUR records stored?

(+) Better (?) Skype Alternatives

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

Skype is an extremely popular method of making almost free voice calls to telephones and free calls to Skype-equipped computers all around the world. The service has millions of users and reportedly is now the biggest provider of international voice calls in the world. It also supports two-way video calls, which are great for talking with distant relatives.

Note: I won't call them "telephone calls" as there is no normal telephone involved on computer-to-computer calls and only one phone involved on the Skype-to-telephone calls. I'll simply call them "voice calls."

I have been a Skype user for years and have made hundreds of calls. I have enjoyed the high-fidelity calls from computer-to-computer and the normal-fidelity calls when calling telephones. I have made several international trips in recent years, and I called hotels and rental car companies in several countries via Skype when planning the trips. I have always been a satisfied Skype user, but I also keep an eye open at all times for perhaps even better alternatives. Now two things happened recently to make me consider switching:

Wholly Genes Genealogy Conference and Cruise adds Two More Presenters

Last week I published an article of Wholly Genes, Inc. Announces a Genealogy Cruise and briefly described the cruise to the southern Caribbean. In the article, I wrote, "The announcement also states that additional speaker(s) will be announced." That has now happened. In fact, two additional speakers have been named:

Railroad Retirement Board Records Available at the National Archives, Southeast Region/Atlanta

Records from the Railroad Retirement Board are now available at the National Archives, Southeast Region/Atlanta in Morrow.

The board was founded in 1936 and its records include applications that provide a retiree's career history, date and place of birth, parents, spouse and children. These records represent railroad retirees from all over the U.S., not just the Southeast, and were brought to Morrow from the Chicago headquarters of the board.

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