Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Family History Library to Hold Free Hispanic Research Series

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

SALT LAKE CITY — On Saturday, October 15, 2011, the Family History Library is offering an all-day seminar on Hispanic Research.  The topics include:  “Fundamentos Basicos Para La Historia Familiar,” “Registros Parroquiales,” “Registros Diocesanos,” “FamilySearch.org,” and “Nuevo Family Search.”  Classes will run from 10:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.

Attention AOL Subscribers: the Plus Edition Newsletters are Being Blocked Again

I send an email notice every week to every Plus Edition subscriber, telling each subscriber of the new articles that have been added in the previous week. AOL used to block those messages but, about a year ago, something changed at AOL and the AOL members started receiving them. Unfortunately, AOL now seems to have reverted back to blocking those messages again.

Starting two or three weeks ago, my in-box started filling up with messages from Plus Edition subscribers saying they had not received the latest notice. One thing was obvious: all of those messages came from email addresses ending in "@aol.com."

To all AOL members: I suggest you do one or more of three things:

Amazon Kindle is on Fire

Apple has had the tablet computer market almost to itself. All the sales of all the competing tablets combined only add up to a fraction of the sales of the Apple iPad. At $500 or more per unit, the iPad is expensive but has still been (by far) the best-selling tablet computer in the world. Until now.


Amazon announced a 7-inch Kindle Fire yesterday. That's a smaller screen than the 10-inch iPad and many of the reviews in the press are saying the small size is a mistake. I disagree. To me, the 7-inch screen is much more practical than the larger iPad screen. I have a Barnes & Noble Nook with a 7-inch screen and love it. It is much better than the Apple iPad at slipping into an overcoat pocket or a lady's purse. In short, the smaller screen devices are much more practical to take with you.

However, the shocking news is the price: the new Kindle Fire will go on sale November 15 for $199. That's right, less than half the price of the iPad. To be sure, it only has 8 gigabytes of storage and it doesn't have a camera or a microphone, but that's a killer price. (Did you ever try to take a picture with an iPad 2? It's awkward to use.)

Family Tree Maker 2012 Official Announcement

I posted an article four days ago about the new Family Tree Maker 2012 for Windows (see http://goo.gl/otlCn). However, the official announcement was made today. Writing in the Ancestry.com blog, Tana L. Pedersen describes the major new features and also promises to write more about the new 2012 release in future weeks.

You can read Tana's article at http://goo.gl/k4v4w

FamilySearch Announces New Collections for Australia, Estonia, Mexico, and U.S.

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

New Collections for Australia, Estonia, Mexico, and U.S.  U.S. Additions Include Utah, California, Illinois and 7 other states  28 September 2011 New records collections from Australia, Estonia, Mexico and the United States can now be searched for free at FamilySearch.org. In addition, new records were added to Austria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Honduras, Poland, South Africa, and Spain collections. Find your ancestors now at FamilySearch.org.

Why I Am Switching to LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an open source, personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux. The suite of programs includes a word processor called Writer (somewhat like Microsoft Word), a spreadsheet program called Calc (somewhat like Microsoft Excel), a presentation program called Impress (somewhat like Microsoft PowerPoint), a drawing program called Draw (somewhat like the old Microsoft Paint), a math program appropriately called Math (I'm not sure what to compare that to) and a database program called Base (somewhat like Microsoft Access). The best part of LibreOffice is the price: free.

Libre means "with little or no restriction," a great title for open source software.

LibreOffice is a "fork" of OpenOffice. Today marks the one-year anniversary of The Document Foundation (TDF) and the LibreOffice project. The project has seen considerable growth during its first year of existence. TDF estimates that there are now 25 million LibreOffice users worldwide, and more than 330 separate programmers have contributed code to the project.

Personal Historian 2 Software Released

RootsMagic announced a new release today of its popular Personal Historian software. Note that a FREE “Essentials” version is available although the full version costs $19.95 during the introductory period and will later rise to $29.95.

The following announcement was written by RootsMagic:

Latest Version of Personal and Family History Writing Software Now Available to the Public

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — September 28, 2011 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of Personal Historian 2, the latest version of the ground-breaking computer software which helps you write the story of your life and of other individuals.  Personal Historian breaks this seemingly monumental task into small, manageable pieces and then reconstructs it into a complete, publishable document.  With the release comes a free “Essentials” version of the software as well as a discount offer for new users and previous owners of the software.

ProQuest Expands Historical Newspaper™ Collection with Specialty and Regional Titles

The following announcement was written by ProQuest:

The world’s largest digital newspaper archive is expanding to provide researchers with access to unique, targeted perspectives on the news as ProQuest digitizes collections of historic American Jewish and regional newspapers. The papers, dating from 1841 and covering regions such as Boston, the Ohio valley and New York City will be added to ProQuest’s Historical Newspaper collection, a seminal source of primary research for all types of users.

Student Invents Robotic Technique to Scan a Treasure Trove of Pictures

A student-invented robot will help preserve and archive 115 years of photographic black history in Baltimore, and could soon be made available to museums and archives around the country. He devised Gado (a West African word for inheritance), a $500 3-foot-wide by 2-foot-deep robotic arm that is able to lift flat and delicate materials using suction, place them on a scanner and scan them into a database or computer file system. It scans one image every two minutes.

Thomas Smith, creator of the robot named Gado, spent a good portion of his senior year at Johns Hopkins tinkering on the machine, an open source robotic scanner designed for sensitive archival materials.

Family History Library to Hold Free U.S. Immigration Research Series

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

SALT LAKE CITY — On Saturday, October 8, 2011, the Family History Library is offering an all-day seminar on U.S. Immigration Research.  The topics include:  “U.S. Immigration, 1820-1954,” “U.S. Naturalization Records,” and “Canadian Border Crossing Records.”  Classes will run from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

(+) Running Windows Programs on Macintosh Computers

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

Undecided if your next computer should be a Mac or a Windows system? Now you can have your cake and eat it, too. You can have both, all inside a single box.

I recently wrote a Plus Edition article entitled, Running Older Programs on Windows 7. The article is available at http://eogn.com/wp/?p=17688 and describes a method to run older programs on the latest version of Windows. Indeed, most older Windows programs will work properly, but there are numerous exceptions. In that article, I described a method of adding a "virtual computer" to run both old and new operating systems simultaneously.

Upon re-reading the article, I was struck by how much similarity there is between Windows and Macintosh. In fact, it is possible to run almost all Windows programs on any modern Macintosh system. That includes both older and newer Windows programs. The gap between Windows and Macintosh has now narrowed: any Mac user can run almost any program from either operating system.

Ohio Genealogical Society's 2011 Fall Seminar

The Ohio Genealogical Society will hold its Fall Conference this Saturday, October 1, at Citi Church in Bellville, Ohio, a short distance from the OGS Library. I plan to be there. You see, I am a speaker at this event. If you are in or near Bellville, I'd like to invite you to stop in and enjoy the all-day seminar.

The day starts at 9 AM with registration, followed by the first presentation at 9:30 AM. I will offer four presentations during the day. I am especially looking forward to the last one when I will be speaking on "Maine Outhouses I Have Known and Loved." Yes, THOSE outhouses. I dare say this won't be the normal genealogy presentation seen at most other seminars.

Help Wanted in Boston: Research Services Manager

The following is an excerpt from the Careers Page of the web site of the New England Historic Genealogical Society:

Research Services Manager

The full-time Research Services Manager is responsible for assigning research to staff, volunteers, and contractors and assuring that output is thorough, accurate, and responsive to the requests. The Research Services Manager will supervise client billing, financial tracking, and database updates; ensuring that the research process moves forward according to established schedules.

Library and Archives Canada Digitizes Past Issues of the Canada Gazette (1841-1997)

The following announcement was written by Library and Archives Canada:

Gatineau, Québec, September 26, 2011—Today, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) commemorates the 170th anniversary of the Canada Gazette by making accessible the digitized back issues, from 1841 to 1997, on its website dedicated to this official publication.

“Current issues of the Canada Gazette have been available to Canadians at most libraries and through subscription, and the Canada Gazette Directorate has a searchable database on its website of all issues since 1998,” said Daniel J. Caron, Deputy Head and Librarian and Archivist of Canada. “However, an online database that includes all issues of the Canada Gazette, since 1841 and searchable by keyword, is a major achievement that allows even greater access to this very important resource.”

African Nova Scotian Diaspora: Selected Government Records of Black Settlement, 1791-1839, Now Online

The following is an excerpt from the Nova Scotia Archives at http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/diaspora/:

The Nova Scotia Archives is pleased to mark the designation of 2011 as the United Nations International Year for People of African Descent, by adding a significant new online archival resource to its existing virtual exhibits on African Nova Scotians. We have made available over 500 digitized and fully searchable Government documents relating to early African Nova Scotian immigration and emigration.

These documents were assembled, probably in the 1880s, by the first Records Commissioner, T.B. Akins, around the theme of "Refugee Negroes."

Do the Spanish Archives Belong in San Antonio?

J.R. "Corky" Rubio has published an article in the Express-News web site questioning why the University of Texas continues to hold, and ignore, documents from the early 1700s that were produced by the Spanish pioneers of San Antonio. Rubio claims that, in the 120 years since Bexar County sent a portion of the Spanish Archives to the University of Texas at Austin to be translated, relatively few portions of them have actually been translated. In San Antonio, after more than a century, local scholars, researchers and historians could have already completed these translations.

Rubio suggests it is clear UT cannot perform the task, and should return the archives to San Antonio. He also suggests that private groups, such as Los Bexarenos Genealogical and Historical Society and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and others, could make better use of these documents.

CrashPlan iPhone and Android Apps

All genealogists need to make frequent backups of their data. Indeed, I have written many times about the various backup programs available. One of my favorites is CrashPlan, a great name for a company that provides backup services!

CrashPlan works on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Solaris. The company provides services to consumers and businesses alike. You can read my earlier article describing CrashPlan's services at http://goo.gl/gJMzY. CrashPlan now has added mobile apps for securely viewing, downloading, and sharing your backed up files from within your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.

If your files have been backed up using CrashPlan+ or CrashPlan Pro, you can view any of your files wherever you are on your handheld device.

The free mobile apps let you access common file types like photos or office files (spreadsheets and text files) from any of the computers that have been backed up to CrashPlan's servers. (You need a CrashPlan+ account with the online backup option to use the mobile apps.) In addition to browsing and viewing files, you can download them to your device or email them directly from the handheld device.

Findmypast.co.uk Publishes 1.3 Million Manchester Family History Records, including Prison and School Registers

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

MANCHESTER ‘BAD BOYS’ REVEALED IN CITY ARCHIVE RECORDS RELEASED ONLINE

• Manchester prison and workhouse records included
• Charges include: indecent relations with a pig, and driving a contagious cow along a highway
• Victorian law and order likely to have punished today’s rioters more severely
• First execution listed at New Bailey and Strangeways prisons

Fascinating Victorian prison and workhouse records for Manchester have gone online for the first time ever at leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk. ‘The Manchester Collection’ is a rich series of records provided by Manchester City Council's Libraries, Information and Archives, highlighting criminals whose crimes number murder, stealing, and even bestiality. Scanned images of the original copperplate handwritten registers can now be viewed and searched online by the public.

2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls go Online

Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls are now available online.

Thanks to a partnership between Google and Israel's national museum, the five scrolls went online this morning (Monday). The scrolls include the biblical Book of Isaiah. Google's technology allows surfers to search the scrolls for specific passages and translate them into English.

(+) Running Older Programs on Windows 7

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

Windows 7 is perhaps the best operating system ever released by Microsoft. It features better security than ever before, better performance (under most conditions), better hardware compatibility, and a reduction in the number of obnoxious pop-up messages. However, nothing is ever perfect. In the process of adding so many improvements, Windows 7 also lost a few things. Most noticeable is the ability to run some older Windows programs under the latest operating system.

To be sure, most older Windows programs will work well under Windows 7. However, there are a few exceptions. Microsoft maintains a list of programs known to work properly in the Windows 7 Compatibility Center at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx.

What can you do to use older programs that are not well-behaved under Windows 7? For a while, the best solution seemed to be to keep an older computer available as a second system, one that is running Windows XP. That older system could be used for programs that have difficulties with Windows 7; however, an older computer is probably prone to many risks that users will not be happy with. Luckily, there are better solutions.