Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Library and Archives Canada Starts a New Blog

The following was written by Library and Archives Canada:

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to present our new blog, a project developed by the Resource Discovery Sector.

Monitored and answered by multidisciplinary teams, the Library and Archives Canada Blog provides useful tips and recommends tools to help you discover your documentary heritage and navigate the LAC website.

On the Road Again

It's travel time again. So what else is new? By the time you read this, I should be in Florida, moving into the motor home for a few days. However, I'll only be there for a week.

Part of the reason for living in the motor home for only a week is to perform a bit of a "shakedown cruise" and make sure all systems are operational, ready for a longer stay. I hope to have full Internet access during my stay and should be able to post new articles here on a regular basis. However, if the computer gods don't smile at the right time, there is a risk of not being able to post new articles.

Ancestry.com's New Version 3 of Its App for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch Released

The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:

New 'Ancestry.com Mobile' iOS App Gives Users the Ability to Access Billions of Historical Records to Build Their Family Tree

PROVO, Utah, Nov 29, 2011 -- Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource, today announced the availability of a new, upgraded version of its Ancestry.com Mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with features designed to enable more rewarding discoveries as users build, update and share their family trees. The Ancestry.com mobile app, which to-date has been downloaded more than 1.7 million times, is now available for free from the Apple App Store.

Handley Regional Library in Winchester, Virginia Puts Photographs Online

The following announcement was written by the Handley Regional Library:

Stewart Bell Jr. Archives of the Handley Regional Library is involved in a project to put thousands of photographs online. An anonymous donation received by the Joint Archives Committee is driving this project. The archive is operated jointly by the Handley Regional Library and the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society. The donor instructed the archives to use the gift to digitize material and host it online. The archives houses over 20,000 photos. These materials are and have been available on a computer in the Archives Reading Room.

The Easy Way to Commit Identity Theft

Politicians and bureaucrats often try to lock up records of interest to genealogists, claiming such actions are preventing identity theft. A closer examination of the facts, however, often reveals that such actions are futile. Locking up records typically keeps out the legitimate users while the thieves contine to operate unimpeded.

A recent example has been reported on Ars Technica about two New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicle employees who have been accused of selling personal information they routinely had access to. The New Jersey prosecutor's office claims (at http://www.mercercountyprosecutor.com/press/Motor%20Vehicle.pdf)  their investigation "uncovered that two employees of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission were providing the names, addresses, dates of birth and social security numbers of unsuspecting residents that they obtained through their employment." They were charging as little as $200 per identity.

Ancestry.com's "Behind the Scenes with Santa Claus"

Ancestry.com teamed up with Santa Claus to help bring a little holiday cheer to the company's fans. This is a little sneak peak behind the scenes of Ancestry.com's interview with Santa. Santa even discusses his family tree.

Careful, he's checking the Naughty List for the second time.

Warning: make sure your tongue is firmly planted in your cheek when watching this YouTube video at http://youtu.be/2VvNPah0BUI or click on the image below:

Mocavo Introduces a U.K. Version of Its Genealogy Search Engine

I have written before about Mocavo (see http://goo.gl/qJCLo for a list of my earlier articles about Mocavo). I am enthused about this search engine. Mocavo's searches are limited only to genealogy sites. In addition, it has some specialized software that is better at picking out surnames than the other search engines. If you haven't yet tried Mocavo.com to find ancestors, I'd suggest you do so soon.

Now Mocavo has duplicated the technology to make a U.K.-specific genealogy search engine. www.mocavo.co.uk went live earlier today and the brief chance I had to play with it shows that it works well at finding references to English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestors on the Internet.

SavingOurs.com: Dedicated to Digitizing Small Town Newspapers

The following announcement was written by SavingOurs.com:

Morrow, Ohio, 23 November 2011- Saving Ours is a new grassroots group dedicated to preserving our archived records by ensuring they are digitized and made free to the public.  The group started earlier this month and has recently published their new website.  The website is SavingOurs.com.  The group's main focus will be the hundreds of small town newspapers housed in local libraries. Small town newspapers contain invaluable genealogical and history data that will be lost unless preserved and indexed.  Currently only a small percentage of these papers have been digitized and of these most are only available after purchasing a subscription.  Saving Ours intends to work with local volunteers, companies and governments to digitize these documents and ensure that they are available free to the public.

RootsMagic 5 Software Released

RootsMagic is one of the most popular genealogy programs for Windows and for very good reasons. It is very powerful and yet also easy to use. RootsMagic also has always had a modest price tag. Today, the company released a brand-new version.

The following announcement was written by RootsMagic:

Latest Version of Genealogy and Family Tree Software Now Available to the Public

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — November 28, 2011 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of RootsMagic 5, the latest version of the award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy and enjoyable.  With this release comes an update to the popular “RootsMagic Essentials” free genealogy software.

(+) My 75 Favorite Free Applications, Webapps, and Software Tools for Windows and Macintosh

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

Introduction

This is an update to an article I wrote last year. Several programs I will write about in this new article did not exist when I wrote the earlier version. I have also since changed my mind for several programs as to which is “my favorite” as newer and better programs have become available. I have since found better ones than what I preferred originally.

This year, I purchased three new computers, an Apple MacBook Air (a two-and-a-half pound Macintosh laptop), an Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook (a three-pound Windows 7 laptop) and a Samsung Chromebook (a three-and-a-quarter pound laptop that runs the Chrome operating system). I purchased the three computers, running three different operating systems, so that I could test programs and then write about them in this newsletter. All three computers include a number of programs already installed, but they feel "incomplete" to me. Of course, I could run to a computer store and buy dozens of programs, but my pocketbook would complain. With the recent purchase of three new computers, there's very little money left over for software. The ChromeBook only uses cloud-based programs so I will ignore it for the rest of this article. With the other two computers, as soon as I installed them and made them operational, I immediately downloaded my favorite free programs.

Family Tree Maker for Macintosh version 2

The Ancestry.com web site states that "Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 will begin shipping by the end of November 2011." That's only a few days away. New features include:

• TreeSync — Easily synchronize your tree in Family Tree Maker with an online Ancestry.com tree.
• New Mac-Only Features — Capture photos using your iSight or built-in camera and import them directly into Family Tree Maker.
• Easy-to-understand Combined Family View — The family group view has a new “blended families” option that lets you display all of a couple’s children in one location.
• More Ancestry.com Integration — Now you can find out which members are searching for your ancestors by viewing Member Connect activity in the expanded Web Dashboard.
• Enhanced Performance
• New Image Collection — Create beautiful family trees and reports with a variety of new backgrounds and images.

Medical Marvel Creates a Genealogy Puzzle

How would you enter this into your genealogy database? A Dallas woman gave birth some time ago to a set of twins. That's not unusual but the details are anything but normal. It seems the two boys did not even resemble each other. The mother had the DNA of both boys tested and this is where things get strange. Lab results showed there is a zero percent chance that the two 11-month-old boys have the same father.

Kindle’s Personal Document Service

The Kindle eBook readers are very popular devices and for good reasons. They work well and are reasonably priced. However, Kindle devices are not limited to downloading books from Amazon. Did you know that you can publish your own documents or even digital books (up to 50 megabytes in size) or MP3, or Audible files you already own to your Kindle device? In fact, you can publish them to your own Kindle as well as to Kindles owned by friends and family, assuming that each Kindle owner gives you permission to do so.

Denise Barrett Olson has written a great article that describes how to copy documents to Kindle devices. You can read the article on FamilySearch's Tech Tips at http://goo.gl/5eR4a. Another "how to" article may be found on Amazon.com at http://goo.gl/e7FPm.

CrashPlan's Holiday Sale

I have written before about CrashPlan, the online backup service. It is a great service with many options. It can back up as little or as much data as you wish to the company's servers or to another computer you own or to a friend or relative's computer at another location or to a plug-in hard drive directly connected to your computer.

Newsletter reader David Riles sent an email message saying:

CrashPlan is having a discount period or Holiday sale. I just purchased the 2 Year Family Plan normally $199.99 for $99.99. All of their plans are discounted.

I thought this might be of interest to your readers.

Great find! It appears that all subscriptions have been discounted 50%. The offer is available only to first time CrashPlan customers and only for a limited time. You can read more at https://www.crashplan.com/consumer/store-holiday.vtl.

Reintroducing RootsBooks.com

Some time ago, I created an online genealogy bookstore called RootsBooks.com. It was in operation for a couple of years but, a few months ago, it encountered technical problems and I had to shut it down. Due to my heavy travel schedule at the time, I was not able to rebuild RootsBooks.com until this week.

Now I am delighted to announce that RootsBooks.com is back in operation, just in time for the holiday shopping period. You can find it at http://www.RootsBooks.com.

The new online genealogy store has an all-new look and feel as well as many new products. The emphasis is on genealogy books, naturally, but you will also find many other products of interest to genealogists, including handheld scanners, slide and negative scanners, ebook readers, and more. RootsBooks.com now has more than 1,000 products available for sale.

Holocaust Victims Database Aims to Restore Lost Identities

More than 2,100 volunteers around the world who have signed on to the World Memory Project, a joint effort by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry.com, to create the world's largest online searchable database of records related to victims of the Holocaust.

It's a massive undertaking: The museum has more than 170 million documents about victims of Nazi persecution, including Nazi concentration camp records and transport lists, records created by Jewish communities and U.S. government documents about people displaced by the war who later emigrated to the United States.

Using the Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner for Genealogy

A new YouTube video shows the use of the Flip-Pal in operation creating scrapbooks of family heritage. The scanner is used to scan photographs as well as 3D objects. The video shows the Flip-Pal in operation and shows how easy it is to use. Keep in mind that it does not connect to a computer. Instead, all data is stored on an SD (Secure Digital) memory card which you later remove and connect a computer at your convenience. The Flip-Pal includes one SD card and you may purchase more, should you wish to do so.

The video was produced by KS Productions, Inc. and is available at http://youtu.be/xinrLP6buCA or click on the image below.

Want to Buy the 1940 U.S. Census?

The 1940 U.S. Census data and enumeration district maps will be released on April 2, 2012 and you can have your own, personal copy! You can purchase the entire set for "only" $200,000 in digital form. If you prefer microfilm, it will set you back $580,750. However, you can purchase individuals states for much less.

NOTE: It is important to note that the National Archives and Records Administration will also be hosting all 18+ terabytes of data online, free of charge, for viewing and download. I would not suggest downloading 18 terabytes of data, however.

The following was published by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:

Cruising on the "Unlock the Past" History and Genealogy Conference Cruise in New Zealand and Australia

I wrote recently about the successful Wholly Genes genealogy conference and cruise. It seems the folks "down under" do the same. Auckland Libraries and the New Zealand Society of Genealogists hosted a day of family history seminars as part of an "Unlock the Past" history and genealogy conference cruise.

The 14-day cruise features a Scottish and Irish Theme. It is a cruise from Auckland, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia, and features 8 one-day stops in between.

Behold Version 1.0 Released - Genealogy Software for Windows

The following announcement was written by Louis Kessler, a frequent visitor to this newsletter's site:

Behold Version 1.0 Released
Genealogy Software for Windows

November 24, 2011 – Louis Kessler today released Version 1.0 of his genealogy software. Behold is a genealogy data viewing program that takes all the data and organizes it into a single “Everything Report” designed to be useful to genealogists.

The Everything Report comes complete with a Table of Contents, a Name Index, a Place Index, Sources and File Information, and is enhanced with a TreeView for easy access to any section. Behold initially “Auto Organizes” people into families, and then allows those families to be customized. The “Organize Pages” allow the user to specify exactly what to include in the Everything Report, and how to display it.