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RootsTech hasn't even started yet but the announcements are being made. The following was written by the staff at Mocavo, the genealogy search engine:
Historical Record Storage and Sharing, iPhone and Android Apps, Discovery Stream
Boulder, Colo., February 1, 2012 – Mocavo, the world’s largest free genealogy search engine, today announced several new product capabilities and content additions that will be demonstrated at this week’s RootsTech Family History and Technology conference in Salt Lake City. New product capabilities include: free storage and sharing for historical records, iPhone and Android applications, and the new Discovery Stream.
"With these new features, Mocavo has evolved into a primary resource for genealogists and family historians to research and share their stories," said Cliff Shaw, CEO of Mocavo. "Our goal is to host all of the world's free genealogy content, to make new discoveries an everyday occurrence and to put more research tools into the hands of family historians."
Tel Aviv's historic Trumpeldor Cemetery invites you to find graves by text messaging. For only one shekel, you can text the the deceased's full name and name of the father, and you will quickly receive the plot number of the grave. Now THAT's a practical application of text messaging!
The following announcement was written by Fold3, a subsidiary of Ancestry.com:
Fold3 is proud to announce Free access to our Black History Collection in honor of Black History Month. This collection includes many enlightening historical records documenting African American achievements since the earliest days of our nation, and will be available the entire month of February.
As soon as black soldiers were recruited to serve the Union in 1863, records were generated to document their service including Compiled Service Records for the U.S. Colored Troops and, ultimately, pension files. The pension file index cards, like this one for Joel Bedenbaugh, include a soldier's rank, company, and regiment within the U.S.C. Infantry, his pension numbers, and sometimes a death date, 24 August 1913, in this case. Private Bedenbaugh's 16-page service record also includes his enlistment record from when he joined up in Dayton, Ohio, in 1864.
For those who are unable to attend this week's RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City, here is the "next best thing." The following announcement was written by the RootsTech staff:
SALT LAKE CITY—RootsTech, a leading family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2-4, 2012, announced today that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The second-year conference has attracted over 3,000 registered attendees.
An unnamed newsletter reader reports that Ancestry's new Interactive Census Viewer apparently was quietly released to beta on the live site of the 1911 UK Census updates for Wales, Isle of Man, and Channel Islands that were pushed to the site last week on 23 January.
If you go to an individual record within one of these, you will see a new link "View Interactive Image" in the sidebar at http://goo.gl/Dh75X.
This is a major announcement, in my opinion. The phrase "an Improved Approach For Finding Variant Names" is really the same thing as saying "a better way to find name variants than by using Soundex." Soundex has been used for decades although it has numerous shortcomings. If successful, this new method could revolutionize one of the standard tools used by genealogists for decades. The new software tool is being released as open-source software, meaning it can be used by any organization or individuals, free of charge.
The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com, BehindTheName.com, and WeRelate.org:
brightsolid made two announcements in one this morning. First, it has hired one of the better-known genealogists to play a key role in the company's expansion into the U.S. marketplace. The second announcement is a bit more subtle: the company is moving into the U.S. marketplace. British-owned brightsolid has long been a major player providing online genealogy information to U.K. genealogists and now is expanding into the U.S. The company appears to be well-funded and should be capable of becoming a major competitor to the U.S. providers of genealogy data.
The following announcement was written by brightsolid:
He’s helped stars find their roots on TV’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” Now, he’s helping brightsolid’s US launch as business development manager and media spokesperson
Taylor is one of several new appointments to the new US operation of UK’s major online genealogy business
January 30, 2012. SANTA MONICA, CA: brightsolid online publishing, a leading online provider of historical and genealogical content, today announces that top genealogist D. Joshua Taylor has joined its new US operation with immediate effect, as business development manager and media spokesperson.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Perhaps the full title of this article should be How to Find Someone Who Has the Book You Seek and Also Let Everyone Else Know About the Books You Own and Also Catalog Your Own Personal Library with Minimal Effort.
You can find dozens of programs that will help you catalog your personal book collection. Some of these will create a list that you can print or store on your own computer or store on your smartphone or even upload to the World Wide Web. Some products also keep track of the books you want to read (sometimes called a wish list) and will also keep track of books you have loaned out to others, including the date loaned. Some cataloging products will also track other media, such as CD and DVD disks, video games, and more. However, one online service does all that and lots more. You can access your information from a web browser on a desktop computer, a laptop computer, or even from an iPhone. The last feature is very useful when you are at a bookstore or flea market or genealogy conference and are wondering, "Do I already have that book?" Best of all, you can share your catalog with others and also see what others have in their collections. The service is available either free of charge or for very low fees, depending upon the options you select.
If you would like to join more than 100 other genealogists for dinner after the close of RootsTech, you need to sign up NOW! Ticket sales end tomorrow (Monday, January 30) at 9 AM Eastern time. The end date of Monday is required as I have to notify the hotel of the headcount. In turn, the hotel needs to order enough food no later than Monday in order to be prepared for everyone on Saturday evening.
As of the time I am writing this article on Sunday morning, 106 genealogists have signed up to attend the dinner. We may get a few more last-minute additions.
Writing in the Legal Genealogist, Judy Russell has issued a call to action for all genealogists. Judy writes:
On Thursday of this coming week (February 2, 2012), the Subcommittee on Social Security of the House Ways & Means Committee in Washington, D.C., will hold hearings that have the capacity to drastically affect the access of genealogists to the Social Security Death Index (“SSDI”) and related underlying information.
Go to the northern tip of Maine. That is also the northern end of U.S. Highway 1. There you will find Fort Kent. The town is on the border with New Brunswick and is only a few miles from Quebec province. Most of the town's residents have French-Canadian names. Now a huge collection of French-Canadian genealogy information has become available in Fort Kent.
Who Do You Think You Are? returns for its third season on Friday, February 3 at 8/7c on NBC, when 12 more celebrities will trace their ancestors and discover hidden stories from their past.
Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jason Sudeikis, Jerome Bettis and Paula Deen will explore their roots in the NBC genealogy show.
This looks like fun. The fictional Middle-earth is now the subject of a minutely-detailed "family tree project."
Emil Johansson, a photographer and chemical engineering student from Sweden, who has read "every book there is to read about Middle-earth" has spent years compiling a family tree of every character in Tolkien's world. Supreme god Eru Ilúvatar sits at the top, but dig a little further and you'll find out how the Sackville-Bagginses are linked to the Bagginses, that Sam Gamgee and Rosie Cotton had 12 little hobbit children, and much more.
The following announcement was written by findmypast.co.uk:
Project announced to increase access to over a million baptism, marriage and burial records dating back to 1538
First time that images of the original parish records from East Kent churches will appear online
Today leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk has announced that it has been awarded a contract by Canterbury Cathedral Archives to publish online for the very first time historic records from the archive. The first phase of the Canterbury Collection project will see a browsable version of the parish registers of the historic Archdeaconry of Canterbury go online in the coming weeks at findmypast.co.uk.
The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:
Family History Leader Adds Millions of State Birth, Marriage and Death Records to its Pennsylvania Vital Record Collection
PROVO, UTAH – (January 26, 2012) – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, announced today that it has added over seven million records detailing more than 300 years of Pennsylvanians’ life history spanning from 1593-1908 to its already expansive collection of Pennsylvania state records. Presented in partnership with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, these latest additions cover pivotal years, when the Keystone State was not only growing itself, but contributing to the overall development of the country. This comprehensive collection includes details about the lives of everyday Pennsylvanians as well as those who helped forge the state’s rich historical past, with records for the Hershey family, Benjamin Franklin, John Coltrane and many others.
In August, 2011, I wrote about Families at http://goo.gl/EyiMj. Families is an application produced by TelGen Limited in England that worked at that time on Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad systems. The company has since expanded their offerings and now has released a version of Families for Android systems.
The Families app works in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree, a popular Windows-based genealogy software from Millennia Corporation. Legacy family files can be easily transferred from a PC to your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android device, enabling them to be viewed and edited wherever you are.
How many people born in 1790 have living grandchildren today? Not great-grandchildren, but second generation descendants?
John Tyler was born in 1790. He became the 10th president of the United States in 1841 after William Henry Harrison died in office. Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853, at age 63. Then, at the age of 71, Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. in 1924 and four years later at age 75, Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Both men are still alive today.
Do you need a good word processor? How about a spreadsheet program? Would you like to have a high-quality office suite of programs without paying the ridiculous prices for Microsoft Office? If you use Windows, you might want to check out Kingsoft Office Suite Professional 2012.
Writing for C|Net, Rick Broida writes, "the fact is that I like the look of Kingsoft Office Suite 2012, and I like the price even more. The free version is extremely capable, offering robust counterparts to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint--and file compatibility with all three. It doesn't support Visual Basic or macros, however, so if you're a power user, you might want to consider the $69.95 Pro version, which adds those features (among others)."
USA Today has an interesting article about the orphan trains of the early twentieth century and the long-lasting effects on the children on those trains. The Children's Aid Society and New York Foundling Hospital put orphaned or abandoned children on trains headed west. The children were adopted into families at various whistle stops along the way.
Lukas Weinstein, archive coordinator for the Children's Aid Society, says that about 200,000 children rode the trains. Some were adopted by loving families; others were treated as servants when there were no child labor laws. Many ended up in the Midwest. A growing number of their offspring want to know more about the orphan train riders.
On January 16, I published an announcement about professional genealogist Michael Leclerc joining the team at genealogy search engine Mocavo. That article is still available at http://goo.gl/ydSqv. The company obviously is expanding still further.
The following announcement was written by Mocavo:
Ryan Hunter Appointed Chief Operating Officer, Michael Leclerc Appointed Chief Genealogist
BOULDER, Colo., Jan 25, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Mocavo, the world's largest free genealogy search engine, today announced the appointment of Ryan Hunter as COO and Michael Leclerc as Chief Genealogist. Hunter joins Mocavo after four years as a Wall Street Analyst preceded by thirteen years of operational experience in the Technology Industry. Leclerc joins Mocavo after fifteen years with the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Historical Record Storage and Sharing, iPhone and Android Apps, Discovery Stream
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