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The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Do you, your employer, or your local genealogy society have information that you would like to offer to others online for a fee? Do you have questions about how to do that or how to charge money or how to handle credit cards? Do you want to know how to control access to the information? If you would like to save some time, money, and frustration with these tasks, this article can help! I have decided to share with you some of my own “lessons learned” in finding and implementing a solution that has worked well for me and for many others.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch.org:
30 April 2012
The 1940 U.S. census indexing project was launched this April as part of a broad online community effort. Images and indexing projects for all states and territories in the 1940 census are now online. Of all the different types of historic records available to index, volunteers love census records the most, and it shows in the record-breaking levels of activity we’ve seen in the past three weeks.
Over 85,000 volunteers have already completed 20 percent of the census project.
A record number of active indexers used the program in a single day—34,947 volunteers.
In one day more than 3.2 million records were indexed and 1.5 million were arbitrated.
I must say I had a great time on Saturday making presentations to an enthusiastic genealogy group at the Patchogue-Medford Library on Long Island, New York. This group not only laughed at my jokes, they also asked some good questions! I felt very much "at home" with these folks.
My special thanks to the library's genealogy specialist, Toni Raptis, for putting the program together and chasing down the myriad of details required. The entire event seemed to go off without a hitch. I know that's because of Toni's hard work.
Every week, Henry Louis Gates produces the show Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. on PBS. The renowned Harvard professor has helped a number of celebrities make fascinating discoveries into their family genealogy. This past week, he took on the ancestry of actor Samuel L. Jackson, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Brown University President Ruth Simmons.
The New York Times Magazine has a story about one of the guests, Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson, who is 63, has appeared in more than 100 films since 1972 as well as a number of Broadway plays. You can read more about Samuel L. Jackson and his appearance on Finding Your Roots at http://goo.gl/O6MDJ.
Do you wonder if cloud storage is a good option for your personal digital photographs? Do you have questions about metadata and file formats? Are you uneasy about the prospects of keeping your digital photos available for yourself and your family into the future? If so, you have lots of company.
On April 26, over 570 people participated in a web-based presentation about preserving digital photographs.
37-year-old Dale Earnhardt Jr. had never thought about his family history much further back than his grandfather, Ralph Earnhardt. Earnhardt Jr. said he "never really cared" about his great-grandfather and beyond, even when friends suggested he learn more about his family tree. But about six months ago, Earnhardt Jr. started working on his family's history with the help of a genealogist – and he's glad he did.
The following was written by the Southern California Genealogy Society:
SCGS has instituted a new Jamboree scholarship program for aspiring genealogists and family historians between the ages of 18 and 29 as of June 8, 2012. The scholarship will cover basic registration for the conference, which will be held June 8-10, 2012 in Burbank, California.
These young people will be admitted to Jamboree at a substantial discount. The special registration fee is $15 per day or $25 for all three days.
April 27th is Morse Code Day; this day remembers the birthday of Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code. For this reason, every year we celebrate Morse Code Day on 27th April, so let's celebrate this day with very gloriously and send some messages of love and friendship through Morse Code.
Since I still copy Morse Code at about 25 to 30 words per minute, here is my greeting:
The J.A. Freitas Library is digitizing copies of 14 Portuguese-language newspapers published in California between 1885 and 1940. The library is owned and operated by the Supreme Council of the Portuguese Fraternal Society of America. Archivist Sonia Pacheco, of the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, supervised the digitization.
The Collin County Genealogical Society partnered with The University of North Texas' (UNT) Texas Digital Newspaper Program (http://tdnp.unt.edu/) to digitize and make available online to a worldwide audience the contents of six microfilm rolls of the McKinney, Texas newspaper, The Democrat, from the years 1884-1904 and one microfilm roll of incomplete runs of the Daily Gazette, Democrat, McKinney Examiner and McKinney Gazette (years ranging from 1880 to 1936). This is a total of 5047 newspaper pages whose content can then be found via search engines like Google or through direct searches free of charge at The Portal to Texas History Web site: texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/TDNP/browse/
Approximately 113,000 new Chester wills and probate records are now available on findmypast.co.uk for the period 1492-1911. The records include all surviving original wills of Cheshire residents proved at the Chester diocesan consistory court 1492-1857 and registered copies made at Chester Probate Registry 1858-1911.
One genealogy society is moving bravely into the world of all digital publication. The following is an extract from the Ohio Genealogical Society's web site:
For the first time, in 2013, OGS Members will have the ability to receive Ohio Genealogical News and/or Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly digitally on the OGS Website at http://www.ogs.org. For those who still want paper, both will still be available through the mail.
The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
A recent news article made me stop to think. Harvard University recently sent a memo to faculty saying, "We write to communicate an untenable situation facing the Harvard Library. Many large journal publishers have made the scholarly communication environment fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive. This situation is exacerbated by efforts of certain publishers (called "providers") to acquire, bundle, and increase the pricing on journals."
The entire Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing is available at http://goo.gl/kn2vf.
Obviously, Harvard is writing about academic journals. However, I have to wonder if the same issues apply to genealogy journals that are also published in an academic manner and written to academic standards. Such journals would include the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (NGSQ), The American Genealogist (TAG), The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, and The Virginia Genealogist.
This week's U.S. version of Who Do You Think You Are? will feature Rob Lowe as the celebrity guest. The Parks & Rec actor examines his family tree and uncovers big surprises. You can obtain an an early look at his ancestry with the two attached videos.
The following was written by Matthew Deighton of Ancestry.com:
Date: Thu, April 26, 2012 2:17 pm From: Matthew Deighton Ancestry.com Public Relations
Good morning,
I have received a few emails about the recent change in Ancestry.com’s Terms and Conditions. I wanted to give you our official statement letting you know what our response it. Long story short, it was never meant to exclude professionals from using Ancestry.com, and it has been added back in. Let me know if you have any questions.
Ancestry.com reported its first quarter financial report yesterday, although the financial news was almost drowned out by the news of its acquisition of Archives.com. "The first quarter marked a strong start to the year. Our key financial metrics, including revenue, adjusted EBITDA and subscribers, all came in above our expectations," said Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Ancestry.com.
In addition to the first quarter results announcement, the Company reported that its board of directors has approved a new $100 million common stock repurchase authorization.
The recent announcement of Google's new Drive online storage service has created a lot of confusion about who is offering what. Indeed, Google is entering an already crowded field of storage service providers.
Ellis Hamburger has published a side-by-side comparison of the 13 leading storage space providers that nicely summarizes the important points of each. You can find his article at http://goo.gl/KfvPf.
Almost a million images of New York and its municipal operations have been made public for the first time on the Internet. The city's Department of Records officially announced the debut of the photo database with photos from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Genealogy search engine Mocavo recently announced an exciting new feature for its users: Geni Family Tree Import! With Geni Family Tree Import, Geni and Mocavo users can import their existing family trees on Geni to their Mocavo profiles and instantly have access to all their family tree data.
The folks at Mocavo were kind enough to answer some questions about this latest feature in the Geni blog. You can read more at http://goo.gl/VpBch.
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