The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
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the vendors like it or not!
The following announcement was written by the National Genealogical Society:
The Ohio River: Gateway to the Western Frontier
(Arlington, VA)–The National Genealogical Society's thirty-fourth annual Family History Conference, The Ohio River: Gateway to the Western Frontier, will be held 9–12 May 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
A highlight of the NGS 2012 Family History Conference will be the Genealogy Youth Kamp on Saturday, 12 May 2012, at the Duke Energy Convention Center from 8:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. The Kamp, designed to develop an understanding of family history, is intended for youth 8 to 16 years old. Scouts and 4-H groups are encouraged to participate in the event with their leaders. The morning will be composed of a variety of hands-on activities including a workshop focusing on genealogical merit badges. A special program is planned for interested parents, grandparents, and adults who are welcome to attend.
The following announcement was written by Ancestry.ca:
MONTREAL (April 12, 2012) Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading family history website, is giving Francophones a reason to stay close to their computers this weekend with unprecedented access to its vast collection of French historical records.
The collection contains more than 14.5 million historical documents outlining the histories of millions of people in Quebec and France, and will be available free from April 17-22.
For those who absolutely refuse to move to modern technology, are you aware you can order the 1940 U.S. census on microfilm? It isn't shipping yet, but the National Archives Trust Fund is now accepting orders.
Of course, the more than 18 terabytes of data is already online, free of charge. Anyone can view and even download by page or by an entire enumeration district at a time. However, if you or your society or your library really wants a copy on microfilm, get your checkbook out. The 4,646 reels of microfilm will be available later this year for "only" $580,750.
This is a short note to say that I will be traveling for the next three weeks. While I will be traveling with an assortment of laptop computers, an iPad, wireless "air cards" and other hardware, I am not sure if I will be able to post new articles in the newsletter every day. Often, the one thing I am missing is time.
This will be my "coast to coast" tour, with stops in Red Deer, Alberta; Las Vegas, Nevada; Bend, Oregon; Massachusetts; and Long Island, New York. I will return to Florida on May 1st.
Please don't be surprised if I "disappear" for a day or two.
The following announcement was written by Deceased Online:
Approximately 20,000 burial records for two cemeteries managed by Cotswold District Council are now available on Deceased Online
Chesterton Cemetery, opened 1872, is located in the ‘Cotswold capital’ Cirencester and Stratton Cemetery (in Stratton, just outside Cirencester) has records from 1888. All records for both cemeteries are available.
The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:
In 1940, Americans were recovering from the Great Depression and on the brink of entering a world war. The recently released 1940 U.S. Census gives us data snapshots of people and families poised between two of the most devastating world-wide events of the 20th century.
After you locate someone in the 1940 Census (on Ancestry.com), use that information to find records on Fold3, especially within the World War II Collection. Then build their personal histories with images and other details you've discovered.
The Buncombe County Register of Deeds office has just launched a new online request capability. Note that the original records are not online. Instead, you can use an online form to order copies and have them mailed to you. That's not the latest technology, but it certainly is easier than writing letters as well as more accurate than making phone calls.
Birth records are available from about 1890 Death records are available from about 1890 Marriage records are available from about 1850
For many years, people have kept their precious mementos — letters, photo albums, home movies and paper documents — as a link to their past, and a recognized tradition is to pass along these family treasures to future generations. In celebration of Preservation Week 2012, April 22-28, the Library of Congress is sponsoring a number of activities to share preservation strategies that help people care for their personal materials — and thereby pass them on.
Roy Stockdill is a retired national newspaper journalist in England. He edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years, is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He also writes regularly for Family Tree magazine in England. He is also a kind host to visiting American genealogy tourists, such as myself. I have known Roy for years and I love his sense of humor. I have mentioned Roy's many talents a number of times in this newsletter. You can read my past articles about him if you start at http://goo.gl/Osi01.
Now Roy Stockdill has applied his talents to documenting the families of well-known personalities, both living and dead.
NPR has a great story about identifying a previously-unidentified enlisted man in a Civil War uniform. Tom Liljenquist and his family have collected 1,000 of these such photographs and donated them to the Library of Congress. But the photographs don't feature generals and other high-ranking officers. Instead, they're images of the enlisted men who fought for the Union and the Confederacy during the war. And only a handful of the soldiers have been identified.
The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists:
APG to Honor Student with Strong Interest in Developing a Career in Genealogy
WESTMINSTER, Colo., 11 April 2012—The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG®) is now accepting applications for the APG Young Professional Award. The award goes to a student with a significant interest in genealogy and with a strong interest in developing a professional career in genealogy. The award includes a scholarship registration for the APG Professional Management Conference (PMC) and a stipend of up to $500 towards travel and lodging at the conference. The winner will be announced in August 2012 for attendance at the APG PMC 2013, which will take place in Salt Lake City on 20 March 2013.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
FamilySearch has begun publishing images online from the 1940 U.S. Federal Census to engage the army of volunteers who have been waiting for the chance to begin indexing those names. To explore the digital images or to see which states’ images have been published, go to FamilySearch.org/1940census. FamilySearch also published over 14 million new, free records online for Austria, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, England, Estonia, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, and Spain. Volunteer to help index the 1940 U.S. census now, or search these diverse collections and 2.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.
Searchable historic records on FamilySearch.org are made available by thousands of volunteers from around the world who transcribe (index) information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online. More volunteers are needed (particularly those who can read foreign languages) to keep pace with the amount of digital images being published online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about how to personally help provide free access to the world’s historic genealogical records as a volunteer indexer at FamilySearch.org.
For data safety and for optionally sharing your files amongst your own computers or even with other people, cloud-based online storage services are tough to beat. Some of the services offer limited amounts of free storage space. Even the paid services are usually cheaper than buying hard drives. However, there are many such services to choose from. Which one is best for you?
I doubt if there is any single answer that is best for all. However, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has compared the six leading online storage services and gives his evaluation in an article in ZDnet. You can read his evaluation at http://goo.gl/m9tRF.
The Hudson chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society has placed some of their excess materials for sale. Income from the sale of these items goes to the Ohio Genealogical Society Building or Endowment funds.
I wrote a few days ago about the new Macintosh trojan program called Backdoor.Flashback.39. You can read my previous article at http://goo.gl/ZEu2H.
NOTE: A trojan is different from a virus but both are designed to create problems with your computer.
Arguments have raged back and forth about the claim of 600,000 infected Macs in the world (slightly more than one percent of all the 45 million Macs in use). Whatever the truth, a new software tool makes it simple to determine if your Mac is infected or not.
How many brothers and sisters do you have? And let's count half-brothers and half-sisters. A Toronto man claims to have about 1,000 siblings.
Barry Stevens, a Toronto filmmaker, has been researching the late Bertold Wiesner, an Austrian Jew who ran a fertility clinic in England. Wiesner not only was Stevens' biological father, but also a father to hundreds of others.
FamilyLink is now providing all the original images of the entire 1940 US Census free of charge. The site now contains all the images covering the 132 million people who lived in the USA in April 1940. In a brief test, I found that the site was not busy or swamped with users. I found my grandparents, a bunch of cousins, and a number of other people I knew in later years when I was growing up. The images always appeared quickly.
On February 22, I posted a short article about the proposed Google Glasses (see http://goo.gl/oPD2U) which reportedly will be available later this year. Now Google has posted a video showing the company's vision of what the user will see when wearing these glasses.
The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
A newsletter reader asked, “Can you think about addressing technology-related hardware such as hand scanners to use with maps, etc., that are too large to put on a flatbed scanner? Anything tool-wise that would be good to take on a library expedition may be of interest to readers, at least this one!”
In fact, the entire world has not always used 8½-inch by 11-inch pages, and not even the A4 size that is commonly used outside of North America. (A4 is 8.27 by 11.69 inches.) Genealogists frequently deal with larger maps, drawings, pedigree charts, and other oversized documents. What’s more, in years past, paper sizes were not standardized. In fact, paper documents from the seventeenth century are often written on parchment that does not have square corners or straight edges!
Indeed, how can we scan these documents for electronic preservation? As with many questions, the only correct answer is, “It all depends.” However, several answers pop to mind.
The Ohio River: Gateway to the Western Frontier
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