Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Is This Great-Grand-Dad's iPhone?

This device certainly has a retro look. It looks like the horn on an old Gramophone or perhaps great-grand-dad's ear trumpet. If the sound on your iPhone appears to be a bit weak, this might be the device for you. Or for great-grand-dad.

The eco-amp is an iPhone amplifier made from recycled paper, containing no battery or electronics, providing an environmentally friendly approach to portable amplification.

(+) My Method of Filing Digital Images and Documents

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

A newsletter reader asked a question today. Here is a (slightly edited) copy of her message:

"I'd love to know how you handle the thousands of .JPG images of genealogy document scans and how to attach sources to them.  I tried copying my .JPGs into Word, adding a title and source as text boxes.  It was easy enough but Word degraded the .JPG image so much that writing from earlier documents was almost unreadable.  I'm trying it now in PowerPoint files with much better luck.  I maintain .JPG integrity, can add titles and sources, and have multiple pages.  I can copy the .JPG  into other formats or convert the file into a .PDF.  I would still love to know what you use before I get too involved in this format."

I did answer her in email but I thought I would also share my answer here in case others might have the same questions:

Does a Web Site Really Contain Malicious Software?

I sometimes receive reports that a site mentioned in this newsletter triggers a "potential malicious software" report in McAfee or one of the other anti-virus and anti-malware testing programs. Most of the time, these reports turn out to be false. Luckily, there is an easy test that is highly accurate.

NOTE: "malware" is an abbreviation for "malevolent software." It refers to viruses, worms, trojan horses, and all other software that is designed to do nasty things to your computer.

Wintree and GWintree for Windows, Macintosh, Solaris, and Linux

I haven't seen this program yet although it does sound interesting. Wintree and GWintree reportedly are GEDCOM-based genealogy programs. They provide facilities to record, view, edit, and merge genealogy data, and to produce genealogy charts, family trees, and reports in a range of formats, including HTML. Charts can show all relatives, ancestors only, or descendants only. HTML charts allow you to click on a person in your HTML report to see where they are on the chart. Automatic matching and merging of genealogy data between files is supported.

Wintree is for Windows and is supported at http://www.wintree.plus.com/

FindMyPast Publishes 2 Million New Welsh Parish Records

The FindMyPast Blog states, "These new records follow the first release of Welsh parish registers earlier this year. This is the first time that the complete Welsh parish baptism, marriage and death records have been made available online.

"You can now search 5,924,611 records of Church in Wales parish registers on findmypast.co.uk:

Baptisms: 2,083,430 records covering 1538-1912 – see detailed coverage (PDF)
Marriages: 1,226,650 records covering 1539-1927 – see detailed coverage (PDF)
Banns: 557,078 records covering 1603-1927 – see detailed coverage (PDF)
Burials: 2,057,453 records covering 1539-2007 – see detailed coverage (PDF)

Google is Trying to Save Rare Languages

Google is funding a project designed to promote languages in danger of fading away. The search giant is producing a series of tools, including specialist social network tools, designed to revive interest in the languages. The Endangered Language Project springs from the fact that about half of the 6,000 human languages spoken today are "on the verge of extinction," with few native speakers left alive.

According to the Endangered Languages web site at endangeredlanguages.com, researchers predict there will be no one able to speak these languages by the year 2100, unless special efforts are made to preserve them.

Don't Post Your Vacation Status on Facebook or Other Sites

Reminder: Maybe you should think twice before bragging about your vacation on Facebook, complete with sun-and-sand photos, lest your shadier friends or members of the general public decide to burgle your house. Two Facebook users in Anderson County, South Carolina were arrested Sunday for using Facebook to find out which of their friends were out of town so they could rob "several" of the empty houses over the course of two months, according to WFMY News at http://goo.gl/Q6KBu.

39-year-old Candace Landreth and 44-year-old Robert Landreth Jr. allegedly used Facebook to see which of their friends were out of town. If a post indicated a Facebook friend wasn't home, the two broke into that friend's house and liberated some of their belongings.

MyHeritage releases SuperSearch - a State of the Art Search Engine for Family History

The following announcement was written by MyHeritage:

Cutting-edge search engine powers breakthrough discoveries, adds color to family history and establishes the popular family network as a leading player in the historical content market

PROVO, Utah & LONDON & TEL AVIV, Israel – June 25, 2012: MyHeritage, the most popular family network on the web, today announced the official launch of SuperSearch, a powerful new family history search engine for helping families around the world discover historical records and long-lost relatives. Packed with the industry’s most international source of historical content and family trees, SuperSearch (www.myheritage.com/research) is capable of searching billions of records within seconds. With a simple and contemporary user experience, clever search features, a massive library of content including one billion global family tree profiles, the world’s largest collection of historical newspapers, and flexible pay-as-you-go or subscription payment options, SuperSearch raises the bar and provides new value and choice for family history fans.

Photographs: Britain From Above

More than 5,000 images from the Aerofilms Collection have been conserved and digitised, and they are available to be viewed online for the first time on a brand-new website, britainfromabove.org.uk, which also features about 12,000 other photographs from across the UK. Many of the photos were said to have been taken during the early days of aviation by former war pilots at very low altitudes.

Britain from Above allows users to download free images and share personal memories, as well as adding information to help enrich the understanding of the story behind each one. The public can also help identify the locations of a number of “mystery” images that have left the experts stumped.

FGS Announces $135,000 Donation to War of 1812 Pension Project

The following announcement was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:

Estate of Jon Stedman To Help Digitize Important Family History Records

June 25, 2012 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announces the donation of a generous gift in the amount of $135,000 from the estate of the late Jon Stedman in memory of his mother, Ardath Stedman. The donation to the Preserve the Pensions – War of 1812 Pension Digitization Fund will be used to help preserve and digitize War of 1812 Pension records.

(+) An Alternative to PowerPoint

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

Do you lecture to audiences? Looking for a way to make your PowerPoint slides seem more exciting? I'd like to tell you about a great presentation tool that doesn't even use PowerPoint. Yes, it is a PowerPoint REPLACEMENT. I suspect that everyone who sees your presentation using this new tool will remember your talk well, simply because your slides will be so different. Even better, this new tool is available FREE of charge.  To be sure, an advanced version is also available for a fee, but I suspect most individual users only need the free version.

Have you ever sat through a boring presentation that used dull PowerPoint slides? If so, you can appreciate the phrase I hear often: "Death by PowerPoint." To be sure, the new tool I will describe is not going to fix a boring presentation. After all, boring is boring. However, properly used, this new PowerPoint replacement certainly can help your slides. Your next presentation will look like no slide presentation you have ever seen.

Could You Pass a US Citizenship Test?

If you are an American, you probably have several ancestors who became naturalized Americans. American citizenship bestows the right to vote, improves the likelihood of family members living in other countries to come and live in the US, gives eligibility for federal jobs, and can be a way to demonstrate loyalty to the US. Applicants must get 6 answers out of 10 in an oral exam to pass the test. According to US Citizenship and Immigration services, 92 percent of applicants pass this test.

Can YOU pass that test? Could you have qualified for citizenship if you weren't born here? See how many of the 96 questions you can answer correctly at http://goo.gl/dNOF3.

Banana Truck Crash Destroys Historic 1745 Massachusetts Building

An out-of-control tractor-trailer carrying bananas crashed into a natural gas main and ignited an explosion on Sunday morning, setting fire to an 18th-century building that housed a tavern and destroying it in Seekonk, Massachusetts, about 6 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island.

The Old Grist Mill Tavern was a rare relic of Pre-Revolutionary New England designed to grind the grain raised by nearby colonial farmers. Nobody seems to know when it opened as a restaurant, although local residents say it was "probably in the 1800s."

Looking for Descendants of Child Laborers Photographed by Lewis Hine

Joe Manning is involved in sort of a "reverse genealogy" project: he is looking for  the stories of child laborers who were photographed by Lewis Hine in the early 1900s.

In an email message, Joe writes, "I am Joe Manning, an author and historian. Perhaps you and your subscribers would be interested in knowing about my project to track down the stories of child laborers who were photographed by Lewis Hine in the early 1900s. My work is sort of 'reverse genealogy,' tracking down descendants instead of ancestors. There are thousands of Hine's photos on the Library of Congress website.

Midwestern Roots Early Registration Ends June 27

The Midwestern Roots conference is shaping up to be a major event. To be held in Indianpolis, this event normally attracts hundreds of attendees. Speakers this year include myself, Shamele Jordon, J. Mark Lowe, Thomas MacEntee, Daniel S. Poffenberger, Juliana Smith, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, D. Joshua Taylor, Patricia Van Skaik, Curt B. Witcher and more.

If you would like to attend, you can save a bit of money by registering NOW. The following announcement was written by the Indiana Historical Society:

Call for Speakers Now Open for APG Professional Management Conference

The following was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG):

WESTMINSTER, Colo., 24 June 2012−The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is now accepting speaking proposals for the 2013 APG Professional Management Conference (PMC). The one-day conference will be held at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City on 20 March 2013, one day before the RootsTech Family History & Technology Conference (http://rootstech.org/).

Rare 1880s Manchester Locomotive Discovered in Florida

A backhoe at a mining operation struck something solid while digging. The backhoe couldn't unearth it. Finally, a crew started digging with shovels and soon found something none of them had expected: a large steam locomotive.

The crew had stumbled upon a relic from Polk County's past. Dating to the 1880s, the rusty Manchester steam locomotive had been buried in dirt and mud for nearly a century, local historians said.

Help Wanted with a Sony Tablet

A newsletter reader contacted me today and asked, "I just purchased a Sony Tablet and am leaving on a trip soon. I want to read your Plus Edition articles while traveling. On the Tablet, I try to sign in with my regular user name & password, and the site will not recognize me. However, I can use same name and password on a regular PC. Could you explain please?"

I must admit that I have no idea. I have never used a Sony Tablet and don't know if there is anything different about it or not. I do know that a lot of people read the Plus Edition newsletter at http://www.eogn.com/wp/ on iPads, Nooks, Kindles, and other tablets but I do not recall ever receiving a message from anyone about Sony tablets until today.

Don't Believe Everything You Read!

Experienced genealogists know that even original records contain errors. I found a perfect example of that today.

The 1940 Census records for the State of Maine has now been indexed and is available online. I had previously searched most of the towns where my relatives lived in Maine by looking at the unindexed images and simply turning the pages manually. Most of my relatives lived in small towns in 1940, so finding them wasn't too difficult.

The one exception was my parents: they lived in a larger town that filled about 200 pages of hand-written records. Since I believe I already know all the information to be found about my parents and my two older siblings who were alive in 1940, I was in no rush to look at those records. Thanks to the new indexes, I had a chance to find the records today and was surprised to find my brother listed by the census taker (enumerator) as a 6-year-old DAUGHTER of my parents! Yes, that's an error in the original record, not the index.

Picasa and a Cell Phone are Genealogist’s Tools

I have been reading the Geeks on Tour blog for nearly a year. It is aimed at folks who live in recreational vehicles (RVs), either full-time or part-time.  The couple that write the blog, Chris and Jim Guld, specialize in "computer training for travelers." I was pleasantly surprised to find an article by Chris Guld entitled, Picasa and a Cell Phone are Genealogist’s Tools.

Chris writes, "My cell phone is always with me and I find myself using the camera feature more and more because of that simple fact.  Any time I’m at family’s homes and I see a photo on the wall, or in a photo album, I simply take out my Motorola Droid cellphone and I snap a photo.  When I get home,  I transfer that photo to my computer and view it with Picasa."