The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
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The following announcement was written by the Oakland County Genealogical Society:
The Oakland County Genealogical Society (OCGS) has added the 1891 tax assessment rolls for Avon Township, Oakland County Michigan to its 1890 census substitute project. Volunteers created an index of the names in the records, and the index is available on the Society's website at http://www.ocgsmi.org. The index and images are also available at the Oakland County Historical Resources website at http://www.OaklandCountyHistory.org.
The release of the database is the most recent addition Society's 1890 Census Substitute Project, which focuses on locating and digitizing Oakland County records created between 1884 and 1894. The 1884 and 1894 State of Michigan Census for Oakland County and the Federal Census for 1890 for Michigan no longer exist, so replacement data is very useful to genealogical researchers.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Old documents often are fragile. Simply handling them can damage the documents or speed their deterioration; so, one must avoid frequent handling. This can be difficult in the case of family heirlooms since many people may want to see them. Equally challenging is the difficulty of sharing those old documents with people who cannot easily travel to the location where the documents and photographs are stored. Even if you could count on those people returning them, the thought of sending irreplaceable original documents in the mail would give a genealogist the willies!
Luckily, within the past decade technology advances have reduced many of these difficulties. It is now possible to reproduce and even improve the appearance of old documents and photographs. Multiple copies are easy to make, and electronic copies can be put on CD-ROM disks, on Web sites, and even in e-mail messages. Best of all, these tasks can be done at home, using modestly-priced hardware and software. In fact, making electronic improvements and photocopies often can be done for prices that rival or beat older methods.
This week I thought I would describe the process of preserving old documents and making them easily available to anyone who wishes to view them.
The New York Times recently published a story about about President Obama’s likely descent from the first recorded slave in the North American colonies. The keyword here is "likely." The claim is lacking definitive proof and simply says, "evidence strongly suggests.” In fact, this isn't news. If you go back enough years, everyone is descended from most everyone.
After all, you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, and so on in a straight mathematical progression. If you go back 300 years, you have about 4,000 ancestors, assuming no duplicates. If you go back a thousand years, and each of us theoretically has more than a trillion direct ancestors, again assuming no duplicates. Of course, all of us have duplicates.
Now add in an unknown number of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and you have perhaps hundreds of thousands of relatives. There's bound to be somebody famous or infamous in a group of that size!
This could cause major changes in the acceptance of DNA testing for genealogy as well as for many other purposes. 23andMe is asking the Food and Drug Administration to approve its personalized DNA test in a move that, if successful, could boost acceptance of technology that is viewed skeptically by leading scientists who question its usefulness.
The company's saliva-based kits have attracted scrutiny for claiming to help users detect whether they are likely to develop illnesses like breast cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's.
In celebration of the London 2012 Olympics starting this week, FamilySearch is pleased to announce a new online guide to tracing London ancestors. The guide has been published in the FamilySearch Research Wiki.
Features include articles on each of London’s 109 historic parishes loaded with descriptions of records available online at major websites Ancestry.co.uk, British History Online, BritishOrigins.com, FamilySearch.org, FindMyPast.co.uk, TheGenealogist.co.uk, Google Books, Internet Archive, London Lives, and ParishRegister.com among others.
Andras Koltai is a professional genealogist in Hungary. He is obviously a programmer as well. He has just released an iPhone / iPod / iPad game that plays with Jewish surnames. Andras reports, "It is the classical word search type game, but the words you have to look for are Jewish surnames. It is really funny when play with your ancestors', friends' and neighbors' names."
The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper has an article stating that previous reports of a possible buyout of Ancestry.com not only are true, but the bidding has intensified. Final bids are due next month from potential buyers, according to the Tribune. (You can read my earlier report of a possible buyout at http://goo.gl/hEO01.)
You can read the complete, although brief, article in the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper web site at http://goo.gl/r4So3.
David Ferriero is the Archivist of the United States, the chief official overseeing the operation of the National Archives and Records Administration. He recently spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at the Wikimania 2012 Conference here in Washington. (Wikipedia is a division of the Wikimedia Foundation.) Over 1400 people from 87 countries came together to talk, hack, and share their expertise and experiences at the week-long event.
Ferriero is obviously a big fan of Wikipedia. At one point he said, "If Wikipedia is good enough for the Archivist of the United States, maybe it should be good enough for you."
Papillon Productions has introduced what is believed to be the first genealogy program for Windows Phone cell phones. Relative History allows anyone with a Windows Phone to download GEDCOM files from SkyDrive and to explore the connections between individuals, families and events. Events and links to images, such as scanned certificates or photographs of individuals, are also supported.
I haven't had a chance to use Relative History as I don't have a Windows Phone. However, one review that I read describes the program as "limited." If you download the program and use it, other Windows Mobile owners probably will appreciate your posting comments about it at the end of this article.
The Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO) was recently formed. See the announcement in an earlier newsletter article at http://goo.gl/KRjOF. I received the following message from the FHISO:
Family History Information Standards Organisation, Inc. (FHISO) was incorporated earlier this year to act as the community-owned standards organization serving genealogists, world wide. Standards organizations depend on broad support that includes support across some of the entrenched territorial lines we find in our community.
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
FamilySearch’s free online Slovakian record collection has now grown to over 5 million searchable records. The Slovakia 1869 census is also available as a browsable image collection. Other new searchable collections online were expanded this week for South Africa, Canada, Poland, Portugal, and the United States. Search these diverse collections and 2.8 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.
Searchable historic records are made available on FamilySearch.org through the help of thousands of volunteers from around the world. These volunteers 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 large number of digital images being published online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about volunteering to help provide free access to the world’s historic genealogical records online at FamilySearch.org.
CeCe Moore has written a great overview about DNA testing for genealogy for anyone who is new to DNA. Hosted on Geni.com, the series of articles is designed to answer the most commonly-asked questions. Part #1 was described in my earlier article at http://goo.gl/qUx7V. Now, Part #2 has been posted at http://goo.gl/CWCDe.
Ancestry.com Inc.has reported second-quarter sales and profit that topped analysts’ estimates, citing user gains and demand for new products. Revenue rose 18 percent to $119.1 million, topping $117.4 million, the average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Per-share profit also rose to 44 cents, topping the 41 cents projected by analysts. The company also raised its sales forecast for 2012 to $473 million to $480 million. The company now has more than two million subscribers.
Why is it that all the athletes that lined up for the men's 100 meter final at the Beijing Olympics could trace their ancestry back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade? England's Channel 4 Television has a program that speculates on genealogy and the Olympics. The program is available online at http://www.channel4.com/programmes/michael-johnson-survival-of-the-fastest/4od.
Here is the description of the program, as written by the program's producers:
Most Internet broadband connections on cable modems or DSL run at a speed of 0.5 to perhaps 5 megabits per second. FIOS fiber optic connections usually run at 10 megabits per second with options available for up to 50 megabits. Now Google has installed a much higher-speed fiber optic system in Kansas City, Missouri and nearby Kansas City, Kansas, that runs at one gigabit per second. That's 1,000 megabits!
Kansas City residents pay $70 per month for the Gigabit Internet connection. Gigabit Internet plus hundreds of television channels will cost $120/month. Probably the biggest bargain of all is to get the "slow" 5 megabit Internet connection without television: FREE!
Macintosh owners may be interested to know that MacFamilyTree is on sale for a bit more than 50% discount. The program normally sells for $59.99 (US dollars) but is now on sale for $27.99.
Anyone who already owns an earlier version of the program may update to version 6 for $9.99 instead of the normal upgrade price of $24.99.
MobileFamilyTree Pro is a matching program for use on iPhones. It requires MacFamilyTree to already be installed on a Macintosh. MobileFamilyTree Pro is now on sale at $6.99 instead of the normal price of $14.99.
Records are wherever you find them. In 1480, good quality paper was scarce and anything that was available was re-used. The London College of Arms, headquarters of British heraldry, recently discovered papers from a book of debtors and creditors for Florentine merchant-banking company, Domenicio Villani & Partners. The banking records, only half-covered by the design, date from 1422-24 and hint at the extensive trade in wool and other commodities produced in Britain during the era. The paper was "re-used" about 1480 to record coats of arms.
This looks like a nifty gadget for the genealogist as well as for many other uses. The iPICS2GO is a new device from ION Audio that literally turns your iPhone into a photo, slide and negative scanner.
The box-shaped iPICS2GO is a digital photo booth that requires an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S to work. Owners of either of these Apple devices are required to place their smartphone into the slot at the top of the scanner. The image that needs to be scanned is placed onto a photo tray and slid into place directly underneath the iPhone's camera. Seconds later, a digital version of the image is present on the iPhone ready to either be shared on the Internet or merely kept for posterity.
This looks like a major announcement for genealogy research with DNA: National Geographic is entering the next phase of their Genographic Project in partnership with Family Tree DNA and the genetic genealogy community. Continuing to move toward their goal of mapping the pattern of human genetics, the two organizations are introducing the new GenoChip 2.0.
This chip is specifically designed for ancestry testing and includes SNPs from autosomal DNA, X-DNA, Y-DNA and mtDNA. The design of the new chip was a collaborative effort between Eran Elhaik of Johns Hopkins, Spencer Wells of National Geographic, Family Tree DNA and Illumina. The testing will be done at FTDNA in Houston.
I received the following announcement from a new organization called "Global Alliance of Genealogy Professionals:"
Seeking to Fill the Void Left by ExpertConnect
Ancestry.com's “ExpertConnect” program made it easy for genealogical consumers to find, compare and retain the services of professional researchers. The newly formed Global Alliance of Genealogy Professionals seeks to fill the void created when ExpertConnect was discontinued in 2011.
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