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The Trumbull County Veterans Service Office maintains an online database of all Trumbull County residents who gave their lives in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The database was created by by Robert H. Brothers.
Since 2010, scholars and students at Nebraska and at James Madison University have organized a series of “History Harvests” — community events where families share their artifacts and stories with students, who document and digitize them. The idea is to make visible histories and materials that otherwise would be largely invisible, and to share them more broadly online. Scholars benefit, and so do students, who learn to apply their disciplinary skills in real-world situations.
Elton Oubre passed away on December 12, 2012. He was a noted genealogy expert, author, and historian as well as a member of both the Lafourche and Terrebonne Genealogical Societies.
He wrote the authoritative book, Vacherie, St. James Parish, Louisiana: History And Genealogy and also authored Historical Scenes of Thibodaux, a Sesquicentennial Volume.
My ancestry is French-Canadian on my mother's side of the family so one dish we had every Christmas was tourtière: a meat pie. In our household, the meat was always pork and I always assumed that tourtière meant "pork pie." However, in later years I learned that some people make tourtière from veal or beef. However, not until this week did I realize that tourtière is also often an indication of your ancestry.
Susan Semenak has published an article in The Montreal Gazette, pointing out that the various recipes for tourtière vary from region to region. She points out that in Quebec City, tourtière is called pâté a la viande and is made with diced or cubed pork (and even rolled oats.) Indeed, I did later prove by other means that the majority of my mother's ancestry came from Quebec City and its suburbs. The spices used in tourtière also are an indication of the region of Quebec where our ancestors lived.
Fees for services provided by the General Register Office of Northern Ireland are being increased. The fees are for birth, death, marriage and civil partnership certificates, as well as fees in relation to marriage and civil partnership formalities and other services. The changes are in effect now.
Birth, death, marriage and civil partnership certificates were £14, are now £15
Marriage/ civil partnership notice were £20, are now £22
Solemnisation of a marriage/ registration of a civil partnership were £33, are now £36
Short death certificates are now available for the first time for £15 (£8 if the certificate is issued by the Registrar at the time of registration)
Commemorative certificates are now available for the first time for £40
Writing in the Ancestry.com Blog, Duff Wilson describes a new easy way to view and share your family tree right from your desktop. Ancestry for Windows 8 provides an attractive and innovative way to experience and show off your tree. Editing in the app is not supported yet, so to edit or build your tree, there are launch points that take you to Ancestry.com on the web. Any changes you make to your online tree on Ancestry.com will show up back in the desktop Ancestry application.
The following announcement was written by the National Genealogical Society:
ARLINGTON, VA, 20 DECEMBER 2012: Beginning 1 January 2013, speakers as well as organizations interested in sponsoring lectures or tracks are invited to submit lecture proposals for the NGS 2014 Family History Conference, Virginia: The First Frontier, to be held 7–10 May 2014 in Richmond, Virginia. The first permanent English settlement in North America, Virginia has been home to countless individuals—some remained for generations; others moved on to the next frontier. Building on the records and history that draws so many back to their roots in the Old Dominion, we will explore the origins of those who settled within Virginia’s borders whether they came by land or sea.
I spent some time this morning reading through a new document released by the White House yesterday. The National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding (or NSISS) outlines how the government will attempt to responsibly share and protect data that enhances national security and protects the American people.
The national strategy will define how the federal government and its assorted departments and agencies share their data. Agencies can also share services and work towards data and network interoperability to be more efficient, the President said.
The boss of FindMyPast and several other genealogy web sites has hit out at the “detritus of life” that people pour on to social networks like Facebook, as he pledged to turn his pioneering Friends Reunited website into a “memory box” alternative.
Chris van der Kuyl, chief executive of Brightsolid, the digital arm of media firm DC Thomson, which owns Friends Reunited and findmypast.com and censusrecords.com, said it is spending millions digitizing newspaper archives, birth, marriage and death records, and paperwork from former British colonies such as India, to help turn it into a repository of historical information. "The richness of the stories has blown us away. They are littered with eureka moments," he said.
Synium Software produces one of the leading genealogy programs for Macintosh and a matching app for Apple iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. Now the company has placed the programs on sale over the holidays with some major discounts. These are the latest versions of the programs.
Genealogists use handheld scanners more often than almost any other group I can think of. We scan documents at the local courthouse, old newspaper articles at the library, and photos while visiting a cousin's house. One of the more popular handheld scanners for genealogists is the VuPoint "Magic Wand." I own one and use it frequently. You can see my earlier articles about the VuPoint Magic Wand if you start at http://goo.gl/A4cwM.
I noticed today that M. David Stone has written a review of the brand-new VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand with AutoFeed Dock PDS-ST450-VP. This unit consists of two pieces: the first looks almost identical to the older Magic Wand handheld scanner but the second box is a dock that turns the first device into a manual-feed scanner.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
I often hear genealogists make statements similar to this: “I don't trust digital media for long-term storage so I am going to use paper and ink to make sure my data lasts for a long, long time.”
Indeed, there is a lot of truth to that sentiment. I can point out a few problems, such as storing audio or video recordings, but the idea of storing information on paper certainly has a lot of appeal to genealogists, historians, and others who are concerned with long-term preservation. Paper documents are simple, easy to produce, and last a long time. Or do they?
The end is near. The world as we know it will end on December 21, when cataclysmic events will leave a trail of destruction and cause near-total human extinction on Earth. The claim is that the Mayan calendar treats the date as the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.
Well, some people think that will happen but I remain a bit suspicious this won't happen. After all, people have been predicting the end of the world on various dates for centuries and, so far, all have been wrong.
The present-day Mayans don't even expect a day of doom. They simply believe December 21, 2012 will be the beginning of a new, and better, era of enlightenment. However, many psychics, religious leaders, authors, and others continue to claim they have knowledge of the date the world will end. Looking back through history shows dozens of such predictions. Here are a few:
I downloaded and installed this a few minutes ago. My first reaction is, "It looks good." Best of all is the price: FREE. Note that it does require the RootsMagic desktop family tree software or the FREE RootsMagic Essentials software to create, edit, or add to your genealogy files.
The following announcement was written by RootsMagic:
SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — December 17, 2012 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced the official release of RootsMagic for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch; a free companion app to RootsMagic, the award-winning desktop genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy.
The following announcement was written by the Dallas Genealogical Society:
Dallas, TX—December 17, 2012--The Dallas Genealogical Society presented the winners of their 2012 Writing Contest with certificates of recognition and prize checks at their Annual Awards Luncheon on December 8, 2012. Among the judges reviewing the contest entries was J. Mark Lowe, a professional genealogist.
Nielsen’s lists of most-liked ads and product integrations of 2012 were recently announced and Ancestry.com earned the number one rating. Only new ads airing between January 1, 2012 to November 30, 2012 were considered. Top ads were identified by filtering on General Recall, Brand Linkage, & Likeability Linkage (whatever that is).
You may have noticed there weren't many newsletter articles posted in the past few days. The reason is that I have spent most of my time sitting in airports and train stations, quite a few hours riding trains and buses, and not enough hours riding airplanes.
I had a scheduled flight yesterday from Orlando to Baltimore, followed by a change of planes, and then a second flight from Baltimore to Boston. The entire trip from end-to-end was scheduled to take about five hours. That should have been simple. I have done the same many times before.
Instead, I arrived at my final destination this evening, about 30 hours later than planned. Along the way, I spent a lot of time at the airport in Richmond, Virginia, a city I had not planned to visit. I also spent too many hours riding buses and trains, something I had not planned to do.
The following announcement was written by RootsTech:
RootsTech is pleased to announce the addition of Story@Home, offering a full selection of classes and workshops dedicated to the art and inspiration of connecting generations through stories.
With the addition of the Story@Home, RootsTech now provides a rich conference experience for anyone interested in learning how to preserve and share their personal and family stories. Story@Home presenters include nationally renowned storytelling experts, including Syd Lieberman and Kim Weitkamp.
The following announcement was written by brightsolid and by the Family History Information Standards Organisation:
DUNDEE, SCT (UK) and Chandler, AZ (USA) (Dec. 17, 2012) – brightsolid group and Family History Information Standards Organisation, Inc. (FHISO) announced today that the brightsolid group has finalised its plans to become a founding member of the organisation. As part of this process, brightsolid has designated organisational member representatives, including D. Joshua Taylor and Elaine Collins. The brightsolid representatives will work with other FHISO members from the global genealogical community in the development of standards for the digital representation and sharing of family history and genealogical information.
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