Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Black's Law Dictionary on CD-ROM

One of the most valuable reference books for American genealogists is Black's Law Dictionary. This thick reference manual contains the legal definitions found in many records of genealogical interest: wills, probate court actions, deeds, old court cases, and more. Anyone who reads old documents and encounters unfamiliar legal terminology needs to turn to Black's Law Dictionary for the explanation. This week I had a chance to use a newly-released CD-ROM version of this valuable reference book.

Life Expectancy of Recordable CD Disks is 2 to 5 Years

Do you regularly back up your genealogy data to a writeable CD-ROM disk? Computerworld has published an interview with Kurt Gerecke, an IBM storage expert and physicist who claims burned CDs only have a two- to five-year life span.

From the article:

Social Security Administration's Death Master File on DVD

Genealogists use the Social Security Death Index as an excellent tool to find information about ancestors born in the twentieth or late nineteenth centuries. If you would like to purchase your own copy of this database, you can send a check for "only" $6,900 for an annual subscription.

Fortunately, a number of web sites have the same data available online at no charge. The owners of those web sites may be interested in a new option available from the Social Security Administration: the database is now available on a single DVD-ROM disk. Previously it was available only on a set of several CD-ROM disks or on magnetic tape cartridges.

Savage's Genealogical Dictionary on CD-ROM from Archive CD Books USA

I often write about various genealogy products and write reviews for this newsletter. I frequently start off by writing, "this week I used something that I have never seen before" or some similar words. In other words, I am describing something that is new to me. This week's review is quite different.

This week I had a chance to use something that I have used hundreds of times before in the past twenty years, something that is invaluable to anyone researching Colonial ancestry in New England. The Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England by James Savage has long been recognized as the standard reference for New England immigrants before 1692. I purchased this four-volume set about twenty years ago and have referred to it time and again. I think my copy is dog-eared from use.

This week's experience with Savage's Dictionary was different, however.

AutoPlay Your CD-ROM Disks

Many people are creating CD-ROM disks of their genealogy data. Creating your own CD-ROM disks has become very cost-effective in the past year or so; internal CD-ROM writers now sell for as little as $39.95 and frequently come packaged with new computers. The blank disks are also cheap. It is now easy to write your reports and databases to a CD-ROM disk to give to someone else.

Charles C. Rich DVD Library

The following is an announcement from Brigham Young University:

BYU Studies is pleased to announce the release of the Charles C. Rich DVD Library.  This unprecedented DVD-ROM contains original documents, biographies, family histories, and photographs of Western American colonizer Charles C. Rich.

British Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1788

Peter Wilson Coldham is a prolific genealogy author. He was born in England, studied in Rome, England, and Scotland, and entered a Roman Catholic seminary in 1940. Before completing his studies, he joined the Royal Navy in World War II and served in Australia and China. After the war he was employed at the Foreign Office in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, for a while, then later in London.

Ireland's Memorial Records: World War 1 1914-1918

Eneclann recently released an interesting new CD: Ireland's Memorial Records: World War 1 1914-1918. At the end of that war, the Committee of the Irish National War Memorial compiled the information on this disk under the direction of the Earl of Ypres. The result was eight volumes of information about 49,400 49,000 Irishmen who served in the British Army and lost their lives fighting in the Great War. Published in 1923, it is the most complete record known to exist, but only one hundred copies were printed. Now Eneclann has put these volumes onto CD-ROM, where you can easily search for relatives and then view the page as it was originally published.

Guide to pre-Famine Longford

An Irish-American man has published a genealogical research guide of County Longford's residents in pre-Famine days. Best of all, this new book is available both in print, as a CD-ROM, and even as two different versions of a downloadable file.

County Longford Residents Prior to the Famine: A Transcription and Complete Index of the Tithe Applotment Books of County Longford, Ireland (1823 - 1835) by Guy Rymsza aims to determine the origins of Famine-era ancestors. Rymsza compiled the work after discovering the ancestral house, complete with relatives still living in it, from which his great-great-grandfather had departed Ireland in the mid-1800s.

The Irish Ancestor 1969-1986

The Irish Ancestor was the name of a semi-annual printed journal that was published from 1969 to 1986. The aim of the journal, which was produced on a non-profit making basis, was the collection and publication of original source material and other items of interest concerning Irish genealogy, biography, and domestic history. The Irish Ancestor was edited by Rosemary ffolliott. (That is not a typo error: her name begins with a double-F and is normally written in lower case.)

Genealogist's Address Book, Fifth Edition

Elizabeth Petty Bentley has just released a revised and expanded Fifth Edition of the Genealogist's Address Book, produced by Genealogical Publishing Company (GPC). I have used earlier versions of this book a number of times in years past to find addresses or just to find societies devoted to specific interests, such as Italian, French-Canadian and other ethnic heritage groups. This week I tried the same thing with the latest version and found it to be much easier to use.

The Genealogist's Address Book to be released on CD-ROM

Genealogical Publishing Company (GPC) has announced that the all-new 5th Edition of The Genealogist's Address Book, by Elizabeth Petty Bentley, will soon be released as a CD-ROM disk. This is a radical change for this "book" as previous versions have always been published as 8-1/2" x 11" paperback publications. The Fourth Edition, printed in 1998, had over 800 pages, and the new edition is presumed to have even more information.

Family Forest Leadership Edition

Millisecond Publishing Company produces CD-ROM databases of many notable people, showing how they are related. I have described the company's products before, including the American & European Family Forest Millennium Edition, at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0001.htm and at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0119.htm, Presidential Family Forest at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news9835.htm, and others. This week I had a chance to try a pre-release of the company's new Family Forest Leadership Edition, a CD-ROM disk for Windows computers.

CD-ROM: The 1831 Tithe Defaulters

This week I had a chance to use a new Windows CD-ROM of Irish genealogy information containing valuable records that many Irish researchers do not even know exist. During the infamous Tithe War of 1831-38, all Irish occupants of land were required to pay an annual tithe (or religious tax) of 10% of the agricultural produce generated by that holding. This money was demanded from all landholders, irrespective of their religion, and was paid directly to the official state church, the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church of Ireland.

Sprague’s “Braintree Families” on CD-ROM

Waldo Chamberlain Sprague started compiling the genealogies of all the early families of Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1947. Until his death eight years later, he created over six thousand index cards containing information on almost all the pre-1850 population of old Braintree. Some families from nearby Milton and Stoughton (both originally part of the town of Dorchester) were also included in his exhaustive work. These six thousand cards remained in the manuscript collection of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston. The cards were initially microfilmed for the Quincy Historical Society in 1963 and again for NEHGS in 1983. To look at Sprague’s definitive work, you have always needed to visit the NEHGS library or the reading room of the Quincy Historical Society. All of that has now changed, and this valuable collection is available to you, for use in your home, at a modest cost.

New Hampshire Military Records 1623-1866

The following is an announcement from the New England Historic Genealogical Society:

Service in the militia or regular military generated a large number of records valuable to genealogical research. This brand new CD-ROM brings together several previously published, but difficult-to-find books:

Counties in Time: A New Irish History CD

This week I had a chance to use a new CD-ROM from Eneclann. This disk includes almost 1,000 documents from the National Archives of Ireland. The records chosen cover the 32 counties of Ireland and span the period from the late sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.