Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

The Immigrant with Charlie Chaplin

Let's hope that your ancestors didn't suffer ALL the indignities that Charlie Chaplin encountered in this old-time silent movie. However, I'd bet at least some of the scenes are based on true events. The images of Ellis Island certainly were exactly what your ancestors saw upon arrival, if they arrived at New York City during the years that the immigration portal was in use.

This is twenty minutes of Charlie Chaplin at his best. Only the first few minutes of the movie show the crossing on the rolling steamship, however, followed by a very brief look at Ellis Island. We can assume that many of our ancestors laughed at these movies although they certainly are not very sophisticated by today's standards.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I recently had a chance to watch a good movie, a murder mystery. Best of all, genealogy played an important part in the solution to the crime. Then, to make it even more interesting, the movie's producers are holding an online scavenger hunt where YOU could win prizes. Details are available at the end of this article.

Since the movie involves genealogy, I was offered a chance to see the movie in advance of its release date. The obvious hope was that I might write about it in this newsletter. After having watched this film, I cannot imagine NOT writing about it! It is that good. This is a movie plot that I will long remember. I would have written about it even if I hadn't been asked to.

Disclaimer: I'm not being paid to write about it. This is simply a good movie that I enjoyed.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (original title in Swedish: "Män som hatar kvinnor" - "Men Who Hate Women") is an award-winning crime novel by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson, the first in his "Millennium Trilogy." The novel won Sweden's Glass Key Award in 2006 for best crime novel of the year; as well as the 2008 Boeke Prize. The book has been on the New York Times' Bestseller list for weeks. Larsson was posthumously awarded the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for International Author of the Year in 2008.

The novel contains a genealogical table of five generations of a family in Sweden who are under investigation. However, the movie does not contain the genealogy table, and I struggled a bit to keep track of the characters. However, keeping track of this family's genealogy is vital to understanding the subtleties of the plot.

Presidential Participation in Census Bureau Outreach Efforts