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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!
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.
I well remember the day that I lost about 100 ancestors. It could happen to you.
In my case, early in my genealogy endeavors, I was adding information about “new” ancestors in great haste. Well, they weren't really new; they had always been my ancestors, but their names were new to me in those days. I'd find a new ancestor, record his or her information, then move on and find the parents. In the early days of my genealogy searches, it was easy to add new ancestors. After all, everyone has thousands of ancestors and, when you are new to the game, the records can be easy to find. This is especially true for French-Canadian genealogy as the Catholic Church did a great job of recording almost every christening and marriage and most funerals, usually including the name of the parents in each record. Those records are easy to find on microfilms and in printed books and, in recent years, in online databases.
As a genealogy newcomer, however, I didn't know about the need for double and triple-checking for accuracy.
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.
Here is a little-known resource: Internment Serial Numbers. There more than 16 million Americans, uniform or civilian, participated in World War II. Nearly 150,000 individuals who supported the war effort found themselves captured as POWs in internment camps run by the Japanese or Germans. Records of those prisoners exist today. The savvy genealogist just needs to know where to look and what information to have on hand when researching this information.
If you have Swedish ancestry and are thinking about starting a genealogy project, you need to read an article by Jill Seaholm in the GenealogyandFamilyHistory blog. It is an excellent tutorial in "how to get started in Swedish genealogy research."
Jill Seaholm was born in the U.S but has 100% Swedish ancestry. She majored in Scandinavian Studies at Augustana College, studying the Swedish language and attending the Augustana Summer School in Sweden, and worked as a student assistant at the Swenson Center, indexing and doing research. Jill has worked at the Swenson Center full time and helped Swedish-Americans find their way back across the Atlantic since 1992.
There is a family myth amongst tens of thousands of American families: "The name was changed at Ellis Island." The stories claim the immigrant arrived at Ellis Island and was unable to communicate with the officials. A record was then created by someone who assigns the immigrant a descriptive name.
This fairy tale refuses to die. Let's look at a few simple facts:
At 9 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, the federal government will reveal a new window on history: 1940 census records will be open to the public for the first time. The 3.8 million images will show painstakingly handwritten forms created by census workers who traipsed door to door to count all 132.2 million Americans living in 1940. The images will be available online immediately for free. About 21 million Americans who show up in the 1940 records are believed to still be alive.
People’s names, addresses, ages and even more personal information, such as their marital status, how many kids they had, how much they earned and what they did for a living ,were kept under wraps for 72 years — as required by a confidentiality law. The 72 years expired April 1 but, being a Sunday, the government will reveal the now public records on the first business day after the 72 years has expired. In this case, the records will become available on Monday, April 2, 2012, at precisely 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
It is the first day of the month. It's time to back up your genealogy files. Then test your backups!
Actually, you can make backups at any time. However, it is easier and safer if you have a specific schedule. The first day of the month is easy to remember, so I would suggest you back up your genealogy files at least on the first of every month, if not more often.
Of course, you might want to back up more than your genealogy files. Family photographs, your checkbook register, all sorts of word processing documents, email messages, and much more need to be backed up regularly. Why not do that on the first of each month?
NOTE: This is an updated version of an article I originally published nearly two years ago. A newsletter reader sent an email today in which he questioned the life expectancy of digital files versus paper. I referred him to my earlier article but noticed that it was a bit out of date. I have now rewritten part of the original article and am republishing it today.
I often write about digital products for use in genealogy. Here is a comment I hear and read all the time, including a comment this morning from a newsletter reader: "I am going to keep my files on paper to make sure they last for many years, longer than digital files."
Wrong! Properly maintained, digital files will always last much, much longer than paper or microfilm. Let's focus on the phrase, "properly maintained."
One of the big losses to genealogists and to many others occurred on July 12, 1973, when a fire destroyed many records at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. The records storage facility was operated by the National Archives and Records Administration and housed military service records. The fire destroyed approximately 16 to 18 million official military personnel records. While that is a staggering number of records, it still represents only about one-third of the 52 million official military personnel files.
Sadly, the records had not yet been digitized for long-term preservation nor even copied to microfilm, the standard method of preserving paper documents at that time. The records existed only on fragile paper and were susceptible to fire, flood, mildew, and other dangers. The building was essentially a large warehouse, filled with filing cabinets. There were no firewalls or other fire-stopping devices to limit the spread of fire. No heat or smoke detectors were installed in the building, nor was there a fire sprinkler system to automatically extinguish a fire.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Yesterday I published Google Reportedly Ready to Launch Online Storage Service and a couple of newsletter readers questioned the wisdom and security of backing up files online. In my mind, this is a non-issue. Security is always under your control, if you wish. You can securely place any files on any online storage system if, and only if, you first encrypt the files before sending them from your computer. Luckily, that is easy to do.
The State Library of North Carolina has created a four-part video tutorial that describes why file naming is important, how to change a file name, what not to do when changing a file name, and best practices for file naming. These brief videos simply and clearly describe how deliberate file naming, a common everyday practice, can lead to responsible file management and ongoing digital preservation.
Genealogists have invented several different numbering systems over the years to keep track of the individuals in a genealogy. In situations where names are repeated often in a family, a numbering system helps identify the individual of interest. We already have Ahnentafel Numbers, d'Aboville Numbers, Henry Numbers, the Register System, the Dollarhide System, and the NGSQ System. Each assigns numbers, letters, or combinations of numbers and letters to each individual. Now, writing in the American Ancestors web site, Capers W. McDonald has suggested using a new numbering system: the Ancestral Lines Pairing System.
Quoting from the web site:
A new ancestral numbering system has been developed that visibly displays component lines and generations of pedigrees in either text or chart formats. This “Ancestral Lines Pairing System” meets essential requirements of being easy to read and understand while maintaining the integrity of its unique indicators, and of recording relationships briefly with as much useful information as possible.
It is the first day of the month. It's time to back up your genealogy files. Then test your backups!
Actually, you can make backups at any time. However, it is easier and safer if you have a specific schedule. The first day of the month is easy to remember, so I would suggest you back up your genealogy files at least on the first of every month, if not more often.
Of course, you might want to back up more than your genealogy files. Family photographs, your checkbook register, all sorts of word processing documents, email messages, and much more need to be backed up regularly. Why not do that on the first of each month?
A term often found in genealogy is "removed," specifically when referring to family relationships. Indeed, almost everyone has heard of a "second cousin once removed," but many people cannot explain that relationship. Of course, a person might be more than once removed, as in third cousin, four times removed.
Genealogists typically think of sources of information that last forever. For instance, we have been taught to always cite our sources. That is, to tell where we found the information. The primary reason is so that other genealogists who follow behind us can verify the information, should they wish to do so. That works well for census records and other paper documentation that will probably be preserved in some format for centuries. However, what about citations that point to sources that will probably disappear within 100 days?
Writing in the Library of Congress' web site, Nicholas Taylor, Information Technology Specialist for the Repository Development Group, provides some interesting statistics:
What is the average lifespan of webpage? Predictably, estimates vary and vary over time. A 1997 special report in Scientific American claimed 44 days. A subsequent 2001 academic study in IEEE Computer suggested 75 days. More recently, in 2003, a Washington Post article indicated that the number was 100 days.
A newsletter reader sent me a link to an online article that made me shudder when I read it. The article claims:
"Do you have an old book that has been passed down from generation to generation? These books break down over time due to oxygen, moisture, and other hazards. By sealing the book, you’re also giving it added protection in the event of a flood, fire (smoke), or accidental damage."
I am no expert in preservation, but I believe the last thing you want to do to a valuable old book or photo or other document is to seal it in an airtight plastic bag, especially a bag that is not labeled "archival quality." Sealing in a cheap plastic bag can cause much more damage than it prevents!
How do you read a signature that is heavily slanted with the letters seemingly run together? Genealogists have that problem when trying to identify signatures but numismatists (coin and money collectors) also have the same problem when trying to identify signatures on banknotes and checks.
The following announcement was written by the Illinois State Genealogical Society:
Illinois State Genealogical Society Debuts New Guide for Family Historians with Prairie State Ancestors
September 8, 2011 – Springfield, IL. The Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS) proudly announces the debut of the Insider’s Guide To Illinois Genealogy – a handy reference guide for family historians and genealogists. With the Insider’s Guide researchers will find everything they need to get started to find Prairie State ancestors.
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