The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
Have you ever tried to help a non-computer-expert friend or relative
troubleshoot a technical problem by talking with them over the phone?
It is almost impossible. I have participated in many conversations
similar to the following: "OK, click on the red icon. Now scroll down.
Click on the that says 'Open Recent.' What do you see now?"
Yes,
it can be done but there is a much easier way. Customer support
professions have used remote desktop programs for years. Using such
software means that both people in the conversation can see the same
things on one computer at the same time. Dozens of remote desktop
products are available these days, but Google has just introduced one of
the easiest such products to use. While Google did release a free
remote-access Chrome extension about 18 months ago, the company has now
added similar capabilities in Google Hangouts.
Ancestry.com released its quarterly financial numbers and reports a subscriber growth of 12% year-over-year. Non-GAAP revenues were $135 million, up 24% year-over-year, and the company had a free cash flow of $51 million. Full details may be found at http://goo.gl/yYQgM.
The following book review was written by Bobbi King:
Claiming Your History How to Incorporate Your Past Into Your Present by Tracy Whittington. 2012. Approx. 256 pages.
"By the way we speak, we can show the value of the history of our own lives. By recording and remembering, collecting and researching, we can bring that history into our own stories. We, too, can make a certain claim on the past, instead of letting it slip out of recorded memory and away from us forever."
Here Tracy Whittington explains why she wrote her book. She affirms our wish to bring the past into our present, to spirit our ancestors out of their graves to stand beside us in conversation, and most especially I suspect, to seek their approvals that their resurrections in our genealogical work is meritorious, noteworthy, and good.
The U.S. television networks suddenly are becoming inundated with genealogy-related programs. Would you believe FOUR television series running later this year? Megan Smolenyak describes them in The Huffington Post at http://goo.gl/8rlGj.
Tourism Ireland has announced that 2013 is to be Ireland’s “Family History Year” in a bid to encourage people around the world to find out more about their Irish ancestry. Hundreds of clan gatherings, as well as genealogy and local history events, are planned all over Ireland this year, as part of The Gathering Ireland 2013.
Check your family records. Do you have a record of someone who served in the Coldstream Guards in 1799? Is he listed as killed in action or perhaps simply as unknown? If so, the Coldstream Guards would like to know about the man to see if perhaps his remains were the ones recently discovered in the Netherlands.
In 2011, bones were discovered on a beach at Groote Keeten, the scene of a battle that is not well known today. The body had been buried in a uniform of the Coldstream Guards, as identified by buttons that still remained. After some extensive research at The National Archives at Kew, Surrey, archaeologist Esther Poulus has found six possible names, with Nathaniel Haines and Thomas Taylor the two most likely.
MyHeritage has had the 1940 U.S. census records available online for nearly a year but the company has now taken a huge step forward by adding all the remaining U.S. census records that have been released:1790 through 1930. Even better, in my mind, is the fact that these records are also available with SuperSearch, the state of the art search engine for family history. Instead of searching for your ancestors the slow way, manually, SuperSearch can perform the searches for you and display the results. See the earlier article at http://goo.gl/JkjdS for a description of SuperSearch.
Here is today's announcement, written by MyHeritage (click on the infographic to see a larger image):
Travel back in time: Global family history network gives users a snapshot into the lives of their ancestors from 1790 to 1930
PROVO, Utah & TEL AVIV, Israel - May 1, 2013: MyHeritage, the popular family history network, today announced that it has added the entire collection of U.S. Federal Censuses conducted each decade from 1790 to 1930 to its growing database of billions of historical records. Combined with innovative technologies and affordable prices, MyHeritage makes it easier and more accessible than ever to illuminate the lives of one's ancestors during this fascinating period in American history.
Among the nation’s largest and most important set of records totaling around 520 million names, the Censuses provide information about individuals residing in the U.S. including age, address, education, occupation, place of birth, race, native language, marital status, relationship to head of household, neighbors – and more. Family history enthusiasts can now search the indexed images of the U.S. Censuses at http://www.myheritage.com/research and discover the legacy of former generations between 1790 and 1930 in the U.S.
To make discoveries easier, MyHeritage offers a sophisticated system of automatic record matching for the family trees on the site, dramatically reducing research time. New information uncovered in the Censuses triggers a domino effect of new discoveries within the MyHeritage global network of family trees and records. Resulting connections with other family trees could shed light on the roots of many families who immigrated to the U.S., connecting them to long-lost relatives abroad. Translated to 40 different languages, MyHeritage is the only company to deliver discoveries from the U.S. Censuses to a global audience.
Caution: do not read this unless you have a strong stomach.
Historians have always known that cannibalism occurred during the Jamestown Colony’s “starving time” during the winter of 1609-1610. About 300 people inhabited the fort in November 1609. By spring, only 60 were left.
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.
Take a look at the calendar. Yes, the annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society will be held in Las Vegas next week. The dates are May 8 through 11.
Holding a conference in Las Vegas is always a good idea. First of all, it is obviously one of the major entertainment cities in the U.S. There is something for most everyone in Las Vegas. Of course, there are the casinos for those who like to throw their money away. The rest of us can find multiple first class shows going on almost every night. The shopping has to be some of the best in the country. And then there are the restaurants. Even if your significant other isn't interested in a genealogy conference, bring him or her along. He or she will find plenty of other amusements in Las Vegas.
Had I written this article yesterday, I would have announced that I would be unable to host a dinner on Saturday evening after the NGS conference in Las Vegas. However, the seas parted today and it now looks like there will be such a dinner.
If you have never attended one of these dinners held after the close of a major genealogy conference, you can read about past dinners by starting at http://goo.gl/ryhEH.
For the first time ever, I went to a convention city several weeks in advance to make dinner arrangements for a group. However, that didn't work too well. Here I am now making arrangements at nearly the last minute.
Most every American is familiar with the story of the Pilgrims traveling to the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. The ship, with 102 passengers and the crew on board, sailed from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620.
The origin of the Mayflower has often been in question. Some historians believe the boat was built in Plymouth, England and carried a crew from that city. Proof has always been scarce, however. Now a rival claim to the Mayflower by the port town of Harwich states that the ship's crew were from Essex and only set foot briefly in the West Country before starting their transatlantic voyage. The newer claim claims that the Mayflower was built in Harwich, England. Harwich's supporters say their town was the Mayflower's home port, the place she was built, and the birthplace of her captain.
The following announcement was written by the Digital Public Library of America :
April 30, 2013
Cambridge, MA — The Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce it is partnering with the David Rumsey Map Collection to provide online access to tens of thousands of significant historical maps and images. As part of the relationship, David Rumsey will provide metadata for over 38,000 maps and images, making the entirety of his notable online collection instantly accessible via the DPLA website and API.
A couple prominent examples of items from the Rumsey collections available through the DPLA are The Eagle Map of the United States, produced by Joseph and James Churchman, Philadelphia, 1833, (view on the DPLA; see left), and the Map of Lewis and Clark’s Track, Across the Western Portion of North America, produced in 1814 (view on the DPLA). Other noteworthy items from Rumsey’s collections range from maps found in historic atlases to images of three-dimensional objects such as globes.
It seems like only yesterday and yet the world has changed in so many ways that we cannot even list all the changes. 20 years ago today, CERN made the technology behind the World Wide Web royalty free and accessible to all. This was because of the invention created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. This one man has changed the world.
For as long as there has been an Alachua County, the Clerk of Court has kept its history in the ancient records archive. And for the past 14 years, Jim Powell, also known as “The Wizard of AR (ancient records),” has been the keeper of the lore.
A recent article in the Gainesville (Florida) Sun describes the great work done by Jim Powell. In 1998, Powell visited the ancient records storage area in Alachua County where he stumbled across an old records book from the 1840s while researching his family tree. Finding it difficult to read the handwriting and decaying pages, he started typing out pages of it in his free time. J.K. “Buddy” Irby, the Alachua County Clerk of Court, was so impressed he offered Powell, then a construction worker, a job at the ancient records archive. Powell has been there ever since, transcribing old records and helping others research their family trees.
He even helped Whoopi Goldberg track down information on an ancestor who owned a homestead in the northern part of the county.
Almost every time I write an article about some Windows program that can be downloaded and installed on your computer, I will receive at least one email message or other report from someone saying something like, "I downloaded it but my anti-virus program says it has a virus." I also often receive similar reports from someone saying that their virus program has reported a problem with a certain web site.
My response usually is, "Well, maybe..."
In many cases, the claim of a virus is a so-called "false positive." That is, the anti-virus program reported a virus that isn't really there. In fact, there is no virus at all, but the anti-virus program thinks there is. All anti-virus programs will occasionally report "false positives."
Symantec, the company that produces and sells Norton AntiVirus and Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition, agrees. The Symantec web site says (at http://service1.symantec.com/sarc/sarc.nsf/info/html/what.false.positive.html), "A false positive, also known as a false detection or false alarm,
occurs when an antivirus program detects a known virus string in an
uninfected file. The file, while not infected with an actual virus, does
contain a string of characters that matches a string from an actual
virus. A false positive can also occur when a program performs an
action, which appears to the antivirus program to be a virus-like
activity."
How do you determine the truth? Actually, there are several ways.
The following announcement was written by the (U.S.) National Genealogical Society:
Arlington, VA, 29 April 2013: The National Genealogical Society announces the release of the newest edition in its Research in the States series: Research in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County. This publication was written by native New Yorker and nationally recognized genealogist Laura Murphy DeGrazia, cg, fgbs. Laura is a trustee and former president of BCG and co-editor of the NYG&B Record. Barbara Vines Little, cg, fngs, fvgs, is a former NGS president and is the current editor of the NGS Research in the States series and the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Last week I described the easiest method to start a new blog (web log): sign up for a service that hosts blogs on their own servers. Indeed, that process is usually simple and inexpensive. However, for business reasons or for personal preferences, many people will want their blogs hosted on their own servers so that the URL displayed in the top of the web browser shows a desired domain name, not that of a blog hosting service.
Another reason for installing blog software is because you might want some features that are not available on a remote hosting service. For instance, the Plus Edition articles of this newsletter are posted in a password-protected blog on this newsletter's web site at http://www.eogn.com/wp/. None of the blogging services that I found could support a separate user name and password for each reader and keep them up-to-date easily. Since the user name and password system was already installed on the eogn.com web server, putting the blog software on the same web server was the easiest solution for me.
DNA is great for proving ancestry. In fact, it is probably the most reliable proof available today. However, DNA tests occasionally produce surprises. Just ask the man known as Paul Fronczak.
Newly-born Paul Fronczak was abducted by a woman posing as a nurse in 1964. The abduction occurred in a maternity ward at Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital where he was born. The police launched a nationwide manhunt; FBI Agents examined 10,000 babies and interviewed 30,000 witnesses. More than a year later, a 1 year-old boy was found abandoned outside a store in Newark, New Jersey. Child welfare officers placed him in a local orphanage. FBI agents were alerted, and examined the boy’s skin, bones, blood and ears. They decided that the boy’s ears matched those of the missing Fronczak baby, and that he probably was Paul Fronczak. Of course, DNA testing had not yet been invented at the time.
A few days later, Dora Fronczak took one look at the child and said, “That’s my baby.” He was then reunited with his "parents."
On Monday, April 22nd, a Century Chest buried in 1913 was opened at at the First Lutheran Church of Oklahoma City. Those who buried the chest asked that it not be opened until April 22, 2013. One item will interest genealogists: many people were able to put packages inside to be opened by their descendants in 2013.
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