Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Finding the FamilySearch Wiki is now Easier

A number of comments posted to the end of recent articles in this newsletter have mentioned the recent redesign of FamilySearch.org. While many things have been improved, several of the commonly-used functions are now harder to find. Writing in the FamilySearch Blog, Steve Anderson notes that the web designers at FamilySearch  apparently have been listening and reading. As a result, the FamilySearch Wiki is now easier to find with very few keystrokes.

Details may be found in Steve's article in the FamilySearch Blog at https://familysearch.org/blog/en/finding-wiki-easier/.

New Jersey Student Awarded Genealogy Grant

The following was written by the Suzanne Winsor Freeman Student Genealogy Grant Committee:

April 22, 2013 PASADENA, California – The Suzanne Winsor Freeman Student Genealogy Grant Committee is pleased to announce that Michael Savoca, a college junior from Toms River, New Jersey will receive a $500 grant from the Freeman Memorial Grant program and full registration to the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank, California from SCGS.

Geni.Com adds Historical Records to Advance Family Tree Collaboration

I have found the growth of Geni.com to be fascinating to watch. The service started several years ago as a user-friendly method of allowing distant relatives to find each other online. Over the years, the service has matured into a genealogy powerhouse that offers many features. Today, Geni.com announced another step forward: the addition of Record Matching and Smart Matching. You will find it is now easier than ever to find both ancestors and distant cousins on Geni.com, thanks to the ability to suggest matching records and family connections, based on the many records available in the MyHeritage.com database. I especially like the idea that sources and citations are automatically created and added to the online data. While other services often offer an OPTION to record sources, I find that many people ignore the option and leave the source citations blank. I wish that all online services would follow Geni.com's example.

Disclaimer: Geni.com is a division of MyHeritage, the sponsor of this newsletter. However, I honestly believe I would write the same words even if MyHeritage was not the sponsor. I offer this as a full disclosure and invite you to look at the service and decide for yourself whether or not you agree with me. You can check for yourself free of charge as Basic accounts on Geni.com are free and are unlimited in size.

The following announcement was written by Geni.com:

FamilySearch Adds to Collections from Australia, England, Italy, Philippines, Spain, and the United States

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

April 23, 2013

FamilySearch has added more than half a million images this week from Australia, England, Italy, Philippines, Spain, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 92,436 images from the new U.S., Ohio, Southern District Naturalization Index, 1852-1991, collection, and the 73,580 images from the new Australia, Tasmania, Civil Registration, 1803-1933, collection. See the table below for the full list of updates. Search these diverse collections and more than 3.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.

Book Review: From Schoolboy to Soldier

The following book review was written by Bobbi King:

From Schoolboy to Soldier.
by Quincy S. Abbot.
Published by Quincy S. Abbot, West Hartford, CT. 2013. 256 pages.

Quincy S. Abbot has compiled the letters and journal of his grand-uncle Edward Stanley Abbot, and he’s aptly named the book, the complete title which is From Schoolboy to Soldier, the Correspondence and Journals of Edward Stanley Abbot, 1853-1863.

This volume follows Stanley Abbot’s thoughtful and introspective passage from family son  to Harvard university student to Civil War Union soldier. Along the way, Abbot penned a journal and maintained a prodigious correspondence with family and friends describing his thoughts and activities from the school years of his youth to just days before the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

Always Remember All Sources of Backed Up Data

Today I spent a pleasant afternoon at the Genealogical Roundtable Workshop in Acton, Massachusetts. One conversation left me smiling. As I often do, I was talking about the need to make multiple backups and to store them in multiple locations. One person lamented that a web site he was involved with lost all the web pages. Everything was gone. Zero. Nothing. The reason was not known although he had a few guesses. This conversation arose because he had no backups of the web site. Actually, he THOUGHT he had no backups.

I opened a web browser and went to the Internet Archive at http://www.archive.org. This site is also sometimes called the "Wayback Machine." It is an archive made over the years of many web sites. I entered the URL of his long-lost pages and Voila! All the pages appeared on the screen!

All he needs to do is copy the pages from http://www.archive.org and paste them into whatever HTML editor he uses for creating pages on the web site. I suspect that some reformatting will also be required.

FamilySearch Reaches One Billion Records Indexed and Arbitrated

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

22 April 2013

Thanks A Billion

Thank you for contributing to the billion! We did it! We reached a major milestone of one billion records indexed and arbitrated since the launch of FamilySearch indexing in September of 2006. We are grateful for the many volunteers who dedicate their time and efforts to make these records freely available for online research.

Kenneth B. (California, United States), Brittney S. (Idaho, United States), and April R. (Alberta, Canada) were the lucky ones to index and arbitrate the billionth record! They will receive a FamilySearch backpack stuffed with FamilySearch goodies. We also want to thank all the volunteers who have contributed to the billion records with a FamilySearch indexing badge. You can also download a free badge.

WikiTree Reaches Five Million Profiles

It's nice to see WikiTree, a free online collection of user-contributed family trees, growing and attracting more customers. Unlike some online genealogy databases, WikiTree is a wiki that invites customers to correct and supplement data already on stored in the database. This "crowd sourcing" effort will eventually result in more accurate information for all of us.

The following was written by the folks at WikiTree:

Important Milestone for Feature-Rich, Free Family Tree Website

April 22, 2013: WikiTree, a community of genealogists and family historians committed to growing a 100% free worldwide family tree, announces its latest achievement: Five million profiles created by WikiTree members.

Bethany Children’s Home Awarded Mocavo Community Digitization Grant

Mocavo solicited proposals in November from organizations that care for genealogical content, archives, or historical records that they wish to make freely available online. Details may be found at http://goo.gl/KJuF8. Now Mocavo has announced the winner of that grant:

In November of last year we announced the first ever Mocavo Community Digitization Grant.  We committed to provide up to $25,000 in digitization services to preserve historical records and make them available for free access. Today we are delighted to announce the recipient of the Mocavo Community Digitization Grant is the Bethany Children’s Home.

Bethany Children’s home is a regional ministry serving over 300 youth and their families, every year, in Eastern Pennsylvania.  The home began in 1862 as one man’s dream. On a trip home from Norfolk to Philadelphia, Rev. Emmanuel Boehringer passed through the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, where 25,000 men lay scattered across the countryside dead or wounded. As he stopped to help bandage their wounds, many of the men asked: “What will become of my children?” And thus Rev. Boehringer’s dream for an orphans’ home was born.

(+) How to Create Blogs and RSS News Feeds – Part 1

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.

Perhaps two of the hottest new words on the World Wide Web these days are "blogs" and "RSS." OK, so RSS is not really a word–it's an acronym. It stands for "Really Simple Syndication." Whatever it is, RSS is becoming more and more popular every day in the same manner as blogs. Millions of blogs are already online, and thousands more are added every day. It seems as if almost everyone from teens to grandparents writes a blog.



Many people write personal blogs to share their recent experiences, their photographs, their political beliefs, or perhaps the activities of the local Cub Scout troop they help lead. Blogs can be about any topic at all. Many corporations and non-profit societies also publish blogs. These may describe new products or provide the finer points of using a product.

Both blogs and RSS news feeds have applications for publishing genealogy-related information, especially newsletters, project status news, software release notes, and other information that changes frequently. Almost all major genealogy conferences now publish blogs in the months preceding the conference to communicate last-minute details, describe the sessions being held, and provide biographies of the presenters. Several genealogy societies and others even publish their newsletters as blog articles. In fact, this newsletter has been produced on a blog publishing platform with accompanying RSS feeds for nearly nine years.

Wholly Genes Cruise

Want to attend a genealogy conference and seminar at sea? One such opportunity is the Wholly Genes cruise. The 9th Annual Wholly Genes Genealogy Conference and Cruise will depart Baltimore on Thursday, October 17, 2013. The ship will then visit Portland, Maine; Bar Harbor, Maine (one of my favorite places); Saint John, New Brunswick; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and will return to Baltimore on October 25.

The cruise will be on the Grandeur of the Seas, owned and operated by Royal Caribbean. This modern ship holds 2446 guests and 760 crew members.


The planned presentations include approximately 17 hours of genealogy and technology lectures. You do not need to be a Wholly Genes customer to join this cruise. While Wholly Genes is the producer of The Master Genealogist software for Windows, these 17 hours will be completely software-neutral. That is, these presentations are not related to any specific genealogy software product. Past cruises have delighted users of competitive Windows and Macintosh products as well as non-computer owners alike.

New Training Videos from FamilySearch

The FamilySearch Blog has announced some great tools that illustrate how to use the new services recently added:

FamilySearch is rolling out new product videos in conjunction with the launch of the new FamilySearch website. These videos are less than 3 minutes long and show how a new user can have success using each of the new features of the site. The videos are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Look for these videos on the Learning Center of familysearch.org.

1000+ Jasper County, Missouri Family Biographies added to My Genealogy Hound

My Genealogy Hound was described in an earlier newsletter article at http://goo.gl/2ITDb. Now the company is announcing an expansion of the records offered:

More than 1000 family biographies from 1883 Jasper County, Missouri have now been added to the My Genealogy Hound website. Jasper County experienced a historic boom in population during the late 1800's due to the discovery of large deposits of lead, zinc, and other minerals and this attracted settlers and fortune seekers from all across the United States. Larger settlements in Jasper County include Joplin, Carthage, Sarcoxie, Webb City, Carl Junction and Jasper.

FamilyTreeDNA offers a Sale on DNA Tests for DNA Day

The following was received from Bennett Greenspan, President of Family Tree DNA:

We are pleased to announce our 2013 DNA DAY Promotion.

While the special pricing features all the major tests, we’re placing particular emphasis on the Full Mitochondrial Sequence and Family Finder. We’ll offer Y-DNA upgrades during a Father’s Day sale and will give you those details at that time.

By carefully choosing the sale options and limiting the length of the sale, we will be better able to focus our resources on processing the tests efficiently and avoiding delays in delivering results.

Heredis for $24.99

Heads up! From Thursday, April 18 to Sunday, April 28, 2013 inclusive, there is 37% discount on Heredis for Windows at $ 24.99 instead of $ 39.90 available in http://www.heredis.com/en/heredis-pc/ and 33% discount on Heredis for Macintosh at $ 39.99 instead of $ 59.99 available in http://www.heredis.com/en/heredis-mac/ or in the App Store: http://appstore.com/mac/heredis/.

Book Review: Family Trees

The following book review was written by Bobbi King:

Family Trees
By François Weil.
Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. 2013. 304 pages.

The book is subtitled “A History of Genealogy in America” and accurately reflects its content, a thorough study of the subject by a scholar who describes himself as a French historian of the United States.

François Weil is Chancellor of the Universities of Paris, a professor of history, and former president of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

M. Weil has prepared a well-researched and scholarly study of the evolution of genealogy in America from the colonial times to the present day. His documentation is thorough in Notes and rich with other sources to follow for the student of historical genealogy.

Provo to Get High-Speed Google Fiber Internet Access

I know quite a few readers of this newsletter live in Provo, Utah. If you are one of them, you might be interested in today's announcement on the Google Blog:

"Today the Google Fiber team is in Provo, Utah, where Mayor John Curtis just announced that we intend to make Provo our third Google Fiber City."

Humorous Tombstones: Making Your Last Word a Funny One

The Washington Post has published an article by John Kelly, describing some of the humorous tombstones created for Eleanor Herman, a historian and author who lives in McLean, Virginia, and for some of her relatives.

When Eleanor  and her sister Christine buried their mother in 2001 at Baltimore’s Lorraine Park Cemetery, they were told tombstones are cheaper if ordered in bulk. So the sisters decided to buy their own at that time. They also got one for their Uncle Walter, whose grave in the family plot had been unmarked since his death 17 years earlier. They chose appropriate sayings for each.

MyHeritage Releases Family Tree Builder 7.0 to Bring the Power of the Cloud to Genealogy Software

This looks like a major addition to Family Tree Builder. The following announcement was written by MyHeritage:

Updated version of world’s most popular free family history software now syncs with online and mobile, opens new channels for the discovery of historical records and is available for the first time also in Chinese, Japanese and Korean

PROVO, Utah & TEL AVIV, Israel – April 17 2013: MyHeritage, the popular family history network, today announced the release of Family Tree Builder 7.0, free genealogy software that combines innovative technology with easy-to-use features. The millions of family history enthusiasts and genealogists worldwide using Family Tree Builder to explore, document and showcase their roots, can now synchronize their family tree between different devices and enjoy sophisticated ways of making new discoveries via the cloud.

Family Tree Builder 7.0 is available as a free download from http://www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder.

Texas House Bill 3252 would close Texas Birth And Death Records

Here is still one more attack on open records being launched by well-intentioned, but clueless, legislators. The following was copied from the Texas State Genealogical Society's (TSGS) web site:

House Bill 3252 by Representative John Zerwas (Fort Bend County) would close Texas birth records for 125 years and Texas death records for 50 years.  Under current Texas law, birth and death records now become public information 75 years after a birth and 25 years after a death.  Proponents of the bill believe that closing birth and death records for 125 and 50 years will prevent identity theft and fraud.

TSGS is actively opposing this legislation.  Click here to read the full Legislation Alert.