Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

An Audio Interview with Elissa Scalise Powell of BCG

Elissa Scalise Powell is an expert genealogist, instructor and lecturer who exhibits the highest of professional standards. She is also President of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, or BCG.

The Board for Certification of Genealogists is an independent organization not affiliated with, or part of, any group. It functions as a certifying body, not a membership society. Its primary aim is to certify genealogists as meeting professional standards, somewhat similar to certifications as a CPA or other professional standards.

136 Hours of Genealogy Classes now Available at FamilyTreeWebinars.com

The following announcement was written by FamilyTreeWebinars.com, a division of Legacy Family Tree:

New Annual/Monthly Webinar Memberships Provide Anytime-Access to Entire Webinar Archives and Instructors’ Handouts

Genealogists and family historians can now have anytime, anywhere and unlimited access to the nearly 100 recorded genealogy webinars and more than 350 pages of instructors’ handouts that have been part of the Legacy Family Tree Webinar series with their new website at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com.

New Audio Podcast to Feature Tips on New England Research

The following announcement was written by Marian Pierre-Louis:

MILLS, M.A. (January 21, 2013) – Professional genealogist and house historian, Marian Pierre-Louis has developed a new genealogy show in audio (podcast) format called On-Site Research New England. Shows will be broadcast bi-weekly through the On-site Research New England website (http://www.ResearchNewEngland.com) and will made available through iTunes.

Introducing a New Live Internet Radio Show for New England History

The following announcement was written by Marian Pierre-Louis:

Professional genealogist and house historian, Marian Pierre-Louis has developed a new history and genealogy radio show called Fieldstone Common. The live 60-minute show will feature authors, historians, curators and others whose passion is to keep New England history alive. Shows will be broadcast weekly through Blog Talk Radio (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FieldstoneCommon) and made available afterward via podcast.

The inaugural episode airs on Friday, August 24, 2012 at 1:00pm EDT. The show premiere will feature Paul Della Valle, author of Massachusetts Troublemakers: Rebels, Reformers and Radicals from the Bay State. Future episodes will air weekly on Thursdays at 1:00pm EST.

My Interview by Jane Wilcox on BlogTalkRadio

Jane Wilcox is a professional genealogist who also has a genealogy radio show on WHVW 950 AM radio in Poughkeepsie, New York. The same radio program is also broadcast on the Web on BlogTalkRadio.com where it reaches listeners around the world. I had the pleasure today of being Jane's guest on her radio program.

Jane and I talked about a number of topics including the advances in genealogy research caused by technology, my experiences publishing an electronic newsletter, the use of DNA in genealogy research, and methods of keeping your genealogy data in a computer or in the cloud or both.

MyHeritage Free Live Webinar: How to Find Your Relatives in the 1940 US Census

The following message was received from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage:

\ Hi Dick,

I would like to invite you and your readers to join MyHeritage's experts on Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 2pm EDT* for a free, live webinar: How to find your relatives in the 1940 US Census - Register for the webinar at http://bit.ly/IA3se8.

Laurence Harris and Mark Olsen will take you step-by-step through researching the census. They’ll demonstrate how to find the people you’re looking for and how to understand the records you find.

Podcast: Connie Reik Talks About Zotero

Connie Reik is a Government Publications Coordinator and Research Librarian for History at Tisch Library at Tufts University. She also teaches how to perform research. She teaches these skills to college students and, more recently, to genealogists. Along the way, Connie has become an expert and instructor in the use of Zotero, a free citation manager and note taker.

Connie now gives talks and workshops on Zotero at genealogy conferences. I knew that her former students have been enthusiastic about Connie's seminars at previous conferences. As one student told me, "Where has this been all my life?" I found Connie at another genealogy conference and asked if she would share some of her expertise with newsletter readers. Although it is impossible to capture a one- or two-hour hands-on seminar in a short audio podcast, Connie did manage to provide an overview and was able to tell why Zotero is such a great tool for genealogists.

Dick Eastman Is Interviewed

I have recorded quite a few interviews over the years and made them available in this newsletter. Now the tables have been turned. Grant Brunner of Geni.com recently recorded an interview of me and has now made it available on the Geni.com web site.

The interview focused primarily on my background in genealogy, blogging, and how this newsletter has changed over the past 15 years. Here are some questions Grant asked:

Podcast: An interview with Daniel Horowitz

Podcast: An interview with Daniel Horowitz, Chief Genealogist at MyHeritage. In our conversation, Daniel talked about the many service offerings of MyHeritage, including the unique advantages of group collaboration, or "family social networking." The company is especially strong in interfacing with social networks, building personal web sites, multimedia, face recognition, and more. He also described the newly-announced “Family Goals,” a pioneering group payment system that enables family members to chip in to jointly purchase a subscription. Finally, Daniel briefly give a hint about future products that will involve "smart" cell phones and other devices.

Podcast: An Interview with Grant Brunner of Geni.com

Geni is a collaborative online service that is solving many of the problems of genealogy by inviting the world to build the definitive online family tree. Using the basic free service at Geni.com, users add and invite their relatives to join their family tree, which Geni compares to other trees. Matching trees are then merged into the single world family tree, which currently contains nearly 50 million living users and their ancestors. Pay services include enhanced research tools as well as keepsake products created from family tree data.

At the recent Southern California Genealogy Jamboree held in Burbank, I had a chance to talk with Grant Brunner, Community Outreach Manager at Geni.com. You can listen to our conversation by clicking on PLAY in the link below.

(The picture above and to the right is of Grant Brunner and myself.)

Podcast: an Interview with Sandra Rumble of GenDetective

GenDetective is a brand-new Windows software program that helps you organize your genealogy data. Other programs tell you what information you have. GenDetective will analyze your GEDCOM files and tell you what you don't have. It will created printed reports as well as reports on your smartphone, Kindle, Nook, laptop, or most any other computer than can display text. You can take your report with you on a research trip to a library, an archive, of any other repositories. You can read more about GenDetective in my recent articles at http://goo.gl/OzjiC and at http://goo.gl/WtC92.

I had a chance to talk with Sandra Rumble, one of the principles at GenDetective and I asked her about the product, especially how to use it.

Podcast: A Conversation with David Rencher of FamilySearch

I recently had a chance to sit with David Rencher, Chief Genealogical Officer of FamilySearch. We were at the annual conference of the National Genealogical Society, held in Charleston, SC. You can listen to our conversation now by clicking on the link below.

DavidRencher

David talked about a number of topics of interest to genealogists, including:

Podcast: A Conversation with Cliona Weldon and Brian Donovan of findmypast Ireland

I recently had a chance to talk with both Cliona Weldon, General Manager of a brand-new web site, called findmypast Ireland, and with Brian Donovan, Director of the new company. Brian is also well known for being the Director and CEO of the Irish genealogy company, Eneclann. I asked Cliona and Brian about the new services and products being offered by findmypast Ireland.

findmypast Ireland is a joint venture between findmypast and Eneclann, the award-winning Irish history and heritage company. Findmypast Ireland will host the most extensive collection of Irish land records available anywhere online and will be a valuable resource for those 80 million people worldwide who claim Irish ancestry.

FindMyPast-Ireland

Podcast: An Interview with Melinde Lutz Byrne of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate Program

I recently had an opportunity to interview Melinde Lutz Byrne, Director of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate program. These courses teach "how to do it right." Topics covered include basic to very advanced genealogy research techniques, including Genealogy Foundations, Techniques and Technology, Evidence and Evaluation, Forensic Genealogy, and Ethnic and Geographic Specialties. The instructors include Melinde Lutz Byrne, Elissa Scalise Powell, Allison Ryall, Thomas W. Jones, Pamela Sayre, and Mary Ann Boyle. The program has now graduated more than 400 students.

This is a high-powered program that is highly respected by professional and advanced genealogists alike.

Melinde Lutz Byrne

You can listen to our conversation by clicking on the icon above. You can also save it to your computer's hard drive or to iTunes to listen to it later on your computer or iPad or most any other MP3 music player.

Podcast: An Interview with Lee Maxey of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate Program

I recently had an opportunity to interview Lee Maxey of Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate program. Lee's work focuses primarily on remote students, those from around the world who want to significantly improve their genealogy research techniques. This is a high-powered program that is highly respected by professional and advanced genealogists alike.

Lee-Maxey

You can listen to our conversation by clicking on the icon above. You can also save it to your computer's hard drive or to iTunes to listen to it later on your computer or iPad or most any other MP3 music player.

Podcast: An Interview with David Allen of Old Maps, Inc.

At the recent New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC), held in Springfield, Massachusetts, I had a chance to sit and talk with David Allen. He is the owner of Old Maps, a company that republishes historical maps. The maps range from the 1850s through the early 1870s. The company offers digital and printed reproductions of maps from all over New England. The company provides thousands of FREE, compressed maps on its web site. Highly detailed (non-compressed) maps on CD-ROM and printed on high-quality paper can also be ordered from the site.

These maps pinpoint the location of every house and the name of the family that lived there at the time the original map was produced. As such, these maps have great value to genealogists. Not only can you see where your ancestors lived, but also their neighbors and others in the extended area.

David Allen of Old Maps

Podcast: An Interview with Brenda Sullivan of the Gravestone Girls

I recently had a chance to talk with Brenda Sullivan. She is one of "the Gravestone Girls," a company that teaches how to make cemetery gravestone rubbings without damaging the stones; gives lectures about cemetery art, history, and symbolism; and also creates replicas of tombstones by making an impression of the art of the tombstones.

In this interview, Brenda talks about her background and the services of the Gravestone Girls. I found her products to be a fascinating preservation of disappearing art. Brenda also talked a bit about how valuable cemeteries can be at supplying information to today's genealogists.

Brenda_Sullivan

 You can listen to the interview by clicking on her name above.

Video: An Interview with Brewster Kahle

At the recent RootsTech Conference held in Salt Lake City, I had a chance to sit and talk with Brewster Kahle, a digital librarian who is also the founder of The Internet Archive. Brewster had delivered a keynote speech at the conference a few minutes earlier to about 3,000 people. He then kindly agreed to appear on EOGN in a video interview in which he discusses digital archiving to preserve information forever and to make it available to anyone, anywhere in the world, at no charge.

Podcast: An Interview with some of the FamilySearch Senior Managers

FamilySearch_Senior_Mgrs

At the recent RootsTech Conference, I had an opportunity to sit and talk with three of the senior managers of FamilySearch:

• Jay Verkler, CEO of FamilySearch
• Shipley Munson, VP of Marketing for FamilySearch
• Don Anderson, Senior VP of Patron Services for FamilySearch

Our primary topic of conversation was the RootsTech conference that was happening around us. I asked several questions, including:

• What is RootsTech?
• Why do you have a RootsTech?
• Why is FamilySearch doing this?

The three of them described the conference plans and some of the thinking that went into those plans. They also described the results and even made predictions about next year's events. My favorite quote in this interview was made by Jay Verkler: "We didn't expect 3,000 people, either."

You can listen to this podcast now with your computer's speakers or copy it to your iPod or any other MP3 music player for later playback. To listen to it now, click on the "FamilySearch_Senior_Mgrs" link above the picture. To save the audio file, right-click on the same link (Macintosh users can Command-Click), and select "Save As..." to save it to anyplace on your hard drive, to iTunes, or any other place as you wish. The podcast is 13 minutes 11 seconds long.

NOTE: This podcast was recorded in the RootsTech Community Zone Expo Hall. You will hear background noise as thousands of genealogists were in the hall, talking with vendors, trying various products, and even playing games in the RootsTech Playground.

 

Genealogy Goodness for the Droid

The following announcement was written by Lisa Louise Cooke:

Ever since we launched the Genealogy Gems Podcast App for the iPhone and iPod Touch earlier this year (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-genealogy-gems-podcast/id337736531?mt=8), we’ve heard from Android users that they want to be able to stream the show on their mobile devices too. And now they can! The Genealogy Gems Podcast Companion App for Android is now LIVE in the Android marketplace!