Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

This Newsletter is Sponsored by Footnote, Inc.

We’re Now Over 54 Million Documents! 

On Footnote.com we add millions of new documents every month that are found nowhere else on the web.

Here's what we have recently added:

Interactive 1930 US Federal Census
NY Naturalizations
Indian Census 1885-1940
Civil War Union Soldier Service Records - Missouri
Texas Death Records

Come visit Footnote.com - Where real history just might surprise you.

FamilySearch Indexing Update - 5 May 2009

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

The 1916 Canada Census is now available for free for patrons of family history centers through the center’s AncestryInstitution.com login.

Our indexers wrapped up 11 projects and 8 new projects were added. In U.S. Collections, Arkansas County Marriages, Illinois Cook County Births, and Minnesota, Montana, and Nebraska for the 1920 U.S. Census were added. Yucatan, Mexico (1930 Census), Avila, Spain (Moraleja de Matacabras Parish Registers), and Canada, (British Columbia Marriages) were the latest International projects added.

Recently Completed Projects

(Note: Recently completed projects have been removed from the available online indexing batches and will now go through a final completion check process in preparation for future publication.)

Maine Historical Society's Library to Reopen

The following announcement was written by the Maine Historical Society:

The Brown Library at Maine Historical Society to Reopen on March 24 after 2-year Renovation and Expansion

Portland, Maine, March 19, 2009 – Maine Historical Society is pleased to announce the reopening of the Alida Carroll and John Marshall Brown Library at 485 Congress Street, Portland, Maine, on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, following the completion of a 2-year, $9.5 million renovation and expansion.  While the historic character of the 1907 building has been lovingly preserved, the library has been transformed into a state-of-the-art research facility, providing first-rate care of the collections.  A new 13,000 sqare foot wing provides expanded storage, climate-control, and a home for the Maine Memory Network.  Landscaping and planting the Longfellow Garden will be completed in the spring.

Ohio Genealogical Society Schedules Groundbreaking for Its New Library

The following announcement was written by the Ohio Genealogical Society:

The Ohio Genealogical Society will break ground for its new library and headquarters in Bellville, Ohio, on Friday, May 29 at 10:30 a.m.

For several years, OGS has been raising funds to build a library designed to facilitate genealogical research by its members and visitors, and to assure preservation of irreplaceable records of interest to genealogists. The new library building with floor space of 18,000 square feet will be built from the ground up to accomplish those purposes. The start of construction coincides with the society’s 50th anniversary.

Windows 7 Release Candidate Now Available

On Tuesday, May 5, the Windows 7 Beta Release Candidate became available to everyone via Microsoft's Customer Preview Program. Windows 7 is Microsoft's planned replacement for Vista. Now you can install the new operating system and use it at no charge, at least for a year or so.

As with the Beta, the Windows 7 RC Customer Preview Program is a broad public program that offers the Release Candidate free of charge to anyone who wants to download it. It will be available for download at least through June 30, 2009, with no limits on the number of downloads or product keys available. Once installed, the Release Candidate will continue to function until 1 June 2010.

findmypast.com Adds Merchant Seamen Crew Lists Index

The following announcement was written by findmypast.com:

Making Waves In Genealogy: Online Launch of Merchant Seamen Crew Lists Index

Lists of 270,000 merchant seafarers at sea in 1860-1913 made available online

The indexes to lists of crew members working on British merchant ships between 1860 and 1913 are now available online from today at leading family history website findmypast.com.

Second Site 3 Is Now Available

The following announcement was written by John Cardinal:

North Andover, MA - May 5, 2009 - John Cardinal is pleased to announce the release of Second Site 3, the latest version of the highly-regarded web site builder for use with The Master Genealogist (TMG) from Wholly Genes Software. Second Site makes professional-quality pages from your TMG data and includes dozens of features for making interesting, informative sites.

Authorities Hope to Identify Remains of 400 British and Australian Soldiers

An operation to recover and identify the remains of about 400 British and Australian soldiers killed during a WWI battle in Northern France is to begin. It follows the discovery of several unmarked mass graves in a field on the outskirts of the village of Fromelles.

Book Review: Social Networking for Genealogists

I had a chance this week to read a new book written by Drew Smith: Social Networking for Genealogists. Social networking is a new term; I cannot imagine such a book being written three or four years ago for anyone, let alone for genealogists.

Wikipedia.org describes social networking as:

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people.

While it could be said that email and websites have most of the essential elements of social network services, the idea of proprietary encapsulated services has gained popular uptake recently.

Backblaze - A Better (?) Online Backup System

I am a strong believer in the need for keeping multiple backups of all important files and storing those backups in multiple places. At a minimum, you should be keeping the original file(s) on your computer, a backup of each important file in a location that is close and convenient to your computer, and still another backup that is stored "off-site." In this case, "off-site" might be at your place of work, at a relative's home, in a safe deposit box, or on a server out on the Internet.

In the past few years, a number of online services have appeared that provide automated backup services. You install the software, do a bit of configuration, and then sit back and let your computer make frequent backups automatically.

Footnote + Facebook = I Remember

The following announcement was written by Facebook (one of the sponsors of this newsletter):

Footnote.com Launches Application on Facebook® Platform to Help Friends Remember Friends

I REMEMBER Uses The Fourth-Most Trafficked Website in the United States To Bring Memories Together Like Never Before

May 5, 2009 – Lindon, Utah – Footnote.com today announced the launch of I Remember, a Facebook application aimed at helping connect Facebook users in order to share memories of loved ones. Few events in life generate the emotions and memories as does the passing of a friend, family member or colleague. However, without the appropriate tools and forum to preserve and share these memories, a loved one’s legacy may be lost. Now with I Remember, Facebook users can create a meaningful experience to honor those individuals that had an impact on their lives.

Plus Edition Newsletter Sent

To all Plus Edition subscribers:

The weekly Plus Edition newsletter was sent to your e-mail address yesterday evening. If you have not yet seen it in your in-box, check your spam folder. If it is not there, please contact your e-mail provider to see why it was blocked. If you have any questions, please contact me. Don't forget that you can also read the latest Plus Edition newsletter online, as well as the two previous editions, at: http://www.eogn.com/wp/ (your user name and password are required to read the Plus Edition online).

To all non-subscribers:

(+) Along Those Lines... by George G. Morgan: Yearbooks: Face Books in History

The following article was written by and is copyright by George G. Morgan.

Social networking is exceptionally popular these days. Facebook, for example, at www.facebook.com continues to enjoy explosive growth. There are literally hundreds of genealogists communicating and networking on Facebook, and I count about 300 friends online at that site. MySpace (www.myspace.com) is another such facility with a large following of young people, and Twitter (twitter.com) has become a catchy site for messaging with your friends.

Before all of this online social networking, however, several generations of our ancestors relied on face-to-face social interaction and on their home telephones. (There were no cell phones in those days.) People attended schools and colleges and participated in all types of activities. They joined clubs, fraternities, and sororities; they played in bands and orchestras; they staged and acted in plays; and athletic sports of all types attracted males and females. Academic life was exciting. Fortunately a great many of the school activities that we and our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents participated in were somehow captured in yearbooks or annuals. Have you investigated this path yet?

What Attracted Our Ancestors to the New World

The following article was written by Dick Eastman:

I learned in school that our ancestors came to the New World in the 1600s in search of religious freedom. While I still believe that to be true, I now believe the full story is a bit more complex than the reasons given in grammar school textbooks.

Religious freedom was a motivation for Puritans, Pilgrims, Quakers, and others, but thousands of other immigrants were members of the established church in England and had no interest in other theologies. What motivated them?

Du Bois Collection Goes Digital

Fifty years ago there were few people who did not know who W.E.B. Du Bois was. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced Doo Boys) was a founding member of the Niagara Movement, a group that evolved into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A prolific and confrontational writer, he expounded on the necessity of racial, economical and gender equality, demilitarization and the destructive nature of colonialism, among other social justice topics. Du Bois wrote many novels, plays and poems, but may be best remembered for his 1903 book, "The Souls of Black Folk."

100 Genealogy Resources to Discover Your Ancestry

Suzane Smith has written an article entitled “100 Genealogy Resources to Discover Your Ancestry.” I think a list like this should be given to every  genealogy novice. This list does look good.

“100 Genealogy Resources to Discover Your Ancestry” at: http://phlebotomytechnicianschools.com/?page_id=52.

British Newspapers 1800-1900 Online

British Newspapers is a joint effort between the British Library and Gale, Cengage Learning to make available digitised versions of key nineteenth-century British newspapers. The online collection presently contains several million articles from forty-nine local and national newspapers. This database offers online access to a key set of primary sources for the study of nineteenth-century history.

For the forty-nine titles selected, every front page, editorial, birth and death notice, advertisement and classified ad that appeared within their pages for the time period available is now accessible from what is a virtual chronicle of history for this period. Users of the database are able to search every word on every page.

(+) From Lloyd’s Library by Lloyd Bockstruck: Colonial Families of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties, Virginia

The following article was written by and is copyright by Lloyd Bockstruck.

Genealogists aspire to publish their research in order to preserve and share copies with other family members and to make their findings available to fellow researchers wherever they might be. They place copies in libraries and historical societies located in the areas of ancestral homes and in major genealogical repositories where interested parties in the future will be able to locate them.

FaceBook Was Invented in 1902

FaceBook isn't exactly new. Bryan Benilous, a historical newspaper specialist at the digital-archive company Proquest, said he and his colleagues came across a Boston Daily Globe article from August 24, 1902, titled, “Face Book The New Fad,” describing a party game where revelers sketch out cartoony caricatures for fun.

National Archives Recalls Flu Pandemic of 1918

The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:

With concerns of a new flu pandemic, a look back at an old one

This alert is based on a National Archives online exhibit titled "Deadly Virus, the Influenza Epidemic of 1918," at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/records-list.html. This site offers high-res downloads of documents and images from that time.

Dutchess Clerk, NY Office Awarded Records Computerization Grant

Dutchess County Clerk Brad Kendall has secured a grant award through ancestry.com that will scan and digitize naturalization records dating from 1932 – 1989.  The records include the original petitions for naturalization, signed oaths of allegiance, the manner in which the individual came to the United States, as well as original photographs.  Roughly 20,000 individuals are represented in this project.

Upcoming Events

The Upcoming Events section of this newsletter is published as a newsletter article once per month, usually in the first week of the month. However, you can also view the latest list of events at any time by clicking on "Upcoming Events" in the Navigation menu near the upper right corner of the page at http://www.eogn.com.

Each event is listed with the name, location and dates. Click on the name to see the details, including a link to the event's web page or to an e-mail address of someone who will provide still more information. The EOGN list of Upcoming Events is also available as an RSS newsfeed at http://www.trumba.com/calendars/eogns_calendar.rss.

If you would like to have your event added to this list, please send the information to meetings@eogn.com. We will publish the name of the event, the city and state/province/country where it is to be held, a very brief description and a web page URL or e-mail address to be used to obtain full details.

NOTE: We compile the list once a month. If you wait until the last minute to send the notice of your event, it might not make it into this month's listings.

View the Complete Calendar

Wanted: Pontotoc County, Oklahoma Photos of People and Places

The Pontotoc County Historical and Genealogical Society and PAST organization are soliciting identifiable photographs of early Pontotoc County people and places. They are in the process of preserving all of the photographs which are in the possession of the Pontotoc County Historical and Genealogical Society and will appreciate the help of area residents in adding more to the collection.

What You Inherited from Your Ancestors: Rotator Cuff Disease

I know that we all inherit many medical problems from our ancestors but this one surprised me: the Risk of Rotator Cuff Disease?

Writing in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American). Robert Z. Tashjian, MD, James M. Farnham, MS, Frederick S. Albright, PhD, Craig C. Teerlink, MS and Lisa A. Cannon-Albright, PhD wrote:

BCG Certification Seminar Video Available Online

The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG):

The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG)® announces an exciting new addition to its website: a videotape of a BCG Certification Seminar presented before a live audience in Salt Lake City in November 2008 by Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D., CG(sm), CGL(sm), FASG, and Elissa Scalise Powell, CG. Tom and Elissa have conducted this seminar numerous times over the past several years, mainly at national conferences. The seminar includes information about the certification process, the required portfolio elements, tips about mailing the package, expected turnaround time, suggestions for preparing for certification, and many other topics. The two-hour program has been broken into short segments for convenient online viewing.

(+) Casefile Clues by Michael John Neill: Getting the Most from a Christening

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Michael John Neill.

For some of our ancestors, church membership and ceremonies were important. And if the church was important to our ancestors, the records of their church membership should be important to our research. This week we take a look at a foreign language baptismal entry and see what it does (and does not) tell us about the child and its family. In this case, avoiding misinterpreting the handwriting is important as well.

Windows 7 Will Be Free For a Year

Microsoft is effectively giving away Windows 7 free for a year with the launch of the Release Candidate. The Release Candidate is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and will go on unlimited, general release on 5 May. The software will not expire until 1 June 2010, giving testers more than a year's free access to Windows 7.

GeoCities to Shut Down. Now What?

Thousands of private individuals host their genealogy sites on the free GeoCities service. Some of the sites have been there for years with little or no updates from the owners. Now parent company Yahoo is ending the free service.

Yahoo has posted the following notice at http://www.geocities.com:

Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available.

Current GeoCities customers:

After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer. For now, please sign in or visit the help center for more information.

Yahoo is encouraging these customers to upgrade to Yahoo's paid Web Hosting service.

Teen-Aged Genealogist Wins $10,000 College Scholarship

Despite the troubled economic times, paying for college just got easier for at least one Utah student. Bingham High School senior Brad Jencks is the Utah winner of the 2009 AXA Achievement Scholarship In association with U.S. News and World Report. Brad is one of 52 students nationwide -- one from each state plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico -- to win the $10,000 scholarship.

(+) 3M MPro110 Micro Professional Projector

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

I frequently make presentations to genealogy groups. This often means jumping on airplanes, flying to a distant city, and then standing in front of a group while I talk about some genealogy-related topic. Most of the time I use an overhead projector to display PowerPoint slides or to demonstrate a program or web site. I usually carry my own equipment because I have found that using borrowed equipment entails risks of not having everything working as expected. I usually pack my laptop, charger, my own overhead projector, various extension cords, ethernet cables, wireless "aircard," and other paraphernalia. It's a wonder that I have any room left in the suitcase for clothes!

I prefer to travel light, packing only a small, carry-on suitcase that fits in the overhead luggage compartment. However, when I started carrying my own projector, that became impossible.

UPDATE: Time to Get Rid of Adobe Reader?

This is an update to the article I wrote on April 23, available at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/04/time-to-get-rid-of-adobe-reader.html:

Adobe Systems has now acknowledged that all versions of its Adobe Reader, including editions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, contain at least one, and possibly two, critical vulnerabilities.

Rome, Georgia Cemetery Burial Data Now Online

Thanks to a new burial data program on the city of Rome’s web site, genealogy researchers and loved ones may have an easier time locating their ancestors buried in Rome’s public cemeteries. The service can assist those looking for the plots of ancestors, family or friends buried in city-owned cemeteries — Eastview, Oakland and Myrtle Hill.

"Ugliest Sign" Contest Pays Off for Genealogy Society

Last year, the West Valley (Arizona) Genealogical Society was selected as the winner of the FASTSIGNS Ugliest Sign Contest. Entrants were required to submit a photo of their existing sign, along with a 500-word essay answering the question, "Why does your business need a sign makeover?" Entries were judged by a panel of FASTSIGNS Phoenix co-op professionals. The winner received up to $5,000 in new signage.

Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms

For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: Virtually without exception the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

Old Massachusetts Portuguese-Language Newspaper Now Online

In what is seen as a boon to genealogists and local scholars, UMass Dartmouth announced Tuesday that more than 50 years of the former New Bedford Portuguese-language newspaper, Diario de Noticias, affectionately known as the Portuguese Daily News, is now available online at http://www.lib.umassd.edu/archives/paa/diario.html.

The newspaper began as the Alvorada (The Dawn) on January 25,1919 when Guilherme Luiz purchased a weekly Portuguese-language newspaper with the same name that had been published in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1927, the board changed its name to Diário de Notícias and began publishing a Fall River version of the paper. João R. Rocha acquired half ownership in 1940, and then bought out the paper, becoming publisher and sole owner in 1943. The paper enjoyed great success and a circulation that spanned the entire county. It ceased publication when Rocha retired in 1973. Its local successors are the Portuguese Times and O Jornal.

Known as the Ferreira Mendes Portuguese-American Archives, the project includes the digitizing of 84,010 pages or 16,641 issues of the newspaper, covering the period from 1919-73, so they can be viewed on the Web.

American Flag of Faces™ Launched Online

The following announcement was written by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation:

Will Be Featured Exhibit at Ellis Island

Ellis Island, NY (April 2009) – The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. today announced the official launch of its new American Flag of Faces™ website at www.FlagOfFaces.org. This interactive website invites all Americans to submit photos of their families, their ancestors, even themselves to become a part of this living, ever-changing American mosaic.

Family Historian Version 4 Is Now Available

Family Historian is a very popular Windows genealogy program produced in the U.K. but with users all over the world. Now Calico Pie Limited has released Version 4 of the program. It is available right now as a download on the company's web site and UK resellers will receive boxed sets of the product this week. Resellers in other countries will be receiving boxes shortly.

Family Historian 4 will, when installed, automatically detect and upgrade any previous versions of Family Historian you may have installed. Customers who purchased a licence for the download version of version 3 since November 26th 2008, will be emailed a link for a free upgrade to version 4.

As an extra bonus, each boxed copy of Family Historian 4 comes with a 30-day subscription to WorldVitalRecords.com.

Ancestors Magazine Offers Past Articles For Download

Produced by The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Ancestors is a monthly magazine full of tips and guidance for family and other historians. Now the publishers are offering selected past articles for a modest fee. Most articles are four to five pages in length, and have been scanned in colour from the original magazine. Downloads are supplied in PDF format.

The National Archives’ Documents Online service has a selection available from recent issues, with more to be added shortly. Subjects covered include parish magazines, convicts in Bermuda and an introduction to the Archives and its work.

Ancestry.com Offers More Relevant Searches

The search mechanism on Ancestry.com has had problems recently but the site's owners say that the problems are fixed and the site has been improved, starting today. Writing in the Ancestry.com blog, Anne Mitchell states:

There is a long list of things we want to improve in search (and in new search in particular) – and we’ve started with what you’ve told us is the most important – getting relevant results; and relevance is our top priority this year in search.

Pharos Adds Four New Teachers

Pharos is a British genealogy company that offers online genealogy classes. You can read my earlier articles about Pharos at http://www.google.com/cse?cx=003715150024579880844%3Aulyzue1ivzu&ie=UTF-8&q=Pharos&sa=Search. Now the company is expanding with the addition of four more teachers:

Penn State's La Vie Yearbook from 1890 to 2000 Available Online

Penn State alumni and their descendants will be interested in this new offering: Penn State's La Vie yearbook from 1890 to 2000 is now available online. La Vie, the Penn State University annual student yearbook, has been in production documenting student life continuously since 1890. The project is a collaboration between the Penn State University Archives and the University Libraries Digitization and Preservation Department. It features about 51,000 pages of yearbook content.

(+) From Lloyd’s Library by Lloyd Bockstruck: Tracing Loyalist Ancestors

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Lloyd Bockstruck.

In 1763 the British Empire acquired the former French colony of Quebec by conquest. Its western portion became Ontario in 1791. Between those years Americans had many contacts with Upper Canada. In 1783 ten thousand Loyalist refugees arrived. The term Loyalist designated a resident of one of the colonies in rebellion by the 19th  of April of 1775 who joined the Royal Standard before the treaty of peace in 1783. An ancestor could have served in a Loyalist regiment or could have demonstrated loyalty to Crown. He or she also had to opt to resettle in another British-held territory. Besides Quebec and Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were other Loyalist destinations in Canada.

Even though the Loyalists were on the losing side in the American Revolution, they are a significant part of the American genealogical fabric. In early 1780 there were 8,000 Loyalists bearing arms for King George III. At that time George Washington’s Continental Army numbered only 9,000.

New Librarian and Archivist of Canada Appointed

Daniel J. Caron has been named as the new Librarian and Archivist of Canada. He is replacing Ian Wilson who announced his retirement earlier this month.

The following was written by Libraries and Archives Canada:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper Announces Appointment of New Librarian and Archivist of Canada

Census Taker Associated with Possible Spread of Swine Flu

Mexican officials have reported the first confirmed fatality of Swine Flu: a 39-year-old woman from Veracruz who worked as a door-to-door census-taker and may have had contact with scores of people. Maria Adela Gutierrez died April 13 in the southern city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name.

Storage Breakthrough Puts 100 DVDs on a Single Disc

According to a report in the New York Times, GE has made a storage breakthrough that allows a density on a single disc high enough to store 100 DVD movies. If it can store that many movies, how many genealogy books can it store? I don't have a precise answer but obviously the answer has to be in the tens of thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of books. Can you imagine an entire library of genealogy books shipping on one disk? There would probably be enough room left over for all the U.S. census records images and lots of other material as well.

“This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm.

EXTENDED: Special Offer for Newsletter Readers: Discover Your DNA with Familybuilder DNA

I earlier wrote about a special offer from Familybuilder DNA offering a low-cost DNA testing service at 10% off as a special price only for readers of this newsletter. I am told that the Familybuilder folks have been pleased with the response and have decided to extend the offer for a few more days until May 3rd. The offer will positively end on that date.

As I wrote earlier: Familybuilder DNA, the lowest priced genealogy DNA test kits on the planet, is now offering an even lower price exclusively to readers of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter.

Familybuilder offers a YDNA test kit for males only, and an mtDNA test kit for both males and females. The regular prices for those two tests are $59.95 and $89.95 respectively. For the next few days, readers of this newsletter may order them for only $53.95 for the YDNA test kit for males only or $80.95 for the  mtDNA test kit for both males and females.

That's a savings of roughly 10% for each!

FamilySearch Publishes Its First Online Portuguese Collection

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

Millions of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro Civil Registration Records Now Digitally Searchable on the Web

SALT LAKE CITY—FamilySearch added the Brazil, Rio de Janeiro Civil Registration to its online collection—about 4.5 million new digital images. The free collection contains searchable digital images of the original birth, marriage, and death records from all of the municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro from 1889 to 2006. The new digital images can be searched for free at FamilySearch.org (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot).

Video: Down Under Utah: Icelandic Minister

Roots Television has an interesting episodes: Genealogists Kory Meyerink and Nancy NeSmith uncover an interesting story of an Icelandic minister buried in Spanish Fork City Cemetery in Utah.

What was an Icelandic minister doing in Utah in the 1920s? Nancy and Kory decided to find out. The detective work involved serves as an example for all genealogists.

Footnote.com Adds More Than One Million New Images

Footnote.com (one of the sponsors of this newsletter) continues to add a lot of new content, including:

Interactive 1930 US Federal Census
NY Naturalizations
Indian Census 1885-1940
Civil War Union Soldier Service Records - Missouri
Texas Death Records

To see a list of all the records on Footnote.com including what has recently been updated, click here.

Converting My Personal Library to Digital

I keep my computers and genealogy material in a small room at our house. I am sure the folks who built the house intended this room to be a child's bedroom, but there are no children in the house, so I have converted it into something I call "my office." I bet many people reading this article have done the same with a spare room in their homes.

I have several computers, two printers, and a 22-inch wide monitor in this room, along with two telephones, a fiber optic modem, a wi-fi router, oversized hi-fi speakers connected to the computers, and a few other pieces of hardware. Luckily, those are all rather small, and advancing technology results in smaller and smaller devices appearing every year. I occasionally replace aging hardware, and the newer devices are almost always smaller than the old ones. However, I have a huge space problem: books and magazines.

1880 History of Parke County, Indiana is Available Once Again

Those interested in the history and genealogy of Parke County, Indiana, now have an opportunity to purchase a previously out-of-print book. The Parke County Historical Society has again reprinted John Hanson Beadle’s 1880 History of Parke County. This book was originally part of Hiram W. Beckwith’s History of Vigo and Parke Counties, together with historic notes on the Wabash Valley, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, published in 1880 by H. H. Hill and N. Iddings.