Month: December 2010

I have been eval­u­at­ing Spring­pad, a note tak­ing tool. It is not real­ly fair, though, to call it that. Spring­pad is more like a Swiss Army knife for the Inter­net. There’s a lot of util­i­ty in small and ele­gant pack­age. Spring­pad was built to help you quick­ly grab infor­ma­tion from the web, asso­ciate it with oth­er infor­ma­tion,… Con­tin­ue read­ing Review: Spring­pad

The end of the year gets us all think­ing about how this year went, what went well, what we could be bet­ter about. As I look toward 2011, I can say that I have had some great learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in 2010. I expect to have sim­i­lar ones in 2011, and even more so. In 2010,… Con­tin­ue read­ing Geneal­o­gy Res­o­lu­tions for 2011

As the year ends, I am both clos­ing out an account at Gen­line (now a sub­sidiary of Ances­try), and try­ing out Arkiv Dig­i­tal. I have found Gen­line to be frus­trat­ing. Some of this, no doubt has to do with the fact that the fam­i­ly is not the eas­i­est to find, with the parish chang­ing names,… Con­tin­ue read­ing Review: Gen­line vs. Arkiv Dig­i­tal

In gen­er­al, Swedish records are easy to find and use. The Swedes start­ed keep­ing detailes records of vital records, but also of migra­tion and emi­gra­tion, from a very ear­ly date. And they have had a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of paci­fism, mean­ing that com­par­a­tive­ly few records have been burned. My elu­sive Swedes, how­ev­er.… They told every­one — in… Con­tin­ue read­ing Find­ing My Swedes

It has been snow­ing here in Raleigh, such that we woke up this Box­ing Day to a good 8 inch­es. Not long after that, and before the cof­fee was even brewed, the pow­er went out. It was out until mid-after­noon, and the first time the pow­er com­pa­ny pro­vid­ed an esti­mat­ed time to res­o­lu­tion, they said mid­night.… Con­tin­ue read­ing Snow and Swedish Research

we hope yours was as well. Look­ing for­ward to 2011, I am plan­ning a sev­er­al talks: two in Raleigh, NC, at the North Car­oli­na Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety Speak­ers Forum on Feb­ru­ary 19th, and three in Charleston, SC, at the Nation­al Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety Con­fer­ence between 11–14 May. These along with trips to Salt Lake City in Feb­ru­ary… Con­tin­ue read­ing Ours was a Mer­ry Christ­mas …

The Allen Coun­ty Library this fall has post­ed a new web­site at http://www.genealogycenter.org/. The site has a num­ber of fea­tures of inter­est. There are eight free data­bas­es that you can search simul­ta­ne­ous­ly from their home­page: African Amer­i­can Gate­way — Includes infor­ma­tion on US, Cana­di­an, and Caribbean resources. Fam­i­ly Files and Resources — Six­teen unique fam­i­ly… Con­tin­ue read­ing Allen Coun­ty Pub­lic Library Web­site

Google con­tin­ues to offer new fea­tures and prod­ucts that can be of use to geneal­o­gists. Among the most inter­est­ing recent releas­es is the abil­i­ty to dial cell phones and land lines from with­in G‑Mail using your com­put­er’s speak­ers and micro­phone and Google Voice tech­nol­o­gy. This allows for free long dis­tance calls, at least through 2011.… Con­tin­ue read­ing New Google Offer­ings

Over the next five years, we will be observ­ing the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al of the Civ­il War. On Decem­ber 20, 1860, that is, 150 years ago, this week, for exam­ple, South Car­oli­na seced­ed from the Union, touch­ing off a wave of seces­sions that led to the War itself. While the war is often described these days as… Con­tin­ue read­ing 150 Years Ago …