Month: February 2011

Day 2 of Root­sTech start­ed with a spir­it­ed keynote address by Curt Witch­er of the Allen Coun­ty Pub­lic Library on “The Chang­ing Face of Geneal­o­gy.” His point was: The world is going dig­i­tal and going there quick­ly. Get on board, or be left behind. Bri­an Pugh of Fam­il­y­Search pre­sent­ed a pow­er­ful talk on how the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Day 2

Yes­ter­day was the first day of Root­sTech, a new con­fer­ence on geneal­o­gy and tech­nol­o­gy held in Salt Lake City and spon­sored by Fam­il­y­Search Inter­na­tion­al, the geneal­o­gy infor­ma­tion arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints. The con­fer­ence start­ed with a lit­tle bit of con­fu­sion: It seemed that there was a rush to the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Day 1

The New York Times has an arti­cle and an accom­pa­ny­ing inter­ac­tive fea­ture that allows users to explore the Amer­i­can phe­nom­e­non of mul­tira­cial and mul­ti­eth­nic fam­i­lies. The sto­ry points out that the gov­ern­ment uses sta­tis­tics on race and eth­nic­i­ty to address race- and eth­nic-based inequities, how­ev­er the increas­ing­ly com­plex nature of fam­i­ly back­grounds is caus­ing a… Con­tin­ue read­ing Mul­tira­cial and Mul­ti­eth­nic Trees

How to Pro­tect Your­self in a Con­nect­ed World As geneal­o­gists, we are often online — whether using scanned records from a sub­scrip­tion site, search­ing through tran­scrip­tions on Gen­Web, vol­un­teer­ing for a local soci­ety, or send­ing e‑mail to a recent­ly found cousin. Being online as much as we are, we assume some risks. While these risks are… Con­tin­ue read­ing Cyber Secu­ri­ty

Ama­zon announced today an update for the lat­est gen­er­a­tion of the Kin­dle e‑book read­er, com­mon­ly called Kin­dle 3. Users can wait for their Kin­dle 3 or Kin­dle DX devices to auto­mat­i­cal­ly be updat­ed, or they can down­load the soft­ware and install it them­selves at: Kin­dle Soft­ware Update Ver­sion 3.1 — Ear­ly Pre­view Release Accord­ing to… Con­tin­ue read­ing Kin­dle Update, 3.1

Geneal­o­gists need to be his­to­ri­ans. There is no way to under­stand a fam­i­ly his­to­ry out­side of the larg­er con­text of the his­to­ry the fam­i­ly lived through. Geneal­o­gists have a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty over the next few years to wit­ness the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al (150th anniver­sary) of the Civ­il War. This will be com­mem­o­rat­ed with exhibits, books, web­sites, records… Con­tin­ue read­ing Civ­il War Sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al Blogs

The Via sur­name is one of my more unique sur­names. Since I reg­u­lar­ly research Smith, Jones, John­son, Miller, Hill, and Gra­ham, it’s good to have the occa­sion­al rare sur­name. My Vias descend through Mica­jah Via, Sr. (cir­ca 1742 — cir­ca 1810) and Phillipi Bur­nett, and their son Jonathan Via, Sr. and his wife Cather­ine O’Buck… Con­tin­ue read­ing Sur­name Sat­ur­day: Via

The sec­ond sea­son of the NBC series Who Do You Think You Are? pre­miered tonight, with an episode fea­tur­ing Vanes­sa Williams. The ances­try of Ms. Williams was traced back to a great great grand­fa­ther (on her father’s side), David Car­ll. He was born a free black man, joined Co. I, 26th US Col­ored Infantry. For… Con­tin­ue read­ing Who Do You Think You Are, Episode 201

Are you attend­ing Root­sTech in Salt Lake City next week? Root­sTech is a new fam­i­ly his­to­ry and tech­nol­o­gy con­fer­ence, which aims to unite tech­nol­o­gists and tech­nol­o­gy users. Spon­sors of the con­fer­ence include the usu­al sus­pects (FGS, NEHGS, NGS (for which I am a board mem­ber), Bright­sol­id, Archives.com, and Ances­try), but also tech­nol­o­gy lead­ers such as… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011

This is my great great grand­moth­er, Kjer­stin John­son, who was born in Swe­den, immi­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca at the age of 34, had 12 chil­dren (11 sur­viv­ing to adult­hood), and died at the age of 92. You can read more about her and her fam­i­ly in “His­to­ry of Swan John­son Fam­i­ly, Nance Coun­ty, Nebras­ka, Jan­u­ary 1936,”… Con­tin­ue read­ing Word­less Wednes­day: Kjer­stin John­son (1834–1927)