Month: March 2011

This week’s install­ment of Who Do You Think You Are? with Steve Busce­mi has an enter­tain­ing sto­ry about depres­sion, sui­cide, servi­tude, and the Civ­il War … but it’s not about geneal­o­gy as it is gen­er­al­ly under­stood. After a fair­ly stan­dard, but sol­id begin­ning, with Busce­mi talk­ing to his par­ents about his mater­nal grand­moth­er, the show… Con­tin­ue read­ing WDYTYA Episode 206: Steve Busce­mi

Google received a painful judg­ment from Judge Den­ny Chin on its $125 mil­lion agree­ment with the pub­lish­ing indus­try. Judge Chin felt the agree­ment gave Google a “de fac­tor monop­oly.” Google had been sued by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Pub­lish­ers and the Authors Guild in 2005. These groups object­ed to the fact that Google was in the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Some Future Direc­tions for Google Books

In going through fam­i­ly heir­looms, great and small, we came across a small tro­phy in the form of a cup. “O. F. D. / Crib­bage Tro­phy / Won By / Hill & Hallen” I am not sure who the win­ners are, or what the year was, but my moth­er told me, years ago, that this… Con­tin­ue read­ing Dead Men Don’t Win Crib­bage Tour­na­ments

ArkivDig­i­tal, the pre­mier inde­pen­dent sub­­scrip­­tion-based genealog­i­cal research web­site in Swe­den, will be free this week­end in cel­e­bra­tion of Swe­den’s “Geneal­o­gy Research Day” (March 19th). The site boasts 26 mil­lion records online in col­or. I have writ­ten about the site pre­vi­ous­ly (“Review: Gen­line vs. Arkiv Dig­i­tal”). The site is con­tin­u­ing to improve, and there is a beta… Con­tin­ue read­ing Arkiv Dig­i­tal: Free Week­end

To the left is a pic­ture of my great grand­moth­er, Alice Mar­garet Gregg (b. 29 Apr 1870, Nod­away, Adams, Iowa; d. 29 Mar 1919, Ord, Val­ley, Nebras­ka). She mar­ried the farmer Nels John­son on 26 Sep 1888 at her father’s farm near Alliance, Box Butte, Nebras­ka). They had three chil­dren. She died just one month shy… Con­tin­ue read­ing Word­less Wednes­day: Alice Mar­garet Gregg

Moca­vo, a new Inter­net search engine, launched today. Its focus is on search­ing free genealog­i­cal web­sites. It has gained the atten­tion of the geneal­o­gy blog­gers, show­ing up in Randy Seaver’s Genea-Mus­ings (“First Look at Moca­vo — A New Geneal­o­gy Search Engine”) and Dick East­man’s EOGN (“Mocavo.com — A Geneal­o­gy Search Engine”). The site offers a… Con­tin­ue read­ing Moca­vo: New Geneal­o­gy Search Site

The keynote address­es for the Root­sTech 2011 con­fer­ence are now avail­able for view­ing on the Root­sTech site: http://rootstech.familysearch.org/video.php These videos include: Jay Verkler — CEO of Fam­il­y­Search Inter­na­tion­al — Open­ing Keynote “Warm-Down” Address (34:18) Bar­ry Ewell — “Dig­i­tal­ly Pre­serv­ing Your Fam­i­ly Her­itage.” This one seems a lit­tle over-the-top, and not real­ly focused. Mr. Ewell knows… Con­tin­ue read­ing Root­sTech 2011: Keynote Address­es

I don’t know about you, but I am drown­ing in e‑mail. Most of my non-day job e‑mail goes into a cou­ple of Google G‑mail accounts. This is main­ly because G‑mail has so many fea­tures to help me sort, find, and respond to e‑mail. First off, I get almost zero spam, because Google’s spam fil­ters use… Con­tin­ue read­ing G‑Mail Smart Labels

I work­ing to declut­ter my home and put valu­able and rare genealog­i­cal doc­u­ments in order. In this process, I have been going through some, until now, neglect­ed doc­u­ments that were passed down to me, and find­ing some sur­pris­es. I had been think­ing about see­ing what I could do about get­ting my grand­moth­er Helen Har­ris’s divorce papers… Con­tin­ue read­ing My Grandmother’s Divorce

Many geneal­o­gists are aware of his­tor­i­cal news­pa­pers, and search them out on NewspaperArchive.com, GenealogyBank.com, and the Library of Con­gress. But there are some impor­tant archival pub­li­ca­tions that are avail­able with the orig­i­nal pub­lish­ers. Harper’s Mag­a­zine has been pub­lish­ing month­ly issues since July 1850. Cur­rent suscribers to the mag­a­zine have access to all of the con­tent… Con­tin­ue read­ing Archival Pub­li­ca­tions: News­pa­pers and Mag­a­zines