150 years ago today, 12 April 1861, the Civ­il War start­ed in earnest with a Con­fed­er­ate attack on the Fed­er­al posi­tion at Fort Sumter, in advance of sup­ply ships arriv­ing with food to resup­ply the fort. For Amer­i­can geneal­o­gists and his­to­ri­ans of the Unit­ed States, the Civ­il War is the cen­tral event, even more calami­tous… Con­tin­ue read­ing 150 Years Ago Today: Fort Sumter

The Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau has a page out­lin­ing its data access tools. While the data being made avail­able is sta­tis­ti­cal data, not per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able genealog­i­cal data, it should be of inter­est to geneal­o­gists to under­stand trends and the pop­u­la­tion trends and geog­ra­phy of the Unit­ed States. The site pro­vides large datasets for analy­sis, but… Con­tin­ue read­ing US Cen­sus Bureau — Data Access Tools

Tonight, Ash­ley Judd was the celebri­ty on the sea­son finale of Who Do You Think You Are? Her fam­i­ly sto­ry is com­pelling, and includes a Union Civ­il War vet­er­an from Ken­tucky, who was cap­tured twice by the Con­fed­er­ates, and was a bat­tle­field amputee. Addi­tion­al­ly, her line goes back to the ear­li­est days of the Ply­mouth Bay… Con­tin­ue read­ing WDYTYA Episode 208: Ash­ley Judd

This week’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? returns to a more tra­di­tion­al research method­ol­o­gy, start­ing from what is known, and mov­ing back­ward to illu­mi­nate the unknown. While many crit­ics will note that the star did not engage with much of the research, and was being hand­ed hours of research in a moment,… Con­tin­ue read­ing WDYTYA Episode 207: Gwyneth Pal­trow

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