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 a lot about digital preservation, but after pointing out that all of his slides and thoughts on the topic could not fit into a one-hour talk, proceeds to lose his focus. However, the ability to pause and take notes makes this better on video. (58:00)
Curt B. Witcher — Historical Genealogy Department Manager, Allen County Public Library. A talk on the changing times in genealogy, with an introduction by Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com (1:09:33)
Brian Pugh — “Cloud Computing: What it is and how we used it to build familysearch.org” (1:03:00)
Thomas MacEntee — “Virtual Presentation Round Table” Featuring Lisa Louise Cooke, Marian Pierre-Louis, Geoff Rasmussen, Pat Richley-Erickson, Allison Stacey, and Maureen Taylor. A well-balanced, well-moderated discussion of how presenters can give virtual presentations, and how genealogical societies can facilitate this service. (1:03:57)
Brewster Kahle — Founder of the Internet Archive — This is a powerful speech, and was one of the highlights of the conference for me. (51:17)
This is a fair representation of the conference. It was what we call in high-tech “drinking from the fire hose.” At approximately 5 1/2 hours, this will either take a good chunk of your day.
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 the power of the userbase of G‑mail to identify spam. If tens of thousands of people flag something as spam or phishing, it probably is, so G‑mail whisks it away from your in box.
Next, G‑mail lets you create any number of filters for incoming messages. You can have messages that you want to store (receipts, say), but do not want in your inbox moved into a Receipts folder and removed from the inbox. Automatically. Every time.
Searching in G‑mail is just as intuitive, quick and powerful as searching the web. (And, if you are in G‑mail and want to search the web, there’s a button to quickly get search results from the web instead of from your e‑mail.)
But Google is going further than any other e‑mail product with G‑mail. They are helping you automatically sort your mail without you having to set up filters. Last year, Google released something called Priority Inbox, which does a fairly serviceable job of predicting what might be of more importance to you, based on what you read and reply to. Over the last couple of days, Google has released a new feature for G‑mail into Google Labs. It’s called “Smart Labels.” As e‑mail comes in, Google looks to see if it is a Notification (something sent directly to you, but not from someone you have ever replied to, or perhaps with a no-reply setting in the header), Bulk Mail (an e‑mail mass mailing list), or Forums (from a group mailing list). If so, it tags your e‑mail with one of these labels, and, if you tell it so by simply clicking a checkbox, it can remove that e‑mail from your inbox.
To set this up, log into G‑mail, go to Settings and then Labs, and scroll down until you see Smart Labels and mark that Enabled. For more information, see Google’s G‑mail blog entry on this feature.
This looks powerful to me, and already has given me a smaller inbox where I will have most of my tasks and must-respond items.
In case you are wondering, “How does this relate to genealogy?” the answer is that time spent wrestling with your e‑mail inbox is time not spent on your research. Google continues to help streamline the way e‑mail works so we can get back to something we would rather be doing.
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 from the Wyoming State Archives. Divorce records are available 50 years after the date of the event, if you can provide enough detail to locate the records. Of course, I would have the names of both the parties (F. Ralph Harris and Helen Hill Harris), though I would not have known who the plaintiff was and who the defendant was. I did know the rough timeframe (some time between 1941 and 1947).
However, I know all of this information now, as I may have more documentation on the divorce than the state of Wyoming does. I certainly have different documentation: In addition to the signed divorce petition and decree, and the property settlement and child custody agreement, I have the letters sent to my grandmother from her attorney.
Here is a transcription of the decree of divorce.
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE FOURTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
WITHIN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SHERIDAN, STATE OF WYOMING
F. RALPH HARRIS,
Plaintiff,
-vs-
HELEN HILL HARRIS,
Defendant.
DECREE
The above entitled matter coming on regularly to he heard upon the Petition of F. Ralph Harris, the Plaintiff above named, to which an Answer has been filed by Helen Hill Harris, the Defendant above named, and the said F. Ralph Harris being present in Court in person and by his attorney and said Helen Hill Harris, the Defendant above named, being represented by R. G. Diefenderfer, Esq., her attorney, and said Plaintiff having been put to strict proof the Court finds that each and every allegation in Plaintiff’s petition contained is true and that the prayer thereof should be allowed.
The Court further finds that on or about the 17th day of June, 1943, the parties hereto entered into a Property Settlement and Child Custody Agreement and that said Property Settlement and Child Custody Agreement should be made part of this Decree.
IT IS, THEREFORE, HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that F. Ralph Harris, the Plaintiff above named, be and his is hereby granted an absolute decree of divorce from Helen Hill Harris, the Defendant above named.
IT IS FURTHER HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that that certain Property Settlement and Child Custody Agreement made and entered into upon the 17th day of June, 1943, a copy thereof being attached to Plaintiff’s Petition, be and the same is hereby made a part of this Decree.
DONE IN OPEN COURT on this the 11th day of February, 1946.
James H. Burgess
DISTRICT JUDGE
Approved as to form R. G. DIEFENDERFER
As I said, there is also the correspondence between R. G. Diefenderfer and my grandmother, or at least his side of it. Additionally, the documents include a dual notarized copy of the Property Settlement and Child Custody Agreement.
The letters from the attorney to my grandmother contain some notable moments. They begin on August 9, 1945, with:
Dear Mrs. Harris:
Your letter of August 7th was at hand this morning and I note that you will not accede to your husband’s desire that your ring be returned to him. I will govern myself accordingly.
Later in the letter we see references to the attorney having seen Mrs. Harris “when I last talked with you at your apartment.” She was claiming payment was due per the agreed settlement. He noted that the due date was the 10th, and advised her thus: “you must keep your husband advised of your address and if you have not already done so, please inform him thereof at once.” She was now living at 312 7th Avenue, Spencer Park, Hastings, Nebraska, and the attorney and her husband remained in Sheridan, Wyoming.
On September 25, 1945, there is this:
Dear Mrs. Harris:
Your recent letters have remained unanswered because I have been extremely busy in the trial of cases. However, I contacted Mr. Garbutt yesterday morning and he will hand to me a copy of your husband’s Petition and of the Summons.
What I do not have in F. Ralph Harris’s petition for divorce. This may or may not be with the divorce papers, but now that I have the exact date of the divorce, and know who the plaintiff and defendant are, getting these documents should be simple.
“A Stage Ride to Colorado,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1867
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 of the magazine from its initial run until the current month.
If you are lucky, you will find an article, as I have done, which talks about an event your ancestor was involved in.
The article, “A Stage Ride to Colorado” by Theodore R. Davis covers the stage coach route through Kansas to Denver, which was guarded by the 1st US Volunteers. My 3rd great grandfather, Thomas David Via, was a teamster in the 1st US Volunteers. This group of soldiers, the first “Galvanized Yankees,” joined the Federal army from Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates in order to avoid what was a probable death in the prison. Because they had been Confederates, they ended up getting sent out to the West to fight the wars against the Indians, who had been in rebellion because the Federal troops were preoccupied with combatting the Confederates.
Harper’s Magazine
But, even if your family and its experiences are not covered by Harper’s Magazine, it remains an important chronicle of American life and culture. Genealogists would be served well by reading contemporaneous journalism to understand the times, if not the life, of the subjects of their research.
You might also consider looking at the archives of the New York Times. The Times posts every article published since 1851. (There is a small fee for downloading the content.)
Tomorrow, I will write about what I found at the Times about an ancestral cold case from 1854.
Morgan W. Brown: Lionel Richey’s Great Great Grandfather?
Friday night, NBC aired the fifth episode of the second season of Who Do You Think You Are?, its flagship genealogy reality TV show.
The show is more compelling, with a quicker progression of facts and discoveries, and a focus on the emotional and very human reaction the celebrities experience as they discover, or are presented with genealogical facts. Lionel Richey is presented with a reality about his great grandfather, John Louis Brown. Brown appeared both to have abandoned his family and been sued for divorce by his wife. In addition to being apparently about 35 years the senior of his wife, he was also a man who was born a slave, educated and freed, and who was the leader of a national black fraternal organization, the Knights of Wise Men.
It’s quite an interesting and powerful show. Richey is confronted with the legacy of slavery, but also with incredible strength of purpose to raise former slaves to equality of station. He may also have discovered an ancestral connection with a white slaveholding family.
Professional genealogists will continue to quibble about the way documents are handled (usually without gloves, and with much more contact than is warranted), as well as how, every time we turn around a researcher says, “I have another document.” However, realistically, none of these documents is being seriously damaged, and as for the suddeness of the discoveries, this is television. In order to keep audiences interested, there must be quick results. There are fewer than 45 minutes available to complete the show. But I still think that a simple title card at the end could give a sense of the amount of research required to produce the show.
I was glad to see J. Mark Lowe featured as one of the researchers. He is a well-known professional genealogist and lecturer, who lives in what we call “Western North Carolina,” but which a lot of other folks now call Tennessee.… He’s a friend of mine, a top-notch researcher, and an amazing raconteur. Hopefully, Mr. Richey got some time to chat with Mark with the cameras and time pressure off.
Until the 18th of September 2011, the show is available in its entirety on the NBC website. I have also embedded it below.
This is about 9 months since the first iPad was released. The device has sold 15 million units. According to some analysts, this makes it the fastest selling consumer technology product ever.
I have to admit that I did not think the iPad would catch on. It seemed a little heavy in the hand, and was rumored to run hot. I figured that this product was over priced, at $499 for an 8GB WiFi model and $829 for a 64GB WiFi / 3G model. While the usability features, such as “instant on,” would make it easy to use it was really just, as one commentator said, “An iPhone for Hagar the Horrible.” It seems a device for content consumption, not content creation. I’m also simply a contrarian, and never bothered to get an iPhone. I have an Android, and prior to that had smartphones from Palm and Handspring since, oh, about 2001.…
In the last nine months, tens of thousands of apps were delivered. $2 billion dollars has been paid out to the software developers of those apps. While many of the apps are content creation apps, most are content consumption apps. But of course, we do an awful lot of that on the web anyway.
The new iPad sports both front- and rear-facing cameras, with the rear camera capturing 720p video. It’s 1/3 lighter, 2x as fast, and with 9x the video processing power. I look at those specs, and, seeing a lighter unit, with this many apps, and this kind of performance, and I myself am tempted. Not only could this be a lightweight way to travel, it looks like a lot of fun, and the apps keep coming.…
The iPad 2 is officially available next Friday, 11 March 2011, at Apple Stores and on the web at Apple.com. The new iPad supports Verizon as well as AT&T 3G networks.
Here’s a comparison of the specs, with specs that are either iPad 1 specific or iPad 1‑only (as found on the Wayback Machine) with iPad 2 specs highlighted.
Height
9.56 inches (242.8 mm) 9.50 inches (241.2 mm)
Width
7.47 inches (189.7 mm) 7.31 inches (185.7 mm)
Depth
0.5 inch (13.4 mm) 0.34 inch (8.8 mm)
Weight
1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) Wi-Fi model 1.33 pounds (601 g)
9.7‑inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
Capacity
16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive
Processor
1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip
Sensors
Three-axis gyro
Accelerometer
Ambient light sensor
Audio playback
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Audio formats supported: HE-AAC (V1), AAC (16 [iPad 2: 8] to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4, [iPad 2: Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+] Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
User-configurable maximum volume limit
Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound pass-through with Apple Digital AV Adapter (sold separately)
Cameras, Photos, and Video Recording
Back camera: Video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; still camera with 5x digital zoom
Front camera: Video recording, VGA up to 30 frames per second with audio; VGA-quality still camera
Tap to control exposure for video or stills
Photo and video geotagging over Wi-Fi
TV and video
Support for 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable
H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG‑4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M‑JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
Video mirroring and video out support: Up to 1080p with Apple Digital AV Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter (cables sold separately) Video out support at 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG‑4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M‑JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
The following is a video of Curt Witcher’s keynote address from RootsTech 2011: “The Changing Face of Genealogy: Curt Witcher, Allen County Public Library.” Thanks to Geniaus and Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings for pointing this out.
On a personal note, it’s been a difficult day, what with failures at Network Solutions taking down this blog, as well as my wife’s crochet blog (CrochetBug.com, and 6 other websites I manage. At first, the issue was a database sync-ing issue. When I called them to work on that, at about 1:00 a.m. last night, they obliged by removing all the files under /htdocs. The files, as well as the databases were up by about 4 p.m., meaning that it was only (!) about 15 hours of downtime, but I noticed that some of the more recent uploads to a couple of the sites were not in evidence; I had to upload files again. So, they restored the site from backups.…
I have been traveling, and only today got a chance to see the Kim Cattrall episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, or at least the last 45 minutes of it.
In this episode, Ms. Cattrall, with the help of genealogists in the United Kingdom, runs down her missing grandfather. He had abandoned her grandmother, mother, and two aunts some 70 years ago.
If anything the shows are getting more and more engaging. This episode was less about the documents and more about what must have been going on in the star’s bigamist grandfather’s head.
You can see why the show has been renewed for another season. This is engaging television. While, as a genealogist, I could quibble that most stories are not this heart-wrenching, nor do they involve this much deception, I simply cannot deny that this is popcorn-munching entertainment, designed to keep people coming back for more.
Now that Ancestry.com Inc. is a public company (ACOM: Google Finance), they are required to divulge more information about their performance than they did as a private venture.
For them, the news is good. Earlier this week, they announced their year 2010 figures, which included notably subscriber growth of 31% year-over-year and a 34% increase in revenue year-over-year. (At the end of December there were 1,395,000 paid subscribers of Ancestry.com.) Total revenue for the year was $300.9 million. EBITDA (earnings before income tax, depreciation, and amortization) was $101 million.
Monthly churn (membership turnover) is 3.9%, which is basically equivalent to the 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2009, and the 4.0% in the third quarter of 2010.
For 2011, Ancestry expects to have 1,700,000 t0 1,725,000 subscribers and bring in revenues of $370 — $375 million, leading to an EBITDA of $125 — $130 million.
These are very healthy numbers and bode well for the genealogy industry. While a lot of us have some qualms about the size of Ancestry, as well as some of its business practices, it’s still important that this major player is healthy and continuing to invest in digitization and technology.
FamilySearch made the following announcement on Monday:
Salt Lake City—This month, millions of individuals of African descent are celebrating Black History Month by exploring their family history roots. In the U.S., FamilySearch volunteers have been busy helping digitize historic documents and create free, searchable indexes to them online. Throughout Africa, from Accra to Zimbabwe, where irreplaceable family information and traditions are at risk of being lost due to neglect, war, and deterioration, FamilySearch volunteers are also helping preserve this valuable history so Africans can connect with their roots. Researchers can search the millions of African-related records as they are published online at FamilySearch.org.
They conclude their announcement with the following:
Many of the records collected by FamilySearch are now available for free on FamilySearch.org. More African records will be posted on the site in the coming months. Following are a few samples of some types of records at FamilySearch.org that may be of interest to those doing African or African-American research. Many of them are works in progress.
Virginia, Freedmen’s Bureau Letters, 1865–1872
U.S. Arkansas Confederate Pensions, 1901 to 1929
Ghana 1982–1984 Census
South Africa, Orange Free State, Estate Files, 1951–1973
U.S. Southern States Births, Marriages, and Deaths
U.S. Naturalization Petitions
This is tremendous amount of material being made available. Their blog entry about this release says that the Virginia Freedmen’s Bureau records total more than 1 million records. It’s an important delivery of documents, and will provide a great deal of help for African-American researchers.
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