Weekly Genealogy Picks

Highlights from news stories and blog posts I have read in the past week that deal with my overlapping interests in Genealogy, History, Heritage, and Technology.

Genealogy

Regardless of how often it is stated, it seems it can't be stated enough. There's always someone falling for the scam of Family Coats of Arms. Dick Eastman at Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter explains why they're bogus.

Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers shares what he's learned after speaking with one of the producers of the upcoming PBS series, Our American Family

Arlene Eakle begins a series of blog posts on the American Revolution with Who Fought the American Revolution? Part I: Career Soldiers.

Dominic at NARAtions shares NARA's policy on avoiding conflict of interest in its partnership with Wikipedia

Michael Hait at Planting the Seeds discusses educational opportunities in Building a professional genealogy career.

Technology

Hitachi has announced They've found a way to store data on quartz glass that allegedly will last 'forever.'  (hat/tip: EOGN).  The devices to read and write this data aren't likely to be available to the public for several years, but it is nice to know they're in the pipeline. This would solve one half of the issue with long-term storage. A durable storage medium. However, it doesn't solve the issue of the devices that are used to read/write the storage medium becoming outdated and disappearing. (If you were given a 5.25 inch floppy disk, how would you retrieve the data from it? If you were given an 8-track tape, could you play it?)

Local

The St. Louis Riverfront Times in Extreme Library Makeover looks inside the new Central Library in St. Louis - scheduled to reopen in December.  It closed for renovation in 2010.

Paul Hohmann at Vanishing STL mourns the loss of The Fox Theater's historic sign structure.

Other Weekly Lists

• Diane Haddad's Genealogy News Corral at Genealogy Insider
• Wendy Littrell's Follow Friday at All My Branches Genealogy
• Randy Seaver's Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings
• Julie Cahill Tarr's Friday Finds at GenBlog

Upcoming holidays - religious and secular, national and international - for the next two weeks

[The list covers two weeks for two reasons. First, so that anyone who happens to find out about an upcoming holiday from this list will have at least a week's notice. Second, in case I happen to miss an important date, someone can inform me, and I can include it in the list the following week.]

Two Week Calendar

October - Family History Month (US)
October - Black History Month (UK)
October - LGBT History Month (US)
October - Clergy Appreciation Month (US)

Sept 30 - Sukkot (Jewish festival) - Sept 30 (sunset) to Oct 7 (sunset)
Sept 30 - Oct 6 - Banned Books Week
Oct 1 - World Habitat Day
Oct 2 - International Day of Non-Violence
Oct 2 - Mehregan (Zoroastrian festival)
Oct 3 - German Unity Day
Oct 4 - World Space Week (Oct 4-10)
Oct 4 - World Animal Day
Oct 4 - St. Francis Day (Catholic feast day)
Oct 5 - World Teacher's Day
Oct 6 - German-American Day
Oct 7 - Shemini Atzeret (Jewish holiday) - Oct 7 (sunset) to Oct 8 (sunset)
Oct 7-13 - National Fire Prevention Week (US and Canada)
Oct 8 - Simchat Torah (Jewish holiday) - Oct 8 (sunset) to Oct 9 (sunset)
Oct 8 - Thanksgiving (Canada)
Oct 8 - Columbus Day (US)
Oct 9 - Leif Erikson Day (US)
Oct 9 - National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust (Romania)
Oct 10 - World Mental Health Day
Oct 11 - General Pulaski Memorial Day
Oct 11 - Old Michelmas Day (Celtic)
Oct 14 - World Standards Day

Fifteen Favorites

James Tanner at Genealogy's Star listed his Top Ten Can't Miss Websites, focusing on non-Genealogy websites, but including archives that aren't specifically for genealogy. His rationale was that we as genealogy bloggers sometimes focus so much on discussing genealogy websites, we don't discuss other websites that are useful for other interests.

In that vein, I came up with two lists (neither of the lists are in any particular order):

Top Ten Archival Sites

1) The Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is home to several useful databases.  The Wayback Machine has been archiving the internet since 1996.  Often you will find a link in an old blog post (or elsewhere) that no longer works, because the website has disappeared, or that particular page has been removed.  The page may exist on The Wayback Machine.

The Internet Archive also has several archives of text, audio, and video.

2) Making of America (Michigan) (Cornell)

"Making of America is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction."  It is a collaboration between University of Michigan and Cornell University, and each site has separate documents, so you need to search at both.

Cornell has 907,750 pages of material, and Michigan has 3,818,757.

3) Missouri Digital Heritage

There are several databases of use to genealogists, such as birth and death records, naturalization records, coroner records, and land records. However, the website has a lot more on it as well, including:

• Records from the Missouri Mormon War

• Court documents relating to Frank and Jesse James

• Historic "Blue Book" Photograph Collection (photographs considered for, or published in, the Official Manual of the State of Missouri

• The "Blue Books" themselves

• The St. Louis Area Civil War Digitization project

4) NewspaperArchive

A collection of over 2000 newspaper titles with archives going back to the 1600s. There is a subscription fee, which some might be able to avoid if their local library or genealogy society provides access.

5) ChroniclingAmerica

Another collection of newspapers, this is freely accessible as a product of the Library of Congress. Covers the years 1836-1922. It also contains a directory of US Newspapers from 1690-present, providing useful information on each, including libraries that have copies.

6) St. Louis Post Dispatch Historical Archive

Covering the years 1874-1922 this database is a product of ProQuest and can be accessed at some libraries, including the St. Louis County library and the St. Louis City library.

7) 19th Century US Newspapers

Another collection of newspapers, a product of Gale-Cengage, and also available at some libraries, including the St. Louis County library.  There are newspapers from all over the US in the collection. Local newspapers covered include the Daily Commercial Bulletin (1835-1838), Missouri Republican (1822-1888), St. Louis Enquirer (1819-1824), and St. Louis Globe Democrat (1875-1888)

8) The National Archives (NARA)

I don't think I need to provide much of a description. This is the website for the US Government National Archives and Records Administration.

9) Flickr (The Commons)

Flickr, the website many people use to upload and share photos, has a section they call The Commons. This section contains photographs contributed by a long list of libraries and archives around the world. All participating institutions are required to share only images with "No known copyright restrictions."

10) Google Books

While everyone is familiar with searching Google, not everyone is familiar with searching Google Books. I believe I use it most often to track down the real origins of quotes I see spread on the social networks.  I've collected some of these on my Pinterest boards of Misattributed Quotes, and Verified Quotes (with citations)

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Top Five Websites - Non-Genealogy Non-Archives

1) Amazon

I know Amazon is responsible for the financial struggles of many local bookstores.  I also know technology has been changing the way society conducts business for over a century. We are now moving towards a world where we do most of our shopping online. That may mean less local bookstores. It doesn't mean the death of books.

I have purchased many things on Amazon: Books, Clothing, Computers.

2) Google News

This is how I get my news. I subscribe to only one local print newspaper, and it's a specialized weekly, not the local daily. I read news stories from many newspapers on the topics I have selected as my defaults, or those I search for specifically.

3) Google Maps

This is how I travel. (I recently updated my iPhone to OS 6.0.  But I can still use Google Maps, because I downloaded the Web App.)

4) Wikipedia

This is where I often begin my research on many topics. I was taught in school (I won't say how many years ago) that an encyclopedia is a great starting point for research, but it should never be the ending point. That advice still applies today, for Encyclopedia Britannica as well as for Wikipedia.  I have discussed Using Wikipedia for Research before.

5) Wikisource 

Wikisource is an online library of free content. The English language site currently contains 264,721 texts.

The Value of a Library Card

I conduct a lot of genealogy research from the comfort of my home computer. One of the key resources I use is my St. Louis County Public Library Card.  (Other library systems, as well as some genealogy societies, provide similar resources for their users.)

Here's a sampling of databases I can search/browse from the comfort of my home, for free (complete list)

I have indicated the subscription price I'd have to pay without the library card

• NewspaperArchive.com ($72/yr)
• American Civil War Research Database (Available only to libraries - AlexanderStreet)
• Fold3.com ($80/yr)
• Historical New York Times 1851-2008 (Available only to libraries - ProQuest) 
• Historical St. Louis Post Dispatch 1874-1922 (Available only to libraries - ProQuest)
• St. Louis Post Dispatch 1988-Current ($200/yr - NewsBank *)
• Kansas City Star 1991-Current ($200/yr - NewsBank *)
• Nineteenth Century US Newspapers (Available only to libraries - Gale Cengage)
• ProQuest Digital Microfilm - NYTimes 2008-2012 (Available only to libraries)
• ProQuest Digital Microfilm - St. Louis Post Dispatch 2008-2012 (Available only to libraries)
• ProQuest Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970 Missouri and Illinois (Available only to libraries)

In addition to the above, there are two general reference items I find very useful

• Oxford English Dictionary (~$348/yr depending on exchange rate)
• Oxford Reference Online (available only to libraries) 

So calculating only the databases which I could purchase access to as an individual, I am saving $700/year with my library card. Then there are the databases I can't purchase access to as an individual.

And this doesn't include the resources available to me when I actually visit the library.

• An extensive microfilm collection
• The National Genealogical Society Book Loan Collection (over 20,000 volumes) - all the volumes are available through inter-library loan to you if you have a library card where you live.
• Library-access to the Ancestry.com Library Edition (I pay Ancestry for home-access, so I can't add this to my personal value)

*The annual subscription at NewsBank's NewsLibrary.com provides you access to more newspapers, but there is a 500 article limit.

Weekly Genealogy Picks

Highlights from news stories and blog posts I have read in the past week that deal with my overlapping interests in Genealogy, History, Heritage, and Technology.

• The governor of Georgia has stated that he is committed to keeping the State Archives open, but as Kate Theimer at ArchivesNext states, this isn't necessarily all good news.

• Tim Abbot at Walking the Berkshires discusses a recent recreation of the 1777 Battle of Brandywine in A Brandywine Brush Arbor and Other Adventures in Authenticity

• Diane L Richard at UpFront with NGS reviews the MillionShort search engine

• GenerousGenealogists is a new attempt to replace RAOGK (which disappeared last year.) (hat/tip: EOGN)

• Those testing out MyHeritage.com's new Record Matching software include:
• James Tanner at Genealogy's Star
• Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings

• YA Author Justine Larbalestier discusses why it is important for YA authors to give their protagonists strong relationships with family and friends. It occurred to me that the same desire of the fiction reader to see these relationships fuels the family historian to attempt to uncover these relationships in our research.

News

• BlombergBusinessWeek in an article on Ancestry.com and genealogy research in general claims internet genealogy searches are second only to porn. (hat/tip EOGN)  [The article doesn't provide citations, or indicate how distant of a second place it is.]

• CBBC reports that the world's first liliger cub is born (a cross between a lion and a liger)  

• Couple gets married in Flintstone costumes (Metro)

Social Networking

• A comedian uses Tumblr to stop a suicide (Tablet)

Other Weekly Lists

• Diane Haddad's Genealogy News Corral at Genealogy Insider
• Wendy Littrell's Follow Friday at All My Branches Genealogy
• Randy Seaver's Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings
• Julie Cahill Tarr's Friday Finds at GenBlog

Upcoming holidays - religious and secular, national and international - for the next two weeks

Two Week Calendar
Sept 23 - Holocaust Memorial Day (Lithuania)
Sept 25 - Yom Kippur (Jewish Day of Atonement) - Sept 25 (sunset) to Sept 26 (sunset)
Sept 26 - European Day of Languages
Sept 30 - International Translation Day
Sept 30 - Sukkot (Jewish festival) - Sept 30 (sunset) to Oct 7 (sunset)
Oct 1 - World Habitat Day
Oct 2 - International Day of Non-Violence
Oct 2 - Mehregan (Zoroastrian festival)
Oct 3 - German Unity Day
Oct 4 - World Space Week (Oct 4-10)
Oct 4 - World Animal Day
Oct 5 - World Teacher's Day
Oct 6 - German-American Day
Oct 7 - Shemini Atzeret (Jewish holiday) - Oct 7 (sunset) to Oct 8 (sunset)

Happy New Year - 5773

Happy New Year to all - 5773

The New Year begins at sunset tonight, may yours be a sweet one

Weekly Genealogy Picks

It's been awhile, but I've decided to restart my weekly lists of links, so:

Below are some highlights from news stories and blog posts I have read in the past few weeks that deal with my overlapping interests in Genealogy, History, Heritage, and Technology.

On Libraries and Archives

• Georgia is closing their state archives to the public, effective November 1 (GenealogyBlog)

• Illinois has released a new online database catalog for their state archives  (MoSGA Messenger)

• While I've seen several mentions of it this past week on various social networks, the story isn't new. A few months ago a 2011 campaign to save the Troy, Michigan Public Library won an award. The video is an impressive display of what social networking can accomplish. (BoingBoing)

Information/Tips for Genealogists

• Copyright and the Obit (Legal Genealogist)

• No kids, never had siblings, died with some cash (Genealogy Tip of the Day)

Technology/Apps

• Will we be able to meet with our ancestors in a living room holodeck? (Eastman's Online Genealogy)

• WolframAlpha's Geography Course assistant may be of some interest to genealogists, providing information on political boundaries, demographics, and economics. (Current, not historical)

Poetry

• What Stays  (Velveteen Rabbi)

For fans of Tolkein

• Middle-Earth Maven Creates Massive LoTR Family Tree (Wired)

Heartwarming story of the week

• Loyal dog spends six years at a master's grave

Other Weekly Lists

Randy Seaver's Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings

Diane Haddad's Genealogy News Corral at Genealogy Insider

Julie Cahill Tarr's Friday Finds at GenBlog

Below is a list of upcoming holidays - religious and secular, national and international - for the next two weeks

Two Week Calendar
Sept 16 - International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
Sept 16 - Rosh HaShana (Jewish New Year) - Sept 16 (sunset) to Sept 18 (sunset)
Sept 19 - International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Sept 21 - International Day of Peace
Sept 22 - Mabon (NeoPagan celebration of the Autumnal Equinox)
Sept 22 - Hobbit Day
Sept 23 - Holocaust Memorial Day (Lithuania)
Sept 25 - Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) - Sept 25 (sunset) to Sept 26 (sunset)
Sept 26 - European Day of Languages
Sept 30 - International Translation Day

Second American Civil War Blog Challenge

For the Second American Civil War Blog Challenge, Bill West of West in New England asks us to write about our ancestors and the Civil War. I neglected to participate last year, but I do have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War, as does my wife.

In the past couple months for the Amanuensis Monday project I have transcribed several documents from the Civil War era.

• Louis C. Gober at the Gratiot Street Prison

My wife’s 3rd great grandfather fought as a Confederate, in a Missouri regiment, but turned himself in to officials in Cape Girardeau and spent some time in a St. Louis prison before being tried by court martial and released. I have not yet learned the details of the trial, nor do I know why he turned himself in. It's possible he had had second thoughts about the side he chose, though he doesn't appear to have enlisted on either side after his release.

• Henry Vidaver on Abraham Lincoln

The Rabbi of the synagogue where I worship, at the time of Lincoln’s death, gave a speech that was reprinted in several newspapers across the nation.

A couple years ago I transcribed some documents pertaining to my second great grandfather's service.

• Ebenezer Denyer at the Battle of Vicksburg

My 2nd great grandfather enlisted, on June 12, 1862, as a Confederate, in a Texas regiment. He was captured at the Battle of Vicksburg, and released. He rejoined his regiment.

I'm not aware of any Union soldiers in the ancestry of either myself, or my wife. My Vanevery ancestors were in Michigan at the time, but my second great grandfather, Samuel Van Every (1820-1888) may have decided he was too old to enlist. Or felt he had to support his many children. My great grandfather, Melvin Van Every, was born in 1863.

However, it appears his eldest brother, Nelson, enlisted on the side of the Union on Dec 21, 1863 (age 18) and served until July 18, 1865. [A Nelson Van Every of the correct age enlisted in the state of Michigan. I haven't yet confirmed that it is the same Nelson.]

While a great-great uncle isn't an ancestor, it's a sign my great-great grandfather may have been a Union-supporter. I'll take whatever sign I can get that at least one branch of my family on these shores chose the side of the Union.

Amanuensis Monday: A Grand Purim Ball

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

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Below I transcribe an article from the St. Louis Daily Globe Democrat from 1878. It briefly describes a ball that the United Hebrew Congregation held as a fundraiser, listing many of the attendees.