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 However, it doesn't solve the issue of the devices that are used to read/write the storage medium becoming outdated and disappearing.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