Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
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Updated: 32 min 49 sec ago
Historic Tucker Family Cemetery of Hampton, VA May Receive New Owners
The Tucker Family Cemetery in Hampton, Virginia, is a wooded plot surrounded by low-slung brick homes built in the 1950s. Accessible by narrow strip of grass along Sharon Court, the property is widely believed to be the site where the first black baby born in English North America in 1619 is now interred. Even though William Tucker's grave is not marked, visitors to the cemetery are greeted with a granite marker that reads "Tucker's Cemetery, First Black Family, 1619." View Larger Map The cemetery's last owner of record abandoned the property years ago. Mayor Molly Joseph Ward, who hopes to...
Dick Eastman
Carolyn L. Barkley, R.I.P.
The genealogy community lost a good friend a few days ago. The following was written by Craig Scott and is republished here with his permission: "In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin—seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is."—Ralph Waldo Emerson That was the favorite genealogical quote of our good friend, Carolyn L. Barkley, unexpectedly lost to our genealogical family on Sunday, 12 May 2013....
Dick Eastman
findmypast.com Will Offer Free Access to U.S. and International Military Records on Memorial Day
The following was written by findmypast.com: In honor of Memorial Day on May 27, and in remembrance of all who died while serving our country, findmypast.com will offer its collection of U.S. and international military records for free in the days leading up to the national observance. With more than 26 million U.S. and international military records available, findmypast.com is encouraging people to explore and learn about the heroic efforts of their ancestors this Memorial Day. Record sets such as ‘Draft Registration Cards,’ ‘Casualties Returned Alive,’ ‘POWs’ and others will offer a captivating glimpse into the lives and experiences of...
Dick Eastman
Genetic Genealogy Plus for Adoptees
The following announcement was written by Search Quest America: Searching for birth relatives can be difficult in some states and impossible in others using standard adoption search methods but Genetic Genealogy Plus breaks down the barriers set up by closed records. Search Quest America (SQA), a leader in reuniting families, is excited to announce Genetic Genealogy Plus, a new service for adoptees. This new service uses DNA and traditional genealogy research to find the family of adoptees with sealed records. Genetic Genealogy Plus is offered by SQA through an affiliation with two leading DNA testing companies, Family Tree DNA and...
Dick Eastman
Imperial War Museum and brightsolid to bring First World War Stories to Life Online
The stories of eight million U.K. First World War soldiers are to be published online to mark the centenary of the war’s outbreak. an interactive digital project called Lives of the First World War. It will tell the story of the men and women who served in uniform and worked on the Home Front by bringing together records from museums, libraries, archives and family collections across the world. The platform will go live later this year. Details may be found in The Courier at http://goo.gl/TYJnW.
Dick Eastman
Google Wants to be your Camera's Digital Darkroom in the Cloud
At the Google I/O conference in San Francisco today, Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra introduced new photo enhancement features to Google+. "Google's data center is your darkroom," said Gundotra. Later, Vic Gundotra posted the following on his blog: Great pictures aren’t taken, they’re made. And it’s the making part that many of us don’t have time for. We'd all love to have photos that capture our vacations and birthdays and anniversaries the way we remember them. But wonderful images require lots (and lots) of work. We think everyone should be able to make beautiful photos, so today we’re launching a...
Dick Eastman
Oregon Update: House & Senate action on HB2093
Quoting an article by Fred Moss on the Records Preservation and Access Committee blog at http://www.fgs.org/rpac/2013/05/14/oregon-update-house-senate-action-on-hb2093/: I don’t know how many of you listened in to the hearing or accessed the audio only archives—but we won! The hearing was only on the amended version I sent out earlier today —4 and is attached again which keeps the birth records at 100 years, and death, marriage, divorce, annulment and partnership at 50 years. See Section SECTION 33. ORS 432.121 (7a) (page 73) It also removes the restriction on cause of death that is in the existing statute. See Section SECTION 33....
Dick Eastman
Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew
Well, so much for history! A 2300-year old Mayan temple in the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was essentially destroyed by a construction crew in order to provide gravel for a nearby road construction. The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology says the destruction was detected late last week, and only a small portion of the center of the pyramid mound was left standing. (Click on the image to the right to view a larger picture.) Other archaeologists also expressed shock, as Nohmul (the "great mound") was a major Mayan religious center in its day. While the pyramid was...
Dick Eastman
FamilySearch Adds to Dominican Republic, Italy, Peru, Spain, and the United States Collections
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch: May 14, 2013 FamilySearch has added more than 1.5 million index records and images this week from Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Italy, Peru, South Africa, Spain, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 217,016 index records from the U.S., Idaho, Eastport, Arrival Manifests, 1924-1956, collection, the 151,020 index records and images from the United States, Civil War Widows and Other Dependents Pension Files collection, and the 163,314 images from the South Africa, Orange Free State, Estate Files, 1951-2006, collection. See the table below for the full list of updates. Search these diverse...
Dick Eastman
A List of Genealogy DNA Companies
A newsletter reader wrote and asked, "I would like to get my DNA done on my Mothers side. Can you tell me who would be the best one to do it?" In fact, there is a long list of DNA companies in the business of helping customers find their ancestry. I cannot think of any one that I would call "the best." However, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, or ISOGG, does maintain a long list of companies in the business and even lists the specialties of each company. You can find that list at http://www.isogg.org/wiki/List_of_DNA_testing_companies. Several companies specialize in...
Dick Eastman
(+) How to Use Evernote to be a Better Genealogist
The following is an update to a Plus Edition article I published about a year ago. Some of the information has changed since the original article was published. I have updated the article and am re-publishing it today. The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. One of my favorite computer tools is Evernote. I've been using it for more than four years now and love it. Sometimes I wonder how I ever got along before Evernote. While Evernote has many uses, I use it primarily as a digital filing system. In fact, I...
Dick Eastman
MyHeritage launches Record Detective™ to Accelerate Family History Discoveries
I sat through a demo of this new software last week at the NGS 2013 annual conference in Las Vegas. I was amazed by the capabilities. I hope to spend some time "hands on" with Record Detective™ in the next few days and will then write about my experiences. Based on what I saw at the demo, I have high expectations. In the meantime, here is today's official announcement from MyHeritage: MyHeritage launches Record Detective™ to accelerate family history discoveries Global family history network makes technology breakthrough that turns dead-ends into new leads PROVO, Utah, and Tel Aviv, Israel, May...
Dick Eastman
Google Unifies Gmail, Drive Storage and Google+ Photos with 15 Gigabytes of FREE Storage for ALL
Google announced today that it will unify the storage between the Gmail and the Google Drive online storage service. Now, instead of having 10GB free storage in Gmail and another 5GB in Drive, users will have 15GB total to use. The free storage can be used as you like between Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos. In the event you need more storage, Google is offering plans at $4.99/month for 100 GB, and $9.99/month for 200GB. You can read more in Google's Gmail Blog at http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/bringing-it-all-together-15-gb-now.html.
Dick Eastman
Irish Statistics (1926 Census) Bill, 2013
Michael Merrigan, MA, FGSI, the General Secretary of the Genealogical Society Of Ireland, has sent a message to many noting that the Statistics (1926 Census) Bill, 2013 was published on the Oireachtas website. It is described as: Bill entitled an Act to amend the Statistics Act 1993, in relation to the first census of population of Ireland taken since the establishment of the State; to afford that census a special heritage status and to have such released to the public for genealogical, historical and other research The proposed bill is available as a PDF file at http://goo.gl/LAJgd. Anyone with an...
Dick Eastman
Review of "Family Tree" on HBO
I did not get to watch last night's premier of "Family Tree" on HBO. I rarely watch television so I do not subscribe to HBO. The program is not supposed to be a genealogy program. Instead, it is a comedy or sometimes might be called a "mockumentary." However, several reviews of last night's program have since been posted online. Most of them state the program was not very funny. You can find several reviews if you start at http://goo.gl/OWVpt. If you were able to watch last night's episode, please write a comment at the end of this article describing your...
Dick Eastman
Evernote Web Clipper
Several recent comments posted by newsletter readers have mentioned methods of saving partial or complete web pages to your computer so that you may preserve them and also easily find them in the future. The obvious use for genealogists is to save information found on the web about an ancestor or other member of your family tree for future reference. A couple of these methods sounded rather complex to me so I thought I would write about the method I use to to save web pages. It is simple, smart and efficient. It also makes the saved web pages available...
Dick Eastman
Christopher Guest’s Family Tree Is Really About the Genealogy of Comedy
As mentioned in earlier articles in this newsletter (as mentioned last year at http://goo.gl/HxGeV and more recently at http://goo.gl/kDWZA), a new television program called Family Tree will appear on HBO this Sunday evening. However, one word of warning: this will not be a genealogy program! Despite the name, this is a mockumentary comedy, not a "how to research your family tree" program. The comedy series follows Tom Chadwick (Chris O’Dowd in charming loser mode) as he tries to learn more about his ancestors. His family tree is described as "a world full of weirdos." Tom learns that a great aunt...
Dick Eastman
What's New At Ancestry.com: May 2013 Edition
Crista Cowan gives a quick look in a YouTube video at the new features and tools available to help make your family history easier and more fun. You can view the video at http://youtu.be/lY0FBu-R1-U or by clicking on the icon in the middle of the picture below:
Dick Eastman
How to Save Web Pages from your iPad as a PDF File while using Chrome
The iPad tablet is a great device but, by itself, is poor at saving web pages for later viewing or printing. Michele Berner has created a YouTube video that shows a better way to save those web pages. However, her method only works with the Chrome web browser (available free of charge at the iPad App Store). Once saved as a PDF file locally or on a cloud-based storage service (Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, or a similar service), you also can print that file, display it later on your screen, save it in Evernote, or send it to someone via...
Dick Eastman
Putnam County, Tennessee, Begins to Scan Documents
Glenn Jones, Putnam County Archivist, recently received a grant from the State of Tennessee to digitize the Patton Papers to make them accessible to anyone anywhere. “The amount of records she collected is amazing,” Jones said. “Maurine Patton worked on these for years and she wanted them preserved.” Those records — totaling thousands of pages — are documentation of numerous families from all over the region in a chart organization. When the digitization process is complete, the files will be available in a format anyone can view anywhere, thanks to the World Wide Web. They will be put online at...
Dick Eastman
