Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

What may become a major genealogy site has been announced. Genealogy Karma hopes to replace an earlier web site that has been missed by thousands. Many of us used Bridgett and Doc Schneider's Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) web site. The site went offline in 2011. Sadly, Bridgett passed away a short time later. Several people have tried to create replacements for RAOGK but none of the new sites have achieved the popularity of the original. Now a commercial company has created a new web site with similar aims and has dedicated the site to the memory of Bridgett... Dick Eastman

An article by Jill Krasny, published on Mashable.com, states: "People curious about family history spent a whopping $2.3 billion on genealogy products and services last year, according to a study by market research firm Global Industry Analysts. They took most of their work to sites like Ancestry.com, which charge between $22.95 and $34.59 per month for access to billions of pertinent records. One-on-one consultations set them back $2,000 to $5,000 per session, depending on the length and complexity of the project, a spokesperson told Mashable. Despite those sites' popularity, 'it’s perfectly possible to do everything without spending a dime,' says... Dick Eastman

Here is a sign of the times: one town in New Jersey is converting to all wireless telephone service. Hurricane Sandy destroyed many of the telephone lines and hardware all around the town. The cost of purchasing new copper wire, new hardware, and the labor to install all the new equipment is in the millions of dollars. Instead, Verizon realized it would be much cheaper to provide wireless telephone service to everyone. The new Verizon Voice Link service will connect each home's wired and cordless telephones to the Verizon Wireless network. There will be no copper wires running from telephone... Dick Eastman

This is great news for Nook owners and potential Nook owners! If you own a Nook HD or HD+ tablet, you probably already know that it runs the Android operating system "under the covers." That is, Barnes & Noble added a great, user-friendly menu system on top of the Android operating system, then has sold Nooks at lower prices than most other Android-powered devices. While easy to use, the one big drawback to the Nook has been that you could only add new applications from the Barnes & Noble app store. That app store only contained a small subset of... Dick Eastman

The Ontario Genealogical Society's annual conference will be held on the Durham College campus in Oshawa from May 31 to June 2. The society's Durham branch is hosting this year's event. The theme of this year's conference is "Pulling Up Stakes and Putting Down Routes," wherein members of the society help explain the importance of the way a person's ancestors got to where they lived as part of their story. Organizers are expecting between 500 and 700 attendees. Attendees can choose from 55 presentations and seminars over the three-day event. Featured speakers include experts from Canada, the United States, and... Dick Eastman

FamilyTreeDNA announced a big sale on DNA testing on April 18, 2013. You can read that announcement at http://goo.gl/q1U1y. The sale was supposed to end on April 22nd. However, today the company offered the following announcement: With the end of the DNA Day promotion, we (Bennett and Max), considered how to continue offering the best prices, yet keep control in the lab to avoid delays from high volume. Since demand is directly related to prices, we decided to implement a temporary price rollback whenever lab capacity allows us to do so. Despite an extremely successful sale, we believe that with... Dick Eastman

The following announcement was written by Findmypast.com: Newly added collection documents hundreds of years of significant life events and media headlines LOS ANGELES (May 1, 2013) – Findmypast.com, an international leader in online family history, has published more than 23 million new records and 121 million pages of U.S. and world newspapers to its already extensive collection of historical records. New records, including Irish birth, marriage and death records, highlight important life events for our ancestors. Researchers can find their ancestors in a newspaper article among thousands or find their grandfather’s military service documented through World War II Enlistment Records.... Dick Eastman

Have you ever tried to help a non-computer-expert friend or relative troubleshoot a technical problem by talking with them over the phone? It is almost impossible. I have participated in many conversations similar to the following: "OK, click on the red icon. Now scroll down. Click on the that says 'Open Recent.' What do you see now?" Yes, it can be done but there is a much easier way. Customer support professions have used remote desktop programs for years. Using such software means that both people in the conversation can see the same things on one computer at the same... Dick Eastman

Ancestry.com released its quarterly financial numbers and reports a subscriber growth of 12% year-over-year. Non-GAAP revenues were $135 million, up 24% year-over-year, and the company had a free cash flow of $51 million. Full details may be found at http://goo.gl/yYQgM. Dick Eastman

The following book review was written by Bobbi King: Claiming Your History How to Incorporate Your Past Into Your Present by Tracy Whittington. 2012. Approx. 256 pages. "By the way we speak, we can show the value of the history of our own lives. By recording and remembering, collecting and researching, we can bring that history into our own stories. We, too, can make a certain claim on the past, instead of letting it slip out of recorded memory and away from us forever." Here Tracy Whittington explains why she wrote her book. She affirms our wish to bring the... Dick Eastman

The U.S. television networks suddenly are becoming inundated with genealogy-related programs. Would you believe FOUR television series running later this year? Megan Smolenyak describes them in The Huffington Post at http://goo.gl/8rlGj. Dick Eastman

Tourism Ireland has announced that 2013 is to be Ireland’s “Family History Year” in a bid to encourage people around the world to find out more about their Irish ancestry. Hundreds of clan gatherings, as well as genealogy and local history events, are planned all over Ireland this year, as part of The Gathering Ireland 2013. According to Mark Henry, Tourism Ireland’s central marketing director, “In this special year of The Gathering, people all over Ireland are organising events to welcome home those with Irish heritage. We are calling it “The Gathering – Ireland’s Family History Year”. With an estimated... Dick Eastman

Check your family records. Do you have a record of someone who served in the Coldstream Guards in 1799? Is he listed as killed in action or perhaps simply as unknown? If so, the Coldstream Guards would like to know about the man to see if perhaps his remains were the ones recently discovered in the Netherlands. In 2011, bones were discovered on a beach at Groote Keeten, the scene of a battle that is not well known today. The body had been buried in a uniform of the Coldstream Guards, as identified by buttons that still remained. After some... Dick Eastman

MyHeritage has had the 1940 U.S. census records available online for nearly a year but the company has now taken a huge step forward by adding all the remaining U.S. census records that have been released:1790 through 1930. Even better, in my mind, is the fact that these records are also available with SuperSearch, the state of the art search engine for family history. Instead of searching for your ancestors the slow way, manually, SuperSearch can perform the searches for you and display the results. See the earlier article at http://goo.gl/JkjdS for a description of SuperSearch. Here is today's announcement,... Dick Eastman

Caution: do not read this unless you have a strong stomach. Historians have always known that cannibalism occurred during the Jamestown Colony’s “starving time” during the winter of 1609-1610. About 300 people inhabited the fort in November 1609. By spring, only 60 were left. The colonists were reduced to consuming, as colony President George Percy put it, what they "could come by." One man was executed for killing and eating his wife. Others went looking for food and were never seen again. These facts have often been omitted from many history textbooks but have been well documented elsewhere, including on... Dick Eastman

It is the first day of the month. It's time to back up your genealogy files. Then test your backups! Actually, you can make backups at any time. However, it is easier and safer if you have a specific schedule. The first day of the month is easy to remember, so I would suggest you back up your genealogy files at least on the first of every month, if not more often. Of course, you might want to back up more than your genealogy files. Family photographs, your checkbook register, all sorts of word processing documents, email messages, and much... Dick Eastman

Take a look at the calendar. Yes, the annual conference of the U.S. National Genealogical Society will be held in Las Vegas next week. The dates are May 8 through 11. Holding a conference in Las Vegas is always a good idea. First of all, it is obviously one of the major entertainment cities in the U.S. There is something for most everyone in Las Vegas. Of course, there are the casinos for those who like to throw their money away. The rest of us can find multiple first class shows going on almost every night. The shopping has to... Dick Eastman

Had I written this article yesterday, I would have announced that I would be unable to host a dinner on Saturday evening after the NGS conference in Las Vegas. However, the seas parted today and it now looks like there will be such a dinner. If you have never attended one of these dinners held after the close of a major genealogy conference, you can read about past dinners by starting at http://goo.gl/ryhEH. For the first time ever, I went to a convention city several weeks in advance to make dinner arrangements for a group. However, that didn't work too... Dick Eastman

Most every American is familiar with the story of the Pilgrims traveling to the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. The ship, with 102 passengers and the crew on board, sailed from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620. The origin of the Mayflower has often been in question. Some historians believe the boat was built in Plymouth, England and carried a crew from that city. Proof has always been scarce, however. Now a rival claim to the Mayflower by the port town of Harwich states that the ship's crew were from Essex and only set foot briefly in... Dick Eastman

The following announcement was written by the Digital Public Library of America : April 30, 2013 Cambridge, MA — The Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce it is partnering with the David Rumsey Map Collection to provide online access to tens of thousands of significant historical maps and images. As part of the relationship, David Rumsey will provide metadata for over 38,000 maps and images, making the entirety of his notable online collection instantly accessible via the DPLA website and API­. A couple prominent examples of items from the Rumsey collections available through the DPLA are The... Dick Eastman