• The National Genealogical Society (NGS) has launched a blog called UpFront With NGS, which will complement the society’s monthly e-mail newsletter of the same name. News will be posted regularly on the blog, so you don’t have to wait for the e-mail, and you can leave comments on the blog posts.
  

• Ancestry.com is hosting a free webinar to demo its recently released Family Tree Maker 2010 genealogy software. The webinar is Sept. 30 at 8pm EDT. Learn more about the webinar and link to the registration on Ancestry.com’s blog.
  
  
• The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College has a Web site companion to its special exhibit of the Becker Collection: Drawings of the Civil War Era. The drawings by Joseph Becker and others from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly depict the Civil War, construction of railroads, Chinese in the West, Indian wars, the Chicago fire and more. You can browse drawings by date, place, subject, artist or reference number.
  
  
• Irish-ancestored people, take note: As posted by Dick Eastman, all counties have been added to the National Archives of Ireland's 1911 census Web site. Later this year, you’ll start seeing 1901 census records. The 1901 and 1911 censuses are the only surviving full Irish censuses open for research. Read what’s special about Irish censuses on Dick’s blog.
  
  
• Last, I wanted to point out this fun post by Randy Seaver (a re-post of his earlier post, which I missed the first time around) with links to lists of funny/strange place names.
  

Friday, September 11, 2009 11:16:06 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• To encourage people to check out more blogs, including ones they might not be aware of
• To make the selection process more of a bottom-up effort, not just our editors’ choices
• To get genealogists’ help and input in selecting from the huge blogging universe

• It isn’t primarily about genealogy.
• The blogger doesn’t post original content (for example, if he/she simply aggregates feeds from other blogs).
• The blog is no longer updated, or does not post new content on a regular basis (say, at least once a week).

Thursday, September 10, 2009 1:21:12 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5]

• Subscription family tree site One Great Family exhibited this year as part of a new marketing effort to reach the genealogy community.

One Great Family automatically merges trees when it finds the identical person on both, which sounds a bit scary—but where the trees differ, the site maintains the differences and each member sees the version of the tree he believes is correct. President Rob Armstrong says no one can change your view of your tree, but everyone can see your version and accept your view if they choose. A subscription costs $59.95 annually; a free one-week trial offer is available.

• A new company called Geneartogy uses your ancestors’ names and photos to create frameable, decorative trees on canvas (you also can get the designs on smaller plaques). Prices range from a $98 extra-small plaque to a $408 extra-large canvas, with an additional cost for framing.

• Next year’s FGS conference is slated for August 18-21 in Knoxville, Tenn., home of the East Tennessee Historical Society’s excellent museum and research library (and close to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park). Many classes will cover the historic and cultural roots of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as the in- and out-migrations of those states.

(The 2010 National Genealogical Society conference, by the way, is in Salt Lake City, so you could double up on a trip to the Family History Library.)

• If you’re new to genealogy conferences, you might be curious about the long panel of ribbons dangling from some attendees’ name badges, like so:

(This is podcast host Dear Myrtle’s badge.) Ribbons designate society memberships, honors and more. All registrants got an “Ancestry.com member” ribbon (whether or not they actually were members) and first-time attendees got “First FGS Conference.” FGS board members, speakers and  genealogical societies delegates received ribbons. I got “Podcast Fan” and “Keeping up With Blogs” at a social networking forum. Some highly involved folks had to take special measures to secure their ribbons:

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 11:31:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

I didn’t have a specific article to find—rather, I wanted any news item about my great-grandfather’s criminal trial for bootlegging. There wasn’t a name index, so I knew I was in for some heavy-duty scrolling. I had the conviction and incarceration dates, but not a date of arrest, so I had several months to cover in 1913.

First thing when I arrived, I got my very own research card. The archivist had me double-check holdings for the newspapers I wanted. I’d neglected to bring singles or a $5 bill for a copy card, so I also ran to the concession and bought a soda to get change.

Next, I requested a couple years’ worth of microfilm and started scrolling. I started with the dates I knew and scrolled backward through earlier papers, then forward, looking for headlines on the faded pages.

Bootlegging arrests filled the news--apparently the sheriff was really cracking down. The few items mentioning my ancestor’s name told when he was arrested, how he filed for a writ of habeas corpus, and how two others arrested at the same time jumped bail.

Though not the play-by-play trial accounts I was hoping for, the articles also gave me a clue to what might’ve happened to his missing court records. He served his prison sentence in Texas and his case is indexed in Bowie County, Texas, records, but a batch of files that includes his case number is missing.

According to the newspaper articles, some witnesses lived on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, and Bowie County officials traveled to the courthouse in Miller County, Ark., for a pretrial motion. So maybe his case file ended up in Arkansas.

Friday, September 04, 2009 10:23:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

Volunteer indexers from the Arkansas Genealogical Society have completed a quarter of the project so far--that’s 442,058 records linked to 199,431 digital images of original marriage certificates from the counties of Ashley, Baxter, Boone, Chicot, Clay, Crittenden,Desha, Drew, Fulton, Jackson, Johnson, Lee, Logan, Madison, Monroe, Montgomery, Nevada, Perry and Pike.

Friday, September 04, 2009 1:01:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

It turned out the meeting was more review than news, the company's lawyers having nixed any “forward thinking statements” in anticipation of its IPO.

But I guess a review couldn’t hurt once in awhile, especially with, as content manager Gary Gibb conceded, just-released databases quickly overshadowing ones released just before them, significant additionsbeing termed mere “updates” on the list of recently added content, and some collections (such as audio recordings of oral histories) drowning in the sea of databases.

Key improvements for this year have been:

• Member connect
  

• An enhanced image viewer, which lets you view the record image and the index on the same page. This is available in preview mode for some censuses, including the 1880 US census. It also lets members build a better index by adding alternate information for most fields. The additions are viewable immediately to other people, and they’re searchable within about three weeks.

• Ancestry member trees have a new person and tree viewer that are easier to navigate

• The lifespan search filter, which has eliminated some irrelevant results. A lot still needs to be improved, says VP of product Eric Shoup. He says Ancestry.com won’t “kill” the old search, but wants to create a search experience that combines what works about both the old and new searches. Potential improvements include more control over searches on a place and name, improving the search for an individual collection, making it easier to browse records and changing the search algorithm to deliver relevant results.

• Family Tree Maker 2010 was launched in August.  Among other improvements, it lets you download trees into the program from Ancestry Member trees.

Friday, September 04, 2009 9:20:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]