Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Happy New Year!

RootsTech 2012

A major conference will be held in about a month in Salt Lake City: RootsTech. Last year's event attracted more than 3,000 attendees from 42 U.S. states, four Canadian provinces, and 12 other countries. This is believed to be the biggest genealogy conference of the year in North America. This year's event, to be held February 2 through 4, should attract at least as many again, if not more.

The RootsTech conference is designed to bring technologists together with genealogists so that they can learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges they face in family history research today. Unlike most other genealogy conferences, all the presentations and most of the vendors at RootsTech focus on technology in some form or other. You will be able to attend lectures on genealogy uses of the cloud, open-source software, FamilySearch APIs, peer-to-peer networks, genealogy applications on social networking services, genealogy applications on handheld computers and "smartphones," digitized charts and graphs, mashups, voice recognition applications, crowdsourcing cemetery data, digital mapping, DNA, new developments involving GEDCOM, and more. There are 132 sessions planned for the three days. Attendees will learn from hands-on workshops and interactive presentations at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced level. After attending last year's event, I can verify that no one should be discouraged from attending RootsTech because "it might be too advanced." Indeed, non-techies can learn a lot at RootsTech!

You are Invited: Saturday EOGN Dinner after RootsTech in Salt Lake City

Join us for dinner! I would like to invite you and all other EOGN newsletter readers to dinner on Saturday, February 4, in Salt Lake City. The dinner will be held at 7:30 PM, shortly after the close of RootsTech.

The EOGN Dinner will be held at the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Downtown at 215 West South Temple. This is only a few steps from the RootsTech conference venue at the Salt Palace. If you are attending RootsTech, there will be no need to grab a taxi or bus or light rail or to drive to the dinner. The location is a very short walk from the conference site. In fact, even wheelchairs will be able to travel the very short distance from the convention center to the dinner location. It will be a genealogists-only evening!

Genealogist Jan Gow Awarded Queen’s Service Medal

Jan Gow is a very active genealogy teacher, lecturer, and writer in New Zealand. She has been mentioned dozens of times in this newsletter (see http://goo.gl/17lTi for past newsletter articles about her). Now Jan has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal "For services to genealogical research." She is now authorized to use the letters "QSM" after her name.

You can find the listing of new recipients of the Queen’s Service Medal at at
http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/node/992

23andMe uses DNA Data to Help Attack Parkinson’s Disease

Genealogists use DNA information to help identify ancestral information. However, our uses of this new technology are minuscule compared to the studies of the medical community. One company well-known in genealogy circles, 23 and Me, is doing both. Anne Wojcicki, chief executive of genetics firm 23andMe, says that her company has been able to find a way to attack a rare form of Parkinson’s disease that her husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is susceptible to. The genetics information collected from volunteer subjects has yielded some useful information about diseases and our genetic predisposition for getting them.

You can read more in an article by Dean Takahashi at http://goo.gl/DQOdm

Clooz Has a New Owner

The following announcement was written by Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens:

Plymouth, Michigan, 30 December 2011--After 14 years of producing the genealogical utility software Clooz, Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CG, of Ancestor Detective, LLC, has transferred ownership of the software to Joe Bissett of Somerset, Texas. Bissett has plans to re-release Clooz at some point in the future, with updates to templates, reports and other customer requests. He is also looking at recent technological Internet options. Kerstens will provide input to the update as needed. During the transition, the Clooz software program will no longer be sold, but the Clooz 2 Manual and Clooz 2 Tutorial will still be available from the Ancestor Detective Store at http://www.ancestordetective.com/zstore/ for 50 percent off, as long as supplies last, using the coupon code fe3b0f63dc. Joe will make an announcement about the software as soon as he has evaluated the impact of various requested updates. As of 1 January 2012, Bissett will provide customer support for Clooz users. He can be contacted at jbissett@hot-peppers.com during the transition.

Pennsylvania Sinkhole Threatens Graves at Historic Cemetery

A large sinkhole spread into a historic cemetery in Allentown, Pennsylvania, prompting officials to obtain a court order to allow exhumations of graves, if necessary. About 60 graves in Union and West End Cemetery are threatened and were roped off. Many of the burials were in the 1880s, with at least one as far back as 1858.

The cemetery holds about 20,000 graves, including 714 Civil War veterans. Among them is a Medal of Honor winner, Ignatz Gresser.

Two New Search Results Features on Mocavo, the Genealogy Search Engine

The following announcement was written by Mocavo.com:

Today we’re excited to announce a subtle, yet significant improvement to your genealogy search results, for both free and paid users. Now when you run a search on Mocavo.com as a free registered user, you’ll see two new options under each of your results:

The first of these is the “I’ve Read This” button, allowing you to mark off which results you’ve investigated, letting them stand out from the ones you’ve yet to read.  When you click on a link in Mocavo, it automatically sets it to “I’ve Read This”.

Sharing Files with Dropbox

Sending files by email works well for millions of computer owners. However, what do you do if the file is too large for email? A few days ago, I wrote about one possible solution, Transfer Big Files, at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2011/12/transfer-big-files.html. Indeed, that solution works well and I recommend it for sending files to someone else who does not have Dropbox installed and perhaps does not possess the technical knowledge to install and configure Dropbox.

However, millions of computer users do have Dropbox installed, as it is a great file backup and copying program. Most people use it to only share files amongst computers they own, such as copying files from a desktop computer to one's own laptop system or perhaps from the office computer to a home computer. However, Dropbox also has many other uses.

Nominations for the National Genealogical Society Hall of Fame are Due

NGS is sending out reminders that nominations for the National Genealogical Society Hall of Fame are due by January 31, 2012. Official nomination forms and information on the award are available www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/hall_of_fame  or by contacting the National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22204‐4304; phone 1‐800‐473‐0060.

A nominee must have been actively engaged in genealogy in the United States for at least ten years, must have been deceased for at least five years at the time of nomination, and must have made contributions to the field of genealogy judged to be of lasting significance in ways that were unique, pioneering, or exemplary.

12 Things You Can Expect from Ancestry.com in 2012

Ancestry.com has published a "sneak peek" into the company's plans for 2012, listing twelve projects that are in progress or planned for release within the next twelve months. Of course, the list contains lots of new records to be placed online. After all, this is Ancestry.com. Other items that caught my eye include:

• Clearer images plus new census technology showing more details
• Free family tree apps not only for for Apple and Android, but also for Kindle Fire and Nook
• Advances in Ancestry.com's DNA testing service

You can read the entire list at http://www.ancestry.com/s49994/t25040/ancestry.com/12

Does the Calendar Need an Overhaul?

The western world doesn't change the calendar very often. Julius Caesar straightened out the previous confusion of calendars in 46 BC. The Julian calendar continued unchanged for more than 1,600 years until Pope Gregory announced the Gregorian calendar in 1582 that handled some "extra days" that had crept in. The Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar almost immediately but others held out. A few countries did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until the early twentieth century.

Now researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have proposed a new calendar and claim that it makes much more sense than the previous one.

Under the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, for instance, if  Christmas fell on a Sunday in 2012 (and it would), it will also fall on a Sunday in 2013, 2014 and beyond. Your birthday would fall on the same day of the week every year as would all holidays.

The Origins of Auld Lang Syne

The song that millions of people sing on New Years Eve is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song. However, Burns never claimed that he was the original author. Instead, he once wrote, "I took it down from an old man." In fact, the ballad "Old Long Syne" printed in 1711 by James Watson shows considerable similarity in the first verse and the chorus to Burns' later poem and it is assumed that even Watson's version was not the original.

The song's Scots title may be translated into English literally as "old long since", or more idiomatically, "long long ago", "days gone by" or "old times". "For auld lang syne", as it appears in the first line of the chorus, is loosely translated as "for (the sake of) old times".

Fairfax Genealogical Society Call for Papers

The following announcement was written by the Fairfax (Virginia) Genealogical Society:

The Fairfax Genealogical Society is pleased to announce that it is currently accepting speaker proposals for its 2012-2013 calendar.  Proposals are being sought for monthly general meetings September 2012 through May 2013, monthly education sessions September 2012 through April 2013, a one-day Fair to be held October 27, 2012, and a two-day conference to be held March 22nd and 23rd 2013.   

Transfer Big Files

Do you have the occasional need to send very big files to someone else? Files that are too big to send in email? You can find dozens of online services that will help you do just that. All of the online file transfer services make it very easy to send and share large files that are generally too big to send by email. They do that by allowing you to upload your file to the company's servers and sending a link to a page where the file can then be retrieved by your recipient (or yourself if you are the recipient). As far as I know, they are all good services. I have never heard of a “bad” file transfer service; I believe they all are good enough to perform the basic file transfers. However, I have looked at several and recently settled on one that I think is better than most.


This year, I was invited to Christmas dinner at a relative's house. While there, I learned that another person at the dinner had a large collection of pictures taken at other family events in recent months. These weren't digital photos; they were all taken on film, and she had the prints with her. She said she would like to make duplicates of many of them to share with family members, but that will require time and money. Guess what? I had my Flip-Pal battery-powered portable scanner with me. I usually take it with me to all family gatherings.

I offered to scan the photos and send copies in email to all the family members who wanted them. That offer was accepted within a second or two!

Steve Morse Releases the Unified 1940 Census ED Finder

Steve Morse is well known for producing a series of great tools for genealogists at his One-Step website. Now he has added a new tool to assist with the 1940 U.S. Census. Like all his other tools, this one is available free of charge.

Steve writes:

Last week a new 1940 Census tool was added to the Census section of the One-Step website (http://stevemorse.org).  It's called the Unified 1940 Census ED Finder (http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html).  Here's some background so that you can appreciate why this tool is necessary and what it does.

Family Chronicle Publishes "Tracing Your Irish Ancestors"

The following announcement was written by Family Chronicle:

Family Chronicle is please to announce the immediate availability of our newest special publication, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors. The 68-page issue, the fourth in the "Tracing Series", is feature-packed with all-new content from a variety of experts in the field of Irish family history research. It contains many online sources, as well as information on city and trade directories, an Irish case study, Irish currency, Irish mariners and ships, Irish surnames and DNA, and much more. Cover price is $9.95 plus $4.50 shipping. To order, visit the Family Chronicle bookstore at: www.familychronicle.com.

A Review of the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Scanner

I have written several times about the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand. I find it to be a great tool for genealogists who wish to make digital images of documents and photocopies. This tiny scanner is handheld and powered by batteries. No computer is required to create scanned images that are then stored on a microSD memory card. While the scanner normally sells for $100 or so, may online retailers have offered it at lower prices in recent months.

You can read my earlier articles about the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Scanner if you start at http://goo.gl/lR4db

Now PCmag.com has published its own review of the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Scanner. Articles on PCmag.com typically are read by hundreds of thousands of computer enthusiasts so I expect the publicity generated will result in increased sales.

Best Holiday Wishes

May you have a happy and healthy holiday season this year.

I Am Taking a Couple of Days Off

I won't be posting any new articles on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I have decided to take some time off and spend it with my family.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very merry holiday season and hope that you can also be with your loved ones in this season.