[Downloaded from Dick Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, dated January 9 2015] Reminder: PBS’ “Genealogy Roadshow” Opens Its Second Season on Tuesday The “Genealogy Roadshow” television series will start at 8 p.m. Eastern time/7 p.m Central on Tuesday, Jan. 13, on most local PBS stations. Quoting the show’s web page at: http://www.pbs.org/genealogy-roadshow/home/: Genealogy Roadshow stars genealogists Kenyatta D. Berry, Joshua Taylor and Mary Tedesco and features participants with unique claims and storylines, including a woman seeking to find out if she is descended from the infamous pirate Blackbeard; a pair of sisters exploring connections to a survivor of the legendary Donner party; a man hoping to recover essential family history that washed away in Hurricane Katrina; and a man learns that the event that drove his family to the City of Brotherly Love changed the course of history Van Buren County, Tennessee Offices Destroyed by Fire, Birth, Marriage, Death, and Many Other Records Lost It is a sad day for genealogists as another burnt courthouse is added to the list of records lost. Van Buren County, Tennessee, officials are scrambling about what to do after a huge fire destroyed the county administrative building in Spencer on Wednesday night. Historical records from the 1840s and later were destroyed, including Civil War artifacts, pictures from the Civil War, birth certificates, death certificates, and thousands of historical records. The local historical society also was housed in the building and lost everything as well. “It’s a total loss,” said Van Buren County 911 director David Chandler. “We were able to salvage a couple of old books and a few other items from the trustee’s office, but that was about it.” The fire was believed to have started in the historical society and then spread throughout the building. One bit of good news: Mayor Wilson told news reporters county records are backed up on hard drives in different locations across the county in the event of situations just like this. That’s good new for keeping the county’s business affairs operational but I was unable to find any mention if older, historical records are backed up in a similar manner. Hopefully, the older records also are backed up as well. Firefighters from six counties battled the blaze for nearly 15 hours but were unable to save the building. Firefighters were unable to put water on the building because their equipment froze over as temperatures hovered around zero degrees. The firefighters couldn’t spray water, and their ladders wouldn’t move up or down. I looked in the news reports for any indication to learn if any of the historical records had previously been digitized and stored off-site. However, the news reports make no mention of any older records being preserved digitally. You can watch a video of the fire on YouTube at https://www.youtube com/watch?v=YtRzZSE2QGA. Several news reports about the fire are also available by starting at http://goo.gl/ynTIuK. My thanks to newsletter reader Cindy King for telling me the sad news. [Downloaded from GenealogyInTime Magazine Newsletter - 10 January 2015] This newsletter has some new, interesting sites that you might not find anyplace else. I highly recommend this site, they offer a wide range of information. Sally South Africa – Ancestry.co.UK has put online voter indexes from South Africa These indexes date from 1719 to 1996 and contain some 220,000 names. The information contained in each index is fairly extensive and lists the voter s name, residence, name of spouse, occupation, employer, gender, race, maiden name, date of birth and sometimes even the number of pigs owned. The indexes can be searched by first name, middle name, last name and location. Access is by subscription. [South Africa Voter Lists] - See more at: http://tinyurl.com/orgpeyr US – Cartographer Dennis McClendon has created a useful website called Chicago In Maps. It provides links to online maps of Chicago found on different websites. Click on the link titled Historic Maps to view an interesting collection of historic street maps of Chicago. The value of this website is that it saves you the effort of having to search all over the Internet for historic Chicago maps. Access is FREE. [Historic Chicago Maps] - See more at: http://www.chicagoinmaps.com/ [Downloaded from “The Archaeology News Network”] Ancient burial remains in Okinawa cave may fill void in Japanese ancestry The discovery of probably one of the oldest burial sites in Japan could shed more light on the country's prehistory and the emergence of primitive culture. The Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum in Naha announced Dec. 11 that it found human remains dating back more than 9,000 years at the Sakitari-do cave site in Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. For the rest of the story: http://tinyurl.com/nl6uyot Easter Island collapse more complex than thought The downfall of Easter Island may have had more to do with preexisting environmental conditions than degradation by humans, according to a new study of the remote speck of land made famous by its enormous stone-head statues. Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, was first settled around A.D. 1200, and Europeans landed on its shores in 1722. The circumstances surrounding the collapse of the indigenous population of Rapa Nui are hotly debated both in academia and popular culture. Scientist and author Jared Diamond argued in his 2005 book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" (Viking Press) that prior to European contact, the indigenous people of the island degraded the environment to the extent that they could no longer thrive. For the rest of the story: http://tinyurl.com/ogj38r5 Sally Rolls Pavia [email protected] List Owner: [email protected] Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "Our Soldiers are one of our greatest assets!"