Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter A Weekly Summary of Events and Topics of Interest to Online Genealogists Vol. 4 No. 5 - January 30, 1999 This newsletter is sponsored by Ancestry Publishing, a leader in providing print and electronic research information to genealogists. To learn about Ancestry's state-of-the-art online genealogy databases and other fine products, visit the Ancestry HomeTown at: http://www.ancestry.com Past issues of this Newsletter are available at: http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/index.htm ========================================================== Copyright (C) 1999 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Inc. All rights reserved. ============================================================ - Heritage Quest to Computerize the Entire U.S. Federal Census One of the major announcements coming out of GENTECH99 was from Heritage Quest. Heritage Quest announced a project that uses digital imaging to capture the entire U.S. Federal Census Schedules, 1790-1920. Quoting from the information supplied by Heritage Quest: Digital Microfilm is a relatively new concept to genealogy. One that has provided great interest to Heritage Quest, with its collection of 250,000 titles of genealogy-rich microfilm. Now the company is announcing the beginning of a new era--one of convenience, speed and highly-improved document viewing. Heritage Quest has now imaged the complete 1790, 1900, and 1920 federal census schedules with remaining census years projected to completion by September 1999. This new product line--Family Quest Archives(tm) Digital Microfilm-will be produced on CD-ROM on a roll-by-roll basis (one CD-ROM equivalent to one roll of microfilm) with all the familiar NARA microfilm numbers you've been accustomed to using. Heritage Quest has taken National Archives silver master census films and digitized each and every image. The process has taken time, highly-skilled human resources and the best digital imaging equipment on the market today. But, looking at the features and benefits, the wait and enormous startup expenditures have been worth it. Heritage Quest was showing late beta test versions of their first such CD-ROM disks at the GENTECH99 conference. The software was fun to use. The images could quickly and easily be enlarged, switched to negative or enhanced in a number of ways. I suspect that some pages that are difficult to read on a standard microfilm reader will be easier to view and understand on a computer that is running this new software. The software also allows any page from the census to be printed locally on a laser or inkjet printer. Heritage Quest expects to start shipping the first CD-ROM disks to customers within a very few weeks. Project completion is expected around September 1999. For details, look at: http://www.heritagequest.com/genealogy/CD-ROM/ ============================================================ - Kindred Konnections' New Additions Kindred Konnections has had an online Web site for some time now. They have been best known for their database of relationships, much of which was created from GEDCOM files submitted to them. Their database presently contains more than 24 million names and is available on a subscription basis. The folks at Kindred Konnections haven't been idle, however. At GENTECH99 they introduced several new services. Kindred Konnections says that they are now indexing all the genealogy-related Web pages on the Internet. The server at Kindred Konnections looks for other Web pages that contain GEDCOM files, text files in certain formats, plus several other file formats. On the day I was writing this article, their Web pages report that 2,652,450 names from other pedigree-linked Internet sites have been indexed, and that number is growing daily. With the new software on Kindred Konnections' server, you can upload a GEDCOM file, which will automatically be compared to the 24 million names in the internal database as well as compared against several million more names on other Internet sites. You will then be notified of all the possible matches. The company also demonstrated some new genealogy software called My-Tree On-Line that actually runs on their Web server. You view it through Netscape or Internet Explorer on your PC or Macintosh. It even works on WebTV, unlike many other sophisticated Web services. My-Tree On-Line allows you to store your data on Kindred Konnections' server. All software executes on that server; you simply view it through your computer's Web browser. There are several advantages to this. First of all, both Macintosh and Windows 3.1 users can use this program since it runs on the Internet. Even people who subscribe to WebTV and do not own a computer capable of running genealogy software can use all the power built into My-Tree On-Line, thereby equaling the capabilities of many other genealogy programs. Next, any new software updates that the producer provides are automatically available to everyone instantly, with no installation required. My-Tree On-Line stores both data and images. One thing that really excited me was the fact that the data is stored in Unicode, not ASCII. This means that it operates well with non-European written languages as well as all the languages handled by other genealogy software. The folks in the Kindred Konnections' booth were demonstrating genealogy data in Hebrew, Thai, Japanese and Russian. The Hebrew version even inserted data from right to left! As I entered a Hebrew character, it always went to the left-most position and then shifted previously-entered characters to the right. Kindred Konnections expects to handle Chinese and several other languages as soon as they can find native speakers of those languages to help in the effort. Kindred Konnections has added many more features to their site, including the 1871 Cornwall (United Kingdom) census, a list of thousands of libraries with genealogy content, and a list of many professional genealogy researchers. I hope to write more about these services soon. In the meantime, you can view them at: http://www.kindredkonnections.com ============================================================ - GenRef's Pennsylvania Archives CD-ROMs GenRef is a small Utah producer of genealogy CD-ROM disks. The company announced a new series of disks at the GENTECH99 conference. This series will fill eight CD-ROM disks when completed and will contain scanned images of the following Pennsylvania records: * Officers and soldiers in the Service of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1744-1765 * Indian Traders, 1743-1775 * Ships' registers, 1753-1761 * Muster Rolls of the Pennsylvania Navy, 1776-1779 * Numerous Muster Rolls, 1775-1779 * History and Rosters of Pennsylvania Military Units and Continental Line, 1776-1783 * Depreciation Pay * Abstracts of Pension Applications * Letters of Marque, 1762-1776, 1778-1782 * Enlistments The price for these eight CD-ROM disks will be $39.95 each. However, GenRef is offering a pre-publication price of $29.95 each for orders received before the CD-ROM disks are released. For more information, send an e-mail to: [email protected] ============================================================ - Genealogical Library Master Catalog Another new product being displayed at GENTECH99 was the Genealogical Library Master Catalog for both Windows and Macintosh. This catalog will be published on three CD-ROM disks and will contain listings of more than 300,000 works held by eighteen libraries across the United States. Most of the listings will contain the full title, the author's name, publisher, format (usually meaning the number of pages in a book), whether or not the work has a bibliography, notes, a description of the book's subject, the library where it may be found and that library's call number. The CD-ROM disks will include profile information about each library such as location, hours for onsite research as well as information about research services available via FAX, mail or telephone. The Genealogical Library Master Catalog Family History CD-ROM will list nearly 100,000 family histories and genealogies. The two Local Histories and Genealogical Sources CD-ROM disks will list more than 100,000 titles of original and transcribed records. All the CD-ROM disks will cover books, manuscripts and microfilms. Developer Rick Crume exhibited a late beta test version of the Genealogical Library Master Catalog at GENTECH99. The CD-ROM certainly was simple to use: it runs in either Netscape or Internet Explorer. All commands appear as buttons or icons within the browser. It looks like you are on the World Wide Web even though you are actually reading the data from your own CD-ROM drive instead. The Genealogical Library Master Catalog CD-ROMs can be read by any Windows PC or a Macintosh. The company reports that the first of the three CD-ROM disks will be available within a few weeks and that the other two will follow in rapid succession. Each CD-ROM disk will sell for $39.95 U.S. funds, or all three can be purchased at once for $99.95. The company expects to have a Web page soon at http://www.OneLibrary.com but that is not yet in operation. You can also obtain more details by sending an e-mail to: [email protected] ============================================================ - Jewish Records Indexing - Poland Stanley Diamond asked me to write about the Jewish Records Indexing project. Stanley is involved in this great project and would like to make sure that other Jewish genealogists are aware of the project. I decided that I was no expert on this, so I asked Stanley if he could write the article. He wrote: Here is an excerpt from the syllabus from the 1998 Summer Seminar on Jewish Genealogy. Stanley Diamond Coordinator, Jewish Records Indexing - Poland ================ Jewish Records Indexing - Poland (JRI-Poland) In last week's newsletter, I referred to the Tarnow Shtetl CO- OP of "Jewish Records Indexing - Poland" without giving background on the project. Here's the full story: The goal of Jewish Records Indexing - Poland (JRI-Poland) is to create a World-Wide-Web - based, searchable database of the indices of 19th century Jewish vital records from current and former territories of Poland. Where such records are available, they may include towns which are now part of Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus. The Jewish Records Indexing - Poland database has been growing steadily and now includes entries for more than 400,000 vital records from 98 towns. Most of the work is done by volunteers; some of the difficult Cyrillic script entries (from the post-1867 Russian years registers) are in the main transliterated by professionals whose work is funded by contributions from both individuals and groups of Jewish genealogists. JRI-Poland volunteers are typically researchers whose families lived in the many towns and Shtetls (villages) of Poland. They are organized into Shtetl CO-OPs responsible for the indexing of specific towns. There are now over 50 CO-OPs and Tarnow, mentioned last week, is just one of them. JRI-Poland has been recognized by the international medical and scientific community because of the potential benefit of the database for Ashkenazic families trying to trace their medical histories, particularly those at increased risk for hereditary conditions and diseases. The project has received recognition from investigators at the Cancer Research Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine - Yeshiva University, Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School, Epidemiology- Genetics Program - Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, McGill University - Montreal Children's Hospital Research Institute, McGill University - Division of Medical Genetics, Mount Sinai Hospital - Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Yale University Cancer Genetics Program. Jewish Records Indexing - Poland is one of the many JewishGen web site - based projects aimed at facilitating Jewish genealogical research. For more information about Jewish Records Indexing - Poland, check the website: www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl ============================================================ - A-Z of British Genealogical Research An extensively revised 4th edition of the "A-Z of British Genealogical Research" tutorial by Dr. Ashton Emery is now available online. Dr. Emery describes this tutorial as: A concise guide to researching British ancestry both locally and at a distance. Everything the family historian wants to know about the IGI, using parish registers, the Civil Registration system, the 19th century Census returns and dozens of other archives, indexes and sources, with all the costs, contacts, addresses and tips a professional or amateur researcher could ever need. To read the tutorial, look at: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/EmeryPaper.html ============================================================ ============================================================ ============================================================ - Home Pages Highlighted The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web home pages that have been listed recently on http://www.rootscomputing.com. Some of these sites may charge a fee for their services: The Blaisdell Family National Association - more than 350 years of Blaisdell history: http://www.gwi.net/~blaisdel Gittins Genealogy - the name "Gittins" or variants of the name, including Gettins, Gettens, Gitton, Gittons, Gittings, Gettings, Gittens, Gyttyn, Gyttyns, and Gethin: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/gittins/ancestry/index.htm van Tuijl family information (from the Netherlands): http://www.telebyte.nl/~dessa/tuijl.htm Genealogy resources of United Empire Loyalists - mainly Bay of Quinte and eastern Ontario areas, but some information on Maritime Loyalists and Niagara area: http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/loyal-ists/ Families from Schuylkill County Pennsylvania back to England, Ireland, Prussia: http://www.parsonstech.com/genealogy/trees/rscheima/HORSWOOD.htm The Elam Family Research page is devoted to research on all branches of the Elam family, in the US and abroad, as well as spelling variants: http://www.geocities.com/heartland/prairie/6831 Family history and genealogy of the JEANS of North Carolina: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/6038/ County Kerry Ireland genealogy help page with a focus on the Dingle Peninsula: http://members.aol.com/waterlilys/index.html Extensive O'Connor surname history and data: http://members.aol.com/waterlilys/Ancestors.html "Adversities of Fortune" - An Irish-American genealogist's successful search story for her famine era emigrant ancestors, told here for other researchers to learn from and more importantly, to encourage and inspire them to continue their search: http://members.aol.com/waterlilys/MySearch.html James Coil Family of Georgia: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hollow/1705 The Brammer Family and Its Branches, a web site for Brammer descendants of colonial Virginia: http://hometown.aol.com/ohioroots A genealogy bulletin board, used mostly for Swedish Genealogy: http://disc.server.com/Indices/38837.html The RITHERDON family genealogy pages: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/d.ritherdon/ Petrus and related family histories: http://www.enginedesign.com/petrus.html The Vaught Connection webpage: http://www.shawneelink.com/~mvyoung/ Genealogy of the Menso family, Holland in the beginning of the 16th century: http://w1.302.telia.com/~u30202898 The Antrim Family Tree News Letter, published four times a year: http://www.chieftain.com/antrim Penketh homepage of interests in Penketh Genealogy and related family history: http://www.npenketh.freeserve.co.uk To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information at: http://www.rootscomputing.com/register.htm. Due to the volume of new Web pages submitted, I am not able to list all of them in the newsletter. ========================================================== DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is being written and sent via e-mail at no charge. I expect to write one new issue on a more or less weekly basis. However, life sometimes interferes, and the need to earn a living may create an occasional delay. ========================================================== COPYRIGHTS: The contents of this newsletter are copyright by Richard W. Eastman and by Ancestry Publishing and by others so designated. You are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute articles from this newsletter to other parties provided you do so strictly for non-commercial purposes. Please limit your re-distribution to one or two articles per newsletter; do not re-distribute the newsletter in its entirety. Also, please include the following words with any articles you re- distribute: The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 1999 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Inc. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Thank you for your cooperation. === About the author: Dick Eastman is the forum manager of the four Genealogy Forums on CompuServe. He also is the author of "YOUR ROOTS: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer" published by Ziff-Davis Press. He can be reached at: [email protected]