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Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
| IN THIS ISSUE: |
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GenealogyLibrary.com |
| July 27, 1998 |
I had a chance to try out the new GenealogyLibrary.com this week. This website is Broderbund’s new collection of online books, databases, and family-finding resources. It is a subscription-based website; you must pay a small fee to access the resources available in GenealogyLibrary.com. However, you can access it from any Internet service provider; most any modern Web browser will work. It is available to PC and Macintosh users alike. On the day I first used it, GenealogyLibrary.com said that it had 638 books and databases and that Broderbund adds three new books from leading publishers and genealogy libraries every business day. To give you an idea of the kinds of books contained within GenealogyLibrary.com, here is a list of the new additions for the week prior to my visit: The Descendants of Thomas Durfee of Portsmouth RI Some Descendants of John Endecott Governor of Mass Bay Colony Monroe County Indiana Index to Birth Records M-Z 1882-1920 Record of the Descendants of James Ensign and His Wife Sarah Elson Memoir of Samuel Endicott With a Genealogy of his Descendants Henry County Indiana Index to Marriage Records S-Z Book 1 Vol 4 1850-1920 The Edminster Family in America Genealogical Records of Descendants of John and Anthony Emery Henry County Indiana Index to Birth Records F-M Book 1 Vol 2 1882-1920 The Dolman Compendium Edson Family History and Genealogy Henry County Indiana Index to Marriage Records E-K Book 1 Vol 2 1850-1920 Our Ellsworth Ancestors Ellenwood-Wharton & 20 Allied Families Clay County Indiana Index to Marriage Transcript Record A-Z 1880-1920 You can see from th-is list that the folks at Broderbund are scanning a lot of old family history books. However, there are many other kinds of books as well. I found other listings for the General Register of the Society of Colonial Wars 1899-1902, the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1906, the Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War, the Adams County Indiana Index to Birth Records A-Z 1882-1920 and many, many more. Like most websites, there is no user’s manual. You simply dive in and go. To be sure, there is some online help available, but I suspect that most people will never need it. Searching the books seems rather simple and straightforward. For instance, I specified a search of all 638 books at once for my own surname. The search found 861 occurrences of the name and the very first one displayed interested me as it was for a family in the mid 1800s that lived about 10 miles from where I was born. I clicked on the reference to the book title, and the entire page from that book was displayed on the screen.
I spent several hours searching books for names and locations that interest me. I found a few new references; I quickly copied text from the website to my favorite genealogy program. All I had to do was highlight the text on GenealogyLibrary.com with the mouse, click on COPY, go to my genealogy program, and then click on PASTE. Voila! Text references from several books were entered into my database. This is a great way to spend an evening! Scratch that, make it "several evenings." In addition to all the books, GenealogyLibrary.com presently holds three databases and a number of other resources as well. The first database is the Social Security Death Index. This index is available in a number of other places as well. It contains names, birth dates, death dates, Social Security numbers, and other information about more than 55 million people. Most of the records are for deaths that occurred in the mid-1960s or later with a few random records from earlier years. The second database is the U.S. Geographical Names Information System. While most people would not consider this to be a "genealogy database," it still can be very useful to many genealogists. If you are looking for the location of the cemetery where your ancestor is buried, the GNIS often can help. It contains a lengthy list of cemeteries, rivers, forests, and hospitals throughout the United States. For instance, here is the listing for the cemetery where my great-grandparents Eastman are buried, as listed in the U.S. Geographical Names Information System:
Note the "Geo Coordinates." While it looks a bit cryptic, you can quickly decode that as 44 degrees, 47 minutes, 54 seconds North, 68 degrees, 49 minutes, 40 seconds West. You can then pinpoint that location within a few seconds on any good map. If you have a GPS receiver, you can even drive to that exact location by simply entering those coordinates and then following the directions on the GPS receiver’s screen. The third and final database is the Internet FamilyFinder that I described in the August 9, 1997 edition of this newsletter. Broderbund has continued to improve this Internet FamilyFinder. It is a search engine or "spider" designed to seek out only genealogy information. It searches millions of pages on the Internet and remembers all of the names it finds on genealogy-relevant pages. When you enter a name to search for, Internet FamilyFinder will give you a ranked list of all of the mentions of that name on all of the pages it knows about. There are two other significant research tools on GenealogyLibrary.com: the Vital Records Assistant and also "Genealogy Discovery Articles." The Vital Records Assistant is a sort of mini-database of information describing various county and state records within the U.S. as well as many foreign records. For instance, if you select the state of Maine and then specify birth records, here is what you will see:
Some of the formatting got lost when I did a cut-and-paste into this newsletter. It is much more attractive in the Web browser. Now for the fun part. After reading the above information, you can use GenealogyLibrary.com to automatically generate a letter to be sent to the state vital records department. You enter a few facts as to name, date and location, and the website then generates a letter with the proper address already filled in. Here is the letter I generated asking for a copy of my father’s birth certificate:
Obviously if some of the information is unknown, such as names of parents, you leave that section blank. The letter is displayed in your Web browser. While you can simply click on PRINT, I’d suggest you cut-and-paste it into your favorite word processor for a more professional appearance. The final section of note in GenealogyLibrary.com is the Genealogy Discovery Articles. This is a collection of many "how-to articles" written by a number of well-known genealogy authors, including: Marthe Arends, Karen Clifford, Dick Eastman, Myra Vanderpool Gormley, Kathleen Westberg Hinckley, Gary B. Hoffman, Kory Meyerink, Michael Neill, Lyman D. Platt, Donna Przecha, Carla Ridenour, Edith Wagner and Raymond S. Wright III. Each article can be viewed on-screen, printed on paper, or saved to a disk file. So, did I like GenealogyLibrary.com? You bet I did. I found a lot of good references here. I could search for every word in 638 books plus a number of other databases in seconds, a task that would take days if searching in paper books, even if I was visiting the largest genealogy library in the world. While not the first "online genealogy library" to appear on the Web, GenealogyLibrary.com is certainly growing quickly and the people at Broderbund want it to become the biggest and best online source. I must offer a few words of caution: Treat all information on this site in exactly the same manner that you treat any other genealogy book or CD-ROM of secondary sources. These are transcriptions of records and often are recollections that were collected many years after the original facts. All genealogy books contain errors; some contain lots of errors. Converting them to computer format does not change that. You still must verify everything by referring to original records. It is easy to cut and paste data from a book or database online into your favorite genealogy program. Always make sure that you also paste in the name of the book, the author and the publisher. I also paste in a reference to GenealogyLibrary.com as the place where I found this particular book. I always do the same for printed books: I always enter the name of the library and the call number of any book examined while visiting a regular library. In this case, the philosophy is the same even though I was visiting an online library. Next, the book pages I looked at were obviously all created by OCR (optical character recognition) scanning of printed books. These are not actual images of the original books. These words were created by having a computer interpret a scanned image of a page. OCR scanning may occasionally produce errors although I did not notice any obvious errors in my casual browsing through GenealogyLibrary.com. Nonetheless, you should double- and triple-check everything. Be especially wary of dates, OCR technology is not yet perfect; a "3" may be scanned as an "8" or something similar. If the original book says "1838" the scanned copy might say "1888." There is no warning of this change in text; it is up to the reader to find these errors. This precaution is true of any OCR scanned documents found anywhere; it is not limited just to GenealogyLibrary.com. GenealogyLibrary.com presently is building online resources relating to U.S. records. There were a few references to Canada and other countries, but most of the information available today is for the United States. I suspect Broderbund will expand that in the future. Finally, I expect all advertising to be a bit enthusiastic regardless of which company wrote the text. But I am not sure I agree with the statement boldly proclaimed on one page: "You are guaranteed to find your ancestors...if not today, then tomorrow!" Guaranteed? Even with the above minor cautions and concerns, I’d rate GenealogyLibrary.com as an excellent online resource for any genealogist searching for U.S. ancestry. I know I intend to go back there again from time to time looking for new additions. GenealogyLibrary.com is fee-based;, you must purchase a subscription. That is no surprise, since most of the "best online genealogy information" costs money to acquire, convert to computer format and then to publish online. The only practical method of making that data available is to charge a modest fee to cover the expenses and to hopefully make a modest profit for the company making all the data available. An annual subscription to GenealogyLibrary.com costs $39.99 if you subscribe before August 1st. After that, it will be $49.99 per year. The other alternative is a monthly subscription for $5.99 (renewed automatically until you cancel). All prices quoted are in U.S. funds. You can sign up online or by telephone or by regular mail. Yearly subscriptions to GenealogyLibrary.com come with a 90-day money-back guarantee. Current members of the Parsons Genealogy Club get free access to GenealogyLibrary.com. (Remember that Broderbund purchased Parsons a while ago.) GenealogyLibrary.com is available to anyone who wishes to subscribe., you do not need any other software other than a modern Web browser and normal Internet access. You do not have to own a copy of Family Tree Maker. However, if you do have the program installed, you can use the ONLINE button in Family Tree Maker to simplify the process a bit. For more information, point your Web browser to: http://www.GenealogyLibrary.com
- Official Companion to Family Tree Maker In last week’s newsletter I quoted a press release issued a few days later that described a new book written by Myra Vanderpool Gormley. I was pleasantly surprised a few days later this week when a copy of that book arrived in the mail. It seems that Myra read that article and decided to send a copy. After a bit of "hands on" time, I can now describe the book in some detail. First, the title of "Prima’s Official Companion to Family Tree Maker Version 5" is quite accurate; it really is a "companion." This is not a user’s guide to a piece of software and obviously is not designed to replace the Broderbund user’s guide included with the program. Instead, this is a supplement that provides suggestions on how to use the program efficiently. The first few chapters do not even talk about Family Tree Maker very much. Instead, they are excellent "how and why" explanations written for the person thinking of starting on a genealogy search. Chapter One is "What Is Genealogy?", a basic primer on how to do research. Chapter Two is "What Are Your Goals?" which guides the reader through a process of focusing on what is important to him or her. Chapter Three is "Collecting and Documenting Information." This chapter dives into such topics as how to conduct oral interviews, how to organize information and similar topics. While Family Tree Maker is mentioned quite often in those first three chapters, the focus is on genealogy fundamentals. Chapter Four is "Entering Basic Information" and this is the point where Gormley starts to explain the software in depth. She walks the reader through real-life examples of how to use the program. Unlike the Broderbund user’s manual, she often coaches the reader on why the program should be used in a particular manner. For instance, starting on page 100, there is a five-page write-up on why you enter sources and how to accomplish that in Family Tree Maker. This is great advice coming from a highly respected genealogist. Once the basics of how to do genealogy research are finished, the other chapters in the book discuss how to use the features of Family Tree Maker. It includes topics such as entering data, creating both simple and advanced reports, creating scrapbooks, and family history books, and even publishing your research efforts on the Internet. Not only is Family Tree Maker discussed, there are other chapters on using Broderbund genealogy CD-ROM disks, the Broderbund website, and also how to finding genealogy information elsewhere on the Internet. "Prima’s Official Companion to Family Tree Maker Version 5" contains 456 pages of useful information, ending with a 6 -page detailed glossary of genealogy-related terms and then a 10- page index. Comparing "Prima’s Official Companion to Family Tree Maker Version 5" to the user’s manual for the same program is sort of like comparing a textbook to a dictionary. One is a good overall guide that you start reading on page 1 and go to the end. The other is a reference manual with detailed information on specific subjects. You normally use the reference manual (user’s guide) to look up specific references. Myra Vanderpool Gormley has done an excellent job with "Prima’s Official Companion to Family Tree Maker Version 5". I am particularly pleased that Broderbund has chosen this book to be officially recognized as the "companion book." Family Tree Maker often is the program chosen by genealogy newcomers; this "companion" book will give them a good foundation in how and why. The book also is available from Broderbund as well as directly from the publisher. If you are interested in purchasing a copy without buying Family Tree Maker, you may order it directly from http://www.primapublishing.com for $24.99 U.S., $34.95 Canadian. U.K. residents need to pay 22.99 Sterling. You also should be able to order it from any bookstore, by asking for ISBN 0-76151677-8.
-St. Louis County Genealogy Collection Has A New Home The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a rather long article this week written by staff writer Marianna Riley. The article describes the new home of the St. Louis Genealogical Society’s collection of books and manuscripts. A new special collections room opened formally last Monday at library headquarters at 1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard in Frontenac. The Genealogical Society's collection started about 30 years ago in the trunk of a member's car. It was sort of a traveling lending library that went from meeting to meeting, according to Ann Fleming, president of the society. The St. Louis Genealogical Society now numbers about 2,500 members and has long -since outgrown the mobile library. In 1970 the University City Library agreed to store the material. This arrangement worked for 25 years, but then the library ran out of space. "The collection is in very good hands," said Fleming. She said the membership liked, among other things, the central location for its membership that stretches from Madison County in Illinois to St. Charles County, and from Florissant to Jefferson County. The full story in the Post-Dispatch is much longer than what I can write here. You can read all the details at: http://www.stlnet.com/POSTnet/News/pdtoday.nsf/
Scientists have found fresh genetic evidence that Jews who consider themselves part of the priestly class known as Cohanim really are part of an unbroken line extending back thousands of years. The Associated Press reports that genetic proof of this line of descent has been established. Genetic proof obviously does not constitute genealogy research, as there are hundreds of undocumented generations involved. But it is still a fascinating topic. According to the Associated Press article, the Cohanim are said to be descended from Moses' brother, Aaron. Originally they had primary responsibility for offering sacrifices and serving as arbiters and mentors. Today, in Orthodox and some other Jewish congregations, Cohanim are still accorded special duties and privileges. They are given the honor of reading first from the Torah during a service and presiding over a traditional ceremony for some first-born boys. Cohanim are not allowed to marry widows, divorcees or converts. Because of the Jewish belief that the Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt and that Cohanim will serve again as priests there, they try to remain spiritually pure. So they stay away from dead bodies, for example, not attending funerals except for those of immediate family, for example. Many Cohanim have surnames such as Cohen, Kahn, Kane or similar variations. But not all men with such surnames are Cohanim. Last year, scientists who studied the Y chromosome in modern-day Cohanim reported evidence that the designation truly has been passed from father to son. The Y chromosome is inherited that way, making it useful for such studies. More evidence appears in a new study, reported by Israeli and British scientists in a recent issue of the journal Nature. They looked for variations in the Y chromosome from 306 Jewish men, including 106 self-identified Cohanim, from Israel, Canada and England. Most Cohanim had the same version of the Y chromosome or close variants that differ because of random mutations. This shows that there has been ``reasonable adherence to the policy of father-son inheritance,'' said researcher David B. Goldstein of Oxford University. By studying how long it would take for the variants to develop, researchers concluded the inheritance of Cohanim status has gone on longer than 700 years and maybe as long as 3,000 years or so, as tradition maintains. The sample also contained 81 self-identified Levites, a designation that began with the Levi tribe after the Exodus and is also supposed to pass from father to son. The study could not confirm that. The Levites showed too much variety in their Y chromosome variants. That could mean that non-Levite Jews took up the designation in the past, or that the original Levites had a lot of variety in their Y chromosomes, Goldstein said. Rabbi Raphael B. Butler, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, an umbrella organization of Orthodox congregations, said he doubted the study would affect the designations of Cohan or Levite today. But it's ``enlightening'' that the results agree with the Jewish tradition, he said.
Do you have any ax-murderers, traitors, thieves or other notorious villains lurking in your family tree? I bet you do; almost everyone has one or more "black sheep" ancestors. And these scoundrels are what makes genealogy research so much fun! If you can find such a rascal in your ancestry, you may qualify for the International Black Sheep Society of Genealogists. Jeff Scism, of San Bernardino, Calif., formed the Internet group a year ago and launched its website in January. Starting with two dozen members, the society now has 125 members. The rules are simple: You must have someone in the family, preferably in your direct lines, who's "a dastardly, infamous individual of public knowledge and ill repute." Stuffed shirts with pure blue blood ancestry need not apply. I like this society already! Ideally, you should be able to claim descent from kidnappers, armed robbers, assassins, thieves who stole "any item of fame," members of infamous gangs, and anyone involved in witchcraft or among the FBI's "Most Wanted." "Weirdness counts," says Scism. He even has a catchall category for ancestors causing "extreme public embarrassment," such as Lady Godiva. "If you're doing genealogical research, and you find nothing but blase people, it's really boring and you're going to quit," Scism says. But "if you do this long enough, you will find you have a black sheep in your family that nobody talks about." Despite the passage of time, sometimes centuries in some cases, a few members don't want their full names linked to scoundrel relatives. So only their first names are listed on the website. Researching back to the 10th century, Janni Belgum of Calgary, Alberta, found a Norwegian earl nicknamed "Skull Splitter." A rather bloody Viking, she figures. Fast-forwarding several centuries, Dianna Fisher of Corvallis, Ore., acknowledges John Billington, whom she places on the Mayflower in 1620 as well as on the blacklist: the first colonist hanged for murder. In the "public embarrassment category, one member claims descent from James Durham. He was a preacher in Wells, Texas, in the late 1800s who tried to re-create Jesus' walk on water. To pull off a "miracle," Durham slipped a board just below the surface of a pond and left. While he was gone, two boys sawed the board almost in half. When Durham took his first step before a big crowd, the board broke and he got dunked. Take a look at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~blksheep/index.html and make sure your SoundBlaster card is hooked up.
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:
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.
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At the top of the page were links to "Previous Page," "Next Page," "Book Beginning" and "Search Book." Navigation was quick and easy. From on any page I could click on the PRINT icon in my Web browser to copy the page to printer. However, I prefer to cut-and-paste text from the Web browser into a word processor or a genealogy program; I found that to be easy to do as well.