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Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
| June 8, 1998 |
If all goes well, at the time this newsletter is sent I should be about 30,000 feet in the air someplace near Iceland. I will be on a "red-eye" flight to London, then connecting to Rotterdam, the Netherlands. I expect to be in Europe for a bit more than a week. While I am carrying the palmtop computer and there is a local CompuServe access number in Rotterdam, there is never any guarantee that either the computer gods or the hotel telephone systems will cooperate. Do not be surprised if next week’s newsletter is late or even nonexistent.
I wrote in the May 2, 1998 edition of this newsletter and again in the May 9 edition about a controversial planning effort being started at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. I won’t repeat those articles here; but if you do not remember those articles, you might want to reread them as background for this week’s article. They are available at http://www.ancestry.com/home/Dick_Eastman/eastMay04-98.htm and at http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastMay11-98.htm respectfully. In the May 9 newsletter I described a speech given by the Archivist of the United States. I wrote:
The first of those face-to-face meetings was held last Wednesday evening at the National Archives’ Regional Library in Waltham, Massachusetts. I sat in the audience and listened intently, and I also was able to talk with a number of senior NARA officials before and after the meeting. The items discussed and the attitudes displayed were impressive. Diane LeBlanc, the Regional Administrator for the Northeast Region of the National Archives and Records Administration, hosted the meeting. Several members of her staff were also in the room, as were the Regional Administrators from Chicago and Fort Worth. Diane opened the meeting with a short prepared statement and then went to a question-and-answer session. The entire session lasted two hours and was quite lively at times. The meeting room was filled. Looking around I saw representatives from all the "big name" genealogy societies in the area, including the New England Historic Genealogical Society, The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA), the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, and a number of others. Several comments in Diane LeBlanc’s opening statement sparked my interest:
Diane LeBlanc’s opening statement was considerably longer than what the above excerpts show, but you get the idea. She was obviously trying to dispel false rumors that have been circulating. I thought she did this well. The question-and-answer session lasted much longer, and the topics wandered all over the spectrum. Kent Carter, the Regional Administrator from Fort Worth, assured everyone that "No city that presently has a microfilm reading room will lose that reading room." Obviously the NARA officials are much more concerned with the millions of cubic feet of paper records than they are about the relatively small number of filing cabinets full of microfilm. Over and over, the "theme" was hammered home: Whatever happens, the original paper records of genealogical value will be maintained someplace in such a manner that genealogists can obtain copies in a very short period of time. (Those are my words, not those of the NARA personnel. But I think that is close to their central theme.) The above information is a recording of the facts, as best I could scribble them down. Now I would like to mention that the remainder of this article is full of my personal opinions: I walked away from this meeting with the feeling that staff members of the National Archives and Records Administration are trying very hard to do the very best job possible. They want to balance the needs of genealogists with the financial realities of government agency budgets well into the next millennium. They are looking for solutions that provide access to needed records at a cost that is reasonable for taxpayers. I also believe that these NARA staff members are very sincere in their request for input from the genealogy community, as well as from the other communities they serve. "The plan" doesn’t really exist yet. The Archivist of the United States has defined a goal and has set a general set of guidelines as to how that goal is to be achieved. He has charged his staff with the task of defining that plan in detail. Now the staff is soliciting input from genealogists and others before they define "the plan." If you go to one of these meetings in the next few weeks expecting to be told how and when and what, you will be disappointed. Look for that plan to be delivered one or two years from now, only after you and others have offered your input. The NARA staff members assure us that easy access to original records, or images of original records, will always be available. Yet I am bothered that this part of the plan is also ill-defined today. The mission statement released by the Archivist last winter makes sweeping comments about documents being available on the Internet and by FedEx but omits all details. Again, this is not a plan that is in place today. It is simply a statement of goals. I wouldn’t expect a detailed plan to be described in last winter’s report, but I do worry about the ease of access. There are many stories today about lengthy delays obtaining copies of records from distant NARA facilities, records that are not available on microfilm, and the high cost of purchasing microfilm when it is available. The mechanics of how this ease of access will work in the future needs to be a part of any plan. I suggest that all genealogists should demand that this section be spelled out in great detail in any and all future plans. One comment that raised my eyebrows was: "The cost of that space and its maintenance for all these records has been consuming nearly half our current budget…." Hey, I thought that was the business the National Archives is in. Storing records is their primary business. It seems reasonable to me that the military spends a high percentage of their budget on weapons and that the Internal Revenue Service spends a lot of their budget on accountants and accounting software. Likewise, I fully expect the National Archives and Records Administration to spend a very high percentage of their budget on space and maintenance. Of course, I expect NARA to spend that money wisely and to make economies whenever possible, but 50% of their budget being spent on storage space does not surprise me at all. Why not 75%? If they are the National Archives, shouldn’t they spend a high percentage of their budget on archival quality space? The National Archives has created a committee to define this plan. In fact, I think there are several committees and/or subcommittees or whatever they are called. Yet the members of these committees are all NARA employees. While the NARA staff is going around the country soliciting input from genealogists, there is no "steering committee" or standing advisory group within the genealogy community. As valuable as the comments from these individual sessions are, I’d like to see a standing committee of genealogists that monitored the planning process and gave advice as needed. I believe the senior staff members of the National Archives are very serious about listening to genealogists. They showed that concern last Wednesday evening. That meeting was only the first of many to be held around the country. The staff of the National Archives and Records Administration is expending a lot of effort and money to obtain your input. Genealogists need to pack the room at each and every one of these meetings. We need to listen. We need to politely offer our comments. Then we need to demand that genealogists be in the planning process every step of the way. There are more meetings being held this week: June 10 in Fort Worth, Texas, and June 11 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Meetings after that will be held in New York City, Philadelphia, the Atlanta suburbs, Chicago, the St. Louis suburbs, Denver, Mission Viejo (California), San Bruno (California), Seattle and Anchorage. The Web page with the complete is list at the end of this article. I would like to request that every genealogist reading this newsletter attend the meeting or meetings being held in your area. We need to pack these meeting rooms. Besides, I suspect you will find the meetings to be very interesting. Not only should readers of this newsletter attend, but all genealogists should go. Please spread the word. Many genealogists are not online and may not yet have heard about these issues. You should make sure that every genealogist you know is aware of the issues and the concerns involved. Talk it up at your local genealogy society, and make sure it is mentioned in the society’s newsletter. Please ask everyone to attend these meetings. At most of these sessions you need to call or e-mail in advance to insure that you can obtain a seat. That is the only practical method the National Archives personnel have of determining how big a meeting room they need. Please notify the local NARA office as soon as possible of your interest in attending these critical meetings. The complete schedule of meetings planned is available at: http://www.nara.gov/nara/spceplan.html#schedule. This same Web page has e-mail addresses and telephone numbers for more information or to notify the local NARA office that you wish to attend. Keep an eye on this Web page as some of the dates and locations may change at the last moment especially if the number of people who request seats turns out to be significantly higher than forecasted. Before attending a local meeting, please read "READY ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL EVIDENCE - The Strategic Plan of the National Archives and Records Administration" at: http://www.nara.gov/nara/vision/naraplan.html Finally, make sure that your voice is heard.
The Family History Department of the Mormon Church has published genealogy data on CD-ROM disks for several years, primarily the International Genealogical Index and the Ancestral File. However, these disks have never been available for sale to the general public. To use these CD-ROM disks, you need to visit a local Family History Center, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City or one of the other libraries licensed to have these disks. (I am ignoring a small beta test of in-home use conducted a few years ago. That was a very small test.) I wrote about the new Genealogy SourceGuide CD-ROM in this newsletter two weeks ago. That valuable genealogy resource is produced by the LDS church and is available for purchase today. It does not contain any actual records of genealogy data. It is a "how to" guide. The new 1851 British Census Records CD-ROM disk marks a radical departure for the Mormon Church: for the first time they are now selling transcriptions of original records to the general public on CD-ROM disk. Not only that, but I believe the quality of the data on this CD-ROM disk is much higher than that of the Ancestral File or the International Genealogical Index. This quality is a result of the double data entry method I mentioned earlier. The 1851 British Census Records CD-ROM has proved to be very popular. The Family History Department made a guess as to how many copies they would sell; they produced what they believed would be a one-year supply. The disk sold out in about two weeks. A new batch is either in stock now or will be within days. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also has released 4.8 million records in the Australian Vital Records Index. These records are from the states of New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. Again, the Family History Department made a guess as to their one-year requirements. That initial inventory sold out in four days! I have not been able to obtain a copy of that CD-ROM disk, but I do hope to write about it soon. The British 1881 Census CD-ROM is an announced product that is not yet available. This set of CD-ROM disks will contain about 29 million records. It is the culmination of a project covering over a decade and involving thousands of volunteers, both members of the church and nonmembers as well. The extraction is complete and a microfiche copy is now available. The CD-ROM version will be available on several disks, each one covering one region. These disks will become available one at a time as the Family History Department completes them. Look for the first disks to become available later this year. The U.S. 1880 Census is another "announced product" that is not yet available. This massive project has taken well over a decade to extract the data. The index is not available on microfiche. It numbers about 50 million records. This will also cover several CD-ROM disks and again will be released by regions as they can be manufactured. Finally, for years researchers have had access to the International Genealogical Index (IGI), a listing of more that 280 million records of christenings, births and marriages from around the world. However, even more records have been extracted than what shows up on the IGI, and those additional records are going to be released as part of the Vital Records Index. This new Index will contain about 25 million records of christenings, births, and marriages for different parts of the world. Again, these will be available for purchase To the Family History Department of the LDS Church: I believe that all genealogists say "Thank you." We appreciate your making this information available. We especially appreciate the fact that we can purchase these CD-ROM disks for very modest prices.
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about the 1851 British Census on CD-ROM. I also mentioned several other new or planned LDS CD-ROM disks that are being offered for sale to the public at very low prices. I wrote, "I am sure the LDS Church will stock this in their supply center in England as well, but I cannot find an address or telephone number for them at the moment." That’s what I get for finishing the newsletter at the last moment. Luckily, several people wrote and gave me the information that I was unable to find. The Family History SourceGuide sells in England for 14.60 Pounds, and the 1851 Census CD-ROM for the counties of Devon, Warwickshire and Norfolk is available for 3.65 Pounds. These prices include packing as well as postage to any address within the U.K. The CD-ROM disks can be obtained from: LDS Distribution Centre Ray Madsen of the LDS Church’s Family History Department also offered some supplemental information about the 1851 British Census Records that I would like to repeat here:
In other words, no further 1851 census extractions are being processed now. You will only be able to obtain the three counties already released.
- More On The Ellis Island History Advisory Committee I wrote last week about the new addition of a respected genealogist to the Ellis Island History Advisory Committee. This week I found out about still another highly-respected genealogist who has been named to the same board: Shirley Langdon Wilcox, President of the U.S. National Genealogical Society, also has been invited to join the History Advisory Committee of The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation. Again, I am delighted. Shirley Wilcox is a demanding professional genealogist who devotes a lot of her time to the improvement of the quality of genealogy research. I have been disappointed in some of the present projects of the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation. Addition of these two experts to the History Advisory Committee apparently signals the beginning of a serious effort to improve the Foundation’s efforts.
- Genealogy Home Pages Invite Rip-Offs? A recent issue of U.S. News and World report had an article written by Margaret Mannix that makes for provocative reading. Ms. Mannix writes:
She also writes "thousands of netizens are unknowingly making it easier for thieves to steal their identities by posting individual home pages, family genealogies, and r_sum_s." One item that she mentions is the fact that many credit card companies protect the privacy of their customers by using the mother’s maiden name as a password. You can quickly see how posting one’s genealogy on the Web helps a con artist bypass that security. If you have an interest in this topic, you may want to read the full article. It is available online at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980511/11mone.htm To be blunt, I think Ms. Mannix’ article overstates the "danger" and is a bit of a sensationalist article written for the popular press. However, the "dangers" she describes should not be dismissed too quickly. Credit card thieves and other rip-off artists were successfully obtaining the personal information of unsuspecting victims long before the invention of the World Wide Web. But why make it even easier for them? Posting personal information about yourself or your living relatives invites problems. I will offer another viewpoint of genealogy home pages. The ability to search on the Web for a surname or even a full name of an ancestor has revolutionized genealogy research. You and I can now quickly and easily find researchers who have already done research and probably made discoveries that we wish to make. This often reduces wasted time and effort. I would never suggest that we go back to the pre-Web "dark ages" of five or ten years ago when genealogists labored in isolation. One thing that really disturbs me is to see personal information about individuals who are probably still alive today. The article by Margaret Mannix describes some pitfalls, but I suspect there are even more problems than what she described. Did the person who publishes the information have permission from every living person so identified? If not, the owner of the home page may encounter legal problems. An angry relative might even sue him or her. In fact, if someone’s credit information is illegally misused because a distant relative negligently made personal information available to a con artist, isn’t there a legal responsibility of the person who published that information? Whether that lawsuit would ever be successful in the courts is anybody’s guess. Even if there is no lawsuit, isn’t there a moral issue involved? Many people do not want their names, much less their birthdates and relatives, listed for everyone to see on the World Wide Web. I believe there is a very simple solution to the privacy issues as well as the possibility of credit card fraud: don’t publish any information on the World Wide Web about any living individual unless you have permission in writing from that person. Period. Publishing information about someone who lived 100 years ago or 300 years ago is a service to other genealogists and may help you wrap up a few "loose ends" here and there. But in 99.999% of the cases I can think of, publishing personal information about a 50-year-old never results in uncovering new ancestors. I will concede that there are a few exceptions, especially in adoption situations and when there are long-lost relatives. But I would also suggest that the risk of publishing personal information about living individuals outweighs the advantages. So how do you make a determination if a particular person is alive or not? Simple. Unless you have personal knowledge otherwise, always assume that any person born within the past 100 years is still living. Some people might argue that we should use the 72-year rule in the same manner as the U.S. National Archives. But that number is based upon averages, and 50% of the time it is wrong. I suspect that a con artist can rip off a 75-year-old at least as easily as a 25-year-old. Using a number of 100 years seems to make better sense to make sure we do the right thing for everyone. What happens if you accidentally include information about a 101-year-old who is still living? My experience indicates that most people over the age of 100 do not mind a bit of publicity about their longevity. Most of the better genealogy programs that automatically generate personal web pages in HTML format also have an option to omit information about living people or people born after a certain date. Use that filter. If your genealogy program doesn’t have that option, ask the producers of that program why it is missing. Or upgrade to a better program. After all, you are solely responsible for the information in your Web pages.
- Are You A "Trash Genealogist"? While I am ranting and raving about genealogy home pages, I’ll describe another "problem." This problem has existed for hundreds of years on paper. In more recent years the problem has spread to the International Genealogical Index, the Ancestral File and, more recently, to many CD-ROM disks containing collections of family trees submitted by some company’s customers. However, the recent proliferation of personal Web pages has magnified the issue still further. I can go to almost any Internet search engine today and within a very few minutes find hundreds of "genealogy fairy tales" online. I can find claims of births in Massachusetts or Virginia in the 1500s or in Utah in the 1700s. Time and time again, I see claims that a girl gave birth at the age of three or perhaps at the age of seventy-three. Twelve-year-old fathers also are common in online genealogy home pages. Doesn’t anyone ever check this stuff? Please use the "sanity checks" built into the better genealogy programs! The exact name of this feature may vary from one program to another, but all the better genealogy programs have the capability to find suspicious data within a database. These built-in quality checks will quickly identify questionable data, such as very young girls or elderly women giving birth. If your program identifies such data, examine the evidence closely. Do you really believe it? And do you really want to put that information on the World Wide Web or on some genealogy CD-ROM with your name listed as the person who supplied this questionable data? If you place genealogy fairy tales on the Web or elsewhere, are you labeling yourself as a "trash genealogist?" Please remember the three most important words in genealogy: "verify, verify, verify…"
The Upcoming Events section of the newsletter is published once per month. Each event will be listed very briefly: title, date(s) and location, all followed by either an e-mail address or a Web page that you can use to obtain more information. Since detailed information is available via e-mail or the Web, I will not list the details in this newsletter. If you do contact any of these organizations, please tell them where you heard about the event. Here are the listings, arranged by date:
If you would like to see your event listed, send an e-mail to: meetings@rootscomputing.com. You must include either a Web page that gives details or an e-mail address for the organization or for someone within the organization who is willing to supply the meeting details upon request. Please limit your listings to events where you expect 100 or more people to attend. 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. 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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