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Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
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Announcement: The Best Genealogy Site on the Web |
| November 28, 1998 |
- Announcement: The Best Genealogy Site on the Web Three weeks ago in this newsletter I announced the second annual "readers’ choice" award for the title of "best genealogy site on the World Wide Web." Readers of this newsletter were invited to send an e-mail to an address that automatically collected the votes. 953 votes were received over the following two and one-half weeks; those votes have now been counted. The readers of this newsletter have awarded the title of "best genealogy site on the World Wide Web" to:
This is a repeat for Cyndi’s List. The same site won the "Readers’ Choice Award" last year. For anyone who is not yet familiar with this site, you might want to take a look at it. The homepage says, "Over 38,500 links, categorized & cross-referenced, in over 90 categories." In short, this is a huge "list of genealogy links" that is maintained by Cyndi Howells. It has pointers to all sorts of genealogy information on the Web.
Congratulations to Cyndi Howells for a job well done. Obviously many genealogists appreciate her hard work. The site also has the right to announce the winning of the award anywhere on the website.
- Other Great Genealogy Sites on the Web While only one site can claim the title of having the most votes cast for the Readers’ Choice Award, there are many other great genealogy-related sites on the World Wide Web. All of these deserve an honorable mention; they all have great information and have gathered enthusiasts. Here is a list of other sites that received a lot of votes in this poll:
The above sites represent the ones that received the most votes. I was very pleased to see two sites mentioned that focus on very small geographic areas. Normally site-specific sites like that do not attract many votes. The fact that the Tri-County Genealogy Site and the Luzern Co. (Pennsylvania) Website each received a large number of votes is a testimonial to the great service those sites provide. There were many other worthwhile sites also mentioned in the voting -- too many to list here. All in all, it is nice to see genealogy so well supported on the World Wide Web.
My congratulations to Erin Livingstone for submitting the winning design. Erin will receive a check for $100. The winning logo can be seen at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roots/bestlogo.jpg
- Early Vital Records of Middlesex County, Massachusetts on CD-ROM Search & Research Publishing Corporation has just released another CD-ROM disc in an ongoing series. The latest edition contains the "Early Vital Records of Middlesex County, Massachusetts to about 1850." The information on the disc is taken from the Mayflower Descendant Magazine, the Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850 "Official Series", and other town and private records. This particular CD-ROM disc contains images of every page in the original books plus a searchable index. You can find a name in the index, click on it, and then view an image of the actual page is displayed on your screen. All of the CD-ROM discs from Search & Research Publishing Corporation operate on Macintosh, Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98 and Windows NT systems. I tested this disc on a Windows NT system with 128 megabytes of memory. However, operation should be quite similar on Macintosh and other Windows systems as well. I am particularly interested in Middlesex County. While I only have a few ancestors from that area, I did live in the county for seventeen years. Not only was I interested in looking for my ancestors, but I also thought perhaps I could find a few more for some of my friends in the area. Many of the early family names of Middlesex County are still found in the area today. The "Early Vital Records of Middlesex County, Massachusetts to about 1850" uses Folio Views search software, one of my favorites. It installed in about 15 seconds. I clicked on the newly created icon and was searching for information in less than a minute after opening the CD-ROM jewel case. Admittedly, I have used other Search & Research Publishing Corporation CD-ROM discs in the past, so I was able to breeze past the introductory instructions. Anyone using one of these discs for the first time will probably want to read a bit before diving in. A slim, 16-page printed user’s guide is included with the CD-ROM disc. A lot more information is available electronically from the help files on the CD-ROM disc. As usual, I clicked on the QUERY icon and then entered my own surname. The software found 33 occurrences of the name in the index. I clicked on the first one and found an image displayed on the screen. It was page 71 from the book "Vital Records of Arlington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849 – Arlington Marriages." I quickly found a reference on that page indicating that Jonathan Eastman of Concord married Esther Johnson of Arlington on September 15, 1776. I kept clicking on the "Next" icon and found reference after reference. I found marriage and birth records for people of my surname in Arlington, Boxborough, Westford, Weston, Woburn and other towns in Middlesex County. In each case, I was looking at an image of the actual page as printed in the old books that have been standard genealogy research tools for many years. These are not original sources; they are a collection of printed secondary sources. However, experience has shown that these secondary sources have a very low error rate. Nonetheless, you still will always want to rent a microfilm copy of the original records to insure that you have the right person and that the data was accurately transcribed into these books. Printing a page from the CD-ROM was very easy: simply select FILE from the pull-down menus and then select PRINT. A few seconds later a high-quality image of the original page was on my laser printer. In fact, the images seemed oversized. I have looked at the original books in years past, and the oversized copies produced on my laser printer seem easier to read than the original books. Of course, this particular CD-ROM contains 19,000 pages, so I don’t think I will ever print all of them! In addition, I was not able to copy the images to the Windows Clipboard for later use in other programs. The search I described is a simple one of looking for one surname. The Folio Views software is very sophisticated, allowing for full Boolean searches. You can specify a search of EASTM?N in which the question mark is a "wildcard." Such a search would find both EASTMAN and EASTMEN entries. Similarly, a search for EAST* would find entries for East, Eastman, Eastmond, Easton, Easterly, etc. Many other options are available, such as search for combinations of words or even occurrences of words that are not accompanied by other words nearby. However, keep in mind that you are only searching the index, not the words on the scanned images. The more sophisticated search capabilities are probably of limited use when you are only searching an index. The Folio Views software also allows you to attach "sticky notes" to any page on the CD-ROM disc. You can take notes indicating such things as "my great-great-great-grandfather" or "contradicts the U.S. census records" or whatever else you wish. The notes then appear to be included on the CD-ROM data although obviously you cannot write to this CD-ROM. In fact, the notes are stored on your local hard drive and then automatically displayed any time you return to that particular page. Should you later move the CD-ROM disc to another computer, the "sticky notes" will not transfer. The bottom line is that this is high-quality genealogy information packaged in an easy-to-use format. The disc is "freestanding." That is, it contains all the software you need right on the CD-ROM disc itself, for both Windows and Macintosh. You do not need any other external programs to use this CD-ROM disc, other than your operating system. If you are researching ancestors in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, prior to 1850, you will find this to be a very useful CD-ROM disc. It is a bit expensive at $99.95, however. You might want to see if your local genealogy society would like to purchase the disc. This is one disc in an ongoing effort to digitize all the vital records of Massachusetts prior to 1850 or so. The other discs retail for $19.95 to $99.95, depending upon the number of pages contained on each disc. For more information about these CD-ROM discs, look at: http://www.quikpage.com/S/srpc/
GENTECH is the leading organization involved in coordinating the use of high technology for genealogy efforts. GENTECH is a nonprofit organization that is staffed by volunteers. They are looking for one more person, as indicated in their announcement this week:
By 1 May 1999, present a draft plan, including a proposed budget and initial "GENTECH Archiving Policy Statement" to the Secretary for approval at the GENTECH Board meeting of 12 May 99. By 31 Dec 1999, conduct an inventory, which would include an appeal to past and present volunteers for copies or originals of what they have at home. During the period Jan to Dec 2000, collect documents and digital files and catalog by categories which may include each GENTECH Conference, Getting GENTECH Started, Special Efforts, Technology Committee, Board & Committee Minutes, Financial Records, etc. By 1 July 2000, locate a repository for permanent storage. By 31 Dec 2000 consolidate appropriate records in the permanent storage repository. By 31 Dec 2000, develop permanent policies to continue the archiving effort. By the first day of each quarter, report on progress to the Secretary. (optional) As time permits, develop and publish articles on the project to assist other organizations, especially genealogical societies, in their archiving efforts.
I was pleased to see another e-mail newsletter appear this week: The Feudal Herald is billed as an "Online Newsletter from the Baronage Press." This English company is well known as one that provides high-quality information and educational services about heraldry. If you are not familiar with the word "heraldry," it refers to coats of arms and other armorial designs. The Baronage Press is also very active in exposing the "bucketshops" -- those scam artists who claim to sell you a copy of your so-called family coat of arms. Instead, the Baronage Press presents high-quality information that has been carefully researched.
The table of contents in the first edition lists the following articles: A Welcome and an Explanation Our Purpose Classical Heraldry Today Diana's Heraldry The Constitution Scams - Bucketshops Online Descendants of "Braveheart" Growth in Genealogical Activity JAG-1: Heraldry and Titles Heraldic Badges Looking Around: The Burlington Arcade Pegasus Armorie Heraldic homepages Our Sponsors and Advertisers You can read the Feudal Herald online at: http://www.baronage.co.uk/nl/nl-01-01.htm To have the Feudal Herald automatically delivered to your e-mail address, send an e-mail message to: The message title is of no importance. The first line of the message text must be: "subscribe feudalherald" followed with your first and last names. For example, if your name is John Smith, your message would read:
(Note the use of lower case.) Nothing else should be included in the message text. It’s nice to see more and more e-mail newsletters appear. I hope the folks at the Baronage Press have a runaway success with this one.
- Online Biographical Directory of the US Congress Do you have a politician in your family tree? If he or she served in Congress, you might want to look at the biography server at the United States Congress. It contains information on every person who has served in the U.S. Congress. Users can search by name, position or state; the current database includes information on 1,774 people.
To access the biography server at the United States Congress, look at: http://bioguide.congress.gov My thanks to Gene Vogt for telling me about the biography server.
- Largest Donation Ever to a U.S. Library Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, are donating $20 million to the Seattle Public Library. This is the biggest single gift to a U.S. public library ever. "This gift will ensure that the Seattle Public Library continues to connect people with the information they need," Melinda Gates said in a statement. Bill Gates is the richest man in America and possibly the world. He has been criticized in the past for a lack of charity. However, in recent years he has donated many millions of dollars to worthy causes. There is no word yet on how the Seattle Public Library will use the twenty million dollars.
The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web homepages that have been listed recently on http://www.rootscomputing.com. Some of these sites may charge a fee for their services:
To submit your homepage 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.
If you would like to submit news, information or press releases for possible inclusion in future newsletters, send them to roots@compuserve.com. The author does reserve the right to accept or reject any articles submitted.
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: While 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 redistribute articles from this newsletter to other parties provided you do so strictly for noncommercial purposes. Please limit your redistribution to one or two articles per news letter; do not redistribute the news letter in its entirety. Also, please include the following words with any articles you redistribute:
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In conjunction with the "Best Genealogy Site on the World Wide Web" contest, I also announced another contest: the design of a logo that the contest winner could display on their website. More than 30 proposed logos were submitted and all of them look good. One logo stood out as the most pleasing appearance and very good use of a small space.
