Member Login | My Account | Guest Registry

Getting Started | Learning Center | Reference | Publications | Articles & Columns

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE:

Greetings from Hong Kong Everton’s Roots Cellar 1640-1990 on CD-ROM Tanguay Dictionary on CD-ROM A Threat to Record Access homepages Not Highlighted

October 19, 1998

- Greetings from Hong Kong This week’s newsletter was written partially at home, partially on board Cathay Pacific Airlines, and finally, in a hotel room in Kowloon, Hong Kong. This is a vacation and my first trip to Hong Kong and Macau in thirteen years. On my last visit, Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony and Macau was a Portuguese colony. Today Hong Kong has reverted to control by the Peoples Republic of China, and Macau is in the process of doing the same by 1999. Both of the former colonies are called "Special Administrative Regions" and will slowly be integrated into Communist China’s method of government. I also spent a year on the Chinese mainland in the early 1980s, so I was curious to see how many changes the mainland government had made to the two former colonies. I can report that there are very few changes that are visible to the Western visitor. Freedom of the press is still in force; the local English-language newspaper still has articles that are critical of Beijing’s human rights record. Also, there is a hunger strike action by a number of individuals at the Kowloon entrance to the Star Ferry, a few hundred yards from where I am sitting. That hunger strike is two or three days old now; the police would have closed down such a strike on the mainland within hours. On a genealogy-related note, I found a fascinating Chinese cemetery overlooking the new airport in Macau. Thousands of graves cover the hillside; many of them are ornate and even have pictures of the deceased. The cemetery seems crowded as the markers and tombs are wedged close together, yet the cemetery has many places to sit and relax. Gravesites often have various statues; Chinese dragons are quite common. Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Christian symbols are intermixed up and down the steep terraces in a patchwork of brightly colored tiles and lavish decorations. Many of the graves have pots or altars for visitors to burn incense. This is an interesting place for the foreigner who is not familiar with Chinese burial customs. Despite the travels and sightseeing, I have had a chance to look at a couple of new genealogy CD-ROM discs this week and will describe them. In addition, the Archivist of the United States has written a letter that will interest many genealogists. So I will write about those, post this newsletter and then head to the airport soon for another 19 ½ hours in the air as I return home.  -Everton’s Roots Cellar 1640-1990 on CD-ROM Everton Publishers has been producing genealogy books and magazines for more than fifty years. They are best known for Everton’s Genealogical Helper, a bimonthly magazine with more than 50,000 subscribers. Every edition of the magazine includes genealogical queries, letters to the magazine asking, "Who were the parents of …" and similar queries. In later years these were referred to as Everton's Computerized "Roots" Cellar. Everton’s has now created a CD-ROM disc with all the queries from the Computerized Roots Cellar. Everton’s Roots Cellar 1640-1990 is an alphabetical listing of more than 200,000 individuals who were the subjects of queries. I had a chance to use the Roots Cellar CD-ROM last week. The CD-ROM itself is a joint effort between Everton’s and Broderbund, makers of Family Tree Maker. The front label on the CD-ROM jewel case credits Everton’s, but the label on the back of the case clearly identifies it as produced by Broderbund. The same back label says that the CD-ROM disc requires Family Tree Maker (for Windows or for Macintosh) or Family Archive Viewer for Windows. Version 3.02 or later of any those programs can be used. I used Family Tree Maker version 5.0 for Windows. Quoting from the introduction to the CD-ROM: Everton's Computerized "Roots" Cellar is an electronic database of family history queries. The purpose of a query is to find information on ancestors by making contact with other researchers seeking information on the same family lines. This Family Archive includes information taken from queries originally collected by Everton Publishers and published in "Everton's Genealogical Helper Magazine." The name of the individual who was the subject of a query is indexed on this Family Archive. From this Family Archive, you can learn about an event in each listed individual's life. Information includes the individual's full name as well as an event type (such as birth or death), date of that event, and location of the event. You can also learn the name and address of the person who contributed the original query to Everton Publishers. With this information, you can contact the contributor and obtain or exchange even more detailed family history information. Each record in the database includes: Name -- the individual's given name and surname, as well as any titles that were included in the original index. Event -- the type of event referenced in the family history query. If an event is marked "Unknown," Everton Publishers did not provide information about the specific family history event to Broderbund. However, in such cases, it is safe to assume that the individual resided in the location noted during the year noted. Date -- the year in which the event occurred. Locality -- the city or county in which the event took place. State/Country -- state or country in which the event took place. The CD-ROM is very easy to use. First I launched Family Tree Maker; next I selected VIEW and then selected FAMILYFINDER. After a copyright screen, the data appeared in the form of a book with tabs down the right side, labeled Introduction, Contents and Records. After reading the Introduction, I jumped directly into Records. All 300,000 records are listed alphabetically on one screen. However, you can type in a surname followed by an optional first name and the display jumps to that listing almost immediately. If that exact listing is not in the database, the closest listing is displayed. I searched for my own surname and found quite a few entries. Here is a typical record showing the information available: Eastman, Enoch Event : Died Year : 1829 Locality : Bennington State/Country : Vermont Submitter : Mary Jo A. Robertson Street 1 : 32 Westbury St. City : Thousand Oaks State / Country : CA Zip : 91360 In this case, Mary Jo A. Robertson is looking for more information about Enoch Eastman, who died in Bennington, Vermont in 1829. Ms. Robertson’s address is provided so that you may contact her directly. This database is very simple but also very effective at finding others who are researching the same lines that you are. You can copy a record from the CD-ROM to the Windows Clipboard and then insert it into another program, such as a word processor. That’s how I copied the above entry. This capability can also be used when writing letters to the submitter. You can copy just one record, or you can click on any number of individual records to "select" them and then copy all of the selected records at once. You can also print them to paper in the same manner. The Everton’s Roots Cellar CD-ROM software also has the capability of copying the data directly to a Family Tree Maker database. I wouldn’t recommend copying the data to your main database without verifying the integrity of the data. However, you might want to keep a separate database of "information that I am looking for." If so, copying the record to that secondary database can be very useful. Everton’s Roots Cellar 1640-1990 is available from Everton’s, from Broderbund, and from many of their dealers. It is Everton CD#18 and sells for $19.95 U.S. funds. For more information, look at: http://www.everton.com or http://www.familytreemaker.com/018facd.html - Tanguay Dictionary on CD-ROM If you have French-Canadian ancestry and you have already spent some time researching old genealogy records, you probably already know about Tanguay’s Dictionary. The proper title is "Dictionnaire Genealogique des Familles Canadiennes." Abbe Cyprien Tanguay searched every known parish register in Quebec province and accumulated more than 250,000 acts of baptism and marriage. He published all these records in seven volumes containing 4,400 pages about 100 years ago. These seven volumes are still one of the standard references of French-Canadian genealogy. Volume One covers the years 1608 through 1700. Volumes Two through Seven cover the years 1701 through 1760. A few families are continued through 1800, and a very few are even covered up to 1880. As you might guess from the title, all the volumes are in French. However, an English speaker will still be able to read most of the information with only an occasional glance at a French-to-English dictionary. Quintin Publications has scanned each and every page of the original seven volumes of Tanguay’s Dictionary and has placed the images on a CD-ROM disc that is now available. You can purchase the CD-ROM for a lot less money than the printed volumes, and, of course, you can save that shelf space in your bookcase for other books. The Tanguay Dictionary on CD-ROM uses Adobe Acrobat as its "search engine." The CD-ROM contains 16-bit software for Windows 3.1 as well as 32-bit software for Windows 95, 98 and NT. The same disc should work on a Macintosh although the Mac version of Acrobat is not included on the disc itself. You can download the latest version of the Acrobat reader at no charge from Adobe’s website. I tested the CD-ROM on a Windows NT system. As implemented on this CD-ROM, the software is extremely easy to use. Once loaded, a small "Table of Contents" appears on the left of the screen and the data itself is displayed to the right. If you wish, you can hide the Table of Contents and devote the entire screen to data display. The first item in the Table of Contents is a small tutorial on how to use the software. It also gives a brief description of the information found in the Tanguay Dictionary. Following this are 7 more items in the Table of Contents, one for each of the original printed volumes. Each page of each volume is included as a scanned image, not as text. In other words, you will be looking at pictures of the original books. I clicked on "Volume 3 Cha to Ezi" and went looking for any records for the Dube family, one of my surnames of interest. The first page displayed started with an entry for Charbonneau, so I knew I had to jump forward many pages. I clicked on "Volume 3 Cha to Ezi" a second time and a sub-menu appeared, breaking the book into different sections. I clicked on "DU" to find surnames beginning with those two letters, which first displayed data for DuBarry. A few pages beyond that I found listings for many of my Dube ancestors. If you already know the page number, you can jump directly to any page by using the menus. In my case I didn’t know the page numbers, so I had to do a bit of searching. Although I did have to click on "Next Page" a number of times, it only required a few seconds to find the information I was seeking. Since all the data is contained as image files, you cannot cut and paste text into a word processing document or any other programs. In fact, I found that I couldn’t even cut and paste the image. However, I was able to print the entire page, and it looked very good on my laser printer. I have a filing cabinet that contains a few hundred photocopies of various pages from Tanguay’s Dictionary, which I made several years ago at the American-Canadian Genealogical Society’s library. The copies that I printed on my printer this week look better than the photocopies I made some years ago. Quintin Publications has also released another CD-ROM disc, called "Corrections and Additions to Tanguay Dictionary." In French, it is called "Complement au Dictionnaire Genealogique Tanguay." This book by Leboeuf, J. Arthur when printed contained 642 pages of corrections and additions to Tanguay’s work. It mainly corrects marriage dates when Tanguay was guessing. Much of the new material was included from the Notarial Records, which Tanguay did not use. This second CD-ROM also contains scanned images of the printed book of corrections. I would strongly suggest that anyone purchasing the Tanguay Dictionary also should purchase the disc of corrections. Quintin Publications sells printed copies of these books as well as the CD-ROM versions. The printed version of "Tanguay Dictionary" costs $275.00 U.S. funds, but the CD-ROM version costs only $79.95. The printed version of "Corrections and Additions to Tanguay Dictionary" costs $38.95, but you can purchase the exact same thing on a CD-ROM disc for $29.95. Either way, you do have to add a bit more for shipping charges. For more information about these two excellent CD-ROMs of French-Canadian genealogy material, look at: http://www.quintinpublications.com - A Threat to Record Access At first glance, the following letter would seem to be concerned with a topic that is not very important to genealogists. However, easy access to government records should be an important issue for all researchers, be they genealogists, historians, scientists, or anyone else who seeks information from the U.S. Government. I would suggest that you read it carefully: National Archives 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740-6001 July 14, 1998 Mr. James C. Murr Assistant Director for Legislative Reference Executive Office of the President Office of Management and Budget Washington, D.C. 20503-0001 ATTN: Robert J. Nassif RE: LRM ID: RJN354 ENERGY Conference Document (staff level appeals) on HR 3616 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 1999 Dear Mr. Murr: Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Department of Energy conference document on H.R. 3616, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, on the issue of Inspection of Permanent Records Prior to Declassification, Senate Section 3146. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) vehemently opposes this proposed language. The provision will serve to bring cost-effective declassification to a halt, and essentially gut the most critical provision of Executive Order 12958, "Classified National Security Information," which represents the administration's policy on declassification. Passage of this provision would, in effect, completely nullify E.O. 12958 and place a tremendous declassification review resource burden on all agencies, not simply DOE. Comparatively few classified files outside the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and limited units of the Department of Defense have any likelihood whatsoever of containing Restricted Data (RD) or Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) under the Atomic Energy Act. Experience should be the guiding force, not some unreasonable blanket rule. Agencies have learned and practiced how to anticipate and review these files. For example, agencies should not be required to "eyeball" every page of a box of classified documents dealing with the procurement of combat boots during World War II, nor the millions of other boxes that are just as unlikely to contain RD and FRD. To require that every classified document in any file be reviewed visually for RD and FRD would be prohibitive in terms of resources. As we attempt to institute risk management principles into our security classification system, such a requirement would be more retrogressive than has ever been practiced since declassification efforts began in earnest in 1972. Without this requirement in the past, there is no evidence that declassification has had any effect on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In NARA, alone, there are over 495 million pages that would require page-by-page examination to identify the RD and FRD for review by DOE. NARA does not have the resources to carry out such a review, even if not constrained by the deadline for automatic declassification imposed by E.O. 12958. New classified records will be accessioned at a rate faster than NARA staff can review them. This could result in large amounts of records being automatically declassified under the terms of the Executive Order without any examination whatsoever, possibly leading to the declassification of sensitive information other than RD or FRD. Additionally, vast amounts of declassified records that are not RD or FRD would be indefinitely withheld from release, while the records are screened for RD or FRD. This would prompt an increase in FOIA requests by researchers trying to gain access to records, release of which is delayed by the need to screen every page. NARA recognizes the importance of protecting RD and FRD information, but believes that this provision is unnecessarily strict. The majority of records series do not contain RD or FRD and it would be a waste of time and resources to screen these files for the possible misfiled document. We would strongly advocate that a risk assessment approach that combines a survey to identify those records series containing potentially exempt information with page-by-page review of only those series so identified is the most cost effective approach. It is also the approach that offers the best means of protecting all sensitive information, not just RD and FRD, while still acting within the spirit of E.O. 12958 to release information as quickly as possible and eliminate the backlog of unnecessarily classified information. Thank you for the opportunity to comment, and if you have any further questions, please contact John Constance, NARA's Director of Congressional Affairs at (301)713-7340. Sincerely, [signed] JOHN W. CARLIN Archivist of the United States If you have an opinion on this issue, you might let your elected representatives know what your thoughts are.  - Homepages Not Highlighted Adding new Web pages to the newsletter is a bit difficult when I am traveling. I’ll skip it this week and add a double listing in the next newsletter. 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. To submit your new genealogy-related 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 newsletter; do not redistribute the news letter in its entirety. Also, please include the following words with any articles you redistribute: The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 1997 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Incorporated. It is republished here with the permission of the author. Thank you for your cooperation. Subscription information: To subscribe to this free newsletter, send an e-mail message to the following address: listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com The message title is unimportant. The first line of text in the message must have the words SUBSCRIBE ROOTSCOMPUTING followed by your first and last names. For instance, if your name is Jane Doe, you would write a message of: subscribe rootscomputing Jane Doe That is the entire message; nothing else should be in the message text. To cancel an existing subscription, send an e-mail to: listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com The message title is unimportant. The text of the message must be exactly: signoff rootscomputing Please note that the address of listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com is an "e-mail robot" and messages sent to that address are only read by a computer. If you send any more text in the message, it will be ignored. If you want to see the current issue as well as back issues of the newsletter, look on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/index.htm Please feel free to copy this subscription information and pass it on to anyone else who you think might be interested in obtaining a free subscription.

Copyright 1998, 1999, Ancestry.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement