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Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
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Halbert’s Is Going Out of Business |
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| September 14, 1999 |
- Halbert’s Is Going Out of Business Halbert’s is closing down. The company blames "competition from the Internet" as the reason for their business problems. Cendant of Parsippany, N.J., the parent company of NUMA and Halbert’s, announced this week that the publisher of pseudo-genealogy "books" will cease operations on Sept. 30, 1999. I wrote in the June 8, 1999 edition of this newsletter (http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastjune08-99.htm) that Cendant was trying to sell Halbert’s and all other divisions of NUMA. Apparently Cendant was unable to find a buyer. Halbert’s is infamous for its mass produced "books" which claim to offer genealogy information about your surname but, in fact, deliver simple listings gleaned from telephone directories and other sources of public domain information. For years Halbert’s sent thousands of ads weekly for the "New World Book of (your surname)." For instance, in the ads sent to me, the book would be called the "New World Book of Eastmans." If your last name is Smith, then you would receive an advertisement for the "New World Book of Smiths." The advertisement would bear the signature of a fictitious person with the same last name as yours. Halbert’s has been well known in the genealogy world for years. Most major genealogy societies have issued repeated warnings to their members to not waste money on these "books." Halbert’s always used a Bath, Ohio mailing address. However, when I visited Bath last year (http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastAug31-98.htm), I was unable to find the company in the building they use as a return address. Halbert’s also has been in court several times to answer charges lodged by the U.S. Postal Service. The court documents always listed Halbert’s as a subsidiary of the NUMA Corporation of 1566 Akron Peninsula Rd, Akron, Ohio. That address is a few miles from Bath, Ohio. NUMA/Halbert’s stopped marketing in August and will end operations Sept. 30, according to Elliott Bloom, spokesman for Cendant. Bloom said all orders will be filled, and the 70 employees will be given severance pay. "The shutdown is related to a weakness, largely the result of consumers having access to a greater amount of general data on the Internet," Bloom said. "The product has really run its course as far as viability, so the best course of action was to close the business." I suspect the standards set by the genealogy community at large contributed to this announcement. My congratulations to all of you who insist on quality in your genealogy purchases. - Toronto City Directories Online The Toronto Public Library now has a searchable database containing the York Minutes and York/Toronto City Directories Collection (YTCD). Quoting from the website: This collection includes the York, Upper Canada, Minutes of Town Meetings and Lists of Inhabitants, 1797-1823, the York Directory, 1833-34, and volumes of the Toronto City Directory up to and including 1900. The entire collection totals 49 volumes, or some 38,000 pages. To date, 16 volumes of the collection have been scanned including the York, Upper Canada, Minutes volume, the York Directory and the Toronto City Directory volumes up to and including 1870. The scanned images were converted to text, which was then used to create full-text indexing of the directories. The covers of directories that still have their original covers (with text and/or design work) were also scanned. The York, Upper Canada, Minutes of Town Meetings and Lists of Inhabitants (1797-1823) volume is a transcription published in 1984 (the original handwritten volume covering 1797-1823 has not yet been digitized). The accompanying annual Lists of Inhabitants are the first lists of residents of the area that became Toronto. They were prepared by a succession of town clerks, with varying degrees of accuracy and thoroughness. They are more like a census than a directory, listing the number of people in each family, but not the address. Only the (male) heads of families are listed by name. The lists were not intended for publication, and are not in alphabetical order. The 1984 transcription provides a name index. The York Directory, 1833-34 and Toronto Directory (1837-1900 inclusive) volumes are commercial city directories. The first Toronto (i.e. York) directory was published in 1833. This was followed by editions in 1837, 1843, 1846, 1850, 1856, and 1859. After 1860, publishers attempted to provide complete yearly coverage. These publications attempted to list all the adult inhabitants (usually males only) of a defined geographical area. In addition, a large variety of other information was supplied such as listings for addresses, businesses, civic officials and institutions, as well as population statistics. The directories were a means of advertising and marketing within the community. These directories can be used to locate a person within a given time period and place, to study the urban expansion of an area, to trace the development of a business and to determine the history of a building. I did a search of the combined databases for my own last name and found 15 occurrences. Each "hit" displayed the name of the volume where the information was found. I clicked on icons near each occurrence and found myself looking at digitized images of the original pages. I even printed copies of the original pages on my own printer. These are primary records of genealogy information available in original format, searchable from your own home. That’s great stuff. To search the Toronto City Directories, go to: http://digit.mtrl.toronto.on.ca:8080 My thanks to John D. Reid for telling me about this valuable resource. - Getting the Most Out of Family Origins Two weeks ago I wrote about the latest release of Family Origins, a powerful yet low-cost genealogy program that is very easy to use. (You can read that article at: http://www.ancestry.com/columns/eastman/eastaug31-99.htm.) Family Origins 8.0 is written by Bruce Buzbee and sold by Parsons Technology. This week I had a chance to read a book written by Bruce Buzbee: "Getting the Most Out of Family Origins – Third Edition." This 229-page paperback is full of information, hints, suggestions, and screen shots. It seems to detail every aspect of the program. Not only does the book describe how to use the program in the normal manner, but it also describes "workarounds" and "back door methods" of accomplishing tasks that are not available in the menus. For instance, here is one such hint: Although Family Origins doesn’t actually provide comparisons that tell whether a person has a particular fact or not (for example, finding people who do or do not have a death fact), it is possible to do so with a little trickery. For example, to find every person that has a birth fact entered (no matter what the date and place contain), enter the criteria "Birth place CONTAINS" but leave the "Search for" field blank. Likewise, to find every person that does not have a birth fact entered, use the criteria "Birth place DOES NOT CONTAIN" and again, leave the "Search for" field blank. "Getting the Most Out of Family Origins – Third Edition" has the following chapters and sections: Introduction The book is lavishly illustrated. It seems like almost every page has a picture or a screen shot or a chart to help explain the text on that page. Dedicated Family Origins users will want to see the picture of Bruce’s charming wife Laurie and their five children on page 82. That picture accompanies the description of graphics editing within Family Origins. "Getting the Most Out of Family Origins – Third Edition" is more than a user’s manual; it contains the hints and suggestions of the programmer who wrote the program. Anyone who is serious about using Family Origins will want this book. "Getting the Most Out of Family Origins – Third Edition" costs $14.95 (U.S. funds) plus shipping. Details are available at: http://www.familyorigins.com/fowbook.htm I admit that I love old books and especially old book sales. Of course, old genealogy books are the most sought-after items of all. If you have the same interests, you will be interested to know that the (U.S.) National Genealogical Society’s Library will be selling its fourth and fifth copies of library books from 15-24 September 1999. The sale begins at 10:00 AM (Eastern time) on Wednesday, 15 September. All books and prices will be posted at the NGS website. All orders must be made by telephone, and only credit card orders will be accepted. Call 1-800-473-0060. Phone orders will be accepted from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on business days through Friday, 24 September. Full details are available at: http://www.ngsgenealogy.org - Genealogy Scholarships from Broderbund Broderbund earlier announced that they will award genealogy scholarships this year in the same manner as they have in past years. This week the company issued a clarification: Broderbund Software is accepting applications for its annual scholarship program until September 30, 1999. The scholarships are offered for persons pursuing Accreditation, Certification, or formal education in genealogy. We have received questions about whether scholarships will be given to cover the cost of various genealogy seminars and courses. Our goal is to support the efforts of dedicated genealogists, so we have determined that the following seminars or courses will be accepted: courses administered by the National Genealogical Society or the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and in-depth seminars such as the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. When submitting your application for an education scholarship, please include a photocopy of the description of the seminar or coursework that you will be completing. Complete details about the scholarships can be found online at http://www.Genealogy.com. Here’s a short quote that I found interesting: How popular is online genealogy? According to Nielsen NetRatings, the average visitor to RootsWeb.com spent 41 minutes there in June. Visitors to Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, the Mormon offering, averaged 34 minutes during the month. By comparison, says Nielsen's Peggy O'Neill, the average Internet user spent just 22 minutes on E-mail. "The most time-consuming online activity from a category standpoint is E-mail," she says, "and if you look at the top genealogy sites, they've blown past that." The above came from an article written by Jennifer Godwin and published in Forbes Magazine’s online edition. The article goes on at some length to describe the strength of the genealogy sites, especially in e-commerce. The story describes the success of several major genealogy websites. To read the entire story, look at: http://www.forbes.com/asap/html/99/0820/feat.htm - Reagan Library to Celebrate the Close of 21st Century The entire world seems to be focusing on the calendar change to the year 2000. One major library is looking even further in the future, however. Officials at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation have set their sights on the next 100 years, choosing instead to celebrate the end of the 21st century. In fact, they are now taking reservations for an event that is 100 years away. Talk about early reservations! "We are asking people to take a trip with us and travel through time to a place that exists only in our dreams -- the 21st century," said Mark Burson, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. "We are taking reservations now, but space is limited." Anyone who wants to participate in the library's 21st-century celebration must confirm a reservation by purchasing his or her own Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (R2PF) Millennium Time Capsule. In addition to receiving an archival-quality container that can hold up to 800 separate documents or photos, participants will receive an invitation to the library's 21st-century celebration. For those unable to attend on Jan. 1, 2100, the invitation is transferable to family members or loved ones. "Whether it's family photos, your genealogy, personal keepsakes or your best predictions for the future, what better way to celebrate the close of the 21st century than by taking a look back at how our families and friends celebrated the close of the 20th?" said Burson, adding, "Each participant in this exciting program can rest assured their most treasured memories will rest safely alongside the more than 50 million government records and 100,000-plus artifacts currently housed at the Reagan Library." The R2PF Millennium Time Capsule features a 12-1/4-by-10-1/4-by- 5-inch container, an "Our Wishes for the Future" and "Genealogy" preprinted form and three file folders, all made of archival-quality materials. A certificate of receipt will serve as a reminder to family members of the capsule's existence as well as an invitation to the January 1, 2100, opening celebration. For those who misplace their certificate, the foundation will maintain a record of all participants on its website. For more information, call 805-522-2977. - How Popular Is Your Last Name? We all know that SMITH is the most common name in the United States, right? How popular is your last name? I just found out that EASTMAN ranks as number 1,661 in the list of most popular surnames in the United States. You can check your last name as well at: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/namesearch.html On this day in 1752, absolutely nothing happened in the English-speaking world. That’s because this day didn't exist in 1752. When the English-speaking world decided to adopt the Gregorian Calendar (which we're still using today), all the days between the 3rd and the 14th of September had to be skipped, in order to catch 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: Sefard Forum - Discussion Group for Sephardic Genealogy Research (Jews who are descendants of the former Jews of Spain and Portugal): Condon family and Desmond family from County Cork, Ireland and Cork City, Ireland, respectively: The Wynkoop Genealogy in America, along with family portraits, Bible records and a wide variety of historical sources: The Major Family of Pontycymmer, Swansea (South Wales), Chulmleigh, and the Exeter region of Devon: Lots of New Zealand genealogy: Family history of the Robinson family of Adelaide, South Australia: Rem family and Rem genealogy: Corson / Colson Family History Association (includes variant spellings and different lines of these surnames): Koons family history with Champaign, Darke, and Shelby County, Ohio surnames: Terrell Genealogical Society: Crossnoe, Crossno, Crosnoe, Crosno, Crossnow, Crosnow, or Crossnore family genealogy: Genealogy of Sottiaux families from Belgium: Hundreds of county heritage/genealogy/history books for sale, mostly in the southeastern U.S.: McTague genealogy website: "Voils to Voyles - A Journey in Time" is a site about the descendants of Jacob Voils (circa 1718-1789): 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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