Which Site Is the "Best Genealogy Site on the Web"?
Who has the best genealogy-related World Wide Web site? Do you
have an opinion? If so, you can make your opinion heard in the
fourth annual "Best Genealogy Site on the World Wide Web" award.
You have the opportunity to honor a genealogy Web site with a
"Readers' Choice Award" to be issued by this newsletter. The
readers of this newsletter will pick the site to be named "Best
Genealogy Site on the World Wide Web." This will be the fourth
year that the readers of this newsletter have conferred such an
award. I won't mention who won the award previously, as I don't
want to influence this year's nominations. However, I will mention
them again at the end of this year's elections.
What guidelines are used to define the "Best Genealogy Site on the
World Wide Web"? That is strictly up to you. You can nominate a
site because it is interesting, because it has nice graphics, because it has excellent maps, or because it is full of valuable
genealogy reference materials. I would suggest that you nominate a site because it is the one genealogy Web site you
go back to and visit time and time again. However, even that
guideline is optional. The choice is yours to make. When you cast
your vote, you might write a couple of sentences about why you
think this site is best, although that description is not
absolutely required.
I have set up an "electronic voting machine" that you can use to
cast a vote for this "Best of the Web" award. I have great
confidence in this voting machine; Florida residents will not have
to conduct a recount! You can vote at any time from now until
midnight Eastern Time on 30 November 2000. The voting
machine will then tabulate the results. I will announce the winner
in the December 2 newsletter. The winning World Wide Web site will
then be allowed to mention the award on its Web site. That Web
site also will be entitled to all the fame and notoriety that is
included with this "Online Genealogy Newsletter's Readers' Choice
Award." Enough said!
To cast your vote, you must follow these instructions EXACTLY. A
computer is tabulating the results, not a human being. Computers
are not very good at interpreting what you meant to say; you have
to be precise when talking to a computer. You must enter your vote
in exactly the proper format.
To cast a vote for "Best Genealogy Site on the World Wide Web,"
send an e-mail to:
The subject of the message must contain the full Web site address and nothing else. For instance, the message subject might be:
http://www.rootscomputing.com
p
The message subject (some e-mail programs will say "Message Title" instead of "subject") MUST start with:
Any of the following would be proper message subjects:
http://www.ancestry.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roots/
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dsucha/schuetz.html
http://ynot.netgrp.net/~tursky/
http://homepages.noplace.com/~jsmith
Please list the exact address in the message subject, but do not
add any other words. Do not say, "My vote is . . ." or anything like
that in the subject; simply list the actual URL beginning with the
letters http://. None of the following three examples will work:
www.xyz.com
My vote is for www.xyz.com
My favorite Web site is xyz.com
None of the three previous examples begin with http://, and
therefore the computer program that tabulates the vote will ignore
them.
If you send your vote properly, you will receive a reply
acknowledging the receipt of your nomination.
You are encouraged to tell why you think your favorite site
deserves such an award. You can do so by writing comments in the
body of the e-mail. The automatic vote tally software will ignore
the body text. However, once the votes are tallied, a human will
read all the messages that nominated the winning site and will
look for any comments about that site. Some of those comments may
be published in the December 2 newsletter. By writing text in the
message body, you are giving permission to reprint your name and
comments in this newsletter. If you do not want your words or name
published, please do not write anything in the message body.
If you vote and then later change your mind, simply send in a new
vote in exactly the same manner as the first vote. Your new vote
will automatically replace the earlier one. In other words, you
may vote as often as you like, but only the last vote you send
will be counted. All votes must be received on or before 30 November 2000.
Any Web site that tries to "stack the deck" by creating a method
to have Web visitors automatically send e-mails will be
disqualified. Web sites are encouraged to place a link to this
newsletter article as published on Ancestry.com or to copy this
article in its entirety onto their own Web site. The Web site may
suggest that their users read this article and then cast a vote.
However, if the Web site's software creates the message for the
user, or if the Web site pre-loads a URL into the message subject
of the vote, that site will be disqualified.
In case of disputes, I reserve the right to make final judgment on
the authenticity of any votes.
Again, do not send your vote to my e-mail address or to the
address that sends this newsletter. You must send your vote to:
The message subject line must contain the Web site's complete
address (URL) and must start with:
OK, which site is the "Best Genealogy Site on the Web"? Your vote
counts.
1960 U.S. Census Myths and Facts
For years I have heard stories about the 1960 U.S. Census. The
stories vary a bit, but usually say something like,
"The 1960 U.S. Census was stored on now-obsolete computer media, and there is no longer any equipment to read it. The census data has
been lost because of the change in technology."
I always doubted that story. I was just starting my career in
computers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I remember well
the tape drives of that era. I spent many hours repairing those
half-inch and three-quarter-inch tape drives! I think I still
could disassemble and reassemble a Honeywell 204B-9 half-inch tape
drive while blindfolded. That device was a maze of electronics
(without integrated circuits), disk brakes, a big vacuum pump, and
numerous solenoids. The tape drive weighed several hundred pounds.
I know that half-inch tapes created on those drives in the early
'70s can still be read by the tape drives of today. The tape
drives of the early '60s were in a different format, but I
would still be surprised if the data was entirely lost. However,
it wasn't until Phil Drajeske asked me about the 1960 U.S. Census
story that I decided to investigate.
In the past few weeks I have read several articles and also have
corresponded with David G. Hendricks, a historian at the U.S.
Census Department. Here is what I learned:
The 1960 census returns were microfilmed in 1961 for long-term
storage. In addition to the microfilm, the Census Bureau also
creates many reports from the information obtained in each census.
These reports are mostly demographic in nature. They describe the
ethnic make-up of the U.S. population; they document American
migration patterns and even tell how many bathrooms are in the
average American home.
In 1961, the staff at the Bureau of the Census had access to a
brand-new electronic behemoth known as a "computer." In order to
simplify some of the data analysis that the Census Bureau must
conduct, the staff used the new computer to create the
"microaggregation files" that contain statistical information.
This information had been entered on punch cards in earlier
censuses, but magnetic tape was the storage medium of choice in
the '60s. The Bureau of the Census had the required data
keypunched and then stored on 9,121 reels of magnetic tape: 7,297
reels created with UNIVAC II-A tape drives; 1,678 tapes created
with UNIVAC III-A tape drives, and another 146 magnetic tapes
created on still other brands of tape drives. The reports needed
were generated and printed on paper. Once the reports were
completed, the tapes were placed in storage.
Following consultation with staff of the National Archives in
1975, the Census Bureau created a plan to provide for the
"adequate retention of the 1960 data." The plan specified that
the Census Bureau would copy only 642 reels of tape onto more
modern storage media, at least modern by 1975 industry standards.
The other reels of tape were deemed to be unimportant and of no
long-term value. All of the stories about loss of 1960 Census data
revolves around the 642 reels of tape readable only by UNIVAC II-A
tape drives.
By 1975, the UNIVAC II-A tape drives were obsolete. Despite the
challenge, the Census staff managed to find some old tape drives
still in use that could read the tapes. These old drives were
installed on a computer system that also had newer drives
installed, so a tape conversion seemed simple. By 1979, the Census
Bureau had successfully copied 640 of the 642 II-A tapes onto newer-
format tapes. The two tapes that were not copied were, in fact,
missing. The missing tapes had 7,488 records, or about 0.5 percent
of the total of approximately 1.5 million records on all II-A
tapes that had been identified as having long-term value. Of the
640 tapes that were located, only 1,575 records (or less than 0.2
percent of the total number of valuable records on II-A tapes)
could not be copied because of deterioration.
The bottom line is that 99.3 percent of the 1960 microaggregation data
was saved on modern tape formats and can be read today. Remember,
too, that the findings of the original study had already been
published on paper in the 1960s, and that paper is preserved.
As mentioned earlier, censuses prior to 1960 had the
microaggregation data entered on punch cards. However, those cards
were always thrown away after the studies were completed and
published (on paper). The loss of 0.7 percent of the 1960
microaggregation data files on magnetic tape doesn't seem like
such a big loss. That is still 99.3 percent more data preserved than that
of any earlier census. As historian David G. Hendricks of the U.S.
Census Department wrote to me, "These files performed their
function, and all of the data is available on paper, if not
electronic, form; so none of the information from the 1960 census
has been lost."
All this discussion of magnetic tape really isn't important to
genealogists anyway. All of the microaggregation files on magnetic
tape mentioned here did not have any genealogical value, since there
were no names or street addresses listed. Genealogists should have
no fears about "missing data." The magnetic tapes only stored a
subset of the census data, a subset of no interest to
genealogists.
The original 1960 U.S. Census documents were recorded on
microfilm, and all that microfilm is still in good condition,
locked up at the National Archives. In compliance with U.S. laws,
the complete 1960 U.S. Census documents on microfilm will be
released to the public in the year 2032, 72 years after the
original enumeration. I hope to be around to read those films!
Hearthstone Books to Close
It is with sadness that I report that one of the best-known
genealogy bookstores is closing its doors. According to a recent
advertisement, the Hearthstone Bookshop is closing its retail
location. The ad says:
After 19 years as Washington's only genealogical bookstore,
Hearthstone Bookshop is closing its retail location. To help
say "thank you" to all our loyal customers, we have invited
two local authors to visit our store to sign copies of their
new books and to answer questions about research strategies. At
the same time, we are having a store-wide "Farewell Sale" to
help make your holiday dollars go further. Since the sale is
limited to stock on hand, we encourage you to stop by soon to
pick up any titles you would like to add to your library.
The two local authors mentioned are:
John Colletta, who autographed copies of his new book Only a
Few Bones . . . A True Account of the Rolling Fork Tragedy and
Its Aftermath. Dr. Colletta was at Hearthstone Bookshop on
November 11.
Megan Smolenyak will be signing copies of her new book In
Search of Our Ancestors . . . 101 Inspiring Stories of
Serendipity and Connection in Rediscovering Our Family
History. Ms. Smolenyak will be at Hearthstone Bookshop on
December 2 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Hearthstone Books is at 5735A Telegraph Road, Alexandria,
Virginia, 22303. Telephone 703-960-0086.
6.5 Million Patents Now Online
Did your ancestor ever invent something and receive a patent? If
so, you can probably find out about the patent online. Even
better, you may get a glimpse of the person's interests.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has expanded
its Web database of 2 million patents to include every United
States patent ever issued, a total of more than 6.5 million
patents. The database now offers the public an additional 1.7
terabytes (that's 1,700 gigabytes or 1,700,000 megabytes) of full-
page images for the 4,204,863 U.S. patents issued from 1790 through
1975. Patents issued from 1790 through 1975 are searchable by
patent number and current U.S. patent classification; patents issued
from 1976 to the most recent issue week are searchable by full-
text fields that now include current U.S. classification data. To
facilitate database searches, USPTO's Manual of Classification has
been enhanced to help users find all patents in a particular
category of invention.
"USPTO's database, which is updated weekly with the latest in
patented technology, represents the history of science and
technology that has made the United States economy the strongest
in the world," said Q. Todd Dickinson, Under Secretary of Commerce
for Intellectual Property and director of the United States Patent
and Trademark Office.
USPTO has also added two more database Web servers and has doubled the
available Internet bandwidth to accommodate ever-increasing public
use of the patent database. The agency has added two terabytes of
disk storage to the two terabytes previously allocated for patent
images on the Web.
For more information, see the patent database Web page.
My thanks to Jennifer Godwin for letting me know about this
database.
Only Ten Male European Ancestors?
European men are almost all related to just 10 male ancestors
whose descendents migrated from the East between 6,000 and 40,000
years ago, according to a study released this week. A genetic
study of 1,007 men across Europe and the Middle East found that
95 percent of them could be traced to one of 10 family trees.
Two of these lineages probably migrated from the Middle East to
Europe in separate waves between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago
during the Palaeolithic period. The other eight forefathers
apparently moved to Europe from the Ural Mountains of Central
Asia.
The international team of scientists, led by Ornella Semino, from
Pavia University in Italy collected genetic information from the
Y chromosomes of the men studied. The researchers studied the Y chromosomes of 1,007 men across Europe and the Middle East. Only
men have Y chromosomes, which are passed down virtually unchanged
from father to son. Mutations in the Y chromosome can be used as a
kind of molecular clock, and the researchers found that 95 percent
of the men's genes could be traced to one of 10 categories. "Ten
lineages account for about 95 percent of the 1,007 European Y
chromosomes studied," the researchers wrote.
I still want to see a pedigree chart, however.
Presidential Roots
Remember the old joke that says, "Want to research your family
tree for free? Just become President of the United States." There
is a lot of truth in that statement. This week the wire services
carried several articles about the ancestry of George W. Bush and
of Al Gore.
Of course, 50 percent of George W. Bush's ancestry is that of his father,
and that was already researched when the elder Bush won the
election 12 years ago. The wire services report that the first
Bush to settle in America came from Messing, a small village near
Colchester, Essex, England in the 17th century. This small village
was mentioned in the Domesday Book hundreds of years ago. It
hasn't grown much since then; today Messing has a population of
250 souls. Reynold Bush, the son of a yeoman farmer, emigrated to
America in 1631, building himself a new life in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Historical records show that Bush was a fairly
common name in Messing from 1391 to 1597, with 37 references to
Bushes in church documents. There are no Bushes in Messing these
days, however.
Burke's Peerage suggests that George W. Bush will be the eventual
winner of the contested election. "The candidate with the most
royal blood has always been the victor. Mr. Bush has twice as many
royal connections as Mr. (Al) Gore," said publishing director
Harold Brooks-Baker after concluding genealogical probes into
their backgrounds. "Although never in the history of the United
States have two presidential candidates been endowed with so many
royal connections, our final research proves that Governor Bush
will be President-elect Bush on Nov. 7," he added. Mr. Harold
Brooks-Baker obviously wrote his remarks prior to November 7, and
he didn't forecast the closeness of the Florida vote.
Brooks-Baker reports that George W. Bush is closely related to
every European monarch on and off the throne—from the king of
Albania to Sweden's House of Bernadotte—and has kinship with
every member of Britain's royal family, the House of Windsor. Bush
is the 13th cousin of Britain's queen mother, and his family tree
can be documented as far back as the early 15th century.
Brooks-Baker reports that Al Gore has fewer royal relatives, but
nevertheless his ancestors range from Holy Roman Emperor Otto I to
the royal princes of Hanover.
Al Gore has a strong Irish connection as well. His grandmother was
born in Northern Ireland, and he can trace ancestry to a Swinney
family living in Cork in the mid-18th century. Mr. Gore's second
cousin, the novelist Gore Vidal, has claimed the Gores are
descended from Sir Paul Gore, whose brother was London mayor and
who settled in County Donegal in the late-16th century.
Several Gores sat as members of the Irish parliament before the
Act of Union. One of their descendants was the so-called rebel
countess Constance Gore-Booth, who appeared in a poem by Yeats;
she married a Polish artist and became active in the Irish War of
Independence. A family link between her and Al Gore has been made,
but is tenuous.
Gore's ancestors have also been linked to the side of the Gore
family that once held the Saunderscourt estate, near the village
of Crossabeg, County Wexford. Again, the connection is tenuous. Deeds
dating from 1749 have been found detailing the sale of the 10-
bedroom house and 80 acres of land by a Sir Arthur Gore. Today the
mansion lies in ruins.
Regardless of the outcome of the present recount in Florida, it
looks like the next American president will have royal roots.
Home Pages Highlighted
The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World
Wide Web home pages that have been added recently on
RootsComputing.com.
History and Genealogy of Carantha Family
Noyes Family Genealogy: English roots and American offspring.
Includes many early New England collateral families.
Homepage of the families of John and Elizabeth Benninghoff
Family Histories of Agar, Read, Cairns, Andrews, Morning, Hodgins, and many more. Get details.
Southern surnames from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. The names include Breeden, Loveday, Gooch,
Crane, Grizzle, Parks, Corn, Waters, and Brown, with a special
emphasis on Sevier County, TN.
Azariah Martin Family of Appomattox, Virginia. Major surnames
include: Martin, Drinkard, Turner, Harvey, Wooldridge, Layne,
Wright, and Day.
To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary
information in the RootsComputing Register. 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: The contents of this newsletter are copyright by
Richard W. Eastman with the following exception:
Many of the articles published in these newsletters contain quotes
or references from others, especially from other Web sites,
software users manuals, press releases and other public
announcements. Any words in this newsletter attributed to another
person or organization remain the copyrighted materials of the
original author(s).
You are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-
distribute articles from this newsletter to other parties
provided:
1. You do so strictly for non-commercial purposes.
2. Your re-distribution is limited to one or two articles per
newsletter; do not re-distribute the newsletter in its
entirety.
3. You may not republish any articles containing words attributed
to another person or organization until you obtain permission
from that person or organization. While you do have permission
to republish words written by Richard W. Eastman, you do not
have automatic authority to republish words written by others,
even if their words appear in this newsletter.
Also, please include the following statement with any articles
you re-distribute:
The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy
Newsletter and is copyright 2000 by Richard W. Eastman. It is
re-published here with the permission of the author.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Dick Eastman is the forum manager of the three
Genealogy Forums on CompuServe. He also is the author of Your Roots: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer, published by Ziff-Davis Press. He can be reached at roots@compuserve.com.
Dick Eastman Online
