Cyclopedia of Ireland on CD-ROM
This week I had a chance to use a "new old book" on CD-ROM. A "new
old book" is an old book that has been long out of print but is now available
on a CD-ROM disk. New old books are valuable resources for family historians.
Best of all, they are usually much cheaper than the printed editions, assuming
you could still find a copy of the printed book(s) for sale; many of these
old books are only available on CD-ROM today. The CD-ROM versions of the
books often are easier to search than the printed ones, and they obviously
consume a lot less space on the bookshelf.
The new old book that I read this week is properly entitled the Atlas
and Cyclopedia of Ireland as told by A. M. Sullivan, continued by P. D.
Nunan. Murphy & McCarthy of New York City originally printed this 688-page
book in 1900. The book contains two major sections. Quoting from the intro
pages:
Part I. A Comprehensive Delineation of the Thirty-two Counties.
With Beautifully Colored Map of Each, Arranged Alphabetically, Showing over
11,000 Cites, Towns, Villages and Places of Public Interest. By P. W. Joyce,
LL.D. Embracing over two hundred Illustrations of the Natural Scenery, Public
Buildings, Abbeys, Round Towers and Other Romantic and Historic Places, Reproduced
by Eminent Artists from Photographs Especially Taken for this Work.
Part II. The General History, as Told by A. M. Sullivan. And Continued
by P. D. Nunan. A Complete and Authentic History of Ireland, from the Earliest
Ages. With Graphic Descriptions of the Battles of Clontarf, Strongbow’s Invasion,
Death of Roderick O’Connor (Last King of Ireland), Cromwell’s Invasion, Siege
of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne; Siege of Limerick, Penal Laws, The
Volunteers, The United Irishmen, Catholic Emancipation and Repeal, the Young
Irelanders, Fenian Insurrection, Home Rule and Land League Agitations, bringing
it down almost to the United Irish League. Embellished with Portraits of
the Leading Statesmen, Orators, Poets and Martyrs of the Emerald Isle, Taken
From the Original Painting of Haverty, Reynolds, Lesage and Others.
This description omits a couple more items that can be found: There are
also more than 400 full color Irish family crests (coats of arms) along with
mottoes as well as a small, full-color map of each of the 32 different Irish
counties.
The Cyclopedia of Ireland CD-ROM is in Adobe Acrobat format. I believe
that Acrobat is the most popular viewer for electronic documents available
today. Chances are that you already have the needed Adobe Acrobat viewer
installed on your PC or Macintosh. If not, the CD-ROM includes all the viewer
software needed for Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT and Windows 2000. Macintosh users
can download the free viewer software directly from Adobe’s Web site.
I have seen quite a few new old books published in Adobe Acrobat, but
I must say that this particular one was the most colorful that I have seen
yet. The frontispiece is reproduced in a very detailed, full-color image.
The color maps are great, and I found it easy to read the details in tiny
print. The family crests were also in full color although not as colorful
as some of the other pages.
The original Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland had an extensive back-of-book
index, and that, too, is reproduced in the electronic version. You can look
for an entry in the index, and then manually turn to the page cited. I found
that I could print any page on my local printer. In fact, I could have printed
the entire book had I wanted to. At 688 pages, I decided to not print the
entire thing.
The Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland CD-ROM does have a few drawbacks.
There is no electronic index and no capability for "every word search" like
you see in many other electronic books, that is, you cannot search for every
occurrence of a particular word. The "cut and paste" option does appear on
the menus, but I could not make it work properly on my Windows 98 system.
I was unable to cut and paste a page or two into another Word document. I
also did not see any capability for margin notes, nor could I find any method
of adding my own bookmarks.
Even with these minor drawbacks, this remains an excellent reference book.
The 688 pages of the original book have been compressed into a half-ounce
of plastic. If you could find a used copy of the original book or a photo
reproduction of the original, you probably would have to pay well over $100
for it. The same information on CD-ROM sells for $39.95, plus shipping.
For more information about the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland or to
order it online, go to Quintin Publications’ Web site.
You can order the CD-ROM online at the same URL. Quintin Publications
provides a secure order form so that you can safely enter your credit card
data.
Family History Made Easy: Step by
Step
The Internet has quite a few sites that give instruction on how to get started
in genealogy. A new addition to that list is a series of how-to guides written
by Terry and Jim Willard, hosts of the first ten-part PBS "Ancestors" series.
Terry and Jim write in a conversational manner that is easy to understand.
They seem to avoid the buzzwords used by long-term genealogists, making this
an excellent text for anyone just starting to find their family tree.
"Family History Made Easy: Step by Step" is a work in progress; nine chapters
have been posted online to date, and more are expected in future months.
The following articles are already available online:
Step 1: Getting Started
Step 2: Treasures in the Attic
Step 3: Living Sources
Step 4: Beginning Your Library Research
Step 5: At the Library
Step 6: Secondary Source Research
Step 7: Primary Sources and Vital Records
Step 8: Census Records
Step 9: Immigration Records
Upcoming topics will include:
- Naturalization Records
- Military Records
- Wills and Probate Records
If you are new to genealogy, you should read "Family History Made Easy: Step
by Step."
Heck, some of us old-timers should read it too!
Five Thousand Ways to Earn a Living
So you found a record of your ancestor in the census? And it listed his occupation
as a "barilla manufacturer?" Now you want to know what a barilla manufacturer
is? A new Web site can help.
Judith B Glad and an unnamed partner have teamed together to place a list
of 5,000 trades and professions, as listed in old documents. I don’t know
if this includes all the occupations in the English language or not, but
the list certainly must include most occupations! As a precaution from having
the entire list "ripped off," only the occupation names are listed. To obtain
a definition of a particular occupation, you need to contact Judith Glad
directly. She will provide you with the definitions of up to five trades.
Read the explanation and enter the occupations list.
I looked through the long list and found many terms that I had never seen
previously. OK Judith, so just what is a "geezer"?
What County Is It In?
Ever spend time looking for the county where an ancestor lived? Perhaps you
have the town name but not the county. In some states, county names predominate;
you may find the name of the county, but you don’t know which towns are contained
therein. A new computerized tool can help.
GetZips.com is a ZIP-code lookup site that just happens to include county
information. You can enter the name of a town and find out what ZIP code(s)
and county are associated with that town. Likewise, you can enter the county
name and find all the towns (and ZIP codes) in that county.
You can access this data online with your PC, Macintosh or other system.
However, the same Web site also has a free Windows utility with even more
functionality that you can download to your PC and use over and over, even
when offline. Zip Express allows easy look-up of U.S. zip codes and their
associated cities, states, counties, area codes, time zones and even the
current time. You can even automatically paste zip code information directly
into your Windows applications via hot keys. Zip Express is "adware." That
is, the program is free, but it displays advertisements when being used.
If you want to turn off the ads, you can register the program for $25.00
and the ads will then disappear.
Keep in mind that both the online and offline versions display only current
county information. County lines have shifted a lot throughout history, and
your ancestor may have lived in a location that has been in different counties
over the years. The county that normally stores records is the one that had
jurisdiction at the time of the event recorded. Even with that limitation,
GetZips.com and Zip Express can be useful tools for the genealogist.
Get more information, or look up a few counties.
My thanks to Stephen Comfort-Mason for telling me about GetZips.com.
Circle Pedigree Chart
I had a chance to use an interesting genealogy chart this week. The
Studio, Inc. has produced a "fill in the blanks" pedigree chart that is 37
inches square. This large chart will look good pinned to the wall next to
the computer where you do your genealogy record keeping. The Circle Pedigree
Chart is suitable for framing.
The pedigree chart is in the circle pedigree format. That is, the base
person is shown in the exact center of the chart, with all his or her ancestors
displayed in a full circle. Paternal ancestors are in the upper half of the
chart and maternal ancestors are shown below. There is room for 510 ancestors.
The chart is printed in four colors, one for each quadrant. This quickly
identifies the ancestors of your grandparents.
This is a "fill in the blanks" chart. It is laminated front and back.
A black marker pen is included, which you use to record names along with
dates and places of birth, marriage and records. The laminated surface allows
you to easily erase and re-enter information as corrected information is
found.
It is tough to describe this colorful chart in a text newsletter. But you can view pictures of the chart online.
The Circle Pedigree Chart is a great tool for organizing your family history
and also for displaying that information to other family members. The chart
costs $15.95 plus shipping. Get more information or order online.
123genealogy.com does maintain a secure online order form, so you can
safely enter your credit card information.
Genealogy: From Social Status to
Global Obsession
The Salt Lake Tribune ran an article in its online edition that I
found interesting. It starts off:
Tracing your genealogy was once little more than a chance to improve a
family's social status.
Dubious data was often coupled with questionable assumptions as practitioners
tried to link up with British royalty or Catholic saints or even biblical
figures all the way back to Adam.
Since World War II, however, genealogy has evolved into a science. And
with the advent of the personal computer and the Internet, genealogy has
exploded into a global, multicultural obsession.
The article goes on at length to detail the fabrications of past years
and how modern genealogists have turned to more scientific and more accurate
research methods. Of course, this didn’t start with the Internet, but the
online services have helped a great deal by making information and "coaching"
more available than in years past.
Read this interesting article.
President Harrison Resurrected
When studying American history, President William Henry Harrison
usually rates only a brief mention. Our 23rd chief executive was small (he
stood at 5 feet, 6 inches tall) and not big on self-promotion of his accomplishments,
but he was capable and apparently was well liked during his presidency.
The President Benjamin Harrison Home is now a museum dedicated to the
President’s life. The museum operates an online Web site that has a great
deal of information about Harrison, including a brief genealogy. The same
Web site also has information about the successful passage of Harrison's
programs: the McKinley tariff, Sherman anti-trust bill, Pan-American conference
and the silver coinage act. You can even listen to a recording of Harrison’s
voice recorded sometime during his presidency from 1889 to 1893.
Nineteenth-century presidents do not receive federal funds for presidential
libraries, and putting Harrison's history online is an economical way of
keeping his memory alive. Jennifer Capps, the curator of the museum, says
the Web site went live about five years ago after she took a class in designing
Web pages. "We get a lot of school kids who need information to do reports,
and we plan to add more family history and genealogy," Capps says.
The Web site for this former president generates about 200 hits a week,
although the site saw increased traffic after C-Span did a special on Harrison.
Add to the count with a visit.
Directory of North American Railroads
This week I had a chance to read a rather interesting book with a
long title: The Directory of North American Railroads, Associations, Societies,
Archives, Libraries, Museums and Their Collections, compiled by Holly T.
Hansen. This isn’t strictly a genealogy book, yet many people will find it
a useful reference for genealogy research. This will be especially true for
any ancestors who worked for a railroad.
The Directory of North American Railroads can help you discover many
things among rail collections, including records documenting the building
of the rail, original survey records, photographs and treaties documenting
the Native American encounter, passenger lists, land records, directors'
and stockholders' minutes, deeds, rights-of-way, journals, huge photograph
collections and more.
I must admit that I have not used a railroad collection before, so I was
intrigued by what could be found there. This book lists 1,600 railroads and
other entities, most of which are now defunct. Even though the railroad may
have gone out of existence a century or so ago, the company’s records often
are still available at libraries, historical societies, railroad historical
societies and other places. Each listing is arranged alphabetically with
a state/province index in the back of the book to help you locate resources
geographically.
I looked for information about the Sandy River Railroad, a long-defunct
company that I have read about before. Since everything is alphabetic, it
only took me a few seconds to find that a lot of information and even photographs
of this old railroad are still available in Phillips, Maine. As I skimmed
through the book, I found that almost every railroad listed has similar entries.
A few even have information available online, including company records that
are available online at the Digital Library and Archives of the University
Libraries of Virginia Tech.
The Directory of North American Railroads, Associations, Societies, Archives,
Libraries, Museums and Their Collections is an extensive compilation of
repositories of railroad information. It sells for $25.00 plus shipping.
Get details.
National Grandparents Day
Just in case you don’t have it marked on your calendar already, you
might want to know that National Grandparents Day will be observed on September
10 this year. This holiday has three purposes: to honor grandparents, to
give grandparents an opportunity to show love for their children's children,
and to help children become aware of the strength, wisdom, and guidance older
people can offer.
You might want to spend the day with your grandchildren. Or grandparents.
Read more about this special day.
Or check out Ancestry's Grandparents Day page.
Whatever Happened to S.W. Erdnase?
When poring through old records in search of your ancestors, you
might keep an eye open for a few more names. S.W. Erdnase has been missing
for a long time.
Professional and amateur magicians alike will quickly recognize the name
of S.W. Erdnase. In 1902, he published a book called The Expert at the
Card Table. In vivid detail and elegant prose, the book revealed the secrets
behind intricate card tricks and quick-fingered cheating techniques.
Erdnase obviously was a pseudonym, one that has never been revealed. Erdnase
never made public appearances and never wrote another book—at least not
under that name. Yet for nearly 100 years, the book has never vanished from
print. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide and been translated
into many other languages. It has become the bible of card magic.
Now the search for Erdnase is heating up. Earlier this year, Steve Pepoon
of Chatsworth, Calif., paid $10,259 in an eBay auction for a first edition
of The Expert signed by its illustrator. The auction also included some
of the illustrator's letters, which contained clues to the identity of Erdnase.
"Everyone loves a good mystery," says the 44-year-old television scriptwriter
and amateur magician. The sale made a splash inside the world of magic and
ignited a new wave of Erdnase research.
S.W. Erdnase was almost certainly a pen name. But for whom? Conferences,
books, magazine articles and monographs have all attempted to unmask Erdnase.
Every Erdnase hunter has his own pet theory. Some believe the author was
someone named E.S. Andrews—the name spelled backward. Magicians trawling
census records, magician-society membership rosters, and other documents
have yet to find an E.S. Andrews with deep card knowledge and the education
necessary to write such an articulate book. Then there's the question of
whether such a clever master of deception would succumb to something so obvious
as the old backward-name trick.
The pioneer of Erdnase research is Martin Gardner, an 85-year-old author
and mathematics columnist. He began in 1946 by interviewing Marshall D. Smith,
the book's illustrator. Unfortunately, the artist remembered very little
about Erdnase, whom he had last seen in 1901. But the details he did remember
remain the key clues for Erdnase hunters.
According to Mr. Smith, Erdnase was a handsome, well-bred East Coast man
with unusually soft, well-pampered hands. He was about 5 feet 6 inches tall
and about 40 years old. The illustrator couldn't remember the author's name
but thought it might have been Andrews. The author also claimed to be related
to Louis Dalrymple, a popular turn-of-the-century cartoonist, according to
the illustrator.
Mr. Gardner corresponded with other magicians who said they had known
Erdnase, conducted lengthy archival research, and by 1949 believed he had
cracked the case. Erdnase, he claimed, was a man named Milton Franklin Andrews,
found dead in 1905 following a grisly murder-suicide in a San Francisco apartment.
In many ways, Mr. Andrews seemed a good fit. A well-bred, East Coast gambler,
he died soon after the book's publication—providing a nice explanation
for the silence surrounding the author. But Mr. Andrews was also much taller
than the man Mr. Smith recalled. And an 18-page letter written by Mr. Andrews
and found after his death was nowhere near as eloquent as The Expert.
Some professional magicians refuse to believe that a murderer penned the
card-trick masterpiece. That notion helped spur another theory: that the
book was ghostwritten, perhaps by Mark Twain, a childhood chum of Mr. Andrews
in Hartford, Conn.
Mr. Hatch, who brokered the eBay sale, thinks E.S. Andrews might be short
for James Andrews and is investigating a man with that name. He also is focusing
on another candidate, a railroad worker named Edwin Sumner Andrews, whose
wife shared Louis Dalrymple's mother's maiden name of Seeley. The book dealer
spends at least two hours a day searching magic-society archives, census
records, Library of Congress authorship lists, and genealogy Web sites for
men named Andrews who fit the author's profile. Earlier this summer, he spent
several days of his family vacation digging through the genealogical archives
in Salt Lake City. However, Hatch still has not located the proof that he
seeks.
David Alexander has approached the Erdnase puzzle another way. Last winter,
the magician and former private detective from Long Beach, Calif., assembled
a "forensic profile" of the type of man who might have written the book,
then conducted a complex linguistic analysis of the book's title page. He
thinks S.W. Erdnase was really W.E. Sanders.
Alexander came to that conclusion by studying the book itself. One Erdnase
trick was a card shift called the "S.W.E. Shift," named for his initials.
A shift is a furtive card action in which top cards are moved to the bottom
of the deck. Performing a "shift" on the initials S.W.E. results in W.E.S.
Mr. Alexander's search through Library of Congress records and census
reports turned up an Erdnase contender named Wilbur Edgerton Sanders. Mr.
Sanders, a mining engineer born in Akron, Ohio, in 1861 but educated at Philips
Exeter Academy, fits the profile. (In German, "Erdnase" means "earth-nose,"
which Mr. Alexander deems significant.) Mr. Alexander is currently reading
Mr. Sanders's diaries, dated from 1875 to 1890, and believes the writing
style is similar to that of Erdnase. The diaries are filled with mundane
details of 19th-century life, including meals, chores and family relations,
and so far make no mention of card tricks. But that, too, could be a ruse.
The best tricks, after all, are those that are never revealed.
When researching old census records, death records or other sources of
genealogy information, keep an eye open for a 5 foot 6 inch magician born
around 1860.
Home Pages Highlighted
The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide
Web home pages that have been listed recently on Rootscomputing.com:
Klamath County, California—the county that is no more. Klamath County,
California, was created in 1851 and was disbanded in 1874. The county is
now distributed between Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Humboldt Counties. Records
from Klamath County may be found in any of these three counties as well as
some southern Oregon counties. The web site is an attempt to consolidate
the data needed to successfully search for those early records.
Get details.
What’s What in Irish Genealogy doesn't list all services and Web sites
dealing with Irish family history research. The aim is to help you locate
worthwhile information and websites without having to wade through piles
of irrelevant material.
Get details.
Roots & Branches—Genealogy from the Carolinas.
Get details.
Christopher G. Hartman, an antiquarian bookseller with a concentration
in family history books and genealogy, primarily original printings. Focused
on hard-to-find books, manuscript material, correspondence and ledgers.
Get details.
The LaBar/LaBarre home page is for researchers of the surname LaBar in
the Easton, Pennsylvania, area.
Get details.
To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information
at the Rootscomputing.com 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. You are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute
articles from this newsletter to other parties provided you do so strictly
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Also, please include the following words 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 Online
