Finishing the updating of my PPT for tomorrow’s presentation on the WPA and the Historical Records survey and all the indexes, records, and descriptions that genealogists should be using today. Many already research in some of these without knowing the how, when, why, and where.
Sale ends 18 Apr 2024 at 11:59pm ET. Excludes shipping. Some DNA features may require an Ancestry® subscription. Traits included with active subscription.
Next week, we have National DNA Day on April 25th. I’m sure more testing companies will have big sales. Watch their websites (23andMe, Ancestry, FamilyTree DNA, Living DNA, and MyHeritage) and sales are announced on various social media sites.
Today’s Press Release from the National Endowment for the Humanities provides funding for many projects, 238 to be exact!
A handful of examples
California, Irvine University of California, Irvine Project Title: An Indigenous History of Captivity, Memory, and Freedom in the United States, 1880–2023 Project Description: Research and writing for a book on the ways in which Indigenous people have been subject to captivity in the United States.
Kentucky, Whitesburg Appalshop, Inc. Project Title: Salvaging Appalachian Photo Collections Project Description: The treatment and digitization of 5,850 photonegatives from three collections dating from 1935–1995 and documenting the social, cultural, and economic history of Appalachia that were damaged in a major flood in 2022.
New York, New Paltz New Paltz Huguenot Historical Society. Project Title: Preserving and Digitizing the Historic Documents of a Colonial Hudson Valley Community: New Paltz, New York Project Description: The creation of 2,500 digital objects and 90 catalog records, as well as conservation and rehousing, of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections from four of New Paltz’s cultural heritage institutions.
Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Project Title: The Italian Diaspora Archive Map Project Project Description: A planning project to coordinate the work of scholars and cultural heritage organizations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to identify and aggregate information and resources that document Italian American history in the region.
Virginia, Christiansburg Christiansburg Institute. Project Title: Unveiling 20th Century Black Life in Middle Appalachia: Digitizing School and Community Records Project Description: Cataloging and digitizing four collections on the Christiansburg Institute, an educational organization in Appalachia established by the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1866.
Wisconsin, Eau Claire University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Project Title: Dematriation: Gendered Dispossession and Family Separation in the Colonial Northeast,1630–1763. Project Description: Writing an article on the community impact of Indigenous enslavement and family separation during the Pequot and King Philip’s wars (1636–1638 and 1675–1676).
Several minutes ago, I received a Press Release from the U.S. National Archives. It has launched a brand new digitization center at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) location in College Park, Maryland. If I mentioned this to most people, the reaction would not even come close to what most of my readers will feel!
“The new center’s equipment fleet includes high-speed scanners and overhead camera systems that can handle a variety of record types and formats. Thanks to this equipment, the National Archives will be able to digitize up to 10 times as many records per year. This will provide Americans with access to millions of additional records each year. With more than 13 billion paper records in its holdings, being able to speed up digitization is critical to the agency’s mission of providing access to federal records.”
I am excited because every time I check the NARA Catalog for some specific items, I keep coming up against a “NOT YET AVAILABLE ONLINE” or that a collection is only partially digitized on the NARA website. I can find some of the material digitized on NARA partner websites (Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc.) but there still millions of pages of textual records to be digitized. Then there are the photos, maps, etc. . .
It’s one of my favorite topics. FREE is a great word. Registration is FREE. Access to most of what I will be discussing is FREE. We have lots of space available in this online presentation. The Family History Research Center at the Clayton Library Campus is part of the Houston, Texas, public library system and you can join us no matter where you live. The presentation and 7-page handout will tell you all about indexes created for census, naturalization, and passenger arrival records; abstracts of county commissioner minutes; abstracts of church records; newspaper indexes; slave and pioneer settler interviews; indexes to birth, death, and marriage records; lists of records in courthouses, town halls, libraries, and manuscript repositories; family histories; diary transcripts; county histories and indexes; newspaper clippings; and cemetery information.
The library of my childhood was a wondrous place. I would walk or bike to our branch of the Saint Paul Public Library system. Free books to occupy my time. I don’t recall my parents having library cards or taking me to a library. I craved books and both of my grandmothers contributed to that love. Did I discover the public library on my own? Later, I would take the bus downtown to the main library and roam the various levels and the reference area. I still look at the building as a special place and it’s still a wonderful library.
This is National Library week here in the U.S. Will you visit a library? Will you investigate the website of your city or county library? Will you do the same for a history, genealogical, archival, or university library?
Where would we be without all the librarians and related staff and volunteers that have assisted us over the years? Their brains are full of education, experience, knowledge, details, links, and I think many know more than a card or computer catalog!
I recently read two Minnesota newspaper pieces that have a comparable theme. One written from a “genealogical” standpoint that evolved into what many people regard as a historian’s job. The other was written by a university professor encouraging involvement in history today.
Both encourage engagement in the history of people and places. That’s what I and many others do every day as family historians and some of us go far beyond our own families. We might venture next to a school, church, or business history. I’ve been involved in the history and genealogy of several Native American Tribes. I’ve worked for authors doing music and military histories. I’ve volunteered at a county historical society, a large religious archive, and with multiple genealogical organizations.
The first article is an opinion column in the March 28th Duluth News Tribune by Steve Matthews, an associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It was titled “Local View: The power to preserve history belongs to the people.”
I have no clue how anyone researching their family history can ever be bored or not able to learn something new. Classes, courses, seminars, webinars, institutes, and even social media are full of what we need. Someone on a social media site may post that they just attended an excellent presentation on a particular topic. A genealogical organization may post on its website about an upcoming seminar. One way to learn about many events, whether virtual, hybrid, or only in-person, is through Conference Keeper. Tami Osmer Mize is the Keeper and does an amazing job. Be sure your organization submits details. I noticed that a couple of organizations for which I am presenting webinars this spring have not submitted details to Tami. It’s free to do that. I will need to do that. (You can also see my schedule by clicking on Speaking at the top of this blog.)
I am able to pick any specific day/date and see the offerings from the U.S. and beyond. It will be clear about whether the event is free, has a fee, and the details on time, place, and more. Check it out yourself athttps://conferencekeeper.org/. While on the site, sign up for the free weekly update email.
April in a few days. Wow. Legacy Family Tree Webinars has announced a special few days of webinars.
“We’re excited to announce The 5th Annual 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon hosted by FamilyTreeWebinars.com and MyHeritage. The marathon will begin on Thursday, April 11 at 5pm eastern U.S. time (Friday, April 12 at 7am Sydney time) and end on Friday, April 12 at 5pm eastern U.S. time (Saturday, April 13 at 7am Sydney time).”
“Live attendance for each session is limited to the first 3,000 attendees. If you can’t join us in real time, we’ve got you covered: all recordings will be available afterwards absolutely free for a week. Beyond that, you can watch them anytime with a webinar membership to FamilyTreeWebinars.”
As more of our genealogy and other websites develop two-factor authentication. A reminder that our subscriptions on any site doesn’t allow us to let others beyond out household to “use” our access. The new added layer of authentication has changed that access and it does cause some issues with letting others view DNA results and matches.
MyHeritage has heard from us and now “added the ability to securely share DNA results with another collaborator on MyHeritage. This allows a MyHeritage user to invite someone else, usually a DNA expert, to view their DNA results and become a member of the family site on MyHeritage, which also gives the collaborator access to the user’s family tree.”
The background, how to share, and a bit more are on the MyHeritage blog.
