Tuesday, June 11, 2013

This Week's Genealogical Eclectica

I receive blog posts and other items in Google Reader, email, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and some of them have links of interest.  Here are some of the "genealogical eclectica" that's recently crossed my desk - news I want you to know about:

1)  Geoff Rasmussen is unveiling Legacy Family Tree Version 8.0 on the Legacy News blog - see Legacy Family Tree 8 Revealed.

2)  Geoff also posted the Last Call for the Legacy Genealogy Cruise - 2013 on the Legacy News blog.

3)  There are two new Family Tree Webinars this week.  Register for:

*  Wednesday, 12 June, 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT): "New Search Options Let You Target Obituaries, Photos, Passenger Lists, Births, Marriages, and More" by Tom Kemp

*  Friday, 14 June, 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT): "Next Exit: Your New Jersey Ancestors" by Thomas MacEntee

4)  Emily Garber is touring the Ukraine and sharing photos and travel stories on her blog (Going) the Extra Yad.  Great pictures and she is breaking down some of her brick walls.  I'm always impressed and fascinated by genealogists that travel to Eastern Europe and are successful in their search.  It's so beyond me.  This is, to me, one of the best things about genealogy blogging.

5)  Joel Weintraub and Steve Morse are looking for volunteers to work on the 1950 Census Project.  Here is their email message:

"If you wondered how we produced free locational tools for the opening of the 1940 census on the Morse One-Step site, wonder no more and be part of the team to do the same thing for 1950.  We have opened up "Project 1950" to prepare searchable ED definitions and street indexes for the opening of the 1950 Census in 2022. With the help of about 125 volunteers we produced our 1940 tools, and now are looking for about 200+ volunteers to help with Phase I (transcription of Enumeration District definitions) and Phase II (creating urban area street indexes) for 1950.  An explanation of the two Phases and what needs to be done can be found at: 
http://www.stevemorse.org/census/project1950intro.html.  

"It may seem too early to be doing this, but it took us over 7 years to produce the 1940 tools that were used by the National Archives, the NY Public Library, Ancestry.com, and millions of researchers."

6)  Internet Magazine came out with their list of the 25 Top Genealogy blogs, and Genea-Musings made the list.  The Legal Genealogist  and several other excellent blogs didn't make the list, so I take these lists with a grain of salt.  Miriam Robbins provided the list of 25 in her post AnceStories Named One of Internet Genealogy's 25 Top Genealogy Blogs.  Congratulations to the listed genea-bloggers.  I hope that the magazine does better next year.  

7)  Are you reading Thomas MacEntee's newest blog, 50 Shades of Genealogy?  It's funny!

8)  DearMYRTLE's Mastering Genealogical Proof (MGP) Study Groups start this Sunday, 16 June 2013.  While the panel positions on the Google+ Hangout On Air (HOA) are filled, you can still watch the session on Sunday evenings (8 p.m. EDT, 5 p.m. PDT) on the DearMYRTLE YouTube Channel.  Watch the MGP Study Group Orientation video:




9)  Ron Arons showed me his Generation Tap Dance video from his 35th Reunion of Princeton University.  Ron is great in the video (the dance starts about 40 seconds in - wait for it!):


 


Genealogists are multi-talented, aren't they? 

I may make this a regular weekly post so that I can collect items of interest to me, and perhaps to you, rather than write a post for each one.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/06/this-weeks-genealogical-eclectica.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

2 comments:

Antra said...

>>>>I'm always impressed and fascinated by genealogists that travel to Eastern Europe and are successful in their search.<<<

It's really not all that difficult ;) There are a lot of misconceptions out there about research in Eastern Europe, and the big ones are that either a) all of the records are destroyed, or b) the records are difficult to access. Of course, it varies based on locality as to completeness and access to records, but some places have made huge strides in making records available.

One would often think that because of the wars that the region has endured over the past century that there would be a lot of document loss, but my experience (predominantly in Latvian records) is that it isn't the case. That's the thing with totalitarian powers like the Soviets and the Nazis - they like knowing things about people, so they wouldn't destroy documents that could come in handy in tracking and tracing people and finding out who they are and who their families were. Now, the storage standards that they kept the documents in could be considered questionable, but the documents are still mostly intact.

Archives all over Eastern Europe are digitizing their collections at exponential rates. The leader in digitization as far as I've seen is Estonia, whose archives have digitized not only church records and revision lists (which were tax lists kept by the Russian Empire), but also list of parish residents, information on military service, name changes and so on.

I've constructed tours for a number of my clients, and several of them have had success in finding long-lost relatives when arriving to their ancestral home parishes. So much is possible!

Emily Garber said...

I've returned from Ukraine, reinvigorated for my research and buried in to-dos for organizing what I've learned from my trip. Just getting around to reading some blog posts that were done by others while I was out of the country - thanks for the recogition, Randy.

The biggest issue in foreign travel to places where one doesn't speak the language or know the bureaucratic ropes is communication. I resolved that, mostly, by hiring a fabulous guide/translator/genealogist who has extensive experience in the archives of Ukraine. I think, though, that European travel for genealogy is no different than travel within the USA: a research plan is critical before setting out.

As I recover from jet lag and reflect on my trip, I will likely post some articles about planning for a successful research trip.