There are myriad ways to get your family quest out there so people searching your names can find you.
In addition to those we know about and use frequently, such as the very popular JewishGen Family Finder, the Southern California Genealogical Society has announced the roll-out of its searchable Virtual Surname Wall database.
According to the SCGS's Paula Hinkel, entries from more than 1,000 genealogists around the world are now searchable by family name, by geographic region and by each participant's Submitter ID. Participation is voluntary.
Privacy is a major concern among some researchers and I was happy to see that those submitting data can choose from three privacy options. Additionally, only your unique Submitter ID will be shown online.
If an inquiry is received about a possible family connection, you can authorize SCGS to release all contact details, only an email address, or ask SCGS to be the contact intermediary.
Members of the Tribe are located around the globe, so it isn't a bad idea to let people know what names you are searching. In the case of Jewish genealogy, you might find those people who haven't heard of JewishGen (it is possible!), but listed their names elsewhere.
If you'd like to search your surnames, click here. Under "Breaking News," scroll down to Virtual Surname Wall and click to either search the database or add new names.
The database can be searched by surname, location, or Submitter ID or any combination of the three. It is a "begins with" search, which means a search for Tal will currently bring up only Talbott/Talbot, Taliaferro and Talley/Tally. I just added some Talalay variations, so the hits will increase as the database is updated and more people list their names of interest.
You can also search within a field by adding % to the term. Writing &penn will bring back references with Pennsylvania.
It's easy to add names. Enter surname information (including variations), the geographic area in which the family lived, the migration path and time frame. See the page for more detailed information.
Each entry screen has room for up to 10 names, but you can enter multiple screens. Note that entries are not limited to California.
As entries are added, the Virtual Surname Wall will become more valuable.
20 January 2008
19 January 2008
WorldVitalRecords now FamilyLink.com
Mergers, name changes, new web sites - the pursuit of family ancestry is certainly keeping the gen business hopping. I wonder what's next?
World Vital Records, Inc. has changed its name to FamilyLink.com, Inc. which, according to the January 14 press release, "better reflects the company's mission of connecting families to one another through innovative online tools."
World Vital Records, Inc. has changed its name to FamilyLink.com, Inc. which, according to the January 14 press release, "better reflects the company's mission of connecting families to one another through innovative online tools."
"We marvel at the opportunity that the Internet provides to build web sites and social networking applications that can literally reach millions of users. FamilyLink.com will be our umbrella brand for a whole portfolio of web sites, widgets, and applications that all help families get connected to each other and to the past," said Paul Allen, CEO, FamilyLink.com.
FamilyLink.com will continue to operate the WorldVitalRecords web site, with its 5,000 databases, nearly 1 billion records, and nearly 24,000 paying subscribers.
"We will continue to add new US and international records to the site every business day," said Allen. "Our strong emphasis on aggregating vital records and other family history materials from around the world will continue, as will our use of the World Vital Records brand on our genealogical products. However, the company's official name will now be FamilyLink.com, Inc."
The company said it will also continue to grow its FamilyLink.com social network that has attracted more than 47,000 customers and has doubled its site traffic already this year. It will also continue to operate the We're Related Facebook application, the #1 social application for families out of nearly 14,000 Facebook.com applications. We're Related has more than 2 million users and is
growing at a rate of 6,000 users a day. More Facebook applications are in the works.
"The FamilyLink.com name is more reflective of the broad mission of our company, which is to provide innovative tools to help families connect," said David Lifferth, President, FamilyLink.com.
"WorldVitalRecords.com will continue to provide hundreds of millions of vital records that family historians love, but as a company we are also creating tools and content for family members of all ages and interests."
"Our enthusiastic team of genealogists and IT professionals is excited to keep up the tradition we have had of delivering extremely high quality resources and tools to our users at a very low cost," said Lifferth.
findmypast.com & Scotland Online merge
Today's gen business clip is that Findmypast.com has been acquired by Scotland Online.
Scotland Online said it would enable a wider audience to access the most complete suite of family history records available online in the UK." It also won the tender for the 1911 England and Wales census records, to be available in 2009.
Findmypast.com is a destination website for family history researchers and was the first company to place online the complete birth, marriage and death indexes for England and Wales, and later added census and passenger-list records.
Read more here.
"The company said it had acquired the business Title Research Group as part of its plans to establish a world-class online network of family history resources, but it did not disclose the sale price.
The merger will see Scotland Online's current online genealogy service, ScotlandsPeople, amalgamating with findmypast.com to create an enlarged resource to serve millions of family history enthusiasts worldwide."
Scotland Online said it would enable a wider audience to access the most complete suite of family history records available online in the UK." It also won the tender for the 1911 England and Wales census records, to be available in 2009.
Findmypast.com is a destination website for family history researchers and was the first company to place online the complete birth, marriage and death indexes for England and Wales, and later added census and passenger-list records.
Read more here.
USHMM: Museum begins responding to requests
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum announced on January 17 that it is ready to begin responding to survivor requests for information from Holocaust survivors and their families from the International Tracing Service Archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany.
At the Washington, DC meeting, museum representatives and the ITS director provided an overview on the archive, its history, holdings and processes to find specific documents.
The ITS archive contains more than 100 million digital images of material relating to the fates of approximately 17.5 million people — both Jews and non-Jews — who perished in the Holocaust or otherwise fell victim to the Nazi regime.
In August 2007, the first installment of digital copies arrived in Washington, including 18 million digital images of camp, transport, ghetto and arrest records.
In November, it received a copy of the Central Name Index with more than 50 million digital images. The balance - relating to slave labor and displaced persons camps - will be transferred in installments between 2008-2010.
At the Washington, DC meeting, museum representatives and the ITS director provided an overview on the archive, its history, holdings and processes to find specific documents.
The ITS archive contains more than 100 million digital images of material relating to the fates of approximately 17.5 million people — both Jews and non-Jews — who perished in the Holocaust or otherwise fell victim to the Nazi regime.
In August 2007, the first installment of digital copies arrived in Washington, including 18 million digital images of camp, transport, ghetto and arrest records.
In November, it received a copy of the Central Name Index with more than 50 million digital images. The balance - relating to slave labor and displaced persons camps - will be transferred in installments between 2008-2010.
Spain: Holocaust Day, January 27
Carta de Sefarad has published a special edition of Spanish events scheduled around the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance.
Events are planned for Barcelona (7 events), Madrid (7), Oviedo (3) and Toledo (1).
The schedule includes remembrance ceremonies by both community and government organizations, lectures, round table discussions, conferences, film screenings, concerts and book presentations.
To see the complete schedule (in Spanish), click here.
Events are planned for Barcelona (7 events), Madrid (7), Oviedo (3) and Toledo (1).
The schedule includes remembrance ceremonies by both community and government organizations, lectures, round table discussions, conferences, film screenings, concerts and book presentations.
To see the complete schedule (in Spanish), click here.
18 January 2008
The Genealogue is back!
The resident wit of gen-blogging is Chris Dunham, whose Genealogue gems never fail to provoke everything from smiles to giggles to falling-off-your-chair-laughing episodes.
I was delighted to see him back at work after a too-long absence.
His first post was a top 10 list on how not to begin a family history.
Which is your favorite?
Hmmm. Could we turn this into an annual competition or a Carnival of Genealogy?
Enjoy!
I was delighted to see him back at work after a too-long absence.
His first post was a top 10 list on how not to begin a family history.
Which is your favorite?
Hmmm. Could we turn this into an annual competition or a Carnival of Genealogy?
Enjoy!
Book: Moscow photos, 1900-1917
A picture is worth 1,000 words, they say, and here's a new book that will provide insight into Russia's history, 1900-1917, when many of our ancestors still lived there. This story appeared in The Moscow Times.
"20th Century Russia in Photographs: 1900 to 1917" (Rossiya XX Vek v Fotografiyakh 1900-1917) is published by the Moscow House of Photography. The photographs are also available to view here; some 100,000 photos are now accessible, dating from 1840.
The site, of course, is entirely in Russian. What I have determined, with my basic Cyrillic is that images are organized according to decade. Visitors may set the view from 10-100 images per screen for each decade. There is a detailed multi-level geographical index, followed by a theme index and two different name indexes at the bottom.
This sounds like a good project for One-Page guru Steve Morse's talents.
Even if researchers don't find family photographs, the range certainly gives us an idea of the environment, social activities and a feeling for the times our ancestors lived. The photos are also valuable in dating images we do have and especially for forensic genealogists who specialize in decoding images, such as Maureen Taylor.
Additionally, in February, the web site will begin accepting photos uploaded by Russians themselves, so there should be an exponential increase in what is available, and add to our knowledge. We may even find eventually copies of the photos we have already, as long lost cousins begin to upload their own images. I'd like to include some of the Moscow images of our Talalay branches, and see if any of them are recognized.
In any case, back to the story, which is fascinating.
There are hundreds of full-page archival images of politics, documentary images and family portraits.
The state-owned gallery - Moscow House of Photography - is in an ongoing project to collect and catalogue historically interesting images of the past 100 years. Another four books are planned: pre-war, World War II, Kruschchev and Brezhnev eras, and perestroika to 2000.
The Tsar's family and revolutionary leaders are not in the book, replaced by
More than 50 archives were involved, from internationally known museums, such as St. Petersburg's Ethnography Museum, to museums in provincial cities (Ryazan, Yeletsk and Murom), as well as many private collections.
Most of the 50,000-copy run are being given to schools and libraries. A few copies are available at $245 each. This first book took eight years to compile; the story addresses some of the problems encountered.
If you can't obtain a copy, the published photos and many more are on at Inphoto.ru, created by the gallery. The Moscow House of Photography has publication rights from the archives, but not the images themselves. Many had only negatives and the gallery made prints; each image is given a full page in the book.
Although many photographers' names are lost, the book includes images by "well-known pioneers of Russian photography, such as Maxim Dmitriyev, who chronicled Nizhny Novgorod markets and lowlifes."
It is, according to the story "a history of Russia in photographs, which is a little different from a history of Russian photography." Some images have technical defects, but the subject matter was more important than the artistic value. Many are intimate, family images.
Also interesting are the comments by gallery director Olga Sviblova on family history and photographs:
About the future books, she says there is incredible material in the 1920s-30s, when Soviet photography came to the forefront, but complains that publications and archives often failed to credit the photographer or caption the subjects.
An interactive component will be added in February to the Inphoto.ru site, and Russians are invited to send in their own family photos for online display. submissions will be sorted according to chronology and themes, and there are already more than 100,000 photographs.
Additionally, the gallery is also taking history into contemporary times, and commissioning photographers to visit various Russian cities and offering an annual Silver Camera competition for the best Moscow photographs. In February, the gallery's new competition for the best photographs of Russia will be launched, with entries submitted on the website. Each year's best entries will be published annually.
Read more here.
"20th Century Russia in Photographs: 1900 to 1917" (Rossiya XX Vek v Fotografiyakh 1900-1917) is published by the Moscow House of Photography. The photographs are also available to view here; some 100,000 photos are now accessible, dating from 1840.
The site, of course, is entirely in Russian. What I have determined, with my basic Cyrillic is that images are organized according to decade. Visitors may set the view from 10-100 images per screen for each decade. There is a detailed multi-level geographical index, followed by a theme index and two different name indexes at the bottom.
This sounds like a good project for One-Page guru Steve Morse's talents.
Even if researchers don't find family photographs, the range certainly gives us an idea of the environment, social activities and a feeling for the times our ancestors lived. The photos are also valuable in dating images we do have and especially for forensic genealogists who specialize in decoding images, such as Maureen Taylor.
Additionally, in February, the web site will begin accepting photos uploaded by Russians themselves, so there should be an exponential increase in what is available, and add to our knowledge. We may even find eventually copies of the photos we have already, as long lost cousins begin to upload their own images. I'd like to include some of the Moscow images of our Talalay branches, and see if any of them are recognized.
In any case, back to the story, which is fascinating.
In a picture from 1907, an eager crowd gathers on a cobbled street of Petersburg to see Russia's first car show, a small boy in knickerbockers racing across in a blur of excitement. In others, bonneted women admire the first electric lighting in a shopping arcade and pilots wheel out a Bleriot monoplane to take part in a 1910 air show.
But despite these signs of technological progress, abject poverty is never far from the camera's lens. Headscarfed women wait in an endless line at a pawnbroker's and bums fight outside a night shelter, whose Dickensian walls are painted with the slogans: "No drinking vodka, no singing songs, behave yourselves quietly."
There are hundreds of full-page archival images of politics, documentary images and family portraits.
The state-owned gallery - Moscow House of Photography - is in an ongoing project to collect and catalogue historically interesting images of the past 100 years. Another four books are planned: pre-war, World War II, Kruschchev and Brezhnev eras, and perestroika to 2000.
The Tsar's family and revolutionary leaders are not in the book, replaced by
"memorable images instead show strange scenes from a forgotten past: swollen-faced residents of a leper colony pose in peaked caps; opera singer Anastasia Vyaltseva lazes in her private train car, the equal of the one now used by pop star Alla Pugachyova; and prize fighters at a Petersburg circus - three of whom are black - flex their muscles and handle-bar moustaches."
More than 50 archives were involved, from internationally known museums, such as St. Petersburg's Ethnography Museum, to museums in provincial cities (Ryazan, Yeletsk and Murom), as well as many private collections.
Most of the 50,000-copy run are being given to schools and libraries. A few copies are available at $245 each. This first book took eight years to compile; the story addresses some of the problems encountered.
If you can't obtain a copy, the published photos and many more are on at Inphoto.ru, created by the gallery. The Moscow House of Photography has publication rights from the archives, but not the images themselves. Many had only negatives and the gallery made prints; each image is given a full page in the book.
Although many photographers' names are lost, the book includes images by "well-known pioneers of Russian photography, such as Maxim Dmitriyev, who chronicled Nizhny Novgorod markets and lowlifes."
It is, according to the story "a history of Russia in photographs, which is a little different from a history of Russian photography." Some images have technical defects, but the subject matter was more important than the artistic value. Many are intimate, family images.
Also interesting are the comments by gallery director Olga Sviblova on family history and photographs:
Citing her own family history, she said that most families didn't hold onto their photographs in the Soviet era. "If you live in a communal apartment, you think mostly where you will put a bed for your child, not where you will put books with your archive," she said. "Family history during Soviet times was completely destroyed, like all history."
Sviblova's own grandparents avoided talking of their past -- much less displaying photographs -- since her grandfather, an engineer who headed the Volga-Don canal construction, spent time in a prison camp and his wife came from a family of priests. She found one album after her grandmother's death with a few photos of her grandfather in the early 1930s and of her great-grandmother doing Red Cross work during World War I and "nothing more," she said. "It's a strange feeling when you live without history."
About the future books, she says there is incredible material in the 1920s-30s, when Soviet photography came to the forefront, but complains that publications and archives often failed to credit the photographer or caption the subjects.
An interactive component will be added in February to the Inphoto.ru site, and Russians are invited to send in their own family photos for online display. submissions will be sorted according to chronology and themes, and there are already more than 100,000 photographs.
Additionally, the gallery is also taking history into contemporary times, and commissioning photographers to visit various Russian cities and offering an annual Silver Camera competition for the best Moscow photographs. In February, the gallery's new competition for the best photographs of Russia will be launched, with entries submitted on the website. Each year's best entries will be published annually.
Read more here.
California: Gen Jamboree, June 27-29 - Update
Here's an update on the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree:
Co-chairs Paula Hinkel and Leo Myers have announced that the website has been launched and registrations being taken for the June 27-29 event, at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel.
Tracing the Tribe's readers should also note the new-this-year Sunday track for Jewish research.
Another exciting innovation this year is the first Gen Blogger's Summit:
I'm really looking forward to meeting my colleagues in an episode of "dueling bloggers."
Bad Arolsen's archives are on the program with Peter W. Lande, who will speak about this as a resource for all genealogists:
The conference has already launched its Jamboree Blog to let everyone know about what will happen at the event; subscribe here
The Jamboree website offers many details: schedule, lecture topics, speakers, exhibitors, registration and hotel.
There have been additions (made after my initial posting) to the record number of programs by nationally and internationally recognized presenters; check here for the complete list.
Co-chairs Paula Hinkel and Leo Myers have announced that the website has been launched and registrations being taken for the June 27-29 event, at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel.
Tracing the Tribe's readers should also note the new-this-year Sunday track for Jewish research.
Another exciting innovation this year is the first Gen Blogger's Summit:
"We are very excited about the first-ever Blogger Summit, featuring many of the top genealogical industry bloggers today. Dick Eastman, Stephen Danko, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, Leland Meitzler, George G. Morgan, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, and maybe others, will put their collective heads together to discuss the pros and cons of nearly instantaneous information flow through genealogy blogs."
I'm really looking forward to meeting my colleagues in an episode of "dueling bloggers."
Bad Arolsen's archives are on the program with Peter W. Lande, who will speak about this as a resource for all genealogists:
The archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany, recently opened to the public after long being off-limits to researchers. It contains 16 miles of shelves holding 50 million pages of documents. Most of the attention on Bad Arolsen has focused on Jewish records, but in fact, probably over two thirds of the 50 million records relate to non-Jews who were swept into the Holocaust and events in WWII for many reasons.
The conference has already launched its Jamboree Blog to let everyone know about what will happen at the event; subscribe here
The Jamboree website offers many details: schedule, lecture topics, speakers, exhibitors, registration and hotel.
There have been additions (made after my initial posting) to the record number of programs by nationally and internationally recognized presenters; check here for the complete list.
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