There was a report on the CBS news last Saturday about the Internet Archive using the internet to try to preserve a copy of every book ever published. Libraries from around the country send their old discarded books to the Internet Archive headquarters where they digitized the book and make it available online for free. …
The official 1940 census website was completed overwhelmed and experiencing many problems yesterday but appears to be working today. I noticed images of census pages load completely different than they did yesterday. Yesterday an image would load as a bunch of tiles to make up the entire image. Today an image is loaded as just …
This has been an amazing day for genealogists. The National Archives released the 1940 census and more important is that it was going to be online for free. Family Search had received copies of all the images at midnight and by 8:30 (all times eastern) they already put up all images for the State of …
The second free online presentation at the Rootstech conference was “Do I Trust the Cloud?” by D. Joshua Taylor. He described why genealogists need to back-up their data to “the cloud.” “The cloud” is a fancy name for a place on the internet where you can store copies of your important computer files. Those can …
The keynote speaker for the opening session of the Rootstech conference was Jay L. Verkler who was the former director of FamilySearch.org. His talk centered on the possibilities of the future of genealogy. He showed a girl in 2060 asking her phone to find her ancestors which it did in just minutes. He also showed …
This coming weekend the RootsTech genealogy conference will be in Salt Lake City, Utah. They announced that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live over the internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend in person a sample of this year’s sessions. If interested, you can watch the live presentations at …
Back in the 1960s my grandmother told me that her brother’s wife, Stella, had been on Broadway. Not only that, but that she also knew Jeanette MacDonald and Sydney Greenstreet. I thought that grandma was confused or just plain wrong. Many years later when I entered Stella into my genealogy program, I entered a note …
One of the easiest places to find a free version of the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) has been removed. The database has been removed from RootsWeb. According to the web page on RootsWeb, the information has been removed because of “sensitivities around the information.” So you are directed to Ancestry.com where they have all …
I read an article on the Family Search website titled “Online with Topographical Maps” by James Tanner that told about the on-line collection of the USGS (U. S. Geological Survey). You should read that blog post by Mr. Tanner. He mentions the “The National Map” web page which I hadn’t seen before. I think that …
Today marks 10 years since the US was attacked. Remember as you watch the dedication of the memorial at Ground Zero that the nearly 3000 people that died all had families that miss them. I found a set of web pages on CNN that list all the people that died on 9/11/01. It gives their …