Kodak News; April 29 – May 3

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History still in the making…

It was a busy week for Kodak.

On Monday Kodak reported a first quarter profit of $283 million. Revenue was down a little less than 10% at $849 million. The quarterly profit includes a $535 million gain recorded on the sale of Kodak’s digital imaging patent portfolio.

We reported here a couple of weeks ago that Kodak had a bid to sell their document imaging group to Brothers Industries. That deal is now off as Kodak got a better deal that includes both the document imaging and personal imaging (AKA film) group. The new deal is from the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan. That will settle pension claims of approximately $2.8 billion from the U. K. retirees and will give Kodak $650 million in cash and non-cash. The pension plan will be able to use the Kodak name for things like film and film camera.

Late on Tuesday Kodak filed a plan to the bankruptcy court for their emergence from bankruptcy. The Bankruptcy court must approve the plan and then Kodak will schedule a vote on the plan by their creditors. Kodak’s plan is to swap $2.7 billion in unsecured debt for shares in a new company. That will make current Kodak stock worthless. Kodak expects to emerge from bankruptcy as early as July.

Steven Ross, the head of the U. K. Pension Plan, was in Rochester Wednesday to reassure employees that will be moving from Kodak to the new, as of yet, unnamed company. Roughly 3,200 Kodak employees worldwide and numerous Rochester area physical assets, such as the million-square-foot Building 205 will be moving to the new company.

Approximately 1,200 retirees with unfunded pensions will be treated as creditors. Those retirees are mostly management level positions. This will not effect retirees that are part of the KRIP plan, which is safe.

Scenes for The Amazing Spider-Man™ 2 have been filmed all week long in downtown Rochester. The scenes are being filmed on Kodak Vison3 Color Negative Film. The scenes being filmed are chase scenes and do not include any of the stars of the movie.

Kodak stock price fluctuated greatly this week. After good news Monday the stock price jumped up to a high of 45 cents per share. Then after analysis of the emergence documents revealed that current stock would be worthless, the stock price dropped to about 9 cents per share. The stock price ended the week at around 15 cents.

NY in the Spanish-American War

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Rochester Public library has scanned a 3 volume set called “New York in the Spanish-American War.” This set is a report of the NY State Adjutant-General and was published in 1900. It gives a list of NY State Regiments that participated in the war and then gives a list of men in that unit noting when and where they mustered in and mustered out.

My grandmother’s brother George Webster served during the war. He went to the Philippines and after the war was over he stayed in Manila as a policeman for over a year. I even have a photo of him in his police uniform. Still, I wasn’t able to find him listed in these volumes.

The Spanish-American War was very short only taking place in the year 1898. The US got into the war after the sinking of the USS Maine that also resulting in the loss of 266 US sailors. As a result of the peace treaty Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba, ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the US. Cuba became independent in 1902 but the US got a perpetual lease of a military base in Guantanamo Bay.

Here are the links to New York in the Spanish-American War:

Monroe High School Yearbooks

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The Rochester Public Library has scanned a collection of yearbooks from James Monroe High School. The collection only covers the years of 1927 to 1940. Those join the collection of yearbooks that the library already has online (see the School Heritage Collection web page). The yearbooks are one of the most used collections in the Local History Division of the Central Branch of the Rochester Public Library.

These yearbooks are all PDF files and range from 9 to 21mb in size. These are links to the yearbooks:

NYC Genealogical Guide

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The National Genealogical Society is releasing a new guide to genealogical research in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County. The NYC area has it’s own unique problems as it so large and has kept records separate from the rest of NY State. This guide tells what records are available and where they can be found. The following is a press release from NGS:

The National Genealogical Society announces the release of the newest edition in its Research in the States series: Research in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County. This publication was written by native New Yorker and nationally recognized genealogist Laura Murphy DeGrazia, cg, fgbs. Laura is a trustee and former president of BCG and co-editor of the NYG&B Record. Barbara Vines Little, cg, fngs, fvgs, is a former NGS president and is the current editor of the NGS Research in the States series and the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy.

Research in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County is an introduction to resources and repositories essential to genealogical research in these geographic areas. “Millions of Americans have ancestors who spent some time in the New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County area,” said Laura Murphy DeGrazia, author, “and knowing what resources exist and where they are located can help family historians be more successful in their research.”

The guide will be available for sale at the NGS 2013 Family History Conference in Las Vegas from 8–11 May in the NGS booth (#205). Author Laura Murphy DeGrazia will be available for book signings at the NGS conference booth on Thursday, 9 May from 9:00 a.m.–10:50 a.m.

Research in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County will be available in the NGS store at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/research_in_the_states in a PDF and print version beginning 8 May; the print version will ship after 20 May.

Top Songs of 1963; #7

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The next song to hit the top of the records charts in 1963 was Can’t Get Used To Losing You, sung by Andy Williams. The song written by Jerome “Doc” Pomus and Mort Shuman. Andy Williams’ version of the song was at number one spot of the Cash Box chart for the week of April 21 – 27. The song never made it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Instead it was at #2 for the weeks of April 7 – May 4. That didn’t hurt Andy’s career. He was to have many more hit songs plus he had his own TV show which ran from 1962 to 1967.

Download songs of Andy Williams (for a fee) from Amazon.com.

Library Bond Passes in Irondequoit

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Irondequoit library concept

Irondequoit library concept

Yesterday was a vote in the Town of Irondequoit for a bond to be issued to build a new library. The bond passed with 3651 yes votes to 2033.  The bond is the first step in combining the two small libraries in Irondequoit into one much larger one that will be built on the corner of Titus Ave. and Kings Highway next to the Irondequoit Town Hall. The existing libraries date back to the early 1960s and both needed some renovations if the bond had not passed.

The library bond will add $29 per year for property assessed at $100,000. The total bond will not exceed $13 million.

The new 60,000 square foot library will have more space for books, computer access, public meetings, and parking. The final design of the building still needs to be approved. Irondequoit also hopes to get donations to furnish the new library.  They expect to break ground in spring of 2014.

St. Joseph’s Villa – Name Changed

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Today, St. Joseph’s Villa has been renamed the Villa of Hope. The agency which is just over 70 years old. Villa of Hope offers assistance to more than 2,000 youth and families each year. The agency says its goal is to restore lives back to full potential before things like chemical addiction, mental illness, neglect or abuse, and poor choices interfere. The agency has a campus in the Town of Greece but also provides many services off campus by sending social workers into the community. Christina Gullo,president and CEO of Villa of Hope, said, “Villa of Hope signifies a fresh outlook of success for our agency and guarantees continuous help to our Rochester community.”

St. Joseph’s Villa was started in 1942 by the Sisters of St. Joseph by merging 3 small orphanages; St. Joseph’s German Orphan Asylum, St. Mary’s Boys’ Orphan Asylum and St. Patrick’s Orphan Girls Asylum. Villa of Hope is no longer affiliated with the Catholic church but continues to help children and families in the Rochester area.

FamilySearch – One Billion Indexed Records

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FamilySearch passed a big milestone last week, Friday. They started their current indexing project in September 2006. Now they have indexed over 1 billion records. The procedure is that each record is indexed twice and then arbitrated for differences of each record. Once indexed records are completed, they are put on the FS website and made available for everyone in the world for free.

The number of indexing volunteers has been increasing over the years. They were able to index the whole US 1940 census in just a few months. Current projects being indexed are from all over the world. Indexing is very easy and you can only download and index as small amount of records that can be completed in less than an hour. If you have some time to spare consider helping other genealogist. Start at the FS Indexing page.

FamilySearch Website Update

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FamilySearch has made major changes to their website. All of the changes were talked about last month at the RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City by James Tanner and Dennis Brimhall.

The website added the capability to upload photos and stories of your ancestors. I uploaded a picture of my grandmother. After you upload the picture (either jpg or png up to 5 mb) then you get to identify the person by circling the face. Then you should described the photo. Then, if you want to, you can link the person to FS Family Tree.  After that staff from FamilySearch has to check the photo before it will be made public. Not sure how long that takes.

Stories are hidden under the Photo tab. You get a web page that has you add a title to the story and the text. It is plain text with no formatting and you can either cut and paste or type directly in the text area. I heard that a story can be quite long but there isn’t any indication of size on the website. Remember that the stories are going to be public so ypu should not include any facts about living people.

FamilySearch homepage

FamilySearch homepage

The new Fan Charts are nice looking. You can click on a name in the fan chart and it will show a fan chart for that person or go to their person data. All this information comes from the data that is in FS Family Tree so there may be incorrect data that you will have to fix. In the end, the fan chart is just a fancy method to show a pedigree.

Fan Chart

Fan Chart

FS Family Tree has added links to photos and stories so you can add those directly from there. Some of the colors on the page have changed and may be hard to read as there isn’t a big enough color contrast. Still to come for Family Tree is the ability to print a family group sheet or a pedigree sheet. Maybe those will appear next month.

The tab that is labeled “Live Help” has to changed. Under there is product support, the research wiki, videos and a place to get someone to call you on the phone with help. It might be better to label it “Get Help”  because there are so many kinds of sources.

I think that there will still be other changes made to the FamilySearch website but maybe not as big as the changes that they did this week. Everyone has their favorite part of FS and they don’t like when it is harder to find what they want. This is a very complicated website and it will always need to be making changes to keep up with their new goals.

NY State Genealogy Conference in September

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The Central New York Genealogical Society and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society announce their First New York State Family History Conference on September 20 and 21st. The information below is from the press release:

The Central New York Genealogical Society and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society are cosponsoring the first-ever statewide genealogical conference in New York. The two-day conference will be held on September 20 and 21 at the Holiday Inn & Conference Center Liverpool, just outside Syracuse, New York. Pre-conference research activities will be available on September 19. Attendees will have an opportunity to advance their skills in researching New York families and to build general skills through 20 lectures in two parallel tracks; two luncheons and a dinner, all with riveting speakers; and exhibits by vendors and societies. The Conference Program and exhibitor information may be found on the Conference website.

New York State poses numerous challenges for even the most experienced family history researcher. The New York State Family History Conference will break down research barriers and provide a forum that brings people together to share their research knowledge and problem-solving experiences and to collaborate on key research issues. Future conferences will be scheduled at regular intervals.The early-bird registration fee for the two-day Conference (excluding meals and printed syllabus) is $115 until July 1, after which it will be $140; members of the CNYGS or the NYG&B receive a $25 discount. Purchase tickets in the online store on the NYGS website.

Conference speakers include the top names in New York genealogy: Blaine Bettinger “The Genetic Genealogist,” Ruth Carr formerly of New York Public Library; Sachiko Clayton of New York Public Library; Laura Murphy DeGrazia, CG, from NYG&B Record; Stefani Evans, CG, National Genealogical Society; James D. Folts of the New York State Archives; Karen Mauer Green, CG, of NYG&B Record; Eric Grundset from the Library of the Daughters of the American Revolution; Terry Koch-Bostic of the National Genealogical Society; Michael Leclerc of the Mocavo Genealogical Blog; Joseph Lieby of the Palatines to America German Genealogical Society; Maira Liriano of New York Public Library, Kathleen Roefrom the New York State Archives, Paula Stuart-Warren, CG; and D. Joshua Taylor from Find My Past.

Sponsors of the conference include: Find My Past, Mocavo, the National Genealogical Society, the New York Public Library, the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.

This really isn’t the first NY State Genealogical Conference. I attended one conference in the late 1980s in Albany that had major speakers and then there was one in 1990 in Rochester that didn’t make money and some speakers never got paid for attending. This is the first joint conference for CNYGS and NYGBS.

The 2013 New York State Family History Conference Program (PDF File) is already online so you can see the talks at the conference.

The conference hotel is only a half mile south of Thruway exit #37 so it is easy to get to.