Saturday, January 06, 2007

PRO version Census of England and Wales Online

Census Petition

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reduce the classified period for census data from 100 years to 70 years.: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reduce the classified period for census data from 100 years to 70 years.

This would allow census information from 1911, 1921 and 1931 to be used by the general public researching their family history in the absence (or failing memories) of their elderly relatives.

Birth, Marriage and Death information is already available so why is information about where people lived hidden.?

Submitted by Jen Tibbetts – Deadline to sign up by: 08 March 2007 – Signatures: was 588 now 607"

Big Brother has got me hooked this time

Big Brother - the official BigBrother UK website on channel4.com
with Ken Russell one of the greatest living film directors and more Ken Russell filmpgraphy (I)

Ken Russell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell, known as Ken Russell (born July 3, 1927), is a controversial English film director, particularly known for his films about famous composers."

"ken russell" - Google Search

Friday, January 05, 2007

Ancestry.co.uk Monthly Newsletter - January 2007

from my email and shortened:-

For Ancestry.co.uk and all our members, 2006 has been a monumental year in terms of launching new record sets and new tree building features. Here’s just a summary of the main events of the last year…

January
Launch of the ONS Birth, Marriage & Death Index Records collection 1837-2004
.

April
English & Welsh 1841 Censuses arrive, marking completion of the 1841-1901 Census set for England, Wales, Channel Islands and The Isle of Man.

May
Scottish 1841 Census the first of Ancestry.co.uk’s Scottish census collection is released
.

July
Ancestry’s Member Trees feature launched providing a series of free to use and powerful tree-building tools including photos, creation of mini-ancestral bios and more...

September
British Phone Book Collection 1880-1984 Release 1 - including over 60 million records spanning the birth of the telephone to the privatization of British Telecom in 1984
.

October
Over 60 million records added to New York Passenger Lists 1820-1957 collection alone, the main port of arrival for UK emigrants traveling to the USA. Also featuring further additions to existing record sets, including new passenger and crew lists.

November
1851 & 1861 Scottish Census double release in celebration of St Andrews Day.

and after surviving Christmas

Firstly, 2007 will continue in similar vain to 2006 with no let up in our efforts to launch both new record collections and enhance those we already hold. Expect further additions to our UK Census collection, including more Scottish Census releases as well as a continuation of British Phone Books collection 1880-1984, amongst others. Keep watch for Army Records too.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

genealogy in Iceland

Íslendingabók

A few years ago the Icelandic nation-wide genealogy database
http://www.islendingabok.is went online. It includes almost all
available Icelandic genealogical information from the earliest times until the present - including all currently living Icelanders, with automatic monthly updates of newborn children and the newly deceased.

Access to this database is free of charge and more than half of the
entire population of the country has by now registered as users of the database.

Users can look at trees like this:
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k109/Adinos/tree.jpg browse through their ancestry and relatives or check how they are related to anyone else in the database. On the average, the trees are fairly complete for the last 10 generations or so, but become somewhat sparse earlier - although everyone can trace some branches back to the 9th century.

The original plan was to open the database to people of Icelandic ancestry, in particular descendants of the Icelanders that went to Canada and the US in the 1874-1914 period and to provide an English language interface to the dtabase. Unfortunately, however, due to recent cutbacks in our funding, those plans have been cancelled."

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

WorldVitalRecords

Special Offer: "World Vital Records is dedicated to helping you succeed with your genealogy and family history. Whether you are just getting started on your family tree or if you are an experienced genealogist, our goal is to assist you all along the way.

Of course World Vital Records has tons of great searchable data including many exclusive databases. We specialize in collecting international data from all over the world and collecting information that no other site has. But we are much more than just databases and search results! We are committed to being your genealogy partner and helping you get everything you need to succeed. We are here to help!"


WorldVitalRecords Blog » About: "At WorldVitalRecords.com our goal is to provide you with record databases from all over the world, geocoded data, references to top genealogical resources, a blog planet, podcasts, videocasts, Webinars, expert advice, training, and user-generated content. We’re moving as fast as we can to build this genealogy community with resources and services that people really need. We invite you to participate with us as we collaborate with partners and affiliates all over the world to bring you all the information you need in one central location.

——————————–

A message from Paul Allen, CEO:

We are a small company in Provo, Utah with a big ambition–to help every genealogist in the world be more successful.

Back in June 1996, three of us were instrumental in building a genealogy site called Ancestry.com. I was its first CEO, but later served in various roles. We changed the rules back then by publishing all our databases online instead of on CD ROMs, like others were doing.

The company has grown dramatically in the past 10 years, but I left in 2002 partly because I was worried about the constant price increases and partly because I didn’t think the company was innovating very much anymore.

Today, we are amazed at how much genealogical data is available online, but we worry tha"

The Message Boards Are Getting Even Better

Message Boards Announcement

Thanks to helpful comments and requests from valued community members like you, we'll soon be launching significantly updated message boards on Ancestry and RootsWeb. The updated boards will feature outstanding improvements in design, tools and technology.

And to make sure we give you the best message boards possible, we've had current board users testing every improvement and providing valuable feedback throughout various stages of development.

Here's what you can expect from the updated message boards:
Personalization
You'll soon find many new ways to customize your experience, from choosing how you'd like to view each thread to controlling how many posts and threads you see on a page.

Organization
You'll be able to receive notifications individually or choose to receive "digests" on your schedule. New icons will help you easily identify new and updated threads since your last visit.

New Tools
Brand new board tools including "spell check" and "edit" will help you improve your message board communications.

And Much More
The updated message boards will also include plenty of improvements that you can't necessarily see, such as more powerful searches and better spam blockers.

We're excited to bring you the above message board updates and many more, all thanks to feedback and suggestions from users like you. Look out for the improved boards on Ancestry and RootsWeb in the coming weeks.

unfortunately this was written in about March 2006

Rootsweb Message Boards > Topics > RootsWeb > Administrative > Boards Administrators > My Comments as Beta Tester on 12/4/05: "Some of you wondered if there were any beta testers. I helped some and here are my comments in 12/4/05.

Message Board Update Evaluation:" click to read the rest of what
James R. Davis of Sacramento, CA wrote

KinHelp - Welcome to KinHelp

Gordon Johnson wrote:-

KinHelp - Welcome to KinHelp home page : which "introduces you to me and my services. Some are free (indices, articles, etc.), but KinHelp is my professional fee-based research assistance, concentrating on Scottish people, and mostly pre-1700 (where there are few competent professionals), but I can help with any time and place in Scotland - ask and I can advise on what is possible.

The indices are free to use and to print off, but remain my copyright, as do my articles. My Oldnews pages are primarily for fun, and show news items from newspapers, etc. through the centuries. You might find an ancestor here if you are lucky! New additions will be added from time to time, but not very often.

The Library and Archive Sources is a list of libraries and archives which have genealogical material. This is hell to update, so expect it to be a bit behind the times. Corrections from the places listed will be welcomed."

Gordon's Blog:

Scottish Death certificates (1855 onwards)

"Regarding date, time and place of death, probably most people died at home, or at a relative's house. With few antiseptics, a broken leg or similar problem could be fatal through infection getting into an open wound.

Again, many older people died not from their initial medical
problem, but from pneumonia - which my doctor father-in-law called 'the old man's friend', as it was a relatively painless death.

Dying in a hospital was not common - partly because in the 19th centurymost of the population regarded going into hospital as a death sentence!

The doctor was usually called during daytime, simply to certify death and thus allow a relative to go to the registrar. The doctor was probably not present at the death, but the death certificate informant probably was (and the certificate would say: (present))"

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Canada French Genealogy

American-French Genealogical Society: Home Page
American French Genealogical Society - Google Search

AFGS publications primarily concern New England, but do include some Canadian items as well.

by email from
AncestorStuff.com shopping

JONES

JonesFamilyHistory : JonesFamilyHistory: "The Jones Family History group is for the discussion of Jones genealogy and related families, as well as to trade family files and photo's. The earliest known Jones in my line is Bunian Clay Jones Born 03 Jan 1855 and his wife Julia Anna Legg Jones Born 08 Dec 1856.
We gratefully accept any Jones Researcher."

Taliesin Arlein - ONS Names List: "HIS DATABASE is an extract of an Office of National Statistics database, and contains a list of surnames in use in England, Wales and the Isle of Mann in September 2002. The list contains almost 270,000 surnames, shared by 54.4 million people. "
SurnameCountRanking
JONES 538874 2

Multiplying by 3.5 will give the population since the start of parish registers in the 16th century.

with 3 or 4 records per person you are talking of about 12 million records for England and Wales

a count of under 3000 is about as much as one person can manage for a one-name study

findmypast.com offer

findmypast.com - UK - Family History, Ancestry, Trace your family Tree, Census Records
from my email:-
Just a reminder that your personal invitation to subscribe to findmypast.com's deluxe Explorer Subscription for the special discounted price of £99 expires on 3 January 2007.

A subscription from findmypast.com really does give fantastic value for money and convenience - you can check back as many times as you need to and don't have to worry about your units running out.

This is your last opportunity to invest in twelve months of unlimited access to this vast range of essential family history records at this value price. For just £8.25 per month you could have unlimited access to over 450,000,000 records.

census reference search has address search in 1841 1861 1871 and 1891 census




And a serious competitor to Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees and Family History Records online is slowly emerging with address searches too

Monday, January 01, 2007

union catalogues of mss in USA

Library of Congress gateway to library catalogues
web page for gateway access to LC's catalog and those at many other institutions.

site:www.loc.gov catalog - Google Site Search

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections - Library of Congress
Cooperative cataloging program operated by the Library of Congress.

NUCMC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "NUCMC is the abbreviation for the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections. It is a national-level program based at the Library of Congress which seeks to promote free access to the documentary heritage of the United States. It does this by providing cataloging for archives and historical societies around the country which do not have access to national online databases.
The program started in 1959 and published bound volumes of cataloging records until 1993.
As of 1986, the cataloging records were input into RLIN, the Research Libraries Information Network, an international online database."

About Searching Manuscript Collections: National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), Library of Congress: "The Library of Congress provides Web interfaces for searching the NUCMC records online. Access is provided to both the RLG Union Catalog and OCLC. This service is provided free-of-charge. NUCMC staff can assist you with problems you might be having searching RLG and OCLC, but we cannot perform searches for you."


Definitions used in seaching the databases:-
  • Research Libraries Group (RLG)
    A not-for-profit membership corporation of over 160 universities, national libraries, archives, historical societies, and other institutions with remarkable collections for research and learning. Rooted in collaborative work that addresses members' shared goals for these collections, RLG develops and operates information resources used by members and nonmembers around the world.
  • OCLC
    A nonprofit membership organization serving 41,000 libraries in 82 countries and territories around the world.
  • Archival and Mixed Collections (AMC file)
    Materials that are described according to archival descriptive rules, which focus on the contextual relationships between items and on their provenance rather than on bibliographic detail. All forms of material (including diaries, letters, business records, etc.) can be controlled archivally.
  • Z39.50
    An information retrieval protocol that supports communication among different information systems. The maintenance agency for the protocol is the Library of Congress.
  • Library of Congress WWW/Z39.50 Gateway From the NUCMC web site, it offers you seamless searching in the RLG and OCLC databases.
  • Gateway
    The gateways to the RLG and OCLC databases using Z39.50 are an easy access entrance and searching those databases without having to use the RLG or OCLC searching forms or methods.
  • Left-anchored search
    The search must begin with the first significant word in a name, title, or subject field, and continue with the search in exact order, as opposed to "word list" search where the words can be in any order

"While we catalog your materials in the RLG Union Catalog, to do the most comprehensive search of all archival and manuscript repositories holdings, you will need to search in both RLG and OCLC. Some archival and manuscript repositories catalog their materials in RLG, while others are members of OCLC and catalog materials there.

The Library of Congress only provides search access to the following materials in the RLG and OCLC databases: archival and manuscript collections; mixed materials (i.e., collections that contain two or more different types of bibliographic materials); and bibliographic materials that have been described using archival descriptive rules. The Library does not provide "free" access to search books or other types of materials in RLG and OCLC.

Library of Congress Online Catalog access to the collections resident at the Library of Congress.

site:www.loc.gov catalogue - Google Site Search with the english spelling

About RLG: " a not-for-profit organization of over 150 research libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural memory institutions. Our global membership has remarkable collections for research and learning. Founded in 1974 by The New York Public Library and Columbia, Harvard, and Yale universities, RLG provides solutions to the challenges presented by information access and management in the digital era.

RLG is governed and run by its members, staff and board of directors. "

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Auld Lang Syne - Skuld gammel venskab rejn forgo

HAPPY NEW YEAR -- GODT NYTAAR


Auld Lang Syne - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:


"Auld Lang Syne" is a poem by Robert Burns, although a similar poem by Robert Ayton (1570-1638), not to mention even older folk songs, use the same phrase, and may well have inspired Burns.

In any case, it is one of the best known songs in English-speaking countries - although, like many other frequently sung songs, the melody is better remembered than the words, which are often sung incorrectly, and seldom in full.

The song is commonly accompanied by a traditional dance. The group who are singing form a ring holding hands for the first verse. For the second verse, arms are crossed and again linked. For the third verse everyone moves in to the centre of the ring and then out again.

The song's name is in Scots, and may be translated literally as 'old long since', or more idiomatically 'long ago', or 'days gone by'. In his retelling of fairy tales in the Scots language, Matthew Fitt uses the phrase “In the days of auld lang syne” as the equivalent of “Once upon a time”. In Scots Syne is pronounced like the English word signIPA: [sain]—not [zain] as many people pronounce it.

The tune to which Auld Lang Syne is universally sung is a pentatonic Scots (or possibly Northumbrian) folk melody - probably originally a sprightly dance in a much quicker tempo.

The English composer William Shield, seems to quote the Auld Lang Syne melody briefly at the end of the overture to his opera Rosina - this may be its first recorded use. The contention that Burns borrowed the melody from Shield is for various reasons highly unlikely - they may very well both have taken it from a common source, however - possibly a strathspey called The Miller's Wedding or The Miller's Daughter. The problem is that tunes based on the same set of dance steps necessarily have a similar rhythm, and even a superficial resemblance in melodic shape may cause a very strong apparent similarity in the tune as a whole. For instance, Burns' poem Coming through the rye is sung to a tune that might also be based on the Miller's Wedding. The origin of the tune of God Save the Queen (q.v.) presents a very similar problem, and for just the same reason, as it is also based on a dance measure.

And the song was famously translated in 1927 by the famous Danish poet Jeppe Aakjær. Much like Robert Burn's use of dialect, Aakjær translated the song into the Danish dialect Jysk, a dialect from the Danish peninsula Jutland, often hard to understand for other Danes.

The song Skuld gammel venskab rejn forgo ('Should auld acquantaince be forgot'), is an integral part of the Danish Højskole tradition, and often associated with more rural areas and old traditions.
Also, the former Danish rock group Gasolin modernized the melody in 1974 with their pop ballad Stakkels Jim ('Poor Jim')."

amnesty wanted for 800 rejected refugees in Denmark

Amnesti Nu 42 334 signatures by 28 December 2003

Amnesti Nu! - SkrivUnder.dk: "Med din underskrift støtter du amnesti til omkring 800 afviste asyl-ansøgere, heraf 200 børn, som har opholdt sig i Danmark i mere end tre år.

De kommer fra bl.a. Irak, Kosovo og Iran. De er blevet flyttet rundt mellem danske asylcentre og har været i Danmark op til 8 år. Deres mistrivsel er veldokumenteret.

Asylsystemet har afvist at give dem opholdstilladelse. Samtidig kan de ikke tvangshjemsendes, ofte pga usikre forhold i deres hjemlande. Deres fremtid er fortsat udsigtsløs

Amnesti betyder i denne sammenhæng en engangshandling -- hvor man omgør udsendelsesbeslutningen for en ildestedt gruppe medmennesker, som er kommet i klemme i en meget restriktiv flygtningepolitik.

Målet med initiativet er at skabe en folkebevægelse for amnesti-nu! På tværs af mennesker, foreninger og politiske partier."

enquiry about MYRTLE CORBIN

from my email this morning:-

Hello Hugh,

On Feb. 23, 2006, from your email a query concerning my paternal great grandmother Myrtle Corbin.

I would be interested in contact with the person who sent you the email.

The email was signed JD?

GB

GENEALOGE: MYRTLE CORBIN

A good place to make contact might be
Rootsweb Message Boards > Surnames > Corbin

or http://wc.rootsweb.com/
eg
Josephine Myrtle Corbin RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: My Big Family

Corbin Family Genealogy Forum
and
Bicknell Family Genealogy Forum
or
You are here:Message Boards > Surnames > Bicknell