Saturday, April 12, 2008

Genealogy Community Study

The Internet Genealogy Community Study:
"Program: Doctor of Philosophy
Faculty: Media and Information (Internet Studies)
University: Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia

Thesis:
The Changing Face of Genealogy: An Empirical Study of the Genealogical Community, Online"
The Internet Genealogy Community Study | Blog

The Internet Genealogy Community Study | Documents: "Publications - Books by by Veale, K. J."
Survey Info Sheet: "The Internet Genealogy Community Study (IGCS) was conducted by Kylie Veale as part of her PhD thesis,"

Thornbury Gloucestershire England

Thornbury Roots - local history & genealogy of Thornbury: "Thornbury Trade Directories from 1790 to 1973

Monumental Inscriptions

United Reformed Church - its history and registers of births, marriages and deaths"

About Us: "In 2004, we started researching the history of our house in Gloucester Road following an approach by a member of Thornbury Museum. This resulted in us joining the Thornbury Museum Research Group that meets the first Thursday of each month at The Chantry in Castle Street. We soon found out a lot of information about the house and adjoining houses. We realised that the information could be of interest to people researching the history of families who might have lived in the houses. In 2005 we developed out first website dealing just with the 'History of Laburnum Terrace'. By 2006 we had collected an extensive amount of information about other areas of Thornbury and we created Thornbury Roots."

Gas - Gas Lamps: "How many public lamps there were at the beginning is not clear; we believe there were 23. The first detailed list of the lamps that we have found so far was dated 1920. Even that has only 25 lamps and one extra on Sundays; nor were they to be lit every night as 'five nights in each month viz;- two days before full moon and two days after' there was apparently enough natural light anyway." Links

London Family Records Centre is now closed

Family Records Centre - Newsletter: "This is the 41st and last edition of The Family Record. If you'd like to keep up to date with future developments at Kew it's not too late to sign up to The National Archives' monthly email newsletter."

News | Free email updates:
"The National Archives of the United Kingdom monthly email newsletter is a must for family, local and military historians - in fact, anyone interested in history."

Friday, April 11, 2008

Myths

From: DaePowell

GENTREK: Myths in British Genealogy

by Walter Lee Shepherd, Jr.
Edited and revised by Dae Powell
Presented by Jayne McCormick .

A true student of genealogy learns to respect facts, to assess them, to combine them and to draw conclusions from them. He further knows that when direct evidence is not available, reasonable conclusions can be reached from the weight of indirect evidence. To reach such a conclusion not only must there be sufficient, indirect evidence pointing to that conclusion, but there can be none that leads in the reverse direction. .

Perhaps casualness with facts and with the assessment of their values and meanings and haste in reaching unsupported conclusions is to be expected of the inexperienced, but it can never be condoned. Too many researchers seem to feel that a few minutes exposure to records and to some carelessly assembled genealogy is all the training they require, and they then embalm their horrors for all time in print and proudly circulate them. And even those who are experienced and careful in their work, once they carry the line on which they are working across the Atlantic often ignore their own basic rules in tracking the line back into and beyond the middle ages, accepting as gospel statements that the most casual scrutiny would serve to disprove. .

Prior to the Norman Conquest we find basically three kinds of medieval and dark-age pedigrees:

1~ Pedigrees handed down by oral tradition from bard to bard, and at some time in the past rendered into manuscript.

2~ Pedigrees grafted onto bardic pedigrees by historians, based on what they considered reasonable presumptive evidence.

3~ Downright forgeries, by those who sought to glorify the subject of the pedigree. . Of course forgeries are not unknown, either.

There are unscrupulous genealogists who are not above fabricating a pedigree, and perhaps supporting it with a forged Bible reference or other document.

The court record of the multi-million dollar estate of Henrietta Garrett is packed with false relationship claims which were sifted by the courts, and in many cases the courts have proceeded against false claimants who offered faked evidence.

This sort of thing occurs sometimes when a genealogist is employed to prove a descent sought for membership in an hereditary society, and when the genealogist knows that the evidence does not exist, or will be very difficult to obtain.
Such falsification is more often found in lineages supporting claims in pre-Colonial societies, than in those with smaller numbers of generations. .

In the Middle Ages there were other reasons for this sort of thing.
An important man might become a king by force of arms, and would find less resistance to his rule if he could display a blood claim -- membership in the Royal family.

A king would be more willing to give his daughter in marriage to a nobleman related to the Royal house. And of course, there was the sheer snobbery of complimenting a self-made man of obscure lineage. .
The greatest mass of medieval and dark-age pedigrees are worked into the Norse sagas, and into the early records of the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Saxon peoples.

Errors undoubtedly occur in many of these, though probably fewer errors are attributable to the oral tradition when the bards had phenomenal memories, than to the clerical errors and mistaken editing of the later written versions.

These ancient records have recently been under study by experienced scholars, who by careful comparison of records from several different sources and traditions, and with known historical events can determine with a fair degree of accuracy which pedigrees can be considered reliable, and to what generation in the pedigree.

Major Francis Jones has done a careful study of Welsh records.

The House of Cerdic was studied by H. Trelawney Reed, and a careful study of the early generations appears in his The Rise of Wessex.
See also Harold R. Smith's Saxon England, though he starts his known pedigree only with Ecgbert.
H. Pirie Gordon's articles in The Armorial on the Kingdom of Strathclyde constitute a superb study of dark age Scottish lineages and connections with the Pictish Royal House.

There have been a number of important studies of Norse lines, printed in The Saga Book of the Viking Society and in the various papers in the Swedish Historical Series.
And David Kelley did a painstaking work on the early Irish pedigrees. .

Unfortunately there has been a wide-spread tendency among the less careful and more snobbish to accept out of the whole cloth some of the poorest of the bardic pedigrees, and even to start their family genealogies with them.

A favorite ancestor established in this manner is "Old King Cole" who may or may not have been a merry old soul, but if he was the British Tribal Ruler Coel Hen ("The Old"), he was a bloodthirsty pagan who was unacquainted with fiddles. Little is known about these tribal chiefs but their names, and one can find little real reason for incorporating a questionable pedigree to so shadowy a figure into a family genealogy. .

One is reminded of that sonnet of Percy Bysshe Shelly which reads

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedistal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings:
Look on my works ye Mighty and despair!"
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away. .

There is yet another and unnoted problem.

We do not know for certain the methods these ancients employed in selecting their successors. For example, in the past decade, the ancient tablet libraries of the Hittites in Asia have been translated and from them we have obtained a pedigree the ancient Hittite kings.

But we have also learned that these kings were so concerned with a strong and stable government and an uncontested succession, that if their own children were not considered capable of successful rule, the king would adopt into his family an heir in whom he felt he could rely.
And this adopted son became the next king rather than the former king's own children.
To be sure the adopted son was usually of the blood of the royal house, but not by any means always.
Thus the list of monarchs cannot be considered a true pedigree.

And we have no way of knowing whether a similar break may exist somewhere in these bardic pedigrees. .
Two examples of American usage of these ancient lines may be of interest, the first to show what may be (or may not) a reasonable graft to an old pedigree.

The second is an outright forgery. . In the 1680s one John ap Thomas ap Hugh of Merionethshire (Wales), the first "John Cadwalader," ancestor of the Pennsylvania family of Cadwalader, emigrated to Pennsylvania.
With him he brought an ancient pedigree showing his descent from Marchweithian, the traditional founder of one of the 15 ancient tribes of Wales - reputed to have lived about 1050 AD.

As in the pedigrees of this period this one is written as a series of circles or coins, each bearing the name of a man, and joined with a line, or string to the proceeding and following generations.
Also, typically, the most recent generation heads the table, his father below him, and so on.

Here is the pedigree as it is reproduced in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography vol. iv pages 471-483. .

John ap Thomas of Llaithgwm in the county of Merioneth, gentleman, 1682.
Thomas ap Hugh Hugh ap Evan Evan ap Rees Goch Rees Goch ap Tyder (variant of Tudor, or Twdr)
Tudor ap Rees Evan ap Coch of Bryammer in Cerrig y druidion and county Denbigh
Evan ddu David ap Eiynion (variant of Einon)
Eiynion ap Kynrig Kynrig ap Llowarch HeHin Tyfid Tagno Ysdrwyth Marchwystt Marchweithian .

The article calls this pedigree "authentic" and states that it was presumably "constructed from family sources." .

Note the absence of dates.

For the three latest generations it would be normally accepted beyond question on the theory that most men know who their fathers are and have first hand knowledge of their father's father.
The pedigree appears sound, probably back to Tudor ap Rees (5 generations), and here is where we find the first difficulty.
Tudor's father must be Rees, but the next name in the pedigree is not Rees but Evan ap Coch.

This is obviously also incorrect, for Coch or Goch is not a name but an adjective, so probably part of Evan's father's name is omitted.
He is probably not the man named next in the table - Evan ddu -- for here a different adjective ddu appears. .

Another break in the pedigree appears in the 11th generation, since the father of Kyrig ap Llowarch (probably Llywarch is meant) would be Llowarch and not Heilin. .

The final test of the pedigree is its chronology.
The head of the pedigree would be born say 1650.
The 17th generation, Marchweithian, is said to have lived circa 1150AD, 500 years earlier, a spread of more than 35 years to the generation, which is unlikely. .

Finally, the cited paper continues the pedigree backward through 101 further generations, through Noah, Lamech, Enos, Seth, and Adam to God; a real curiosity tying together Biblical pedigrees, historic and mythological persons, without regard to chronology. .

The following Ridgway Pedigree has been published rather widely, most printed versions citing as source a James Ridgway Manuscript Genealogy, dated about 1897, and preserved in the collections of the Long Island (N. Y.) Historical Society. .

Leofric I, b. ab. 680, 1st Earl of Leicester, of Lincoln, & of Chester. A member of the Royal Family of Mercia.
Algar I, living 633, 2nd Earl of Leicester, Lincoln & Chester.
Algar II, killed 870, 3rd Earl of Leicester, Lincoln & Chester.
Leofric II, Earl of Leicester, Lincoln and Chester.

Leofwine, 5th Earl of Leicester, Lincoln, Chester & Hereford, created Duke of Mercia,
mar. Alware, grand daughter of Aethelstan, 1st King of all England.
He was living AD 1000.

Leofric III, d. 1057, 6th Earl of Leicester. He mar. Godiva, Countess of Coventry.
Algar III [Alfgar] 7th Earl of Leicester.
He mar. Aelgifu, daughter of William Mallet.
Edwin, slain ca. 1071, 8th Earl of Leicester.
Asser, or Asceur of Edmonghale.
(Geo. C. Ridgeway adds that his wife was a daughter of William the Conqueror). Asser Geun.
William Geun, assumed name of Rydeware, mar. a dau. of William de Thanet.
Sir William de Rydeware, knt., by 1182.

Sir Walter de Rydeware
mar. Matilde dau. of Sir Nicholas de Peche.
Walter de Rydeware
mar. Ellen dau. Sir William fitz Herbert.
Sir Thomas de Rydeware de Rydeware, ward, on father's death, (1296) of Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster,
mar. (1) Margareta, m. (2) Isabella.

Robert de Rydeware b. ca. 1318, d. 1378.
Richard de Rydeware b. ca. 1350, d. 1410.
John de Rydeware, b. ca. 1380, d. ca. 1440, first to be called Ridgway.

Richard de Ridgway b. ca. 1410, d. ca. 1470.
Stephen de Ridgway b. ca. 1435, d. ca. 1500.
John de Ridgway b. ca. 1470, d. ca. 1556, of Torre Grange, Devon.
Thomas de Ridgway of Tor Mohun, Devon.

Sir Thomas Ridgway, 1st Earl of Londonderry, b. ca. 1565 d. 1631.
Sir Robert Ridgway 2nd Earl of Londonderry d.19
Mar. 1640/1 had two sons with other children: 1. Weston, 3rd Earl, 2. Robert bp. 1631.

Robert Ridgway bp. 24 Aug. 1631 at Torre Church, Devon.
Richard Ridgway, who came to America in 1679, bringing son Thomas b. 1677. .

We can add to the above the following from any of the Peerage compilations:
Weston Ridgeway, b. 25 Mar. bp. April 4 1620, d. 1672, 3rd Earl, left 2 sons, Robert and Thomas:
Robert Ridgway, 4th Earl, died 1713/14 leaving only two daughters; his brother Thomas having predeceased him, s.p., the title became extinct. .

Anyone who knows peerage law would recognize from this that the Earldom would have then devolved back upon Robert, son of Sir Robert the 2nd Earl.

On his death it would have passed to his son.
If this Robert had predeceased the two sons of Weston, then the title would have been vested in his son Richard, who was, according to this pedigree, the 1679 colonist.


Yet Richard the colonist did not
(1) use a coat of arms or seal on any document,
(2) is not found to have made any claim for this Earldom on the death of these reputed cousins.
In fact he was a poor man, and a tailor, a trade most unlikely for the grandson of a rich Earl, even an illegitimate grandson.

This pedigree was passed on to Sir Anthony Richard Wagner, now Garter Principal King of Arms of the College of Arms for his comments, which read as follows: .

"The first impossibility is the attachment of the Ridgways of Devon to the Rydewares of Staffordshire, but I must add to this the derivation of the Rydewares of Staffordshire from the Earls of Mercia is a fearful and wonderful invention.

When we add to this your dictum that the American Ridgways cannot come from the Earls of Londonderry there does not seem to be much left." .

Actually, the grandfather of the first Earl of Londonderry is unknown.

There are other major errors in the pedigree.
The title of Earl of Leicester is Norman, and was not used until the Conquest.

The pedigree back of Leofwine is sheer fabrication, since his ancestry is unknown, and there is certainly no ground for identifying his wife with a granddaughter of Aethelstane, nor has Alfgar's wife been accurately identified, and there is no ground for calling her a daughter of William Mallet.

William the Conqueror of course had no daughter, legitimate or otherwise, married to one Asser or Asceur. .

With these two examples behind us, let us pass on to a consideration of the place in the early pedigrees allotted to King Arthur. .

Arthur is first noted in history by Nennius (end of the 8th century) as leader of the Roman party in Britain, against the Saxons, and is there credited with twelve victories.
Legends, heroic tales, and bardic poems about King Arthur and his chieftains apparently were current very early in the Dark Ages, though the oldest of the written versions of them date from about the eleventh century.

These early manuscripts appear to be copies of older and lost works and therefore it has been difficult, perhaps impossible, to identify the earliest of these stories. Perhaps it is significant that none of the extant ancient pedigrees contains mention of Arthur or of his reputed father Uther, at least not in a form we can recognize.
[Though it is only fair to point out that these pedigrees usually show straight line descents, and Arthur had no children, and even in his sister's son, his nephew and eventual heir, this line failed. Therefore there would not be a real reason for preserving it.
Against this, note the many Saxon lines that were recorded which mayor may not have failed.]

For this reason, and because of the many conflicting statements about Arthur, for the past century it has been a generally accepted article of faith that no real Arthur ever existed, that he was only a figure of myth or heroic legend.
Today we are not so sure.
A good case has been made for him as a real person, though perhaps as a military leader rather than a king, and perhaps a pagan rather than a Christian. .

However, many now believe him to be the British commander who repelled the Saxons at the Battle of Badon Hill (ca. 520 AD) and destroyed their power, delaying the Saxon conquest of all of Wessex and Cornwall by probably 50 years. .
About 1135, Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk, later Bishop of St. Asaph, wrote his famous "History of the Kings of Britain," an amazing mixture of fact and legend which he claimed to have derived from Nennius, and from an old manuscript to which he had had access but which has now disappeared and which no one else ever saw.

In this work, Arthur is neatly placed in an historical context, and in a proper dynastic niche. . Geoffrey's work, dedicated to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, was considered authoritative for several centuries.

Arthur represented greatness on the world stage as a truly insular British figure as distinct from Norman and Saxon.
As such he was important to the early English Kings as a symbol of the importance and greatness of the Kingdom they had conquered. It was important to show that the native kings, from whom Henry II descended, were of such distinguished stock.

Accordingly, the discovery of the graves of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere at Glastonbury Abbey during the reign of Henry II added weight to the story and lustre to the throne.
The genealogy contained in Geoffrey's work was considered official and incorporated into Sir John Anderson's "Royal Genealogies," the first important attempt to compile the genealogies of all historical royalty. .

Here is the descent as Anderson shows it: .

Constantine of Brittany, landed in Britain 433 repulsed the Picts and Scotts, crowned King. Died 443
1. Constans of Vortiger succ. 443; slain 446 by treason. (identified in Anderson as a cousin by marriage, connection not clear.) [No issue]

2. Aurelius Ambrosius, chosen King on Vortiger's flight to Wales in 466. Poisoned 498. [No issue]
3. Uther Pendragon, succeeded his brother 498; died 516. By mistress, the Duchess of Cornwall, had: a. Arthur, succ. 516; Killed 21 May 542 Constantine II, son of Cador, Duke of Cornwall, succ. his cousin 542, slain by his successor, 545. b. Ann, wife of Lothus, King of the Picts; had:
(1) Aurelius Conanus, succ. 545. . Vortiger and Aurelius Ambrosius are both well known historical personages. Vortiger was the Welsh (or British) "Over-King" or "High King" of the period who invited Hengist and his "Saxons" in to help fight the Picts, and married, as his second wife, Hengist's daughter Rowena, and then discovered he had sowed the wind and must reap the whirlwind.

Aurelius Ambrosius, who also used the title "Count of Britain," was almost certainly a Roman citizen, and possibly of the house of the Emperor Constantine. He is the last known Roman official and leader of the Roman faction, a capable soldier who fought against the Saxon invaders and confined their Channel activities to the Isle of Thannet, circa 440.

Thus the pedigree chart dates him several decades too late, and the Constantine who heads it could be the Emperor of that name, who was born in Britain, rather than a brother of the Duke of Brittany.

The existence of Uther is not attested by any known contemporary document, though his name could, of course, be a perversion of a British or Welsh name of that period. Further, it would be logical, linguistically, for a man named Uther to have a son named Arthur. .


In the 19th century the many discrepancies and contradictions in the "Matter of Britain" as the Arthurian material came to be called, became so apparent that the bulk of the scholars developed a total skepticism with regard to its historical importance.
But a few students were not satisfied to dismiss it completely since that left a number of matters unexplained. For example, the Battle of Badon Hill did take place.

A few of the skeptics had assigned this to Ambrosius, forgetting or ignoring the chronological impossibility. So in the last twenty years historians have been slowly reversing their positions once more, accepting Arthur as historical, but probably not as a king. .

Prof. Henry Treece, in his historic novel The Dark Island, pictures Arthur as a pagan Britton, Gwyndoc, friend of Caradoc (the Caractatus of Roman history), circa 25-30.

Then later in The Great Captains, Dr. Treece tells Arthur's story in substantially the framework of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but making him a pagan chieftain. .

Edson Marshall in his The Pagan King, identifies him with Aurelius Ambrosius, whose name he changes to Art-tay, Art-tyr, or Arthur, and makes him a British tribal leader of the 6th century.

Alfred Duggan brings him into the last pages of his The Little Emporers as a small boy who is a follower or student of the elderly Aurelius Ambrosius. .

Rosemary Sutcliff in her Sword at Sunset follows the traditional idea that Arthur is Aurelius' nephew, son of Uther, son of Constantine, but adds a new generation, making Constantine the son of the Roman Maximus, a not impossible idea.
However she also makes a change in Cerdic's ancestry, identifying him as a son of Vortiger by Rowena, a most unlikely idea, as no connection has been adduced for him with either the Hengistas of the Royal British line.


A more likely derivation is the Romano-Britton suggestion of Alfred Duggan in his The Conscience of the King. .

Probably the best known of these recent books based on Arthurian material is that of T. H. White, The Once and Future King, which has been turned into the musical Camelot, and which is written as patent fairy tale with a moral.

However it has remained for one John Whitehead, perhaps influenced by Henry Treece's Dark Island (or perhaps he gave the idea to Prof. Treece) to come up with a new and complete pedigree, and to present it as fact in his The Guardian of the Grail. (Jarrolds, 1959) .

70 BC Llyr Llediath, had:
40 BC Regan, mar. Henwen of Cornwall; had:
10 BC 1. Constantine; had
a. Gereint ab Lud; had:
50 AD (1) Cador, Chief of Cornwall; had
65 AD a. Constantine (Arthur's heir) .


10 BC 2. Tascovan, mar. Ywerit; had:
20 AD a. Cymbeline, mar. (1) an Alban princess, (2) Igraine of Cornwall He had by first wife:
50 AD
(1) Clarine, mar. Ban of Benwick, had
a. Lancelot, mar. Elaine, had: Galahad
(2) Heln, mar. Bort of Llychlyn; had: Bors
(3) Gwydr (king until killed by treachery)
Cymbeline had by his second wife:
(4) Arthur, mar. Guenevere; had: daughters
(5) Anna, "Lady of the Lake,"
mar. (1) Modron; and had Gawain,
(2) Aaron Rheged; had: Mordred. .

The evidences are slight. The arguments are fascinating, especially the assignment of these pedigrees to Arthur's knights (but where are Kay, (Welsh Cei), and Bedivere (Welsh Bedwyr) who appear in the oldest of the Welsh tales).

To accept any of this we must agree that Arthur did not fight the Saxons, and his battles did NOT include Badon Hill. .

After what we have shown here, I hope I have convinced some, if not all of you, to treat with caution all of the traditional Dark Age genealogies, and not adopt them into pedigrees on which you are working until you have made a thorough and careful check not only of sources, but of the manner in which generations are fitted together, how they mate with historical facts of the period and the presence or absence of dates confirming reasonable life spans and ages of fathers at birth of successors.

Right Name, Wrong Man? Wrong Name, Right Man?

is the title of one of the lectures on:-
2008 Genealogy Conference and Cruise: "an incomparable lineup of all-star speakers and 2008 will be no exception. In fact, in 2008 we'll be joined by TWELVE of the most sought-after genealogists and technical experts in the world, including the pre-eminent genealogists from the U.S., England, and Ireland."

The Identity Crisis: Right Name, Wrong Man? Wrong Name, Right Man?
by Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG, FNGS

What do we do with ancestors whose names don't 'match' from one record to the next? Or those who pose the opposite problem: too many men or women of the same name? This session examines social customs and naming patterns that cause ancestors to be known by different names, then offers techniques by which we can establish that any two records do or do not apply to the same person.


The Itinerary
Journey with us to these exotic ports of call. Spend your days exploring the local sites, wandering the colorful street markets, or just soaking up the sun on a tropical beach. You can go on a nature expedition, take an historic tour, visit Blackbeard's Castle, take a ride on a submarine or underwater scooter, visit a butterfly farm, tour a colonial plantation, swim with the dolphins, or choose from a long list of other optional guided shore excursions.

The image “http://www.whollygenes.com/images/itinerary2008.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.



Date

Port of Call

Arrive

Depart

Sun, Oct 26

New York, New York

--

5:00 pm

Mon, Oct 27

At Sea

--

--

Tue, Oct 28

At Sea

--

--

Wed, Oct 29

At Sea

--

--

Thu, Oct 30

St. Kitts, West Indies

8:00 am

6:00 pm

Fri, Oct 31

Antiqua, West Indies

8:00 am

6:00 pm

Sat, Nov 1

St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

7:00 am

6:00 pm

Sun, Nov 2

San Juan, Puerto Rico

6:00 am

--


WARNING

Ancestry.com Blog - » Potentially Fraudulent Sites Posing as Genealogy Websites: "We have recently become aware of three websites purporting to allow family history research: SearchYourGenealogy.com, Ancestry-search.com and Australian-Ancestry.com. The sites claim to have “the largest online genealogical search tool” and promote themselves as the foremost resources for genealogy, but from what we can tell, these sites are nothing more than a series of web pages with links to other services. These sites, in our opinion, are clearly fraudulent.

On each site, potential customers are lured to purchase under what we feel to be false, misleading and deceitful promotional material, and get little or no value out of money spent at the websites."

just phishing for your money like some of the certificate agents who vastly overcharge for a £7 certificate of a birth, dath or marriage in England or Wales.

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum - All the facts - Lipsum generator: "What is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum."

World's Worst Website

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor

Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor: "Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire, England is best known for the fruit it once grew, its hops, its pigs, the old A420 which once roared its way through our village, and the nick-name 'Kingston Bagpipes' which seems to have arisen from the time of the 2nd World War when we had a base camp for and RAF and then USAF airmen."

TGN and NARA

‘Yesterday’s E-mails’ were postcards

∂…Historical Society to present ‘Yesterday’s E-mails’ - Stoneham, MA - Stoneham Sun: "The general public is invited to attend the upcoming monthly meeting of the Stoneham Historical Society. “Yesterday’s E-mails” is the timely topic that will be presented by Mary and Don Marchant. A nostalgic slide show of Stoneham postcards from 1906-1910 will take everyone back to the time when hand-written messages were one of the most popular ways to communicate. Guests are asked to bring along their own postcard collections to add to the fun."

Bath Somerset England

Bath Births Marriages & Deaths

BathBMD has completed transcribing and publishing ALL the indexes to registers held in Bath Register Office.

Let’s summarise what was involved.

86 volunteers have been involved doing.....
16,000 hours of volunteer work over....
50 months duration and working on.....
3,026 Registers, to produce....
1,165,000 records (names).

In that time we have also produced...

A web site with 233,000 hits so far and that has done....
278,000 data searches so far and ....

12 Newsletters explaining progress plus ....

30 printed and bound index books (replacing 2,500 hand written books!) and ....

A Petition on 10 Downing Street with 4,221 signatures and .....

Four Bath Post Office Directories scanned and published consisting of 2,976 pages

Not bad eh? From the very start, BathBMD did not reckon to blindly mimic other sites,
but to build on their quality base. That’s one reason why we chose the Cheshire software
as a basis for the BathBMD site.

As well as all the above statistics, all births have a Mother’s Maiden Name (where it is included in the
register),
all deaths have an age at death, and all marriages are name pairs – not single names of people
that married.
The age at death fact was not as simple as it sounds. Records from 1974 onwards did not
quote Age at Death, but Date of Birth instead.

83,000 records had to have two dates subtracted from
one another to create the age at death. That in itself was quite a task!


read the rest in PDF and see their newsletter here.

netiquette

Need for netiquette on genealogy mailing lists | Published April 8th, 2008: "A few weeks ago, I was shocked by rude comments posted to a genealogy mailing list. The person making the comments was a long-time member and active on the list. I guess this was why it was surprising - they should have known better.

Although each mailing list has an administrator who can step in to stop a discussion or point out what can and cannot be posted, they are not on the Internet 24 hours a day. They are researchers like you and me and have a life.

After hitting the send button, there is no net to catch an inappropriate email message. It is sent to everyone on the list whether you want it to or not. Because of this ‘no return policy,' mailing lists are the perfect places to practice email etiquette, also known as netiquette.

One of the first lessons we learn in the world is to mind our manners. When writing a message, use the words ‘please' and ‘thank you.' They will take you a long way in the genealogy world and may even invite someone to help you break down a brick wall. . . ."

meanwhile on usenet . . . . many rude words and heated exchanges

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

productivity package

Nuance - Leading Speech Recognition and Imaging Solutions
NEW! Nuance Productivity Suite launch offer

just what advanced genealogists may need

  • OCR and scanning with OmniPage 16
    Edit any file with unprecedented recognition accuracy and layout retention, turn pictures of text into editable text with 3DC Digital Camera Technology, turn text into human-sounding audio books for your iPod or MP3-player...
  • Full PDF and XPS support with PDF Converter Professional 5
    Everything you need to create, convert and edit PDFs to and from the most frequently used Windows applications - including the new Microsoft Office 2007.
  • Advanced Document Management with PaperPort 11
    Automatically index and organise, then find and share your documents like never before.
  • Speech recognition with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9
    Use your voice to create documents and emails, operate your programs, and even surf the internet.

to which I would add Family Tree Maker or a similar program,
Open Office or Star Office (from Sun.com) and subscriptions to online sources and an FHS
The PC software I run on WinXP on Parallels 3 on an Intel Mac (nevr use Bootcamp if you can avoid it)

The European Library

Newsletter March April 2008 - The European Library - v1.6: "'The Russian State Library joined The European Library as a Full Participant on the 6th of August 2007"
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe please send an email to Info@TheEuropeanLibrary.org

new on Cyndi's List

Cyndi's List - Free Stuff
a most useful collection

Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek

Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek: "Wall 47/51, 24 103 Kiel
Tel.: 0049-(0)431-69677-10 (Geschäftszimmer) oder -33 (Auskunft)"

Schleswig-Holsteinische Bibliographie: "Die Schleswig-Holsteinische Bibliographie ist eine Literaturdokumentation. Erfaßt werden Bücher, Karten, Zeitschriften, Aufsätze aus Zeitschriften und (in Ausnahmefällen) aus Tageszeitungen sowie Einzelbeiträge aus Sammelwerken, die einen Bezug zu Schleswig-Holstein, einzelnen Regionen, Inseln oder Orten des Landes oder schleswig-holsteinischen Persönlichkeiten haben.

Dabei sind ehemals schleswig-holsteinische Gebiete (z.B. Nordschleswig, Altona) einbezogen, soweit die erfaßte Literatur die Zeit der Zugehörigkeit zu Schleswig-Holstein oder grenzüberschreitende Fragen (z.B. Verkehr, Küstenschutz, Minderheiten) betrifft.
Der inhaltliche Bezug wird in jedem Falle weit ausgelegt und umfaßt alle Wissensgebiete und Lebensbereiche. Rezensionen werden nur in Ausnahmefällen, Haushaltspläne, Fahrpläne, Telefonbücher usw. seit 1987 gar nicht mehr verzeichnet.
Das hier vorliegende Titelmaterial geht zurück bis zum Berichtsjahr 1987. Die Retrokonvertierung der früheren, in gedruckter Form vorliegenden Bände ist in Arbeit."

now also on
[WorldCat.org] Search for books, music, videos, articles and more in libraries near you

Article records from British Library now in WorldCat.org

OCLC has added some 20 million article-level metadata records to WorldCat.org from the British Library. The new records come from British Library Inside Serials, the library’s flagship serials service that gives access to articles from 20,000 journals.This data load increases by 60 percent the amount of article-level metadata in WorldCat.org and brings the number of article records to over 57 million. The records also are available in WorldCat Local, a localized version of WorldCat.org that integrates a library's entire collection of information resources through a simple, locally branded interface.

Denmark Australia

The Grange - Denmark Western Australia: "The Grange Bed & Breakfast is located in Denmark Western Australia which is on the South Coast of Western Australia. It is 404km from Perth and can be reached in a pleasant days drive along the Albany Highway or via the South West Highway along the Coast.

Denmark offers magnificent beaches as well as access to many walks and drives in the State Forest. It is close to Albany (Whalewatching) and to Walpole for the Tree Top Walk."

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICT

RootsWeb: Genealogy Mailing Lists: England : BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICT: "Topic: A mailing list for anyone with family history and genealogical interests in the county and city of Bristol and surrounding areas of South Gloucestershire and North Somerset within approximately a 20 mile radius. Topics include family, social, cultural and local history, past and present, including dialect, slang and sayings, traditions, occupations, recipes and folklore in order to place the lives of our ancestors in perspective, as well as methods and problems of recording both family and associated historical information."

FamilySearch Wiki

Main Page - FamilySearchWiki: "FamilySearch Wiki is a community website dedicated to helping people throughout the world learn how to find their ancestors. Here you can learn how to find, use, and analyze records of genealogical value. We update this beta site constantly, so please send us feedback about changes you'd recommend. To learn how to use the site, please visit the help page. Above all, please contribute your knowledge -- other people need your expertise!"

Main Page/Featured Author - FamilySearchWiki: "David Dilts met his wife at Brigham Young University and within minutes of their introduction, he threw her into an irrigation canal in an attempt to win her over (and celebrate her birthday.) Apparently his technique worked. Four children and eight grandchildren later, the couple is still happily married and still having fun together."

see more inovation at FamilySearch Labs

Web 2.0 Strategies

Web 2.0 Strategies 2008: "the UK’s leading forum for exploring real-world implementations of web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 tools and techniques.

Taking its inspiration from web 2.0 itself, the event breaks apart the traditional conference format to create an intensive experience and a highly interactive agenda which brings together practitioners, expert commentators, 2.0 pioneers and technology gurus.

Participants will learn how Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are rewiring the way organizations work and discover what works – and what doesn’t – in the real world."

far two expensive for me, but about the way social networking is catching up with the old dial up BBS days.


Web 2.0 Strategies - Google Search - - - "Web 2.0 Strategy" - another Google Search

Monday, April 07, 2008

Gravestone Studies

The Association for Gravestone Studies: "(AGS) was founded in 1977 for the purpose of furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. AGS is an international organization with an interest in gravemarkers of all periods and styles. Through its publications, conferences, workshops and exhibits, AGS promotes the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives, expands public awareness of the significance of historic gravemarkers, and encourages individuals and groups to record and preserve gravestones. At every opportunity, AGS cooperates with groups that have similar interests."

rebranding GSU

FamilySearch - Record Services (Formerly the Genealogical Society of Utah)

50 East North Temple Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84150


FamilySearch.org - (old) News: "Records Access program to promote tidal wave of online databases

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—FamilySearch announced today its Records Access program to increase public access to vast genealogy collections worldwide. For the first time ever, FamilySearch will join with others to provide free services to archives and other records custodians who wish to digitize, index, publish, and preserve their collections. The program expands FamilySearch’s previously announced decision to digitize and provide online access to copyrighted microfilm preserved in the Granite Mountain Records Vault. A key component of the program allows FamilySearch and archives to team with genealogy websites to provide unprecedented access to microfilm in the vault. The combined results ensure a flood of new record indexes and images online at www.familysearch.org and affiliated websites.

The plan combines the assets and experience of the Genealogical Society of Utah with the state-of-the-art technology resources of FamilySearch—all under the single brand name of FamilySearch. The Records Access program allows records custodians to publish their data online by themselves or with the assistance of FamilySearch or affiliate genealogical websites and historical societies."

"50 East North Temple Street" - Google Search

Mormon Church Office Building :: 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States :: Glass Steel and Stone: "like a global business, it's hard to run a global church without some sort of centralized control. Since the Mormon church's historic trek across the American frontier, that power has been centered in Salt Lake City. But even centering on a city isn't enough, because as an enterprise grows, more departments are created, more branches formed, and more people are needed. By the 1950's, it was growing painfully obvious that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints needed to corral its sprawling operations. The solution was to build this 28-story skyscraper.

Thirty-six departments from 16 buildings were consolidated in the tower. It's vertical columns of cast quartzite stone are reminiscent of New York's World Trade Center, and other buildings of the time."

Built: 1962-1972
Cost: US$31,000,000.00
Designed by: George Cannon Young
Type: Skyscraper
Stories: 28
Maximum height: 420 feet / 128 meters
Location: 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, United Sta





View Larger Map

Sunday, April 06, 2008

National Archives of Hungary

National Archives of Hungary: "The National Archives of Hungary, i.e. the central archives of the historic Hungary and Hungarian Republic celebrated the 250th anniversary of its foundation in 2006. The significance of the jubilee is indicated by several momentous events including the participation of archival directors from 18 European countries and prominent figures of Hungarian political and scientific life in the jubilee conference, rewarding the institution with Hungarian Heritage Award, releasing the photo album presenting the central building, and the publication of a monograph treating with the history of the Archives."

The e-Archívum is the unified electronic record system of Hungarian public archives.

Its user interface is available at http://www.e-archivum.hu containing the inventory of the fonds of the National Archives of Hungary and some of its finding aids as well.

On the basis of the Act 10/2002 (IV.13.) of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the National Archives of Hungary developed the e-Archívum, i.e. a unified electronic record system, for the benefit of Hungarian public archives.

Every public archives receives the software free of charge in Hungary, but the system has to be kept in operation individually by the institutions.

Wednesday, April 2, 200812:23:40 CET
Digitization at the Hungarian National Archives

permanent link

Prof. Gecsényi, general director of the Hungarian National Archives has an updated lectori salutem on the homepage of the repository. He describes the archives' efforts to become a more service and patron oriented institution.

2007 already brought a number PR boosting events organized and hosted by the archives, like the History in hands reach in November (see a nice video on YouTube), the Days of Cultural Heritage programs, including a historical playground for children. And for 2008 there is a coming competition for the kids on the May Day of Museums.

Talking about the digitization planned and under way the director mentions that online access to Hungary's 1720 and 1828 national censii is being prepared.

It was some weeks ago that WorldVitalRecords.com opened its World Collection with the index to 25 counties of the 1828 census.


It was some weeks ago that WorldVitalRecords.com opened its World Collection with the index to 25 counties of the 1828 census.

filed under: Jewish research Genealogy in the news


from RadixLog - Hungarian genealogy news blog

WorldVitalRecords

WorldVitalRecords Blog » WorldVitalRecords.com To Award 30,000th Subscriber: "WorldVitalRecords.com will soon reach its 30,000th subscriber mark. To prepare for this milestone, a contest has been set up to award the 30,000th person to sign up for a monthly, US, or World Collection at WorldVitalRecords.com.

The 30,000th subscriber will receive a free 1-year subscription to Everton’s Genealogical Helper, FamilyTreeMaker 16 (which includes six months of Ancestry.com), and a subscription to the World Collection (If the individual has already signed up for the World Collection, another year will be added)."

The Genealogy Geek

The Genealogy Geek: Another Reason to Post Records Online*: "The moral of the story: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Save, save, SAVE those records somewhere other than your computer. If you don't feel safe saving it in a repository online, email a copy to some relatives. Many, many relatives, so that if something happens to their computers AND yours, you should still have one copy hanging around somewhere."

and send a copy as an atttachment to yourself on google mail