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Copyright© 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

Articles marked with a plus sign (+) are available only in the Plus Edition of this newsletter.

The government of Canada promised the "immediate release" of records from the special 1906 Census of the Northwest Provinces last Friday, reversing an earlier vow not to release the information. Industry Minister Allan Rock and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps announced that, after "an extensive review of the legislation," the federal government has decided that the files no longer need to be kept secret.

Mr. Rock noted the "numerous suggestions" that came in from genealogists and others, which apparently carried some weight. He concluded, "The 1906 census records are an invaluable source of information for anyone doing research into the families and communities of the Prairie provinces."

The Canadian government delayed the release because of questions over which information should be made public, including such matters as whether people were classified as illegitimate or imbeciles. However, Industry Canada, after reviewing the legislation that governed the survey, decided it could release the material. Minister Copps added, "These files contain information on years that were particularly important on the history of western provinces and on the evolution of a country that was to become a refuge for people from all around the world."

The 1906 Census for Canada's prairie provinces is now not only available "immediately" but is also available online.

Here is the official announcement:

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Culminating five years of effort, Dr. Saul Issroff and Rose Lerer Cohen have published a monumental series of books, called "The Holocaust in Lithuania, 1941-1945: A Book of Remembrance." It is the first substantive record of the Jews of Lithuania who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Lithuania's Jewish community numbered 250,000 before World War II. Some 94 percent of them were killed in the Holocaust. Issroff visited more than 100 shtetls in Lithuania in his efforts to memorialize a world that has all but disappeared. "Seeing and appreciating the sheer devastation of the country's Jews transformed ‘intellectual curiosity’ into action," he said. "For many of the families there is no graveyard, no tombstone, and a book becomes a way of recording the deaths of these people."

Issroff, a native of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, who lives in London, and Cohen, a Capetonian who resides in Jerusalem, began their effort by studying archives in Lithuania, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

The book is described by Issroff as a resource guide. It traces the movements of people from the time they were removed from their homes and sent to labor or deportation camps, recording the places and dates of their deaths. The book also provides background information on the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania, together with extensive references to works by historians.

Lists of Lithuanian Jews killed in the Holocaust were compiled from a variety of sources, including burial records, memorial books, and census lists from the Vilna and Shavli ghettoes. Thousands of murdered Jews are listed in the book although it is by no means a comprehensive list of all who lost their lives. Instead, it is a list of those for whom Issroff and Cohen were able to find documentation.

Some of the material comes from prisoner record cards from the Dachau concentration camp, the destination for many Lithuanian Jewish males. Other lists were obtained from the NKVD -- the Soviet secret police force that was the precursor of the KGB -- and other Russian records compiled after the Soviet occupation of Lithuania at the end of the war.

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This week I had a chance to read Your Guide to Cemetery Research by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack. This book is a reference full of information about not only cemeteries, but also all other records created when a person dies.

The book describes just about every phase of cemetery research. Chapter titles include:

• Records of Death
• Locating Graves, Cemeteries and Their Records
• Searching A Cemetery
• Bringing Home a Tombstone – Legally!
• Cryptic Clues in the Bone Yard
• American Burial Customs and Folkways
• Ethnic and Religious Funeral and Burial Customs
• Cemetery Projects and Preservation
• Making Cemeteries a Family Affair

The book also has several appendixes:

• Gravestone Art, Symbols, Emblems and Attributes
• Historical Time Line of Deadly Diseases, Epidemics and Disasters in America 1516-1981
• Historical Medical Glossary for Causes of Death
• A Case History Using Obituaries as Family Histories
• Cemetery Transcription Forms

The book also includes an extensive bibliography and an index.

I must admit that my eyebrows shot up a bit when I read the title of the appendix on "Historical Time Line of Deadly Diseases, Epidemics and Disasters in America 1516-1981." I have an interest in pre-1620 settlements in North America, but I know that the year 1516 is a bit early. I quickly turned to that section to find that the author mentioned the "first major smallpox epidemic spread among native tribes in Hispaniola brought by European colonists." Hispaniola is now known as Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Many other epidemics are listed as well. I noticed that a cholera epidemic was raging in the northeastern U.S. cities at a time when one of my ancestors died at an early age. I think I'll go look at some newspapers of that city at that time to see if there is a mention of cholera being rampant there.

I was especially pleased to read Sharon DeBartolo Carmack's advice on photographing tombstones. For many years, genealogists would fill tombstone engravings with shaving cream to improve contrast in the photographs. In later years, many people claimed that shaving cream has a low pH, which means that it is acidic, and will harm the stone. Still others launched counter-claims that only a few brands of shaving cream were acidic and also that the few minutes of exposure to shaving cream acid was far less damaging than the acid rain that falls on tombstones in a single rain shower. Sharon sidesteps the issue nicely by showing how to make high-contrast photographs without shaving cream. Why use it when you don't have to?

Your Guide to Cemetery Research has many illustrations to amplify the discussions within its pages. Transcription forms in the back of the book will also help organize a trip to a cemetery.

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The following is an announcement from the New Mexico Genealogical Society:

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The following is an announcement from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:

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The State of Utah has joined forces with the University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer Institute to promote an 11 million-person database for disease and pharmaceutical research. This seems to be particularly appropriate in the state with the largest genealogy library.

The GenData project will be run by a new nonprofit enterprise, GenData Research Corp., and will market the existing database to biotech companies and other research groups in the hope of bolstering that segment of Utah's economy. The money, staffing, and equipment are backed by state appropriations, the university's budget, and the cancer institute's fund-raising division.

The database actually has been around for more than 20 years -- started by University of Utah researchers who found that Utah families, through the cooperation of The Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints, were willing to share medical histories of themselves and their families for the good of research. The database now holds 6.5 million pieces of key health data whittled down from 11 million people registered in various paper and computer logs. For instance, the GenData files hold disease records, birth and death certificates, driver licenses, and family genealogies dating back to the early 1900s in Utah and Idaho.

The Huntsman Cancer Foundation has invested $12 million over the past seven years to expand and update the database. Utah lawmakers in the 2002 Legislature also appropriated $3.7 million to the project before turning it over to the nonprofit group in September.

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The Allen County Public Library, including its huge genealogy collection, is now in full operation in new quarters. Newspaper reports say that the move went well, and the new opening occurred two weeks ahead of schedule.

"The most important thing to patrons is that we have more of our collection out for public inspection," said Cheryl Ferverda, the library's community relations and development manager. "Genealogists are going to be thrilled with it."

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The following is an announcement from the Wisconsin Historical Society:

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- Spam Mail with a Genealogy Connection

I like spam mail. Yes, I really do. I find it amusing, and I am always game for a good laugh. This week, however, I found a spam mail that disturbs me.

I have a rather high-profile e-mail address that is plastered all over the place, so I receive about 100 spam mail messages every day. That isn't much of a problem as I use Spamnix, an anti-spam program that is a "plug in" for my e-mail program. One thing that I like about Spamnix is that it doesn't delete the messages. Instead, it simply places all suspected spam mail into a special Spamnix folder, where I can read it later, if I wish.

Once or twice a week I look at the e-mail headers in my Spamnix folder, looking for anything amusing as well as for any non-spam messages that may have been placed there erroneously. I typically see hundreds of wild claims about increasing the size of certain parts of the body as well as other claims of being able to reduce the overall size of the same body. I learn that some software can create copies of DVD disks (similar software is available free of charge on the Web, something never mentioned in the spam mails), and I am invited to buy prescription pharmaceuticals by mail order. Still other messages claim that I can become rich by staying at home and letting my computer work for me. In short, I get the same silly stuff that you receive every day.

In the past couple of weeks, however, I have found some messages that are bone-chilling. The messages are quite personal, greeting me by name and then claiming to be sent by an attorney representing a deceased (and wealthy) previously-unknown relative. One recent message started out with the following:

I admit that the greeting of "Dear Eastman" is a bit suspicious. Whatever happened to the word "Mister?" Surely an attorney, even one who speaks English only as a second language, would know better. The e-mail message goes on at some length, telling a story of how the attorney is seeking relatives of the deceased client so that a distribution of the estate may be made. The e-mail message claims that the estate is worth millions.

Those of us who have been on the Internet for some time will quickly recognize the message as a "4-1-9 Scam." It is known internationally as "4-1-9" fraud, after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses fraud schemes. In fact, 99.9% of the people who receive these messages will know that it is bogus and will quickly delete it.

The sad part of this tale lies with the other 0.1% of the people who receive these messages. They get suckered. The perpetrators of this scam need only a few gullible people to respond in order to steal tens of thousands of dollars.

In the last few weeks, I have had three different people tell me that a friend or co-worker of theirs has responded to Nigerian solicitations with expectations of receiving large amounts of money. These people have supplied their names, personal mailing addresses and, in some cases, personal financial information. The sad part is that most people who fall for these stories will lose money, and a few will even lose their lives.

The United States Secret Service Web site offers this warning:

• In almost every case there is a sense of urgency;
• The victim is enticed to travel to Nigeria or a border country;
• There are many forged, official-looking documents;
• Most of the correspondence is handled by fax or through the mail;
• Blank letterheads and invoices are requested from the victim along with the banking particulars;
• Any number of Nigerian fees are requested for processing the transaction, with each fee purported to be the last required;
• The confidential nature of the transaction is emphasized;
• There are usually claims of strong ties to Nigerian officials;
• A Nigerian residing in the U.S., London, or other foreign venue may claim to be a clearing house bank for the Central Bank of Nigeria;
• Offices in legitimate government buildings appear to have been used by impostors posing as the real occupants or officials.

While not mentioned on the United States Secret Service Web site, some news stories claim that people from a number of countries have been duped by this scam and have traveled to Nigeria or to nearby countries. They usually carry a lot of money that supposedly is to be used to bribe officials in an effort to obtain the funds in question. Instead, the foreigners are murdered by the Nigerian perpetrators of this scam, and the money disappears.

Here is my advice: never, ever pay any attention to any spam mail, other than to read it for amusement. Never, ever purchase anything from an unsolicited e-mail advertisement from a person or company that you do not recognize. Any offer received in "spam mail" is most likely a scam.

Finally, never, ever enter into any "business arrangements" without a lot of investigation. Do a search on the Web. Ask your friends. If there are significant sums of money involved, ask your lawyer.

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The Hatfield and McCoy families had a famous feud in West Virginia back in the 1870s. The feud is thought to have begun over a stolen pig, then was further aggravated when Rosanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield fell in love and told their families of their plans for marriage. By 1888, at least 12 people had died in the shooting war that ensued. The violence ended by 1900 and the two families have since lived peacefully. They have even held joint reunions in recent years.

More than one hundred years after the last shots rang out, the two families are now locked in another battle. This time, instead of rifles and shotguns in the West Virginia hills, the two families are using high-priced lawyers in local courtrooms to do battle. The current dispute is about the McCoys’ visitation rights – to the site of ancestral graves, a small cemetery that contains the remains of six McCoys, including three who were tied to pawpaw trees and executed by the Hatfields in 1882.

The cemetery that the McCoys want to access apparently sits within the property boundaries of Hatfield descendant John Vance, who posted "No Trespassing" signs on the driveway leading to the graves. "Relatives have an unquestionable right to visit the graves," said Della Justice, an attorney representing McCoy descendants who recently sued the Hatfield descendants for the right to visit the cemetery.

At the same Web site you will see another rare sight: a spelling error in a Newsday headline.

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The PR Budget for this newsletter is $0.00. I rely upon "word of mouse" advertising in which you recommend this newsletter to your friends. This newsletter is a private project of mine, and I have a zero budget for a publicity campaign to get more readers.

Thanks.

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