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EOGN:

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Plus Edition

A Weekly Summary of Events and

Topics of Interest to Online Genealogists

Vol. 9 No. 21 – May 24, 2004

This newsletter relies solely upon "word of mouse" advertising. If you enjoy reading these articles, please tell others to go to http://www.eogn.com.

Some of the articles in this Plus Edition newsletter are restricted to your personal use.

Search previous issues of Standard Edition newsletters at: http://www.eogn.com/search.

Plus Edition subscribers may gain access to a reserved section of the Discussion Board. Details are available at http://www.eogn.com/plus/messageboard.

All opinions expressed in this document are those of Dick Eastman and his alone, unless otherwise attributed. None of his statements are to be interpreted as endorsements by his employer, by the other authors or by advertisers.

Copyright© 2004 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

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IN THIS ISSUE:

- NGS Conference in Sacramento This Week

- More Turmoil at NGS: Wendy Herr Responds

- OGS Conference in Toronto Next Week

- Ancestry.com's New OneWorldTree

- Commentary about Ancestry.com's New OneWorldTree

- NEHGS Research Tour to Dublin

- (+) The Myths Concerning Long-term Storage of CD and DVD Disks

- (+) Converting PDF Files to Word Documents

- (+) Duck Family Tree

- (+) Blogging for Genealogists

Items marked with a Plus Sign (+) appear only in the Plus Edition newsletter.

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- NGS Conference in Sacramento This Week

One of the largest genealogy conferences in the United States will be held this week. The U.S. National Genealogical Society's annual conference will be held at the Sacramento Convention Center in downtown Sacramento, California. The conference will be held Wednesday through Saturday, May 199 through 22. This year's event is co-hosted by the Genealogical & Historical Council of Sacramento Valley.

I expect to be at this year's conference and am looking forward to it. If you have the time available and can be in Sacramento this week, I'd suggest that you stop in also.

You can read more about this week's conference at http://www.eshow2000.com/ngs.

 

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- More Turmoil at NGS: Wendy Herr Responds

Last December, the Board of Directors of the U.S. National Genealogical Society abruptly accepted the resignations of the president, treasurer, and secretary. The society's executive director also was dismissed soon after. As a cost-saving measure, several employees received lay-off notices in the following weeks.

If you are unfamiliar with these events, you can read the Society's announcements as published in previous editions of this newsletter at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0349.htm, http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0402.htm, http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0404.htm and at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0410.htm.

The recently dismissed Executive Director disagrees with some details of the previously-published statements issued by the National Genealogical Society's Board of Directors and has now issued a clarification of her own. The following announcement was written by Wendy W. Herr:

6 MAY 2004

In response to the continuing publication of the press release issued by the National Genealogical Society (NGS) Board of Directors on 12 January 2004, I would like to set the record straight. I am the former Executive Director of the National Genealogical Society. The NGS statement, which as of this date remains posted on the NGS website and referenced by recent publications, contains several false and misleading statements. I have refrained from remarking on these statements until this time, primarily out of loyalty to the many, many NGS members that are being harmed by these disingenuous assertions and because of the sincere affection I have for the Society and its mission. In addition, I believe that no matter what course the new leadership of the NGS Board sets for the Society, knowledge of the truth will serve to strengthen the organization.

The most important point is that all expenditures of funds were fully approved by the NGS Board of Directors at the 1 September 2004 meeting. Prior to the board meeting, the NGS Finance Committee had reviewed the budget, and changes were incorporated as a result of these meetings. The passage of the budget was done after extensive discussion, in a meeting that lasted several hours. Therefore, the statement in the NGS press release that expenditures were transacted without full board approval and knowledge is false.

The only NGS Board-restricted fund is the NGS Second Century Endowment Fund. At the end of the fiscal year before I started working for NGS, the amount of this fund was less than $2,000. At the time of the November 2003 NGS Board meeting the net of the endowment fund was approaching $30,000. This was in the middle of an active fundraising campaign, which unfortunately was not reinforced as planned at the productive end-of-year income tax donation season. In other words, after the fundraising expenses that launched the campaign were paid, the Second Century Endowment Fund was showing impressive first campaign returns. Upon my recommendation to the Finance Committee, and approved by the NGS Board of Directors, these funds were held in an entirely separate bank from the regular operating funds. At no time during my tenure were the Second Century Funds used to pay for general operations, or as stated in the press release, "NGS reserves had been spent to compensate." This statement is false.

The NGS Board of Directors adopted a corporate strategic plan at the May 2003 meeting. This plan contained the strategies and direction that the full board approved. This plan was developed over many months and was the subject of several special meetings and sessions with the board. To state that I set the direction of the organization without board oversight and consent, as has recently been reported, is false.

The NGS press release stated that the Executive Director had been dismissed on a "without cause" basis as allowed by the employment agreement in place. What was not said in the press release is that the NGS Board refused to honor the contract and did not pay the severance in accordance with the integrity of the contract. Association executive professionals almost always have "without cause" clauses written into employment contracts, precisely because power shifts in governing boards that they work for do occur. The entire board approved these provisions in September 2002. What is misleading however, is to imply in their press release that the NGS Board was acting in accordance to the contract provisions. They did not.

The official minutes of the NGS Board of Director meeting will support my statements. In addition, the IRS Form 990 will show that another controversial element discussed in the media, my salary, was set at $15,000 less than the previous Executive Director’s salary. Since this position was vacant for so long, the higher rate in place for the previous director was two years old. The IRS 990 is available to the public.

Wendy W. Herr

 

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- OGS Conference in Toronto Next Week

The Ontario Genealogical Society's three-day "Seminar 2004" will be held the week after next in Toronto. This year's event looks like it will be the leading Canadian conference of the year. The event will be held on May 28 through 30 and will be hosted by the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. The theme will be "The 3 R's of Family History: Resources, Research, Results."

"Seminar 2004" will feature the following different streams of interest: Methodology, Technology, Toronto, Ontario, and Canadian research, and a miscellaneous stream which could include topics related to such things as Society Management, genetics/DNA, and others.

Three concurrent sessions (or "tracks") will be held all day Friday, increasing to five concurrent sessions on Saturday and Sunday. The presenters include: Kenneth G. Aitken, Ruth Burkholder, Dr. Penelope Christensen, Afua Cooper, Dick Eastman, Gail Ferguson, J. Brian Gilchrist, Ceil Jensen, Marjorie Kohli, Rob Leverty, Helen F.M. Leary, Jane E. MacNamara, Paul McGrath, Brenda Dougall Merriman, Sharon Murphy, Barbara Myrvold, Marie-Louise Perron, Marian Press, Geoffrey D. Rasmussen, Linda Reid, Louise St Denis, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, Ryan Taylor, James Thomson, and Patricia Moseley Van Skaik. Yes, my name is in that list, and I must say that I am honored to be featured in the midst of such an illustrious group.

Seminar 2004 is much more than just lectures, however. This year's event will feature one of the most ambitious OGS Research Rooms ever, for interactive research and hands-on learning opportunities. You can meet and consult representatives from the Archives of Ontario and the Toronto Public Library's research staff, as well as experts from the Société franco-ontarienne d'histoire et de généalogie. In addition, new this year will be the "Ask a Professional" event, sponsored by the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Members of APG will be available for free 15-minute consultations. Bring your genealogical questions, and sign up early for an appointment.

The Saturday evening banquet will include a special visit from the colorful 1837 era journalist, William Lyon Mackenzie. This fiery reformer was influential in shaping the future direction of the government of Upper Canada. With the assistance of David Morris, Mackenzie will treat us to his views of the events and personalities of his time.

While the emphasis is on Ontario, a quick scan of the programs listed at http://www.ogsseminar.org/sem04-prog.html will show that anyone researching genealogy in Canada can benefit from attending this major conference. Indeed, many of the presentations are non-geographic. For instance, there are sessions on creating CD-ROM and DVD disks for genealogy purposes, "What does the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) mean?", "Active versus Passive Use of the Internet for Genealogy," and "A Career in Genealogy: Can you earn a living doing this?"

I will be at this conference and am hoping to meet newsletter readers while I am there. If you have the time available and can be in Toronto, you also might enjoy this three-day conference. You can find all the details at: http://www.ogsseminar.org

 

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- Ancestry.com's New OneWorldTree

Ancestry.com recently announced a "preview" of a new service to be called OneWorldTree. This new service will search numerous genealogy databases containing records of millions of people. The search analyzes the birth, death and marriage data and then displays the most probable matches for your ancestors.

Numerous other online database services offer database searches. What differentiates OneWorldTree is its method of linking family history records and then displaying only those records with a high probability of matching the information you already have.

For instance, there probably have been hundreds of men named John Greenlaw in the United States over the past 300 or more years. You could do a search of many databases and find entries for men of that name. With most online databases, you can also specify years and/or locations, thereby narrowing the search significantly. However, Ancestry.com's OneWorldTree carries this a step further by matching even more information, if available.

OneWorldTree uses a process called "stitching." In effect, OneWorldTree is now the largest family tree on the Internet. It has created one large database from family trees submitted by other genealogists as well as original documents, such as census records. The computer software has compared birthdates and places, marriage dates and places, spouses' names and more to automatically merge together those records with high probability of being the same person. Unlike other databases, when you go looking for John Greenlaw of Bangor, Maine, you will not see a dozen different records on your screen. Instead, you will see one record, including all available information about this man. Information may include dates and locations, spouse(s), children, parents and more, if that data is available within the OneWorldTree database.

There is nothing "magic" about this new database. After all, you could gather the same information manually, should you wish to do so. The great thing about OneWorldTree is that it saves time. It's one master database has pooled several different resources from Ancestry.com's Web site and has grouped the resultant information by person. These "Person Pages" will make it easier for you to find and verify information pertaining to your ancestors.

The pedigree view in OneWorldTree enables you to view relationships and original documents to verify facts and dates. (Comment: ALWAYS verify facts! Never accept anything you find online or in a book as the truth until you have verified it.)

Ancestry.com describes the "preview" this way:

The preview period, expected to last until June 21, 2004, is a one-time introductory period when customers can view the product. At the end of the preview period, the database will be updated with even more names and families. At that time, any changes that you make to the tree will be erased. We hope that you will use this time to familiarize yourself with the way that the product works, and to explore The Tree. Just keep in mind that any updates that you make will be erased at the end of the preview period.

OneWorldTree is currently being offered as a preview. During this period, you can obtain 14 months of access for the price of 12 months. The annual fee is $49.95. If you prefer, you can pay $7.95 a month but read the fine print first as it says "annual commitment."

For more information about Ancestry.com's preview of OneWorldTree, go to http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/trees/owt/

 

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- Commentary about Ancestry.com's New OneWorldTree

The message boards have been thick with comments about Ancestry.com's new OneWorldTree offering. The messages vary a bit, but seem to follow Chicken Little's theme of "the sky is falling."

The controversy stems from Ancestry.com's inclusion of records from

Family Trees submitted through Ancestry World Tree and Rootsweb World Connect. These online databases contain information submitted by private individuals over the years. Ancestry.com and RootsWeb (once an independent organization that was later acquired by Ancestry.com) promised that the information submitted to these services would remain free and available to everyone at no charge. Now the new service offered by Ancestry.com charges a fee to extract information from those databases and other databases and then to add extra value by interpreting the data and displaying high-probability matches to the user. Those with a negative mindset have interpreted this as Ancestry.com is now "selling" this data that they previously promised would be free.

Let's look at the facts:

  1. RootsWeb and Ancestry.com promised that the Ancestry World Tree and Rootsweb World Connect would remain free and open to everyone. In fact, that remains 100% correct today and apparently will remain in place in the future. The information submitted to those databases is still free and is still open to everyone in their original form. Anyone, whether an Ancestry.com subscriber or not, can still go to RootsWeb and search those databases in exactly the same manner as before and can do so at no charge. In other words, Ancestry.com continues to live up to the original promises. Ancestry.com has simply added a second method of analyzing that data, a method not covered in the original agreements simply because no one had yet invented the new analysis method at the time.

  2. Ancestry.com has promised that future additions to the OneWorldTree service will include U.S. census records, birth records and other sources of public domain data. These public domain records also will remain free and open to everyone in the traditional methods: anyone is free to go look at those records at no charge via other means. The fact that Ancestry.com will include public domain data in a for-fee database search service does not alter the fact that the original data is still public domain and is still available elsewhere. Likewise, the fact that Ancestry.com includes free data such as Ancestry World Tree and Rootsweb World Connect in a for-fee database search service does not alter the fact that the original data is still available to everyone free of charge.

  3. Ancestry.com's new OneWorldTree is a VALUE ADDED service (capitalization added for emphasis). You pay for the convenience and the analysis, not for the data.

I have occasionally criticized Ancestry.com's business practices before but this time I am in complete agreement. I would hope that Ancestry.com and other commercial companies would continue to experiment with analyzing both free and restricted information in new ways that benefit all genealogists. It is clear that Ancestry.com continues to live up to prior promises while simultaneously experimenting with new methods of adding value to the data they already have.

I believe that Ancestry.com and other organizations have every right to ask for compensation for the thousands of dollars they have spent in additional software development costs and hardware expenses to bring new services online that provide potential benefit to genealogists.

If the company was not allowed to charge for new and innovative methods of analyzing existing sources of data, the "chilling effect" would discourage the development of new services. All genealogists would suffer as a result.

I am sure that some people will disagree with me. All I ask is that you stop and think about this for a bit. Remember that the data is still available for free in the original format as promised. If you are still uncomfortable with the process, I would suggest that you remove your data from Ancestry World Tree and Rootsweb World Connect. You do have that control.

As for me, I choose to leave my data available online.

 

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- NEHGS Research Tour to Dublin

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (my employer) is sponsoring a genealogical tour of Ireland that should interest those of Irish heritage. Here is the announcement:

August 15-22, 2004

Research opportunities abound during this one-week research tour to Dublin! The tour features guided research at various repositories in central Dublin, including the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives of Ireland, the General Register Office, the Registry of Deeds, the Valuation Office, and more. In addition you will benefit from genealogical lectures and informal consultations throughout the week with NEHGS director of library services Marie E. Daly; Dublin-based independent researcher Eileen M. O'Duill, MA, CGRS, CGL; and Massachusetts State Archives reference librarian Janis P. Duffy. Special activities include a guided tour of the James Joyce exhibit at the National Library, a "behind the scenes" orientation to the National Archives, and a reception with the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Lodging will be at Trinity College, in the heart of Dublin's cultural, retail, and entertainment center and within walking distance of many of the repositories and other institutions.

NEHGS member Sheila Byrnes participated in last year's tour to Dublin and took full advantage of all that it had to offer. She advises participants to learn as much as they can about their Irish ancestors before attempting to use Irish records, and offers the following tips and information:

Sheila was wise to do her homework before "crossing the pond" - and it paid off! "After our morning lectures, which included talks by Irish genealogists, we broke into small groups to visit local repositories. I had fantastic luck in finding information on my O'Connor/Connor family. At the Registry of Deeds I was able to trace land ownership back to 1709. I ordered copies of these deeds to be sent home for closer evaluation once I returned to the U.S. At the National Library I found indexes and abstracts of Prerogative Court wills and administrations prepared by Sir William Betham. Although all the original wills and administration bonds in the Public Record Office were destroyed by fire in 1922, the indexes survived. These records list name, address, and occupation of testator; names of beneficiaries, executors, and witnesses; the date the will was made; and the date of probate. I was able to find names of children, spouses, and maiden and married names of females."

After a week of research, Sheila rented a car and went off to West County Cork in search of her ancestors. Her adventures there will be featured in a future issue of New England Ancestors magazine.

For more information on this seminar or to download a registration form, please visit http://www.newenglandancestors.org/events/events/Default.asp?id=314, email tours@nehgs.org, or phone toll-free 888-286-3447.

 

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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.

In each issue, I try to offer you useful, interesting and sometimes amusing information to help you with your genealogy efforts. Can you take a minute to help me out in return? If you think this newsletter is a worthwhile read, please tell your friends. Better yet, suggest they can read the Standard Edition or subscribe to the Plus Edition at http://www.eogn.com.

Thanks.

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The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2004 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com.

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Be aware that the biggest problem faced when sending e-mail newsletters is spam filters in e-mail servers. Although the problem plagues many, many newsletters and other types of perfectly legitimate email, this newsletter seems to be particularly susceptible. It is quite long, and contains numerous examples of the kinds of things that spam blacklists, in their infinite wisdom, have deemed to be "spam like." Therefore, numerous email servers will delete this newsletter under the assumption that it is spam.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dick Eastman is employed by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, serving as Assistant Executive Director for Technology. He is a frequent presenter at major genealogy conferences. He has published articles in Genealogical Computing and Family Chronicle magazines and for a number of Web sites. He was an advisor to PBS' Ancestry series and appeared as a guest in one of the episodes. He is a past Director of GENTECH and of the New England Computer Genealogists. Dick is the author of YOUR ROOTS: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer published by Ziff-Davis Press. He can be reached at: Richard@eastman.net. Due to the volume of e-mail received, he is unable to answer every e-mail message received.

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