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

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First rule of history: History doesn't repeat itself, historians merely repeat each other.

- OGS Conference in Toronto Was Successful

This weekend I attended Seminar 2004, organized by the Ontario Genealogical Society with a lot of sponsorship by the National Institute of Genealogical Studies. The conference theme was "The 3 RRRs: Resources / Research / Results." The weather was excellent, and the hotel's conference center seemed to be well managed. Everything seemed to "click." This year's event drew more than 600 attendees, and I think every one of them would agree with me that it was a success.

This three-day event was held at the DoubleTree International Plaza Hotel near Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario. That is an excellent facility for an event of this type. This year's seminar included 52 presentations by 26 speakers, a large exhibitors' hall that was busy most of the time, an "Ask a Professional" event in which members of the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists offered free 15-minute consultations, a photograph exhibition, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.

Many of today's better-known genealogy speakers were present, including Helen Leary, who gave the featured J. Richard Houston Memorial Lecture on Friday evening plus two other presentations, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, Kenneth G. Aitken, Ruth Burkholder, Dr. Penelope Christensen, Afua Cooper, Gail Ferguson, J. Brian Gilchrist, Ceil Jensen, Marjorie Kohli, Rob Leverty, 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, Ryan Taylor, James Thomson, and Patricia Moseley Van Skaik.

Some fellow named Dick Eastman also made some presentations, including one on the ancestors and family of Donald Duck. No, I am not exaggerating, at least not by much. Actually, the presentation featured a side-by-side comparison of five of today's top genealogy programs. I switched from program to program, showing how each accomplished certain tasks. I wanted to use the same family data in each program so that the comparisons would be consistent. Rather than using my own ancestors, I decided to use the family tree of an internationally-known movie star: Donald Duck. Luckily, the Disney Corporation has often included Donald's relatives in various comic strips over the years. These characters have been documented and catalogued by fans. (See last week's Plus Edition newsletter for details.) The combination of software and cartoon characters seemed to be well-received by the audience. I know that I enjoyed it.

The Saturday evening banquet was good for several reasons. Awards were presented and speeches were made, quite similar to other genealogy conference banquets I have attended. However, two things struck me as significantly different. The first was a talk by the Honourable Lorna Milne, Senator for Ontario in Parliament. Senator Milne is an avid genealogist, having published a book on her ancestors some years ago, before becoming involved in national politics. She has championed the release of census records in Canada, and she talked about recent progress on that front at Saturday's dinner.

The second item that I found delightful was a special speech made by William Lyon Mackenzie. Because the real William Lyon Mackenzie died in 1861, his physical presence was provided by the very much alive historical actor, Mr. David Morris. I have listened to a number of historical actors and must say that Mr. Morris is one of the best. My knowledge of Ontario history is almost non-existent. By the end of the evening, I gained an appreciation for William Lyon Mackenzie as the feisty instigator of the Rebellion of 1837. Mackenzie fought against the upper class clique known as the "Family Compact," which was in control of the government. The government of the time was corrupt with its favoritism, overspending of tax dollars, and lacked accountability to the people of Upper Canada. In response to Mackenzie's vocal outrage, a mob of opposers threw printing press into Lake Ontario in 1826. During the same raid on Mackenzie's office, his young son's skull was split open by the mob. The son recovered, and the older Mackenzie never slowed in his pursuit of truth and justice. In 1828 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada but was expelled five times for libel, each time being re-elected.

In 1834 Mackenzie became the first mayor of Toronto. In 1837 he led the Upper Canada Rebellion against Sir Francis Bond Head and the Family Compact, which was quickly put down. Mackenzie escaped to the United States and set up a provisional government on Navy Island in the Niagara River. Several of the men he led in the rebellion were captured, jailed, and later hanged for treason. An amnesty allowed for Mackenzie's return to Canada in 1849, and he was a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from 1851 to 1858. He died in 1861.

David Morris' recreation of the character of William Lyon Mackenzie is something that has to be seen to be appreciated. Using a Scottish brogue, he shouted, he whispered, he ranted, and he railed. In short, he was the perfect epitome of an early 1800s reform politician.

All in all, this was a great conference. Six hundred people learned about advanced genealogy techniques, purchased items from the vendors, and enjoyed good meals, and I learned about Ontario's history. I'd call that a great 3-day weekend.

Seminar 2005 will be held in Windsor, Ontario, on May 26 to 29, 2005. You might want to circle those dates on your calendar now.

I described the Saturday evening banquet at the Ontario Genealogical Society's annual seminar in the previous article. However, I also would like to share something that happened to me that evening and the following day that I thought deserved a separate article.

At the end of the Saturday evening banquet, Master of Ceremonies J. Brian Gilchrist announced that the floral centerpiece at each table was to be presented as a gift to the youngest person at each table. As you might imagine, this created a lot of conversation in the banquet hall as those at each table had to compare birthdays. It was a great idea and went over well. The noise level of about 400 people talking almost simultaneously was great.

Next, Brian Gilchrist asked me to stand and answer a trivia question: "Who was Donald Duck's grandfather?" Of course, I recalled from my earlier talk that this was "Pintail Duck," and Brian then announced that because of my correct answer I had just "won" the grand prize of the floral arrangement at the speaker's lectern. It strikes me that this "win" had been pre-arranged, but I decided to accept it graciously.

As I approached the lectern, I was impressed by the size of this floral arrangement: it was probably four feet high and three feet across, and I have no idea how many flowers were in the arrangement. In any case, it was huge.

Several things flew though my head. The first was, "Why me?" The second was, "What am I going to do with this?" I had driven to Toronto, and I remembered that U.S. Customs does not allow the importation of any plants into the United States. Even if I could cram this thing into my compact automobile, I knew I could not take it over the border and back home.

Someone in the audience made a brilliant suggestion (I regret that I did not get her name… I was a bit distracted at the time). Based upon her suggestion, I asked character actor Mr. David Morris if he knew where William Lyon Mackenzie was buried. Of course, he did. He informed me that the Canadian politician was buried at the Toronto Necropolis, a cemetery not too many miles from where we were standing. I volunteered to take the huge floral arrangement and place it on Mr. Mackenzie's grave, in honor of Mr. Morris' excellent speech and as a remembrance from the Ontario Genealogical Society.

I then asked if anyone knew the street address of the Toronto Necropolis. Did you ever ask a room of 400 or so genealogists if anyone knows the street address of a particular local cemetery? Of course they did!

The hotel nicely stored the arrangement overnight in their walk-in refrigerator. At high noon the next day, OGS member Wanda Sinclair and I loaded the flowers into the back seat of my Mazda RX-8 and drove across Toronto in heavy traffic. We found the cemetery, located the tombstone, and placed the flowers there. By coincidence, Sunday was "Open Doors Day" in Toronto; the cemetery was full of people, and local historians were giving walking tours of the cemetery and other places of local historical interest. As we placed the flowers on Mr. Mackenzie's grave, one guide, trailed by twenty or so curious citizens, approached and asked what we were doing. This struck me as an obvious question to ask of someone holding a large bouquet of flowers in a cemetery! Wanda and I replied with an abbreviated version of the words you have just read and explained that we wished to honor Mr. Mackenzie's words and deeds with these flowers. The guide and the others all seemed pleased.

My thanks to Wanda Sinclair and to Brian Gilchrist and his OGS accomplices for making this a very memorable weekend for me!

How do you locate an abandoned cemetery – one with no headstones, no markers, and no evidence at all of being a cemetery? You call in a witcher.

This week I had a chance to use a new CD-ROM from Eneclann. This disk includes almost 1,000 documents from the National Archives of Ireland. The records chosen cover the 32 counties of Ireland and span the period from the late sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

I inserted the new disk into my CD-ROM drive and, without further intervention by me, the first screen appeared on my computer. In fact, there is no software to install. Counties in Time is written in HTML and Flash. All that you need is a Windows or Macintosh computer with a relatively modern Web browser. All CD-ROM disks should be this easy!

The CD contains almost 1000 documents, including sixteenth century Chancery Pleadings, seventeenth century Books of Survey and Distribution, eighteenth century Proclamations, nineteenth century Famine papers, and twentieth century records of the first Dáil. There are scanned images for almost all of the documents.

The documents vary widely: proclamations against Catholics holding arms during the penal days to family returns for the 1901 and 1911 Censuses, from the records of seventeenth century land redistribution to police reports on 1930s IRA activity, and from mid-nineteenth century crime reports to 1867 photographs of Fenian suspects.

As mentioned in the disk's description, many of the documents on the disk are samples of information to be found in the Archives. For instance, there is but one scanned image of one page in the County Waterford Tithe Applotment Books. One would have to assume that the National Archives of Ireland holds thousands of such pages. Such works could fill many CD-ROM disks all by themselves.

Other resources on this disk were extensive. For instance, the 32 county histories seem to be very complete. The county histories cover from the late sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century and range in length from 5000 to 7000 words. Each history contains 6-7 images, both photographic and pre-photographic, and each includes a bibliography to assist the researcher with further reading.

The menu system is straight forward: six hot links across the top of the screen include:

• Timeline: a brief over of Irish history and the documents generated throughout the years

• Records: good examples of the types of information to be found in the National Archives of Ireland.

• Counties: a quick short-cut to find the information of interest if you already know the county where your ancestors lived.

• County Histories: 32 well researched histories

• Glossary: a long list of unique terms to be found on this CD disk

• Home: A quick short cut to the main page

A lengthy Help section is also included.

The Counties in Time CD-ROM will interest many genealogists a well as teachers, pupils, or anyone interested in Irish history. It sells for €25.00 or US$29.95 (plus postage & packing). You can obtain it directly from Eneclann in Dublin or order it from most any book store if you specify ISBN 0-9540750-0-5.

The Grayson County Historical Society is asking current and former county residents to send in family histories. The society is about to print a revision of "Historical Sketches and Family Histories of Grayson County."

Deadline for submission is Nov. 30, 2004. The histories can be mailed to the Grayson County Historical Society at P.O. Box 84, Leitchfield, KY 42755, or they can be dropped off at the Jack Thomas House, 122 East Main, Leitchfield, Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Histories should be no longer than two pages and written in simple English, avoiding genealogy terms, and fitting the format of the current edition.

This newsletter and many other genealogy publications often refer to "your local genealogy society." The question is: how do you find such a society? Or, how do you find such a society in another part of the country where your ancestors lived? After all, if you live in Colorado but are looking for ancestors in Kentucky, you need to find the resources held by the Kentucky society. Then again, you may need to find a national society that specializes in specific ethnic groups, such as French-Canadian, Italian, Polish, or Quaker ancestry. Of course, your local society can help immensely with research techniques and local resources.

The following is an announcement from the Board for Certification of Genealogists:

• at least some family members lived in Virginia for at least three generations,
• the genealogy begins with a couple, at least one of whom was living in Virginia in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries,
• all male and female descendants of the couple are traced for at least three generations,
• families are placed in the historical context in which they lived,
• the genealogy has not been previously published, and
• the work is fully documented.

• focuses on a Virginia immigrant of the seventeenth century whose European origins were previously undocumented,
• connects the immigrant to his European family of origin,
• shows the place of birth and names of parents of the immigrant,
• documents and explains all steps in the research making the connection.

• includes an outline and plan for the project,
• presents a sample of the projected format,
• details publication plans, either print or Internet, and
• sets a projected completion date within eighteen months of the submission,

A new book explains West African travel from A to Z and guides the reader on how to fly to West Africa for free or very cheaply and to trace their roots back to their specific ethnic group, using reliable DNA technology and the traditional methods. It also gives a West African history lesson.

The following is an announcement from James E. White and Jean-Gontran Quenum:

I have written before about parasitic advertisements that "hijack" Web sites. The example I used was if someone at Ford Motor Company decided to use this advertising method. (This is a theoretical example. I doubt if Ford stoops to such questionable advertising methods.) Ford Motor Corporation then would pay a fee to the creator of the pop-up software to have Ford advertisements appear on top of Daimler Chrysler's Web site. The company that writes the parasite software would add the Daimler Chrysler site to the list of sites that will generate a pop-up ad for Ford. Another method would provide that, anytime the unwitting viewer visits any Web site that has the word "Chrysler" on the page, the Ford Motor Company ad would appear.

The same advertising software often spies on users, although not always. These "spyware" programs monitor the Web sites a user visits and collect personal information, reporting such data back to the company that provides the parasite advertising. While all the companies that provide this spyware claim that they do not collect names, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers, or other such sensitive personal information, all admit that it would be trivial to add such capability.

In the two previous Plus Edition articles I wrote, I mentioned that such questionable "hijack ads" are now being used by at least two genealogy-related companies. Both of the companies have headquarters in Utah.

Invasion of an organization's Web site by a competitor is in bad taste, to say the least. New developments now indicate that it also may be illegal, and it looks as if the first cases are headed to court.

The preceding is a "preview" of a Plus Edition article. You can subscribe at http://www.eogn.com/plus.

Now you can blame your parents for one more thing: your hair.

Researchers studying mice determined that the aptly-named gene Frizzled 6 controls hair patterns. Rodents without the gene had strange patterns, including whorls of hair on their hind feet, back of the head, and chest. Some also had tufts and ridges in the hair on their head.

Humans "have a gene that's virtually identical, so there's every reason to think it would be similar in effect, though that is, at this point, unknown," said researcher Jeremy Nathans of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Not having the gene can't be blamed for a simple bad hair day, however. Rather, it would result in permanent differences in the hair, such as a cowlick or an unusual whorl.

I would like to remind you that there is a Discussion Board for readers of this newsletter. In my mind, I never finish writing these stories. What you read every week is simply a "snapshot" of an article at that point in time. Based upon feedback on the Discussion Board, a few articles continue to develop and become expanded for days afterwards.

In short, if you read this newsletter without occasionally checking the Discussion Board for additional information, you are only reading half of the story. In my mind, the Discussion Board is as much a part of this newsletter as the page that you are reading right now. On the Discussion Board, you not only read my opinions, but you also see what others have written. They often add information that supplements, corrects, contradicts, or expands the information that I have written. You might want to check out the Discussion Board from time to time.

Sometimes it is fun to be a genealogist. You can find all sorts of trivia about people. For instance, Dick Clark appears every New Years' Eve in Times Square to broadcast the dropping of the ball (an apple in recent years) in Times Square, New York, to millions of people around the world. The man is famous for his ability to appear ageless from year to year. Lots of people have asked, "How old is that guy, anyway?"

The preceding is a "preview" of a Plus Edition article. You can subscribe at http://www.eogn.com/plus.

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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