This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it is a “sign of the times,” which I believe will be of interest to genealogists and historians. It appears that printed publications are disappearing and, in some cases, are switching to digital publishing.

From Slashdot:

After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer be available to purchase as a magazine. "Cathy Hebert, the communications director for PopSci owner Recurrent Ventures, says the outlet needs to 'evolve' beyond its magazine product, which published its first all-digital issue in 2021," reports The Verge. From the report: 

PopSci, which covers a whole range of stories related to the fields of science, technology, and nature, published its first issue in 1872. Things have changed a lot over the years, with the magazine switching to a quarterly publication schedule in 2018 and doing away with the physical copies altogether after 2020. In a post on LinkedIn, former PopSci editor Purbita Saha commented on the magazine's discontinuation, stating she's "frustrated, incensed, and appalled that the owners shut down a pioneering publication that's adapted to 151 years worth of changes in the space of a five-minute Zoom call."
"PopSci is a phenomenal brand, and as consumer trends shift it's important we prioritize investment in new formats," Herbert tells The Verge. "We believe that the content strategy has to evolve beyond the digital magazine product. A combination of its news team, along with commerce, video, and other initiatives, will produce content that naturally aligns with PopSci's mission." PopSci will continue to offer articles on its website, along with its PopSci Plus subscription, which offers access to exclusive content and the magazine's archive.

If you use Google Drive, you better check to see if all your files are still there.

It looks like Google Drive is experiencing some issues with disappearing files. Multiple users have taken to the Google Support forum to report that they lost access to some of the files that they’ve uploaded to Google Drive, with them seemingly fully gone from the cloud service. Google recommends you don’t make any changes to your Google Drive if you’re affected while the company investigates the issue.

When did you last change your passwords? If you are like the majority of people, it has been a while. The time to change your passwords is NOW. 

The following is from an article in the Georgia Tech web site:

Three out of four of the world’s most popular websites are failing to meet minimum requirement standards and allowing tens of millions of users to create weak passwords. The findings are part of a new Georgia Tech cybersecurity study that examines the current state of password policies across the internet.

Using a first-of-its-kind automated tool that can assess a website’s password creation policies, researchers also discovered that 12% of websites completely lacked password length requirements.

Assistant Professor Frank Li and Ph.D. student Suood Al Roomi in Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy created the automated assessment tool to explore all sites in the Google Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), a database of one million websites and pages.  

Li and Al Roomi's method of inferring password policies succeeded on over 20,000 sites in the database and showed that many sites:

The researchers also discovered that only a few sites fully follow standard guidelines, while most stick to outdated guidelines from 2004. The project was 135 times larger than previous works that relied on manual methods and smaller sample sizes.

More than half of the websites in the study accepted passwords with six characters or less, with 75% failing to require the recommended eight-character minimum. Around 12% of had no length requirements, and 30% did not support spaces or special characters.

Only 28% of the websites studied enforced a password block list, which means thousands of sites are vulnerable to cyber criminals who might try to use common passwords to break into a user’s account, also known as a password spraying attack.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/mtn6et3b.

I have been a loyal and enthusiastic user of Evernote for years. However, that is about to change.

About a year ago, Evernote was purchased by Bending Spoons. I haven’t seen much difference in Evernote’s operation since the new owners took over. However, the price of an Evernote subscription is now increasing to a level where I am now questioning if the service is worth the new price.

In a post to the Evernote Blog, the company announced, "The price of an Evernote subscription is increasing.” In fact, it is increasing to a level where I am no longer interested in paying the new price.

The new prices are a bit complicated. You can read the details at: https://evernote.com/blog/evernote-pricing-upcoming-features-update. However, the price for private individuals is clear: $129.99 per year. I enjoy Evernote but I don’t enjoy it THAT much.

I am now looking at alternative replacements for Evernote. One that looks appealing is Joplin, a freeware open source product that seems to have a lot of enthusiastic users.

Joplin may be found at: https://joplinapp.org/.

As one of the most heavily traveled states in the country, Pennsylvania’s vast transportation network demonstrates technological changes from the 18th century to the present.

These changes, and the growth of Pennsylvania and the United States, would not be possible without bridges. Pennsylvania’s key location placed the Commonwealth at the forefront of development and application of innovative bridge technology and engineering.

From stone arches and covered bridges to metal trusses and cable suspension bridges, Pennsylvania has a diverse collection of bridge types across its landscape. This includes over 400 historic bridges, bridges that are eligible for listing, or are listed, in the National Register of Historic Places.

To showcase this collection, PennDOT created the Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania web map, an interactive GIS layer with locational and basic historical information about each bridge. It is important to note that this web map only includes extant historic bridges that are publicly owned by a federal, state, or local government agency or a toll commission organization.

The map does not include bridges owned by private entities such as railroads, businesses, or private individuals. For more information on other historic bridges that may not be featured on this map, visit the PA SHPO’s PA-SHARE website.

You can read more in an article in the pahistoricpreservation.com web site at: https://tinyurl.com/ydzu2chc.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is scheduled to completely eliminate its veterans records backlog by January 2024, the agency said in its Fiscal Year 2023 Agency Financial Report.

The records backlog at NARA swelled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has caused delays for veterans seeking benefits.

“Eliminating the backlog of requests that accumulated at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) during the COVID-19 pandemic has been my top priority, said Colleen Shogan, archivist of the U.S.

“My first official trip as Archivist of the United States was to the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), where I reinforced my commitment to eliminating the backlog, and to witness first hand the extraordinary work of NPRC staff in support of our nation’s veterans,” she said.

The report also talks about NARA’s success in expanding access to the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) 2.0 system to include other Federal agencies.

“Customer agencies now have a modern, cloud­hosted platform for records scheduling and transfer services,” added Shogan.

“ERA 2.0 improves the customer experience by providing a modern interface and dashboard to help agencies track the status of record scheduling and transfer requests through the approval process,” she said.

NARA has also successfully launched its modernized National Archives Catalog, which provides free and public access to digitized archival government documents.

“The new platform is geared towards the future as the Catalog is expected to grow from 217 million pages at the end of FY 2023 to over 500 million digitized pages in the next few years,” stated Shogan.

“New enhancements make accessing the agency’s holdings more intuitive for the user and improves the search experience by generating faster results,” stated Shogan.

The following announcement was written by the folks at: scottishindexes.com:

Discover the hidden lives of your ancestors

Scottish Indexes have reached a major milestone in their Scottish prison register indexing project. With the release of a further 180,000 prison register entries at the Scottish Indexes Conference on Saturday you can now search over half a million records from 38 Scottish prisons. Search Scotland's Criminal Database: https://www.scottishindexes.com/ScotlandsCriminalDatabase.aspx

These records are vital to exploring the stories behind our family history as well as overcoming brick walls to our research. Emma Maxwell, genealogist at Scottish Indexes, says “The census is a snapshot in time, but what happened to our ancestors on all the other days? Prison records can be a key to discovering more. For example, we may find a description of our ancestor’s tattoos or scars.”

Genealogist Graham Maxwell says “The key information given in a prison register to identify the inmate is now very useful for our research projects. While the census may give a place of birthplace of ‘Ireland’ or ‘ England’ a prison register may give us the specific county or parish. If our ancestor died before 1851 the birthplace and age could be the vital clues we need.”

Aliases and alternative surnames are given in the prison register. It could be that someone used a name to try to avoid the law but we also see multiple surnames recorded for other people. Married women usually have their maiden and married surnames included. Inmates who were illegitimate may be recorded under their biological father's name as well as their mother’s surname.

About Scottish Indexes: The indexes on scottishindexes.com are free to search and the website is managed by husband and wife team, Graham and Emma Maxwell. As well as criminal records you can search the Scottish Paternity Index, Mental Health Records, Court of Session Index and more.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

National Burial Index for England & Wales  

This week’s largest release sees over 122,000 burial records added to this existing collection. Unique to Findmypast, these new records are for the county of Herefordshire. They span 300 years, between 1539 and 1840. You may discover your ancestor’s name, date and place of burial with these transcriptions.   

Kent Burials - Medway 

There are just over 14,000 new records for Medway in Kent in this week’s release. They cover 1981 to 2020. From these records, you can expect to learn a full name, age, birth year, burial date and place and residence. In some cases, an occupation is also included, along with any dedication featured on the deceased's grave.  

Kent Burials – Dunns Funeral Directors Registers 

Last but not least, we've also added 1,478 records from the town of Bromley to our collection of Kent Burials. Taken from two local parishes, these new additions span 1803 to 1839. These records, taken from registers kept by Dunns Funeral Directors, contain both a transcription and an image of the original register. In addition to a full name and age, you'll learn a birth year, burial date and place from these records. In some cases, an occupation is also listed, as well as additional notes - such as marital status, parents' names, and whether the deceased was a foundling. 

Newspapers 

Did your ancestors make the news? Three new titles, updates to a further 12, and over 160,000 new pages make up this week’s newspaper release.  

New titles: 

·         Ascot Times, 1986-1987 

·         Crowthorne Times, 1983 

·         Newtownabbey Times and East Antrim Times, 1987-1989, 1991-1999 

Updated titles: 

·         Belfast News-Letter, 1996, 1998 

·         Bracknell Times, 1985 

·         Central Somerset Gazette, 1993-1995 

·         Cheddar Valley Gazette, 1996-1997 

·         Edinburgh Evening News, 1994 

·         Football Post (Nottingham), 1998 

·         Jewish World, 1899, 1902-1904, 1907 

·         Larne Times, 1987, 1989 

·         Londonderry Sentinel, 1961-1962, 1966, 1968-1976 

·         Lurgan Mail, 1986-1987, 1992, 1994-1999 

·         Mid-Ulster Mail, 1994 

·         Shepton Mallet Journal, 1992-1993, 1996, 1998 

The University Libraries are digitizing the complete archive of the student-run newspaper since its inception on Oct. 19, 1893. The Nevada Sagebrush student newspaper is now entirely online with articles posting almost daily.

This year we actively celebrate the University’s history leading up to the Sesquicentennial celebration on Oct. 12, 2024. The University Libraries are hard at work researching the past, preserving it, and making this history as accessible as possible to the modern-day audience. Part of that work includes digitizing historical records, and one fascinating bit of history is the student-run newspaper. 

The University of Nevada, Reno was founded on Oct. 12, 1874, and just 19 years later, on Oct. 19, 1893, the students of the University published the first edition of a student-run newspaper, which they called The Student Record.

The student newspaper, now called The Nevada Sagebrush, states its simplified mission on its website: 

“The Nevada Sagebrush aims to keep students, faculty and the University of Nevada, Reno community updated on all matters concerning the Nevada campus.” 

NOTE: This is a slightly updated version of an article I published a few years ago. A couple of newsletter readers have sent messages to me in the past few days expressing dissatisfaction with records that were available online on various genealogy web sites but recently have disappeared. I am offering this republished article as an explanation on why we should not be surprised when that happens. I will also offer a suggestion as to making sure you keep your own copies of online records that are valuable to you.

Two newsletter readers sent email messages to me recently expressing dissatisfaction that a set of images of vital records has been removed from a popular genealogy site. Indeed, removal of any online records of genealogical value is sad, but not unusual. Changes such as these are quite common on FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Ancestry.com, Fold3, FindMyPast, and many other genealogy sites that provide old records online. Removal of datasets has occurred dozens of times in the past, and I suspect such things will continue to happen in the future. I thought I would write a brief explanation.

In most cases, information of genealogical value obtained from government agencies, religious groups, museums, genealogy societies, and other organizations is provided under contractual agreements. The contracts specify what information is to provided, how it is to be made available, and what price the web site has to pay to the provider for the records. All contracts also have a defined expiration date, typically 2 years or 3 years or perhaps 5 years after the contract is signed.

When a contract nears expiration, the two parties usually attempt to renegotiate the contract. Sometimes renewal is automatic, but more often it is not. Maybe the information provider (typically an archive) decides they want more money, or maybe they decide they no longer want to supply the data to the online genealogy service. For instance, in the time the information has been available online, the information provider may have learned just how valuable the information really is. The information provider may decide to ask for more money or may even refuse to provide the information any more since the provider may have a NEW plan to create their own web site and offer the same information online on their new site for a fee.

Sure, that stinks for those of us who would like to have free information everywhere; but, it makes sense to most everyone else. I am sure the budget officer at most any state or local government archive thinks it makes sense.

Every contract renegotiation is different, but it is not unusual to agree to disagree. The contract ends, and the web site provider legally MUST remove the information from their web site. The same thing frequently happens to all the other online sites that provide old records online.

Moral of this story: If you find a record online that is valuable to you, SAVE IT NOW! Save it to your hard drive and make a backup copy someplace else as well. If there is no option to save, make a screen shot and save it on your hard drive or some other place where it will last for many years. Just because you can see the record online today does not mean that it will be available tomorrow.