The Department of History at the University of Limerick, Ireland is delighted to invite you to an event entitled 'Researching and Studying the History of the Family' on Thursday, 18 April 2024 from 1200-1430 (UTC+1 – Irish Summer Time - for those outside of Ireland click here to see what time this is for you https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Researching+and+Studying+the+History+of+the+Family&iso=20240418T12&p1=1964&ah=2&am=30). This event will appeal to anyone interested in history, including genealogists and family historians.

Part of the Limerick Lifelong Learning Festival, this 2.5-hour seminar with staff and students of the MA History of Family will provide you with a sense of what researching and studying the history of family involves. Participants are invited to attend in person at the Special Collections & Archives Training Room (GL0-068), Glucksman Library, University of Limerick or you are welcome to attend online via Microsoft Teams.

View the programme and register to participate in the event.

https://www.ul.ie/artsoc/events/researching-and-studying-the-history-of-the-family

If you have any queries or issues registering, please contact rachela.murphy@ul.ie. We look forward to welcoming you on the day.

An interesting story that will interest many of use who own old (and deteriorated) daguerreotype photographs:

Techniques developed by researchers from Western University to create images from old, badly tarnished photographs could also be used to study other historic artifacts and fossils and prevent corrosion on modern materials.   

Chemistry professor T.K. Sham

Chemistry professor Tson-Kong (T.K.) Sham and his colleagues recently confirmed a new synchrotron imaging technique they developed is just as effective for retrieving corroded daguerreotypes – the earliest form of photographs – as a strategy they first reported in 2018, and can also be used no matter how badly damaged the image surface is from natural corrosion or cleaning attempts. The new research, which used beamlines at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, is published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage. 

“This technique can be used widely in all walks of science, from looking at tissues to materials science,” Sham said.  

“You could determine whether or how a metal may be corrosion-resistant. Or in the case of an already corroded material, you can learn what the product of that corrosion is and its distribution on the surface, and then you can work back and think about how to prevent that corrosion from happening.”  

Sham said many applications are possible because synchrotron X-ray is very tunable, which means it can pick out any element and find out what its chemical surrounding is and where it is placed in the sample, even imaging it layer by layer. 

You can read more in an article published in the westernu.ca web site at: https://news.westernu.ca/2024/04/reviving-daguerreotypes/ .

A scant hope of catching the Zodiac Killer perhaps lies on the back of a postage stamp, licked by the murderer 50 years ago.

The arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the man law enforcement believes is the East Area Rapist, has sparked myriad questions about the use of genealogy websites to revive long-cold cases. After DeAngelo’s capture, investigators revealed they submitted the East Area Rapist’s DNA to an open-source genealogy website called GEDmatch, where it found a match with a relative who also used the service. Detectives were then able to narrow their list of suspects, eventually arresting DeAngelo on suspicion of a string of rapes and murders across the state during the 1970s and 1980s.

Armed with millions of DNA profiles, uploaded online by curious family-history seekers across the world, could investigators finally decipher the Zodiac’s identity?

Like most things about the Bay Area’s most infamous serial killer, the answer is murky.

Unlike the East Area Rapist, Zodiac didn’t leave his blood or semen at the crime scenes. The 1968 murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on Lake Herman Road and the 1969 attack on Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin at Blue Rock Springs Park were committed with a gun, as was the murder of San Francisco cab driver Paul Stine. The remaining attack, on Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa, was done with a knife.

There is no confirmed DNA evidence from Zodiac at any of the scenes.

The closest police have to Zodiac’s DNA are the stamps he used to post his cryptic letters. In the early 2000s, San Francisco investigators developed a partial profile by testing saliva traces retrieved from beneath a stamp. Because the profile is incomplete, it cannot rule anyone in. 

But it did rule out long-time suspect Arthur Leigh Allen in 2002.

You can read more in an article in the AOL News web site at: http://aol.it/4aDIbz1

The following is an announcement from the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania:

Fraktur, or the iconic German American “fractured” manuscript and print folk art style, has historically been lauded as an emblematic regional style in North America. This talk highlights instead the global implications of the oeuvre of a specific scrivener, Friedrich Krebs. Krebs, a former Hessian soldier and the most prolific of all known fraktur artists, embellished many of his illuminated certificates with embossed and gilt papers cut from elaborate brocade sheets imported from Germany. The effect was an intricate, decoupage-like fraktur that linked the German American home with both international trade and global styles, challenging traditional interpretations of fraktur as a typically “regional” American tradition. Presenter: Trevor Brandt Cost: FREE When: Thursday, Apr. 18, 2024 at 7 p.m. ET Where: Zoom About the speaker: Trevor Brandt is a PhD Candidate in art history at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on devotional material culture, connecting German American fraktur with the folk arts of German-speakers in Central and Eastern Europe. He previously served as the curator of the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia and is currently the managing editor of Americana Insights, a nonprofit publication dedicated to early American folk art. Trevor holds an MA from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and a BA from the Pennsylvania State University. Register Now There is limited seating. Register now while spots are still available! Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania Email Phone: 267-686-2296 Become a member Donate

First, they found a way to release the “trapped” data from the Canadian census over the last 70 years. 

Then, Western researchers translated the information into an easy-to-use format by creating an online map and portal illustrating the changes across the country. 

The potential is immense.  

Professor Zack Taylor (Christopher Kindratsky/Western Communications)

Click on a neighbourhood, and you can find population details on everything from age to household income to religion to transportation choices. The UNI-CEN Canadian Neighbourhood Change Explorer allows researchers to track shifts in census areas dating back to 1951.

“There’s all kinds of trapped data that people can’t really use, because it’s stuck in ancient formats, practically back to the punch card. All that information is just sitting there,” said Western political science professor Zack Taylor, who led the project. 

The census is conducted every four years by Statistics Canada. 

The new platform was created by researchers at Western’s Network for Economic and Social Trends (NEST), an umbrella group for eight research centres within the Faculty of Social Science. The team partnered with Esri, a geographical analysis software company and Mitacs, a non-profit research agency that works to connect academics, government and public and private sectors. 

To create the new digital tool, Taylor and his team had to grapple with a major challenge: Each census release isn’t necessarily compatible with the one before it.  

The questions posed to Canadian households change from one census to the next. So do geographic boundaries, like those of cities or individual neighbourhoods. Those tweaks, even when minor, make direct comparisons difficult. To further complicate analyses, census data is often shared in different formats. 

A screenshot showing one elment of the UNI-CEN Neighbourhood Change Explorer platform. 

“While it is possible to join things up across time, to a limited degree, it’s really hard to do over a long period of time,” Taylor said. 

“With support of the Faculty of Social Science dean’s office, we started to convert this data that’s there but rarely used, because it’s so inaccessible in a common format. But then we thought, ‘how do we help people understand the potential of this? How do we dramatize the use of it?’”  

Not just for researchers 

Taylor hopes the UNI-CEN Canadian Neighbourhood Change Explorer will be used well beyond the university environment. It can provide key details to government departments, high school students and non-profit organizations seeking data on the people they serve, he said. 

Taylor also wants to see teaching materials developed to encourage use of the tool. 

Among the population data that can be mined: 

You can read more in an article by Megan Stacey published in the westernu.ca web site at: https://news.westernu.ca/2024/04/neighbourhood-census-data/

The following is a press release issued by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

In celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, the National Archives presents “Perspectives on History: AAPI Voices in the American Story” on Wednesday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT. The event will feature leading voices in the AAPI community as they discuss the role historians and media have played in our nation's cultural storytelling and the impact AAPI voices have and will continue to have on that narrative in the future. 

“The American story is most fully told when we incorporate the voices of every community that makes up our great nation,” said Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan. “As we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I’m glad we can come together to explore cultural storytelling and its effect on how we understand our nation's history.”

This conversation will be moderated by MSNBC/NBC journalist and author Richard Lui, with panelists:

“As the nonprofit partner of the National Archives, we are proud to provide vital support for programming that illuminates these powerful and lesser known stories from history,” said Rodney Slater, National Archives Foundation Board Chair. “This program illustrates the positive indelible impact the AAPI community has made and continues to make on our country—this story needs to be told.” 

Leading up to the event, the National Archives is featuring rare documents in the Rotunda recognizing the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Unit—the most decorated unit for its size and length of service—composed of 12,000 Japanese American volunteers.

The event will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater in the National Archives Building, located at 701 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC.

The program will be livestreamed on the National Archives YouTube channel. In-person attendees should use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street NW. Metro is accessible on the Yellow and Green Lines at the Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station. 

This program is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of Verizon.

For press information, contact the National Archives Public and Media Communications staff at public.affairs@nara.gov.

About the National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent federal agency that serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our government so people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. The National Archives ensures continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and the actions of their government. From the Declaration of Independence to accounts of ordinary Americans, the holdings of the National Archives directly touch the lives of millions of people. The agency supports democracy, promotes civic education, and facilitates historical understanding of our national experience. The National Archives carries out its mission through a nationwide network of archives, records centers, and Presidential Libraries and online at www.archives.gov.

About the National Archives Foundation
The National Archives Foundation is an independent nonprofit that increases public awareness of the National Archives, inspires a deeper appreciation of our country’s heritage, and encourages citizen engagement in our democracy. The Foundation generates financial and creative support for National Archives exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives, introducing America’s records to people around the U.S. and the world. Learn more at www.archivesfoundation.org.

The following is a press release issued by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan is pleased to announce that Dr. Pearl Ponce will serve as the Director of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, Texas, effective June 2, 2024. Dr. Ponce will lead the planning, directing, and administration of all Library programming and activities.

“I am excited Dr. Ponce is joining the National Archives team. With her deep knowledge of the presidency and foreign relations, and her passion for American democracy, she will be an excellent steward for the George W. Bush Library and a strong voice for archival research and public engagement,” said Shogan. “The Presidential libraries provide an important framework to better understand the complexities of our democracy and the decisions that shape our nation.”

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Photo courtesy of Dr. Pearl Ponce

Dr. Pearl T. Ponce has a long and distinguished academic career. As a professor at Ithaca College, she served as chair of the history department for six years. During this time, she  operated in a leadership role overseeing curricular revision; accreditation and program reviews; and mentoring peers, colleagues, and students at the college and beyond. Dr. Ponce is a political and diplomatic historian with a specialty in the Civil War era, having taught a wide range of courses in United States history, such as the American Civil War and Reconstruction, The House Divided: The United States in the Long 19th Century, 1800-1914, and the History of United States Foreign Relations.

She is the author of "To Govern the Devil in Hell: The Political Crisis in Territorial Kansas” and the editor of “Kansas's War: The Civil War in Documents.” Her main research interests have centered around the presidency, governance and democracy, the exercise of federal power, and the territorial system. Her latest project, "’A Strange System of Terrorism’: Federal Power and the Fraying of Democracy in Utah, Washington, and Kansas Territories in the 1850s,” brings these threads together. 

She earned a master of arts and doctorate in history from Harvard University, a master of arts in history and certificate in contemporary history from Ohio University, and a bachelor of arts in international relations from Pomona College. 

"The George W. Bush Foundation is thrilled to welcome Dr. Pearl Ponce as Director of the Bush Library in Dallas," said Ken Hersh, president and CEO of the Bush Foundation. "Her tremendous academic credentials and scholarship on the presidency will make her a great asset for historians, researchers, and educators. The presidential archives at the Bush Library are a national treasure, and I know she will steward them well."

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is one of 15 libraries in the Presidential Library system operated by the National Archives and Records Administration, representing Herbert Hoover through Donald J. Trump. Presidential Libraries and Museums are repositories for each administration's papers and records and preserve and provide access to historical materials, support research, and create interactive programs and exhibits that educate and inspire.

UPDATED Texas, U.S., Voter Registration Lists, 1867-1869	04/10/2024
NEW Oklahoma, U.S., Voter Registration Records, 1960-2023	04/10/2024
UPDATED U.S., Newspapers.com™ Marriage Index, 1800s-current	04/09/2024
UPDATED U.S., Obituary Collection, 1930-Current	04/08/2024
NEW Blacksmiths and Related Trades Index, 1720-1940	04/04/2024
UPDATED U.S., Cemetery and Funeral Home Collection, 1847-Current	03/27/2024
NEW U.S., Baptist Missionary Records and Sailing Cards, 1814-1970	03/27/2024
UPDATED U.S., Newspapers.com™ Obituary Index, 1800s-current	03/20/2024
UPDATED U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current	03/19/2024
UPDATED Web: Minnesota, U.S., Marriages from the Minnesota Official Marriage System, 1850-2022	03/14/2024
UPDATED 1880 United States Federal Census	03/12/2024
NEW North Carolina, U.S., Voter Registration Records, 1900-2023	03/11/2024
NEW Florida, U.S., Voter Registration Records, 1942-2023	03/11/2024
NEW Oklahoma and Indian Territory, Dawes Census Freedmen Rolls, 1898-1914	03/07/2024
UPDATED U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865	03/04/2024
NEW Duluth, Minnesota, Obituary Index, 1904-2023	03/04/2024

The following is a press release issued by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

A new state-of-the-art digitization center at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland, is allowing the agency to provide greater public access to the country’s most important historical federal government records faster than ever before. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, Representative Steny Hoyer, and Representative Glenn Ivey joined Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan today for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to formally celebrate the center’s launch.

The new center’s equipment fleet includes high-speed scanners and overhead camera systems that can handle a variety of record types and formats. Thanks to this equipment, the National Archives will be able to digitize up to 10 times as many records per year. This will provide Americans with access to millions of additional records each year. With more than 13 billion paper records in its holdings, being able to speed up digitization is critical to the agency’s mission of providing access to federal records.

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From left; Representative Steny Hoyer, Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan, Senator Chris Van Hollen, and Representative Glenn Ivey cut the ribbon at a ceremony to celebrate the launch of the new digitization center at Archives II in College Park, Maryland, today.

“With new high-speed scanners and a dedicated team of digitization staff, this new Center is a game changer for the National Archives,” Shogan said. “It provides us a ten-fold increase in our in-house scanning capacity and will help us make millions of original records accessible online for Americans everywhere."

“Our mission at the National Archives is to preserve, protect, and share our nation’s records,” she added. “And this will actually help us achieve all three of those goals.”

Senator Van Hollen underscored the importance of digitizing records to provide access for future generations of Americans. 

“Preserving—and learning from—our history plays a key role in our democracy. NARA is critical in this effort—archiving our nation’s treasured documents to ensure they’re accessible for generations to come. That’s why I worked to secure funding to support NARA’s new digitization center. Through this center and their expanded digitization efforts, Americans will be able to quickly and conveniently gain online access to more of the deep history that NARA holds.” 

Representative Hoyer, who was instrumental in getting funding for the construction of the National Archives at College Park, which opened in 1994 and is home to the new digitization center, spoke during the ceremony.

“This is the best archival institution in the world,” said Hoyer. “It is the best, most stable archival institution in the entire world. It is the largest and also one of the best. And this digitization capacity will make it even better.”

Representative Ivey spoke to National Archives employees gathered for the ceremony. He shared his own story of researching his family history as an example of the impact of their work  on millions of people around the world. 

"The record is there… It's critical that people like you and an institution like this are making sure we track that [U.S.] history because this is a history that's going to make a difference. It already does. It inspires people around the world,” said Ivey. “So thank you for the work that you do. Keep it going, keep it up."

Employees began working in the 18,000-square-foot center when renovation of the space was completed in October 2023. The center’s opening is the first phase of a multiyear renovation project to support the mass digitization of enormous volumes of textual, photographic, and microfilm archival records and allow the agency to better meet its goal of providing access to its holdings digitally online. 

“By far, the biggest change in our digitization capacity is the addition of three high-speed conveyor belt scanners that will enable the National Archives to safely scan fully prepared archival materials on a much larger scale than we have been able to do in the past,” Digitization Division Director Denise Henderson said. “As part of our digitization strategy, we are developing our in-house digitization expertise and expanding our digitization capabilities. The digitization center is expected to digitize thousands of cubic feet per year, producing millions of new digital images per year of archival records that are currently only available for viewing in person at National Archives facilities.”

The digitization center is tasked with priority digitization projects and supporting partner and donor projects. Current projects include the Alaska Digitization Project, which covers a wide range of records relating to Alaska; the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection; and the City Survey Files, textual records associated with the racially discriminatory practice of redlining maps. 

Staff also digitize accessioned microfilm and microfilm publications in the digitization center, like the more than 41,000 microfilm rolls of the 1960 Census. Initial work has begun on that collection and will be accelerating in preparation for the 2032 release.
The next phase of the evolution of the digitization center is already underway and will include constructing new, modern labs for digitizing motion picture and audio-visual archival records. This phase is expected to be completed by September 2024. 

Future plans for the center include additional records storage space and cold storage space for the agency’s most fragile records.

The National Archives will continue to post new digital images to the online National Archives Catalog, where they will be available to the public for free viewing from any location. The latest additions are regularly updated on What’s New in the Catalog on the National Archives website. The Catalog currently offers more than 270 million digital records. 

“We are committed to expanding free, online public access to our holdings through the National Archives Catalog,” Shogan said. “This new digitization center will help us meet our strategic goal to digitize and make available 500 million pages of records by September 30, 2026, and even larger numbers after that.”

Historically, African Americans have faced significant challenges with discovering their ancestral history due to lost or difficult to find genealogical records. Now, the Center for Family History (CFH) at the International African American Museum (IAAM) is helping to bridge that gap. Recently the CFH launched its new Genealogy Research Area and Reference Library. These resources give visitors access to millions of online genealogical records, including more than 1,300 books, and offers them the benefit of real-time expertise from onsite CFH genealogy experts.

“Conventional wisdom has been that African Americans cannot trace their ancestry in the U.S., prior to 1870,” said CFH Director Brian Sheffey. “With the addition of these resources to the Center for Family History, the museum is making significant strides to change that misperception.”

The tech forward CFH Research Area features iPad stations where visitors can search 32 popular genealogy and African American historical websites to begin or further the journey of uncovering their family history.

Visitors are asked to bring a USB-C or a standard USB flash drive to save generated genealogy documents to help maintain the center’s paperless environment.

Nearby, the CFH Reference Library is home to over 1,300 books covering a wide range of genealogy topics. Books reservations are available online at www.libib.com/u/iaamcfh for registered library patrons only. To become a patron of the Research Library, visitors must email their interest to cfh@iaamuseum.org along with their first and last name.

The CFH offers free digital resources on family genealogy. Those seeking additional guidance on uncovering the history of their ancestry can register for a virtual one-on-one consultation. The cost is $79 for a 45-minute session. Consultations are offered Monday–Friday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Reservations can be made online.

You can read more in an article published in the postandcourier.com web site at: bit.ly/3W0zA50.