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  • 22 Feb 2023 2:58 PM | Anonymous

    Multi-year project includes every city and town in New Hampshire.

    The UNH Library recently wrapped up a massive multi-year project that digitized and organized all known annual reports for every town in New Hampshire, an undertaking that essentially reached every municipality, past and present, throughout the state.

    The New Hampshire City and Town Annual Reports Collection now boasts 35,491 volumes, including more than 20,000 added during the most recent blitz that began in 2021 thanks in part to a grant from the New Hampshire State Library.

    When that portion of the project began, 20 of the 234 New Hampshire cities and towns were not represented in the digital collection. All 20 of those towns were added during the recent push, as was content from an additional eight village precincts and two extinct towns.

    Given the reach throughout the entire state the project aligns perfectly with Embrace New Hampshire, one of four strategic priorities UNH President Jim Dean outlined for the university in January of 2019.

    “We have touched every town in the state, including some towns that don’t even exist anymore, and that is going to have some really lasting impacts on our reputation as an institution that reaches out to New Hampshire,” Eleta Exline, scholarly communication librarian and the principal investigator on the project, says.

    You can read more in an article by Keith Testa published in the unh.edu web site.

    Comment by Dick Eastman: I want to read the 1976 to 1980 annual reports for Lebanon, New Hampshire. That is one of the several times in lived in New Hampshire. I read those reports when I lived there but I wasn't smart enough to save them.

  • 22 Feb 2023 2:47 PM | Anonymous

    From an article by Hallie Levine published in the LiveStrong web site:

    If you go on Amazon or any other consumer shopping website, you'll most likely find hundreds of different direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests that promise to reveal everything from your family heritage to whether or not you have the ability to carry a tune or have a preference for sweet or salty.

    These tests are everywhere these days: In fact, the use of DNA testing kits such as AncestryDNA23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA has soared over the past decade, and about 100 million people had taken one by the end of 2021, according to the American Medical Association.

    About a third of Americans who said either they or someone in their immediate family took a DNA test reported learning about close relatives they had never known about. While that can be a good thing — who doesn't want to meet a long-lost cousin? — some users discovered not-so-pleasant family secrets, such as their cousin was really their half-sister, or that they had four siblings they didn't know existed.

    That's not necessarily a bad thing. "Direct-to-consumer DNA tests empower people to learn more about their genetic predispositions, which is a good thing," says Julia Cooper, LGC, a licensed genetic counselor at The Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus, Ohio.

    But they're not quite ready for prime time yet: "They're still very limited in the information they can provide," Cooper says. "They're still more of a novelty than anything."

    With that in mind, here are four things genetic counselors want you to know before you sign up for one.

    1. You May End Up With an Unpleasant Surprise

    About 20 percent of Americans say they've used a mail-in DNA testing service such as AncestryDNA or 23andMe, according to a 2022 survey from YouGovAmerica. But while you may learn some fun facts — like you're one-eighth Irish or you're likely to be an early riser — you may uncover some more disconcerting information.

    About a third of Americans who said either they or someone in their immediate family took a DNA test reported learning about close relatives they had never known about. While that can be a good thing — who doesn't want to meet a long-lost cousin? — some users discovered not-so-pleasant family secrets, such as their cousin was really their half-sister, or that they had four siblings they didn't know existed.

    There are even terms for this now, like NPE, or not parent expected, says Brianne Kirkpatrick, LGC, a spokesperson for the National Society of Genetic Counselors and founder of genetic counseling service Watershed DNA. "It can be really traumatic and destabilizing for people, because it shakes your whole sense of personal identity," she says.

    On the other hand, you may discover a second cousin who becomes your new best friend, Kirkpatrick points out. So that doesn't mean you need to avoid ancestry tests entirely. Just think carefully about how you'll feel if you come up with an unexpected — and potentially disturbing — result.

    2. You Might Misunderstand the Results

    Some companies allow you to discover if you've got certain genetic variants associated with all kinds of things, such as the type of ear wax you sport in your ear canals, or whether you have a propensity towards bitter tastes. While these facts are all fun, they're relatively harmless.

    What's a little more concerning are tests that purport to check for serious, potentially life-threatening conditions such as breast cancer or kidney disease.


    You can read a lot more at: https://www.livestrong.com/article/13776354-facts-about-dna-testing-kits/.

  • 22 Feb 2023 8:43 AM | Anonymous

    University of Arizona faculty and community partners have created a public archive of interviews with asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants incarcerated in Arizona.

    A group of University of Arizona faculty members and their community partners are preparing to launch a public archive containing the stories of asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants incarcerated in Arizona.

    The DETAINED: Voices from the Migrant Incarceration System project is a collaborative effort involving UArizona, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and Salvavision. The Florence Project provides free legal and social services to individuals in immigration detention in Arizona. Salvavision is a Tucson-based organization that provides aid and support to asylum-seekers and migrants displaced in the remote town of Sasabe, in Sonora, Mexico.

    The DETAINED archive will be available online Wednesday, and a launch event will be held that night at the Blacklidge Community Collective. The collective, located at 101 E. Ventura St., is a community space that hosts a variety of local projects, events and resources. The event will include stations where people can listen to archived interviews, as well as digital projections of art and memorabilia collected from former detainees.

    The archive grew out professor of art David Taylor's decades-long focus on the nature and changing circumstances of the borderlands – an interest he developed after moving from the East Coast and thinking about the tropes that make up society's conception of Western history. A photographer, Taylor said any story he told would not be that of a person who personally crossed the border or someone seeking asylum or work. Instead, he strives to let those people tell their own stories.

    "My goal in all of this is to ensure that people's experiences do not disappear. These are people who don't get to write history. They don't usually have their say," Taylor said.

    You can read more in an article by Logan Burtch-Buus published in the University of Arizona web site at: https://news.arizona.edu/story/uarizona-helps-launch-archive-sharing-stories-detained-immigrants.


  • 22 Feb 2023 8:37 AM | Anonymous

    RTÉ Archives could be made more open to the public under proposed new laws.

    The current archive is “inaccessible and prohibitive” according to Green TD Patrick Costello.

    Members of the public, as well as academics and other broadcasters, must request material which was broadcast on RTÉ television and may even have to pay a fee to obtain the footage or photographs.

    However, the operation of the archives may be revamped if the Government decide to support Mr Costello’s bill and open it up to the public.

    Academics will also have greater use of the archives to facilitate their research.

    The RTÉ Archives website states video footage and photographs, owned by RTÉ, can be made available for broadcasting, research, educational use, private use or for other professional purposes.

    For members of the public, the State broadcaster gives “limited access” to the archives through its Archive Sales team.

    “Subject to copyright status and availability of resources, RTÉ provides limited access to RTÉ Archives through the RTÉ Archive Sales team. We can also supply photographic images from RTÉ Stills Library collection,” the RTÉ Archives website states.

    “Material is made available on the strict understanding that it is for private use only.”

    You can read more in an article by Gabija Gataveckaite published in the MSN web site at: https://tinyurl.com/3ax3zkt3.

  • 22 Feb 2023 8:28 AM | Anonymous

    Got a low-quality photo album that you want to upscale with the power of AI? Upscayl is what you need on your Linux machine.

    With the latest generation of phones, we're used to having images automatically sharpened, upscaled, and otherwise polished to perfection by machine learning models and on-device neural nets.

    Older photos or those taken without advanced hardware have suffered in comparison. Upscayl runs on your Linux machine and uses AI models to sharpen and upscale low-resolution images into ultra HD.

    Camera technology has advanced immensely in the two centuries since the first heliographic engravings, and older images usually don't compare well with photos taken on the latest iPhone.

    Most images in 2023 are digital and are viewed on screens where you can zoom in on the tiniest details. In analog photos scanned at even the highest settings available 20 years ago, the details can be unclear, and the pixel count is still lower than those taken by even some budget smartphones.

    It's even worse with digital photos from the early 2000s. Those beautiful sunsets and wedding photos may have looked fabulous when 800x600 was the pinnacle of screen resolution, but today, they barely cover a corner of your 4k gaming monitor.

    Zooming in or resizing renders the image ugly, and exposes compression artifacts that you don't want to see.

    Upscayl Makes Your Old Pictures Look Fantastic

    Fortunately, the same kind of machine learning and image enhancement carried out by high-end phones, can be carried out on your Linux PC.

    You can read more in an article by David Rutland published in the MakeUseOf web site at: https://www.makeuseof.com/upscale-low-resolution-images-upscayl-linux/.

  • 21 Feb 2023 9:44 AM | Anonymous

    "Utterly breathtaking" historical documents dating as far back as 1695 may have been lost forever if not for a man who rescued the collection 30 years ago from a skip.  

    NOTE: According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a “skip” is a commn word in Ireland and Great Britain meaning "a large metal container into which people put unwanted objects or building or garden waste, and which is brought to and taken away from a place by a special truck when people ask for it."

    Limerick historian Dr Paul O’Brien said he is “blown away” by the discovery of the archive spanning most of Munster that he believes will “tell the story of land ownership in Ireland.” 

    The Mary Immaculate College lecturer said he’s running out of words to describe its “phenomenal” sheer volume and geographical range. 

    “It covers huge swathes of land up the country and just gives a lot of agency to tenant farmers and tenant voices that aren’t generally covered out there,” he said. 

    A man found the documents about 30 years ago in a skip outside a house in Limerick but only managed to save 20%, or 28 boxes, out of the collection due to the sheer volume. 

    You can read more in an article by Jack White published in the Irish Examiner web site at: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41073983.html .

  • 20 Feb 2023 4:02 PM | Anonymous

    I received an email message recently that is not terribly unusual. I have received a number of similar questions before. I did reply in email, but I thought I would also write an article about it as I am sure others have faced the same "problem." In fact, the resolution is simple, although perhaps difficult to prove.

    This is the email message I received although I edited out the name of the person and the name of the DNA testing company in order to protect the privacy of both. In fact, this could have happened with any of the DNA testing companies:

    I have a topic that has been bugging me lately. A certain DNA testing company is advertising about their "ethnicity" reports. My previous family history results show that I am over 80% British Isles and less than 5% German. However, I know that my father (he had his test done, too) is almost 50% German/Czech. Our family history research also shows that his father must have been close to 100% German. 

    I understand that I get what I get - not an exact % split of DNA but a roll of the dice. However, their commercials imply that you will know that you are not German if the DNA test shows no German in the ethnicity profile. What gives? 

    I think they are misleading people with those ads. What's your opinion? (I also think their ethnicity reports are not 100% accurate.) 

    Thanks for your consideration of my question, and thanks for your newsletter. It has led me to several invaluable resources over the years of family records I would have never found otherwise.

    Here is my (slightly edited) reply:

    There are at least three possible reasons that the DNA results show non-German ancestry of the individual in question. The most obvious reasons are:

    1. A mistake at the DNA lab where your test sample was accidentally swapped with a sample from someone else.

    2. Even brothers and sisters (with the same parents) normally do not receive exactly the same DNA from each parent. It has been compared sticking a ladle into a container of soup on the stove. One person might pull out “components” of 40% British DNA, 35% German DNA, and 15% Swedish DNA. Meanwhile, that person’s brother or sister might use the same ladle and dip it into the same container of soup, but perhaps will pull out 65% British DNA, 25% German DNA, and 10% Swedish DNA. Almost no one ever receives exactly 50% of their DNA from each parent, the mix is almost always more or less than 50% from each parent. To be sure, the total is always 100% but almost never exactly 50/50.

    3. Did his ancestors REALLY come from Germany and nearby regions? Sure, that’s what the records show, but were those REALLY HIS ANCESTORS?

    One “mystery” that turns out to be very common in DNA research is that someone was quietly adopted into a family some years ago without paperwork and other family members kept it quiet (this happened often; I have several examples in my own family tree). 

    Another possibility is what is humorously referred to as a “non-marital event.” That is, someone in your family tree spent at least one night with someone other than his or her married and documented spouse.

    While we all smile when we say “non-marital event,” the fact remains that such liaisons were common throughout the years, even in the 1700s or later.

    There is a book called “Sex in Middlesex” by Roger Thompson. The book is available from Amazon and probably other bookstores. It may be found on Amazon by searching for ISBN 0870236563.

    In the book, Roger Thompson describes various sex “crimes” that were tried in court in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the early to mid-1600s: "Sex in Middlesex pulls its facts from the Middlesex County, Massachusetts, court records. Eleven chapters discuss court cases by categories such as “Fornication: Detection and Evasion,” “Courtship and Patriarchal Authority,” “Pregnant Brides and Broken Promises,” “Unfaithful Wives,” “Unfaithful Husbands,” and “Community Control.” Statistical charts include “Geographical Incidence of Sexual Misdemeanors [1649–1699]” (the winner is Charlestown with 60, next was Cambridge with 31), and “Incidence of Conviction for Sexual Misdemeanors.”

    I am sure such events were not limited to one county in Massachusetts. Anyone digging through old records can find many similar court cases everyplace else. While we commonly think of our ancestors as straight-laced Puritans or others who would never do such things, the fact remains that they were human beings with the same weaknesses and challenges that modern-day humans face. The court cases reveal that unmarried couples or couples who were not married to each other had extra-marital affairs probably at least as often as do today's couples.

    So, were your grandfather’s REAL ancestors from someplace other than Germany? Or did one of your ancestors have an extra-marital liaison that you do not know about? It is possible that the DNA results you have received may prove something about your grandfather's ancestry that perhaps even he didn’t know.

    Luckily, the solution is simple, although a bit expensive. Have another DNA test taken by another DNA lab. (I have had my DNA tested by five different DNA labs, and I know of other genealogists who have tested with even more labs than that.) See if all the test results agree. In my case, the test results are similar but never exactly the same. 

    If only one test result shows non-German ancestry, then the first assumption probably is correct: the lab made an error.

    However, if all the DNA tests say that he had little to no German ancestry at all, then I would suggest that you have some new family history challenges ahead of you!

    I can hear a collective gasp from everyone reading this article: "What? Not MY ancestors!"

    But it was true many, many times.

    So here's a question for everyone else: What's in YOUR DNA?


  • 20 Feb 2023 3:23 PM | Anonymous

    Many genealogists owe a debt to the many unsung heroes and heroines who convert  medieval documents from print to photography and finally to the internet where we all can read them while conveniently seated in our homes.

    While Thomas Hoccleve was a 15th-century scribe, his workday complaints slipped into his poems: eyestrain from long hours staring at text, backaches from a lack of ergonomics, difficulty standing up straight.

    His experiences aren’t that far removed from the teams who digitize texts today, which include librarians, curators, imaging specialists, conservators and preservation experts, catalogers and metadata specialists, technologists, project managers, production coordinators and sometimes students. As Hoccleve himself knew, copying texts is exacting and complicated work — and often unappreciated by readers.

    That’s a dynamic that Binghamton University Associate Professor of English Bridget Whearty hopes to change. In her new book, Digital Codicology: Medieval Books and Modern Labor, she introduces readers to the digitization process and the highly trained professionals who perform this work.

    “In medieval studies, we use digital copies constantly. If you’re a literary scholar, it’s really easy to pull up a copy of a poem you’re working on and see it in a 15th-century scribe’s handwriting,” she said. “But even though we use them, we don’t necessarily think about who makes them and how and why they’re made. And that’s funny, because we spend a lot of time thinking about those exact questions when it comes to the original copies.”

    Whearty traces the preservation of manuscripts through media history, from print to photography and finally the internet, demystifying digitization along the way. To that end, she examines late-1990’s projects such as Digital Scriptorium 1.0 alongside late-2010’s initiatives like Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis, and world-renowned projects created by the British Library, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, Stanford University and the Walters Art Museum against in-house digitization performed in lesser-studied libraries.

    She also traces the story of one manuscript: a book of Hoccleve’s poetry, created in the 1420s by his own practiced hand, which now resides at the Huntington Library in California. First printed in 1796, it was put on microfiche in the late 20th century and photographed for digitization in the early 21st century. During each rendering, editors, printers and copiers made choices about what needed to be represented and preserved.

    You can read a lot more in an article by Jennifer Micale published in the Binghamton University web site at: https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/4095/modern-scribes-how-medieval-books-go-from-parchment-to-the-cloud.

  • 20 Feb 2023 12:04 PM | Anonymous

    Here is a list of all of this week's articles, all of them available here at https://eogn.com:

    (+) The Care and Maintenance of Tombstones

    Presidential Ancestry

    What We Found Out About 4 U.S. Presidents in the 1950 Census

    Contributions of Black, Indigenous Soldiers Detailed in New Collection at Museum of the American Revolution

    Historic Iwo Jima Footage Shows Individual Marines Amid the Larger Battle

    Book Worth More Than $600 Stolen From Dayton, Ohio Metro Library

    eBay for Genealogists

    Association for Gravestone Studies 2023 Conference

    Free BCG-sponsored Webinar, February 21, 2023

    Findmypast Adds Two Brand New and Exclusive Record Collections

    Recently Added and Updated Collections on Ancestry.com 

    Black Death 700 Years Ago Affects Your Health Now

    How to Cancel a Subscription Online Even When the Company Doesn’t Want You To


  • 20 Feb 2023 9:31 AM | Anonymous

    MyHeritage has an interesting article published in the company's blog. Amongst the highlights:

    The current U.S. president, Joe Biden, was 7 years old in 1950.

    The article describes family members that Biden lived with.

    Donald Trump was 4 years old in 1950

    He lived with 7 other people, all close relatives except for one Irish domestic worker.

    Barack Obama is the only one of the past 5 U.S. presidents who hadn’t been born yet in 1950.

    We will have to wait for the 2042 release of census records to learn about his living arrangements in 1970.

    President Clinton appears in the 1950 U.S. census as 3-year-old William Jefferson Blythe III

    He lived in Hope City, Arkansas at the time with his maternal grandparents.

    You can read the full article at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/02/what-we-found-out-about-4-u-s-presidents-in-the-1950-census/.


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