Transcribing BillionGraves records on a mobile phone makes it possible for you to serve while you are on the go! Transcribing used to be done only on computers but now you can also transcribe names and dates from gravestones on your iOS or Android phone! 

This is awesome news for those planning large group projects such as service organizations, church activities, youth groups, and employee team-building retreats. No more rounding up dozens of laptops to transcribe, just have everyone bring their own phone or tablet.

Even for individuals, it frees you up to transcribe while you are waiting for appointments or traveling as a passenger in the car. You can transcribe while resting in bed or while commuting on public transportation.

You can read more at: https://blog.billiongraves.com/transcribing-billiongraves-records-on-a-mobile-phone/.

The following book review was written by Bobbi King:

Genealogical Research in Ohio. 3rd Edition.

by Kip Sperry. Published by Genealogical Publishing Co. 2023. 351 pages.

Mr. Sperry, the author of two previous editions of Research, the last one having been published in 2003, writes this volume to include internet and computer resources, as well as updated information following twenty years of changes, with a bountiful array of new material added upon the historic data written into the previous works.

This book is rich in resource material. Each record type is introduced with a description of its genealogical importance, followed by listings of reference books, articles, urls for websites, and comments helpful in evaluating their usefulness to the researcher. It appears all record types are presented: birth and death, cemetery, naturalizations, military, photographs, and more than twenty more record types.

This book is rich in Ohio information. First chapters include a detailed timeline of Ohio events, the story of its early settlement years, followed by an extensive listing of libraries and archives, their addresses, urls, and descriptions of their holdings, with footnotes that name even more available resources and comments on direction for further research.

This book is rich in data. “Ohio County Records” catalogues every county and the years its records begin for birth, death, marriage, land, probate, and court records. One chapter titled “Addresses-Ohio” lists 35+ pages of Ohio societies, libraries, and associated resources. 

And don’t we all love maps. There are numerous maps: ten old maps of Ohio, two maps of canals, a road map from 1810, a map of 18 land grants, and several county maps, all reproduced images to fit the pages and a little hard to read, but discernible with a magnifying glass with readable place names and features.

The word “comprehensive” comes to mind on the contents of this book. This is an all-you-need type of manual for Ohio family history research.

Dr. Sperry’s tenure as Outstanding Educator is secure and his popularity as a lecturer is confirmed. It’s nice to see he has not ceased his efforts to keep us informed and disciplined.

Genealogical Research in Ohio may be purchased from Genealogical.com (the publisher) at https://genealogical.com/store/genealogical-research-in-ohio-third-edition/ as well as  from Amazon at: http://tinyurl.com/yjvwx3jn.

39% of workers in the US are freelancers. This isn’t necessarily your full time job, but can also be your passion project, your hobby, your second job, your side hustle or other. The rise in remote work and the creator economy have made freelancing easier than ever.

But with freelancing, solopreneurs are spending significant time setting up tools when they would rather run their business. At Mozilla and our commitment to a healthier internet, we believe that exploring ideas that can enable solopreneurs an admirable vision. Today we are excited to introduce a new Mozilla Innovation Project, Solo, an AI website builder for solopreneurs.

If you scour Yelp, it appears a third of businesses lack a website. However, building a website not only provides you with a presence that you own and control but it is also good for business. Whether launching a chess coaching or pet walking business, Solo helps the solopreneur generate their business website and provide them the basic tools to grow their business. 

Solo automatically composes your site for your business from which you can personalize

Why Choose AI for Website Building?

In 2023, website creation is still hard. While choosing a template is straightforward, sourcing images, writing content, and making a visually appealing site are really time-consuming. Add the requirements for showcasing reviews, scheduling, and providing a customer contact form, and the process becomes even harder and a lot more expensive.

Our survey data shows that the majority of solopreneurs rely upon their “tech buddy” to help build their website. As a result, the websites become stale and harder to maintain as it relies on a call to their buddy. Others without a “tech buddy” try popular website authoring tools and then abandon because it’s simply too hard to author and curate content.

Using AI to generate the content of your site and source your images, which a solopreneur can then revise into their own unique voice and style levels the playing field. Solo takes this a step further and can also scrape your existing business Yelp or other page so you have an online presence that is totally authentic to you.

How Do I Get Started?

It’s really simple. Visit Solo, provide some basic details about your business or point us at your existing website or Yelp page and watch Solo use AI to generate a website for you. From there, you further personalize and then publish. The entire experience can be completed in literally just a few minutes.

You can read. more in an article by Raj Singh in the http://mozilla.org/ web site at: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-solo-ai-website-builder/ 

The following  is a press release issued by Library and Archives Canada:

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to announce that in collaboration with Ancestry® and FamilySearch International, we are providing a free, searchable index of the 1931 Census of Canada through Census Search. This marks the completion of phase two of the plan to make the census accessible to Canadians on our website following the initial release of the census earlier this year.

The value of this census to Canadians whose families were in the country at the time and to other researchers is significant. The 1931 Census is a snapshot of a time of tumultuous change in Canada. It is the first census in which more than 50% of Canadians lived in urban centres, rather than rural areas. It is also the first census to consider how many Canadians had radios in the home, indicating an interest in learning how Canadians were integrating technology in their homes. Furthermore, it is the first mass release of Depression-era employment data, which makes it a significant milestone in such research.

This searchable index of the census replaces the temporary database of images that we published in June, so you may need to update your bookmarks and favourites. Using Census Search makes it much easier to locate individuals and offers features such as being able to move from page to page within a subdistrict. LAC is very pleased with the progress we are making on improving access, but this isn’t a finish line for us. We will be making updates and correcting data issues as we continue to fulfill our mandate to preserve Canada’s documentary heritage and make information—like this census—available to everyone.

A new venue that will help visitors explore their family history has opened its doors in north London. The Research Hub, run by the Society of Genealogists (SoG), opens to its members and to general members of the public on 3 January 2024.

The new space replaces the Society's previous home in Clerkenwell and has been fitted out with accessibility and archive preservation in mind, making the SoG's extensive archive and resources available to more researchers and family historians.

Staff at the Society of Genealogists cut the ribbon to open their new research hub - Sarah Williams

Talking at a press event, the outgoing CEO of the SoG, Patrick Barker welcomed visitors to the new home of the Society saying that it will be "a home that can be used by all of the genealogical community". He described the thought behind the design as "A vision of something fresh and modern, reflecting where we are going as an organisation as well as where we have been."

Natalie Pithers, the joint interim CEO said, "This is a place to come not just for peace and quiet and individual study, but for sharing your findings and sharing your genealogical journey. This is a place where eureka moments can be celebrated amongst people who understand and share your passion."

You can read more in an article in an article by Sarah Williams published in the  the whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com web site at: https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/sog-research-hub 

Offering a historic look at one of America’s most historic cities, a new VCU Libraries digital collection reveals the Illustrated Atlas of the City of Richmond, Va.

Also known as the Beers Atlas, the resource was published in 1876, barely a decade after Richmond’s business district near the Virginia Capitol was decimated by fire as the Civil War ended. Frederick W. Beers, from a family of cartographers, was a publisher of atlases and maps, and the Richmond atlas includes a table of contents, 21 maps, seven illustrations of businesses and eight pages of advertisers’ notices.

The maps offer insight into the state of the city – residential and commercial locales, architecture and infrastructure – some 20 years before the historic Jefferson Hotel was built and three decades after the Egyptian Building, now a landmark of Virginia Commonwealth University, was constructed as a medical college.

The original copy of the Beers Atlas is available in Special Collections and Archives. Exploring the digitized version, researchers can zoom in or out to enlarge images or narrow the focus to a particular view of elements. The images, which are free of copyright restrictions, are downloadable for use in presentations and publications.

The atlas shows a variety of buildings and structures, parks and green spaces, and places of worship. Waterways are highlighted in green. Property lines are detailed and often include the names of owners of many properties.

The Beers Atlas is a companion to the 1889 Baist Atlas. These two collections provide an opportunity to explore systemic racism found in the historical record of property lines, omissions and naming conventions, according to Irina Rogova, digital initiatives librarian.

“These maps, created decades before the Virginia General Assembly authorized racial segregation ordinances in 1912, offer insight into the built environment of Richmond following the Civil War as racial demographics shifted after the abolition of enslavement,” she said. “The maps provide a lot-by-lot look at neighborhoods that were transformed by redlining and urban renewal in the 20th century. Some of these neighborhoods today are undergoing development and change that can be characterized as preservation or gentrification.”

The two digital collections now live under a new Scholars Compass collection entitled City of Richmond Atlases and Maps.

You can read more in an article in the http://news.vcu.edu/ web site at:  http://tinyurl.com/27wt9ydj.

After years of directing Jewish museums in Israel, the Project Manager of Nebraska Stories of Humanity Beth Dotan spent 13 years serving as the founding executive director of the Institute for Holocaust Education, working closely with Holocaust survivors and their families.

In her career, Dotan heard many stories of survival from Jewish refugees in Nebraska. Recognizing the impermanence of these narratives, Dotan said she felt a responsibility to ensure that these stories would not be lost.

“Whether we wanted to hear them or not. We were the witnesses of those pieces of their lives,” recounted Dotan. “I really felt like I was holding all of this material, this information, these connections.”

Today, using her wealth of experience within Jewish communities in Nebraska, and across the world, she’s creating a comprehensive educational program for Nebraska middle and high school students to learn about the Holocaust.

You can read more in an article by Grace Bellinghausen published in the omaha.com web site at: http://tinyurl.com/56ums3kx.

The following is an announcement from Strathclyde Institute:

Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical Studies will be running a series of free genealogy and family history guest speaker online talks during 2024.

The first talk in the series will be held on Wednesday the 24th of January from 18.00 to 19.00 and will feature guest speaker Dylan Goodwin, a genealogist and author of the ‘Forensic Genealogist’ fiction series (and other non-fiction and fiction books). Find out more and reserve your free place today! > https://bit.ly/sigs24talks

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

The National Archives Building in Washington, DC, has been called a “temple to American history.” This view shows the Pennsylania Avenue entrance. (National Archives photo by Richard Schneider) WASHINGTON, December 13, 2023 - The National Archives Building, located near the National Mall and the most prominent structure in the Federal Triangle in Washington, DC, was officially designated as a National Historic Landmark, December 13. The designation was signed by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. "It is such an honor to receive the National Historic Landmark designation for the National Archives Building," Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan said. "It is a well-deserved distinction for this extraordinary building that is in its own way a treasure, surpassed only by the priceless documents held within it." On August 16, 2023, the National Park Service Advisory Board voted to recommend their approval on the National Historic Landmark nomination for the National Archives Building, along with five other nominees. The board recognized the building’s significance as the first archives built specifically for federal records in the United States and as a masterpiece work of New York–based architect John Russell Pope. The new status comes more than 50 years after the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1966, as part of the Federal Triangle. It was also listed individually in 1971. Only about 2,500 of the approximately 95,000 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are recognized as National Historic Landmarks, meaning that less than three percent have received the designation. The status covers not only the National Archives Building but the entire 5.2-acre square and green spaces, the sculptures at both main entrances, and the small garden and monument stone to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was dedicated in 1965. “The National Archives Building had long been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The designation as a ‘Landmark’ further underscores the building's importance as documentation of our nation's architectural history,” said Mark Smith, executive for Business Support Services. “Much like the archived records it protects, the building itself is recognized for its importance in understanding our country's history.” A series of photographs document the construction of the National Archives Building. This view of the steel framework was taken on September 5, 1933. View in National Archives Catalog The building was completed in 1935. Notable milestones over the nearly 90-year history of the building include the almost immediate change to fill the interior courtyard with additional archival stack space, the arrival of the nation’s founding documents in 1952, and a major building-wide renovation in the early 2000s. These improvements did not alter the essential features or functionality of the building, as it continues to be used for the same purposes for which it was designed and built: as a federal repository for the nation's most valuable records with public research rooms and exhibit spaces accessible to all. “In addition to marking the significance of the building's architecture, the National Historic Landmark designation highlights the property’s national importance as the permanent home of America’s founding documents,” said National Archives Historian Jessie Kratz. “It’s one of the first purpose-built archival facilities in the world, and it serves as a symbol of the permanence of the American federal government, its institutions, and democratic access to its records.” The National Archives Building joins over 2,600 other National Historic Landmarks but is the only National Archives facility with landmark status. The New York office currently occupies space in the landmarked Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, while the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon sites are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Learn more about the National Archives Building on the new special topics page dedicated to the building. Learn more about the landmark designation on the National Archives website. FIND OUT MORE

Police are using a new type of DNA sleuthing, called genetic genealogy. Already the technique has caught murder and rape suspects in California and Washington. While solving the cases has given cause for celebration, the tactics used in catching the alleged culprits have many privacy and civil rights experts worried.

Closing the Golden State Killer case (SN Online: 4/29/18) and the previously unsolved double murder of a young Canadian couple (SN Online: 5/23/18) involved probing a public online database of people’s DNA and family-tree information called GEDmatch.

In a May 29 opinion piece published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, bioethicist Christine Grady and colleagues argue that police should be more transparent about how they use forensic DNA searches. Meanwhile, law professor Natalie Ram and colleagues go even further in an essay in the June 8 Science, writing that eroding limits on the use of crime-solving technology “threatens our collective civil liberties and opens the door to socially and politically unacceptable genetic surveillance.”

Here are a few key points in the debate:

Why are police using GEDmatch instead of DNA testing companies? 

If police wanted to use 23andMe or AncestryDNA to help solve crimes, they would need a clean saliva sample from a potential suspect to send to the company for testing and analysis. But crime scene DNA doesn’t come in that form, so police can’t send DNA to the companies for testing. That’s not the case with the DNA analysis service GEDmatch, to which customers can upload raw DNA data received from testing companies.

“That means the police or law enforcement investigators are equally able, if they have enough DNA to create a sufficiently complete genetic sequence, to upload that to GEDmatch” to find potential suspects, says Ram, of the University of Baltimore School of Law.

You can read more in an article by Tina Hesman Saey published in the sciencenews web site at: http://tinyurl.com/397mvf5r