Gramps is a free software project and community. The folks who produce Gramps strive to produce a genealogy program that is both intuitive for hobbyists and feature-complete for professional genealogists. It is a community project, created, developed and governed by genealogists.

Gramps is available for Linux, UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh.

Focus on Your Research

Every person has their own story but they are also part of a collective family history. Gramps gives you the ability to record the many details of an individual’s life as well as the complex relationships between various people, places and events. All of your research is kept organized, searchable and as precise as you need it to be.

Here are some screenshots from Gramps:

Pedigree Chart

Descendant Fan Chart

Geography Chart

Media List View

The number of options and features is lengthy, too lengthy to list them all here. However, you can find them at: https://gramps-project.org/blog/ and at: https://gramps-project.org/blog/features/

Gramps is written for Linux. Installing it on Linux is simple, probably simpler than installing similar programs on Windows or Macintosh. It later was adapted for Windows and Macintosh. The Window and Macintosh versions do require a bit more work to install and configure.

Gramps is an impressive genealogy program. It's price tag (FREE!) makes it even more attractive. You can learn more about Gramps at: https://gramps-project.org/blog/.

NOTE: This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I think it is "cute" so I decided to share it with my readers.

“Addams Family” fans can get into the spirit with this custom 1950 Cadillac hearse, which is now available to rent. This should be just the vehicle to drive to the family reunion. Or perhaps a teen-ager might take his favorite girl to the Junior Prom in this. (Must be 30+ to book so maybe Dad will have to drive the couple.)

Check it out at: https://tinyurl.com/yw36b4dd (there’s lots of photos there also).

Please note that you have to pick up the vehicle and drop it off afterwards in Burbank, California and there are mileage fees involved. This probably is not a good idea for someone on the East Coast.

On Finding Your Roots, Viola Davis and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. dive into her family's past, and with the help of DNA and local records, discover a surprising secret her grandfather kept to himself. 

Viola Davis is a critically-revered, award-winning actress, producer, and New York Times Best-Selling Author. She is the first black actress to win two Tony Awards (“Fences” & “King Hedley II”), an Oscar (“Fences”) and an Emmy (“How to Get Away with Murder”). Davis also won a Grammy in 2023 for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording.

You can watch the interview in a YouTube video at: https://youtu.be/PPGJPw1QL_g.

Pharos Tutors releases new two-part beginners’ course

Pharos Tutors are delighted to announce the launch of our two-part Foundations of Family History course. This is an Anytime course, so there is no fixed start date, students simply work through the material at their own pace. 

When you embark on your family history journey there can be a lot to take in, with so many different records available, how do you know where to start? Developing an understanding of the records you work with increases your ability to get the most from them. Just as important as understanding records is methodology and technique, how to most effectively build a family tree in which you can be confident. This two-part course will introduce you to the four fundamental genealogical sources in England and Wales: records of civil registration (birth marriage death certificates), census records, parish registers and wills and probate records, and start you off with some good methods and techniques that you can continue to apply as you progress your family tree further. The topics covered in the two parts of this course are as follows:

Foundations of Family History Part 1 - Getting Started 

Lesson 1 - Gathering information and interviewing relatives

Lesson 2 - Storing your family history research (including software options)

Lesson 3 - Civil Registration (birth, marriage and death certificates)

Lesson 4 - The census records

Lesson 5 - Building your tree with confidence

Foundations of Family History Part 2 - Next Steps 

Lesson 1 - Introduction to parish registers

Lesson 2 - Deaths, burials and obituaries

Lesson 3 - Getting started with wills and probate records

Lesson 4 - Problem solving

Starting with an Anytime course gives students a feel for how Pharos course materials are presented, without the need to set aside fixed times for tutorials or complete work by particular date. Anytime courses are made up of a number of ‘lessons’, where one week is about equivalent to the amount of material we would teach on a tutor-led course in one week, but you can set your own pace. Each ‘lesson’ includes exercises for students to work through, websites to visit and search techniques to try out, so there is plenty of ‘doing’ as well as reading.

You can read more about how Pharos Tutors courses work here: 

How Courses Work 

https://www.pharostutors.com/howcourseswork.php

You can read more about the new courses here:

Foundations of Family History Part 1 - Getting Started 

https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=030

Foundations of Family History Part 2 - Next Steps 

https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=031

LAUNCH OFFER: We are offering students who buy Part 1 and Part 2 of this course as a single purchase a £10 voucher off their next Pharos Tutors course.

Augusta Genealogical Society
Augusta, Georgia
Saturday, February 25, 2023
Virtual Genealogical Program
“Finding Dan and Jane: A Case Study in African American Genealogy”

When:      Saturday, February 25, 2023
Time:       11:00 - 12:00 pm EST
Where:    Online - Register at Augusta Genealogical Society 

The Registration deadline is Feb 24.  Registration is required to receive the Zoom link

Price:       FREE  to AGS members or $10 for nonmembers

Limited seating will be offered at Adamson Library to view the virtual presentation. To reserve a seat, please call (706) 722-4073.

Speaker:  Tamika Strong

Subject:  Oral history and family stories are the beginning point for many genealogists. Using a case study, genealogist Tamika Strong will share research methodology and tips on how to connect the dots between the generations using oral history.

Tamika Strong graduated from Emory University with a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies. She received a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master of Archival Studies from Clayton State University. 

Mrs. Strong spent 15 years serving as a librarian in the DeKalb County Public Library System and the Georgia Public Library Service. Since becoming an archivist more than five years ago, she assists researchers by connecting them to the vast resources available at the Georgia Archives.

Mrs. Strong discovered her passion for genealogy after planning a successful series of family history workshops at a library where she worked. Since then, she has presented workshops at various institutions, including Emory University, the DeKalb History Center, and the Digital Library of Georgia. She leads a genealogy discussion group and is active in several genealogy organizations. She serves as the Technology Director of the Georgia Genealogical Society and is on the Board of the Georgia Archives Institute. A thrill-of-the-hunt type of researcher, Tamika enjoys assisting others in discovering their ancestors while trying to find her own.

Attached here is the program flyer.

JOIN AGS NOW and enjoy the benefits of several programs, which will be free to members in 2023 - 2024.

I have used this new service briefly and found it to be a great service. This is a great method of accessing genealogy information (mostly in the U.S.) without purchasing 800 books. There is a fee for using the new service but it is much, much cheaper than purchasing the books individually.

Here is the announcement from the Genealogical Publishing Company: https://genealogical.com/subscriptions/.

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

(+) Does It Still Make Sense to Buy CDs?

Don't Store Books or Documents in Sealed Plastic!

The World’s Largest Family Tree?

Finding Your People: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Documenting Black Families in Special Collections and Archives

The Alliance Heritage Center to Preserve Jewish Farming History Receives Grant

Target Dossiers Pertaining to the British Isles, 1938-1945 Now Fully Digitized

German Genealogy 2023 International Conference

New Talks for this month's The Family History Show Online

Three Alexander the Great Manuscripts Newly Digitised

Fun Game Makes You Guess What Year a Photo Was Taken

Findmypast Adds Northumberland Records

This Smart New Search Site Is Like a Mashup of Google and ChatGPT

‘De-Extinction’ Company Will Try to Bring Back the Dodo

Queen Camilla Replies to Collector Who Found Her Ancestor's Photo

The History of Groundhog Day

Skiff - Private, Decentralized, Encrypted Emails, Notes, and Drive

Microsoft 365 Integration Is Coming to Chromebooks

How many people do you have documented in your family tree? 1,000 people? 10,000? 100,000? No, those are not record numbers.

Since the advent of online family trees and readily available DNA analysis became available, scientists have created far larger family trees. Would you believe one family tree of 27 million ancestors?

OK, so it's not quite the same as your family tree or mine. For one thing, they don't know the name of every single person in the family tree. They also don't know the exact dates of birth or death of each individual. However, they do know a lot about these people. Dr. Anthony Wilder Wohns, lead author of the published study, explained further.

“Essentially, we are reconstructing the genomes of our ancestors and using them to form a vast network of relationships. We can then estimate when and where these ancestors lived.”

Every single human eventually listed in this family tree can trace his or her ancestry back to a spot of desert in the northeast of Sudan. It’s not far from the Nile river, and recent research from the Big Data Institute suggests it might be the homeland of every single person alive today.

They had to use data from eight different human genome databases to create their network of around 27 million ancestors, and used samples not just from modern humans, but our ancient relatives as well. The study models as exactly as we can the history that generated all the genetic variation we find in humans today.

They organizers claim that as data continues to become available they will add and improve the map. Evolutionary geneticist Dr. Yan Wong says, "As the quality of genome sequences from modern and ancient DNA samples improves, the trees will become even more accurate and we will eventually be able to generate a single, unified map that explains the descent of all the human genetic variation we see today.”

You can read more in an article in the TwistedSifter web site at: https://twistedsifter.com/2023/02/what-can-we-learn-from-the-worlds-largest-family-tree-take-a-look/

The study has been published in the Science.org web site at: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi8264 with a title of: Genomics and human ancestral genealogy.

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.

Compact discs and DVDs have going the way of the dodo, and online streaming media will keep that trend going throughout 2023, 2024, and probably for many more years.

Several articles have appeared online in the past few years describing the slowly dying music CD business. In short, sales of CD disks are being replaced by directly downloading music online to iPods, computers, and other music playback devices. 

Remember the record and CD stores that used to be available at your local mall? Where have they all gone? What happened to the music store that sold CDs? How about the Blockbuster DVD rental store that used to be in your neighborhood? Where did it go? The reality is that Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Apple TV, and other online video services made the DVD rental stores obsolete. The same is true of music CDs: it is easier, much faster, and usually cheaper to download the music online that it is to go to a “brick-and-mortar” store to purchase the same things on plastic disks. 

We are now seeing the same thing with the companies that sell genealogy-related CD-ROM disks. Music CDs are already plummeting, video DVD sales are plummeting, and I believe the same is happening to data CDs.

For more than two decades, genealogists have been enthusiastic buyers of genealogy data CDs. At least, looking in my storage area in the basement confirms that I have been an enthusiastic buyer! I have several hundred genealogy data CDs stored in a large box, most of which haven't been touched in years. 

I assume that most other genealogists have also been purchasing CDs. I know the CD-ROM disks from Ancestry.com, (formerly Broderbund, with CDs designed to be read by earlier versions of Family Tree Maker), FamilySearch, HeritageQuest, Genealogical Publishing Company, Heritage Books, Family Chronicle, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Progeny Software, S&N Genealogy Supplies in England, Archive CD Books (from several countries), and dozens of other companies and societies have sold thousands of copies. In addition, I see dozens of independent genealogy CD-ROM disks offered for sale on eBay; most are apparently produced by one-person businesses. Prices vary widely, but $10 to $50 US seems to be the price range for most genealogy CDs with a few others at higher or lower prices. 

There is but one problem: Of the multiple computers that I own, I don’t have a single one that has a built-in CD or DVD-ROM player!  (I do have one ancient computer with a built-in CD player that I keep “just in case I need it.” There’s one problem with that: it is stored in a closet, underneath other devices that I no longer use. It hasn’t been powered on for 3 or 4 years and I don’t even know if it still works. I haven’t had a need for it in at least 3 or 4 years, maybe longer.)

Shouldn't we be accessing genealogy information online instead of on CD-ROM disks? 

Why would we ever want to change to online distribution? I see several reasons, some of which are already major factors:

The remainder of this article is reserved for Plus Edition subscribers only. If you have a Plus Edition subscription, you may read the full article at: https://eogn.com/(*)-Plus-Edition-News-Articles/13084095

If you are not yet a Plus Edition subscriber, you can learn more about such subscriptions and even upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription immediately at https://eogn.com/page-18077.

A newsletter reader sent me a link to an online article that made me shudder when I read it. The article claims:

“Do you have an old book or important document that has been passed down from generation to generation? These books and documents break down over time due to oxygen, moisture, and other hazards. By sealing it, you’re also giving it added protection in the event of a flood, fire (smoke), or accidental damage.”

I am no expert in preservation, but I believe the last thing you want to do to a valuable old book or photo or other document is to seal it in an airtight plastic bag, especially a bag that is not labeled "archival quality." Sealing in a cheap plastic bag can cause more damage than it prevents!

Paper, photographs, film, and tape are all made from materials that change over time. When these materials change, they will leach chemicals or give off gases that will loop back and inflict self damage if they are “sealed in their own juices.” Your books, photographs, and documents will last much longer if they are exposed to the air, where the chemicals and gases can dissipate. Storage temperatures between 60 and 75 degrees and humidity levels between 50 and 60 percent are ideal.

Archival plastic enclosures can be made from polyester, polypropylene, or polyethylene. Don't use any plastic that is not one of these three, and don't use anything that is not labeled "archival quality." Also, never seal it.

You can read advice written by Sherelyn Ogden, Head of Conservation for the Minnesota Historical Society, at Storage Enclosures for Books and Artifacts on Paper at https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/4.-storage-and-handling/4.4-storage-enclosures-for-books-and-artifacts-on-paper.