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Latest Standard Edition Articles

  • 6 Jan 2023 9:22 AM | Anonymous

    The following is a press release from The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding:

    SANDY, UT: A major upgrade for The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (or “TNG”), is now available from Next Generation Software. TNG 14 includes many enhancements and new features, plus a variety of improvements to the administrative interface. Existing users can purchase the upgrade at a discount by returning to their previous download page.

    Some of the most notable changes include a general style facelift, plus improvements to image tagging, the relationship finder, and the GEDCOM import. The advanced search, the mod manager, and the report generator have also undergone significant overhauls. 

    In addition, many adjustments have been made to keep TNG compatible with the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. A more detailed summary of all the new features can be found at http://tngsitebuilding.com/features.php.

    For those already running TNG, upgrading to the new version should be fairly easy and should take less than 15 minutes. A helpful video is also available to walk users through the process, but users can also pay a small fee to have someone perform the installation remotely.

    TNG makes it easy to put your genealogy on your web site in a dynamic fashion. It uses a database to store your information, so the pages are created at the time they're requested. When you want to make a change, you only need to upload your GEDCOM file again, or enter the new facts directly online. TNG also allows you to link photos and other media to the people in your tree. You're in total control, so you can update your information or customize the look and feel any time you want. 

    TNG is commercial software ($34.99 USD one-time license fee). In order to run TNG, your web site must support PHP (a programming language) and MySQL (the database). Existing users may upgrade to the latest version online starting at $17.99. The first version of TNG was published by Darrin Lythgoe in 2001.

  • 6 Jan 2023 9:16 AM | Anonymous

    The following was published in the Federal Register:

    DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

    [OMB Control Number 1615–0016]

    Agency Information Collection Activities; Revision of a Currently Approved Collection: Application for Relief Under Former Section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act

    AGENCY: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security.

    ACTION: 60-Day notice.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment upon this proposed revision of a currently approved collection of information. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the information collection notice is published in the Federal Register to obtain comments regarding the nature of the information collection, the categories of respondents, the estimated burden (i.e., the time, effort, and resources used by the respondents to respond), the estimated cost to the respondent, and the actual information collection instruments.

    DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted for 60 days until March 7, 2023.

    You can read more at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-01-06/pdf/2023-00004.pdf (scroll down the page a bit).

  • 6 Jan 2023 9:03 AM | Anonymous

    Three years ago Matt Phillips experienced an incident where he faced his own mortality. 

    Being a single father to his 9-year-old son Cooper and 5-year-old daughter Piper, he felt there needed to be a way for him to remain present in their lives, even if he passed away. For Phillips and many others, losing someone means losing their stories, wisdom, and pure essence.

    That sentiment inspired his Raleigh-based startup, Project Transcend.

    Billing itself as an “experience creation company,” Transcend aims to revolutionize social media by creating a mobile app that allows your life story and essence to live on. Through gathering photos, videos, audio, and ‘written moments,’ users can capture key moments and ultimately their legacy.

    “It’s really focused around capturing your life story that entails the most impactful moments, meaningful memories, the things that really kind of define us and package them up in a way that you can pass them along over generations,” said Phillips, who is Project Transcend’s Founder and CEO.

    He said it’s not just about the photos or videos we post. It’s sharing the story behind it that “captures the magic” in our lives.

    You can read more in an article by Jackie Sizing published in the GrepBeat.com web site at: https://tinyurl.com/86fjs7jr.

  • 5 Jan 2023 6:48 PM | Anonymous

    The following announcement was written by Legacy Tree Genealogists: 

    Legacy Tree Genealogists was named a 2022 Winner for the Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in the Nation by the National Association of Business Resources. 

    "We are honored to have received this recognition of our corporate culture and practices. 

    In the 18 years we have been in business, Legacy Tree has consistently employed top researchers and professionals in genealogy. We strive to provide a work environment that supports our employees’ professional and personal development," said Jessica Taylor, President and CEO of Legacy Tree Genealogists. 

    Legacy Tree Genealogists is the world's highest client-rated genealogy research firm. Founded in 2004, they provide full-service genealogical research for clients worldwide. 

    The winning companies are assessed by an independent research firm which reviewed several key measures relative to other nationally recognized winners. 

    With over 20 years of experience conducting the Best and Brightest competitions, the National Association for Business Resources (NABR) has identified numerous best Human Resource practices and provided benchmarking for companies that continue to be leaders in employment standards. 

    "These 2022 winning organizations have stood out during unpredictable times and have proven they are an employer of choice. They keep their employee's needs first and provide benefits that include development, well-being, work-life balance, rewards, and recognition. In addition, these winning companies offer a fantastic work culture and workplace environment that attracts and retains superior employees," said Jennifer Kluge, President and CEO of NABR and The Best and Brightest Program.

    Legacy Tree Genealogists will be honored during the virtual Illuminate Business Summit week in February 2023. 

    About Legacy Tree Genealogists 

    Legacy Tree Genealogists is the world's leading genealogy research firm. Founded in 2004, the company's mission is to bridge the divide between clients and their ancestors, helping them discover their roots and personal history. Based near the world's most extensive family history library in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, Legacy Tree has developed a network of professional researchers and archives around the globe. Legacy Tree's team of professional genealogists searches the world for answers and finds the un-findable.

    To join the team at Legacy Tree Genealogists, visit https://www.legacytree.com/apply 

    About the Best and Brightest Program 

    The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For® competition identifies and honors organizations committed to excellence in operations and employee enrichment that lead to increased productivity and financial performance. This competition scores potential winners based on regional company performance data and a set standard across the nation. This national program celebrates companies making better businesses, creating richer lives, and building a stronger community. There are numerous regional celebrations throughout the country, such as Charlotte, Miami, Denver, Nashville, New York, Pacific Northwest, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Houston, Milwaukee, San Diego, and San Francisco. Nominations are now being accepted for all programs. Visit thebestandbrightest.com to nominate your organization.

  • 5 Jan 2023 6:44 PM | Anonymous

    Images saved from a skip, showing the restoration of a city devastated by the blitz, have been identified and catalogued thanks to the work of volunteers.

    Thousands of photographs taken by Coventry photographer Arthur Cooper from the 1940s up to the 1960s have been digitized and released online by Coventry University.

    The archive, in the form of thousands of glass negatives, was found dumped on a Coventry street and returned to publishing company Mirrorpix.

    After sitting at the company's Watford archive for nearly a decade, the 8,049 rescued images have been made available to view as part of the Coventry Digital initiative.

    The archive had no information attached, explained the project's director Dr Ben Kyneswood, so he has called on community groups and organisations to help identify people and places to add metadata.

    "As soon as I opened the files I thought 'this is just marvellous'. There were just thousands of images with no information on," said Martin Williams.

    The chairman of the Friends of Coventry Cathedral group has so far helped identify and caption about 700 of the pictures.

    "It was when I saw early historic photos that I'd never seen before that I got very excited," he said.

    You can read much more in an article by Vanessa Pearce published in the BBC News web site at: https://tinyurl.com/ye22h5rs.

  • 5 Jan 2023 6:14 PM | Anonymous

    For the first time, 1,954 ancient Hittite tablets are being read with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) thanks to a project implemented in Türkiye. When the translation part is completed, the cuneatic clay tablets will be put on display for the public in the Hittite Digital Library scheduled to open soon.

    The first phase of the project, which was initiated to read, scan and digitize the Hittite cuneiform tablets in the inventory of the Ankara Anatolian Civilizations Museum, the Istanbul Archaeology Museum and the Çorum Museum, has been completed. Within the framework of the project carried out in cooperation with Ankara University and the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, this unsurpassed project will help researchers to easily analyze the historical documents of thousands of years, accelerating the deciphering the process

    Photographing them in high resolution and scanning them with 3D technology, 500 of the Hittite cuneiform tablets were translated at the beginning of the project. According to the testing, the AI's success ratio was 75.66%. The data obtained from the deciphered tablets will be shared with the scientific world by Hittitologists. In addition, when the AI finishes conducting all of the studies, the information obtained from the tablets will be shared in a digital library, making it available to Hititologists and history enthusiasts.

    You can read more in an article in the DailySabah.com web site at: https://tinyurl.com/4wmxjp3p.

  • 5 Jan 2023 8:39 AM | Anonymous

    Note: This article has been updated to correct the original article’s error in the time.

    When:      Saturday, Jan 28, 2023
    Time:       11 - 12 am EST 

    Where:    Online - Register at www.augustagensociety.org                 

    Learn how to find information about your ancestor using records for property, real or personal, and estate probates. Probate packets include much more than a will; they also include inventories, accounts, lists of debts, or distribution lists, along with census agricultural schedules and homesteading files. Ann G. Lawthers will help us "Follow The Money" as we learn how to research probate records thoroughly.

    Ann G. Lawthers, Sc.D., is a Genealogist with the Brue Family Learning Center at the New England Historic Genealogical Society – American Ancestors. She regularly lectures on behalf of American Ancestors at conferences, workshops, and meetings.

    At American Ancestors, she collaborates to prepare multi-week online courses, single-day online conferences, and single-session webinars. Ann focuses on New England and Mid-Atlantic research and migration patterns. Secondary interests include the Southern Colonies and Ireland. She graduated from Wellesley College and the Harvard School of Public Health with degrees in Health Policy.

    The program flyer is available at: https://tinyurl.com/3aub2xmk 

    The Registration deadline is Jan 28.  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.

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

    The Augusta Genealogical Society is a non-profit organization founded in Augusta, Georgia, in September 1979.

  • 4 Jan 2023 5:10 PM | Anonymous

    Warning: This article contains personal opinions of the author.

    I was driving down the road today, listening to a local news station on the car radio. The newscaster was interviewing a so-called security “expert” about proposed legislation supposedly designed to prevent identity theft and credit card abuse. This “expert” claimed that we needed legislation to prevent access to birth records by “unauthorized” individuals. Sound familiar? Yes, we have heard and seen this song-and-dance act before. This guy wants to lock genealogists out of the records that we have used for the past century or so. 

    The so-called “expert” claimed that the Internet makes it too easy for someone to find your mother’s maiden name, and that, of course, is the foundation of all security systems, right? 

    Let me press the button for that obnoxious sounding buzzer. BZZZZZ! Wrong answer!

    The problem isn’t easy access to your mother’s maiden name; the real problem is dumb security systems that depend upon public domain information for so-called security. Hey, if it needs to be secure, can’t you guys come up with a better key phrase that your mother’s maiden name? Sheesh, even I can do better than that!

    The only purpose for asking your mother’s maiden name is to create a “passphrase” that you can remember in case the company ever needs to identify you in the future. In reality, it doesn’t need to be your mother’s maiden name. They could just as easily use your great-great-grandmother’s maiden name or the name of your First Grade teacher or your favorite song or your pet’s name or your gym locker number. The only requirement is that it is something that you will be able to recall instantly at any future date and that it is not known to others. 

    Any institution that uses the mother's maiden name as a "security tool" is really behind the times and needs to quickly hire a real security expert, not some yahoo who uses fuzzy thinking. Even novice security managers would immediately change that policy. 

    In the United States, mothers’ maiden names and other personal information are available from numerous public sources. That information has always been in the public domain. The invention of the Internet did not really change anything. A mother’s maiden name could easily be discovered fifty years ago, and the same is still true today. Anyone who uses a mother’s maiden name “for security purposes” obviously doesn’t know much about security.

    I have refused to do business with a couple of companies that insisted upon using my mother’s maiden name as a security identifier. I don’t want to do business with any company with such a lame security policy. I advise you to do the same: boycott companies that have inadequate security policies.

    However, if you really need to do business with a company that insists upon using your mother’s maiden name for “security” purposes, please remember that you can always create a fictitious name on the spot. The bank doesn’t care what name you give them; all they want is something to enter in the blank space on their form, something that you can recall later. They couldn’t care less if it is the correct name or not. By using a fictitious name, your security will not be compromised by a Web site, by a minimum-wage employee at an insurance company, or by a criminal’s surreptitious visit to the state Vital Records Department.

    When I last created a new account and was asked for my mother’s maiden name, I answered "Fudpucker.

    I guarantee two things: (1.) I can remember that, and (2.) nobody is ever going to find that piece of information online unless they happen to read this article. The name of Fudpucker fits my needs perfectly as well as the needs of the company I was dealing with at the time. Oh, to be sure, I did get a strange look from the clerk filling out the form, but who cares? She wrote it down, and the name Fudpucker remains a part of that company’s records. I do feel much more secure than I would feel if I had used the correct name.

    I would suggest that you do the same. You can use the same funny name that I chose or some other name you can easily remember. It makes no difference. You might use the maiden name of some ancestress from 200 years ago. Will the company care? No. Will the criminal care? Yes! You just protected your privacy far better than any dumb piece of legislation restricting access to birth records can ever accomplish. 

    If an elected official or other bureaucrat tries to limit access to vital records, please feel free to send them a copy of this article. Tell them it’s time to wake up and look at the real issues and to stop trying to protect a maiden name policy that is ineffective to begin with. Then vote against the politician in the next election. You don’t want a backwards mentality like that in public office!

    If you send a damned fool to Washington, and you don’t tell them he’s a damned fool, they’ll never find out. -- Mark Twain, 1883

    A smarter politician would sponsor a bill to prohibit financial institutions from using a mother’s maiden name or any other piece of public domain information for security purposes. But, then again, when did you ever see a smarter politician?


  • 4 Jan 2023 4:53 PM | Anonymous

    The arrest of Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger has eased fears in Moscow following the brutal murders of four college students.

    It has now been revealed that the FBI was able to track Kohberger by tracing his distant relatives through genetic genealogy databases.

    According to experts, a sample of his DNA was collected by officials and matched to the crime scene.

    Kohberger was arrested on Friday in Pennsylvania, thousands of miles from Moscow, Idaho, where Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were stabbed in their sleep.

    Authorities had been quiet about the investigation up until Kohberger’s arrest but confirmed that the 28-year-old PhD student was traced through a combination of DNA tracking and investigative work.

    Instead, investigators used genetic genealogy, which has grown increasingly popular as law enforcement traces suspects through their relatives on ancestry websites.

    You can read the full story in an article by Cheyenne R. Ubiera published in the U.S. Sun web site at: https://tinyurl.com/5z672rjh.

  • 3 Jan 2023 6:47 PM | Anonymous

    Here is a bit of a mind-bender for any genealogist. Consider the lyrics to the song I Am My Own Grandpa, written by Dwight B. Latham and Moe Jaffe:

    Many many years ago when I was twenty three, 
    I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be. 
    This widow had a grown-up daughter 
    Who had hair of red. 
    My father fell in love with her, 
    And soon the two were wed. 
    This made my dad my son-in-law 
    And changed my very life. 
    My daughter was my mother, 
    For she was my father's wife.

    To complicate the matters worse, 
    Although it brought me joy, 
    I soon became the father 
    Of a bouncing baby boy.

    My little baby then became 
    A brother-in-law to dad. 
    And so became my uncle, 
    Though it made me very sad.

    For if he was my uncle, 
    Then that also made him brother 
    To the widow's grown-up daughter 
    Who, of course, was my step-mother.

    Father's wife then had a son, 
    Who kept them on the run. 
    And he became my grandson, 
    For he was my daughter's son.

    My wife is now my mother's mother 
    And it makes me blue. 
    Because, although she is my wife, 
    She's my grandmother, too.

    If my wife is my grandmother, 
    Then I am her grandchild. 
    And every time I think of it, 
    It simply drives me wild.

    For now I have become 
    The strangest case you ever saw. 
    As the husband of my grandmother, 
    I am my own grandpa!

    This song has been recorded by many artists, including Shel Silverstein, Lonzo & Oscar, Homer & Jethro, Ray Stevens, and Dave Grisman. It reportedly was inspired by an anecdote that Mark Twain related in a book, proving how a person could become his own grandfather.

    You can listen to the lyrics and watch any of several videos by going to http://facebook.com and entering “I Am My Own Grandpa” in the search box in the upper left corner of that page. My favorite rendition of the song is the one by Willie Nelson at https://tinyurl.com/yuaudh55.

    Can your genealogy program handle these relationships?

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