NOTE: This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it is a method of using the latest technology, increasing the security of your information, and of saving money, so I decided to publish the information here.

What Is Storj and Why Should I Care?

Simple answer: Storj is an open source, decentralized file storage solution that is cloud-based, easy-to-use, and inexpensive. It stores files "off site" (and optionally makes them available to others) for its customers.

Answer from Wikipedia

Storj is a decentralized storage platform that uses a cooperative storage cloud to store data on many different nodes around the world. The company was founded in 2014. 

Both of the above explanations are correct but do not properly explain what StorJ is nor why anyone would be tempted to use the company's services. 

A longer and more complete description

Cloud storage of files has become a very popular service in recent years, attracting companies like Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud Drive, Microsoft Azure, BackBlaze, SpiderOak, Sync, Mega, pCloud, and several dozen others. Prices vary widely and most of these services will provide a small amount of free file space as enough for you to test it. 

Most of the cloud-based file storage services will store files originating in all the popular computer operating systems, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Chromebooks, Android, and iOS.

Almost all these services operate by building large data centers and filling them with hundreds or even thousands of file servers as places to store their customers' files. Almost all these services (with a few exceptions) must purchase the data centers, the servers, and all the related hardware. For most of these companies, the expenses for all this is measured in the millions of U.S. dollars, an expense that must be passed on to their customers.

Of course, a disaster (fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, or wars (such as a data center in the middle of the Russia-Ukraine war zone)) in one of these data centers will have a huge impact to the company's business. The bigger cloud-based file storage services solve this by building multiple data centers in multiple countries spread all over the world. The file servers in any one location will periodically copy their stored files to servers in a distant data centers located in another part of the world. Expenses in those cases may go into the billions of dollars. 

In contrast, Storj has a different business model. 

Storj (pronounced as "storage") does not own the majority of file servers. In fact, Storj claims on it's web site at https://www.storj.io/how-it-works: "We don't own or operate a single data center."

So how does a cloud file storage service store customers' data in the cloud without owning "or operat(ing) a single data center?"

Instead of owning their own (expensive) data center, Storj contracts the file storage space out to both large corporations and to private individuals who have sufficient storage space available for use by Storj. The Storj company then compensates the storage space providers for the space used. Since Storj does not have to spend millions (or billions) of dollars to purchase the servers and data centers, the savings are passed on to end users. Storj's fees are amongst the lowest in the industry.

Storj runs on the Interplanetary File System, usually abbreviated to IPFS. (You gotta love that name: Interplanetary File System!) 

Instead of uploading your files to a single server, the IPFS (and including Storj) breaks each upload down into 80 or more distinct pieces (called "sharding") that get copied to 80 or more distinct storage points throughout the world. These "distinct storage points throughout the world" are owned by other people and companies, not by Storj.

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol, hypermedia and file sharing peer-to-peer network for storing (and optionally sharing) data in a distributed file system.

Your files are therefore first encrypted, then broken up into 80 or more hard-to-trace fragments and all the fragments of all the files are distributed across the globe, making for one of the safest and most secure content-upload suites available. Any potential hackers cannot find and decode your entire file(s) simply because every file is broken up into 80 or more distinct pieces and stored in different locations. One piece might be stored in Singapore, another piece in Poughkeepsie, one in Caribou, Maine, still another piece in Rio de Janeiro, and the remaining 76 or more pieces stored in still other locations. 

Not only are your files safe from government spies, hackers, and others, even the employees of Storj are unable to decode any of your encrypted and distributed files. (There is a method of NOT encrypting your files, should you wish to not do so. However, that remains under the control of the owner of each file at all times.)

IPFS allows users to host and receive content in a manner similar to BitTorrent. As opposed to a centrally located server, IPFS is built around a decentralized system of user-operators who hold a portion of the overall data, creating a resilient system of file storage and sharing. Any user in the network can serve a file, and other peers in the network can find and request that content from any node who has it. If any one (or more) file servers in the network are unreachable, the "missing piece" of the files is quickly supplied from other servers in the network that have redundant copies of the file being retrieved.

All of this file splitting and multi-server file retrieval is invisible to the end user. For instance, he or she simply requests a normally-addressed "http" file in his or her web browser and it appears (often in less time) in his or her normal web browser. Of course, the user storing the file(s) is not limited to World Wide Web-formatted (http) files; each file can be any standard file format such as DOC, PDF, EXE, or any other file format.

You can read more about the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) at: https://ipfs.tech.

The use of IPFS (and therefore Storj) files has many advantages. The more obvious advantage is file redundancy: files can be retrieved even if a significant number of file servers are off-line and therefore inoperative.

Traditional cloud storage solutions, like Dropbox or Google Drive have limitations. While files are backed up redundantly, bandwidth from a traditional data center or unexpected outages can restrict access to your files. There’s also the issue of privacy. These companies have control over your files, including the ability to access them with or without your knowledge.

Another advantage is security. With each file in your Storj account broken up into 80 or more separate pieces (shards) and stored in 80 or more different servers located all over the world, a hacker cannot access your files as he or she will never discover all the 80 or more servers needed.

When you need to access a file that you earlier backed up on Storj, the file service only needs 29 of those pieces ("shards") to reconstruct the file. However, it actually requests 39 pieces to be downloaded simultaneously, using only the fastest 29 pieces that reach you first.

The Storj project uses blockchain and peer-to-peer networks. It distributes the files so redundancy is well established. It also guarantees you’re the only one who can control access to your files: you can make access private (only you can retrieve your files) or make them public (anyone may retrieve your file).

File sharding and redundancy also has numerous advantages when a traditional server becomes overloaded. Normal file servers, such as HTTP, downloads files from one server at a time — but peer-to-peer IPFS retrieves pieces from multiple nodes at once, enabling substantial bandwidth savings. IPFS makes it possible to efficiently distribute high volumes of data without duplication. If Storj needs more than 80 different widely-distributed servers because of system loads, the many file segments are automatically copied to additional servers. 

Another major advantage is anti-censorship: No one controls IPFS, not a government and not any individual. For instance, during the block of Wikipedia in Turkey a few years ago, IPFS was used to create a mirror of Wikipedia, which allowed access to archived static Wikipedia content despite the ban. Even if Wikipedia's primary (non-IPFS) file servers were censored by the Turkish government and even knocked off-line, the mirrors on IPFS continued to serve the (non-censored) web pages. The mirror has now been expanded to more languages, such as English, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese.

IPFS also automatically powers the creation of diversely resilient networks that enable persistent availability — with or without internet backbone connectivity. This means better connectivity for the developing world, during natural disasters, or just when you're on flaky coffee shop wi-fi. You are never dependent on one backbone network. 

Perhaps the biggest advantage of all is pricing: Storj provides up to 25 gigabytes free of charge to anyone who establishes a (free) account on the service. That's a lot, more space than almost all other cloud-based file storage services (with 1 or 2 exceptions). When your stored files exceed 25 gigabytes, Storj charges $4.00 (US) per terabyte for all stored data exceeding 25 gigabytes. In addition, Storj charges $7.00 (US) per terabyte of downloaded bandwidth costs. Again, not the absolute cheapest but certainly one of the cheapest fee structures in the business. Storj claims that its customers save 80% or more on your cloud storage costs compared to the big cloud providers.

You can read more about Storj's fees at: https://www.storj.io/pricing.

Files are always available and can be downloaded using multi-layered parallelism (pulling from multiple storage nodes around the globe) with low latency, and higher throughput, ensuring faster recovery.

There is a lot more information about Storj on the company's web servers (distributed across more than 80 different servers around the world, of course) at: https://www.storj.io.

I have been using Storj for more than a year now and am very pleased with the service. It is easy-to-use and works well. I don't have any testing equipment to measure download speeds, but my "eyeball measurement system" seems to indicate that it retrieves files at least as fast as any of the bigger cloud-based file storage and retrieval services I have used in the past and possibly a bit faster.

You can learn a lot more about Storj by starting at: https://www.storj.io/.

NOTE: By the way, I am not compensated in any way for writing this article. I am simply a very satisfied user of Storj and plan to continue using it until something even better comes along. The folks at Storj do not know that I am planning to publish this article. In fact, I doubt if the folks at Storj even know who I am.

Bonjour to all our fellow history enthusiasts and genealogy explorers! In honor of Bastille Day, we’re offering free access to all French records on MyHeritage from July 12–16, 2023. This massive treasure trove of French records includes 1,304,623,272 records spanning 117 unique collections. Imagine the fascinating connections and discoveries you might make about your family’s French history by exploring these records for free! 

Start exploring French records now

As we all know, French influence reaches far and wide. From Canada to the Caribbean, Vietnam to parts of Africa, the tendrils of France’s historical legacy are intertwined with the stories of nations across the globe. You don’t have to hail from France to find something unexpected or intriguing in these records. This is an opportunity for MyHeritage users worldwide to uncover potential French heritage and delve into the rich and varied tapestry of French history.

51,252,583 of these French records were added to MyHeritage just over the past year! So, if you’ve searched our French records before, it might be time to revisit these historical record collections and uncover new leads in your genealogy research.

Don’t yet have a MyHeritage account? No problem! We’ll ask you to register for free, so you can take full advantage of this offer and begin your journey into the past.

Many interesting examples may be found in the MyHeritage Blog at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/07/celebrate-bastille-day-with-free-access-to-french-records-on-myheritage/. 

The Belfast Free Library is now a FamilySearch affiliate library. The designation means local library patrons will now have greater and more convenient access to the wealth of genealogical resources available through FamilySearch, the largest genealogy organization in the world, according to Belfast Free Library, in a news release.

Details may be found at: https://www.penbaypilot.com/article/belfast-free-library-becomes-familysearch-affiliate-library/176100.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society is the recipient of an $18 million bond to expand its Newbury Street location in Boston, MassDevelopment said. The funds will be used to add a visitor’s center and other improvements to the facility.

Secretary of Economic Development Yvonna Hao, chairwoman of MassDevelopment, said cultural institutions' contributions to the economy are key to bringing visitors to downtown neighborhoods and commercial centers.

“We’re pleased that nonprofits across Massachusetts like New England Genealogical Society can leverage MassDevelopment’s financing solutions to upgrade their facilities, buy equipment, and pursue other capital projects that help them grow and thrive,” Hao said in a statement.

A vacant building located at 97 Newbury St., Boston, according to a release, will be reconstructed and expanded to be connected to the genealogical society’s current facility at 99-101 Newbury St. The expansion will feature a Discovery Center with computer kiosks, visitor recording booths, multimedia presentations, and visiting exhibitions and museum pieces.

“Everyone has a story worth telling and worth hearing; when people are inspired and supported to explore and share their family history, they gain a better understanding of themselves, of others, and of the shared human experience,” Ryan Woods, who serves as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the genealogy society, said in a statement. “Through the financing solutions afforded through MassDevelopment and Brookline Bank, we are able to realize the creation of a national center for family history, heritage, and culture that will provide exceptional experiences for people of all ages and all backgrounds to explore their identities and histories.”

According to a release, the organization will also move its retail shop and make it larger, improve the original building to current code compliance, create more space for administrative offices, and purchase technology, furniture, fixtures, and equipment. Brookline Bank purchased the bond.

“The New England Historic Genealogical Society is a destination for people of all ages to explore the history of their families and communities,” MassDevelopment president and chief executive officer Dan Rivera said in a statement.

The organization, founded in 1845, according to a release, is privately funded with a mission to assist people to explore and discover their family history.

Traditional measurements of genetic ancestry rarely offer information on specific ancestors in a family tree. A new approach to genetic ancestry developed by Stanford researchers yields insight into African American history by providing estimates of the number of African and European genealogical ancestors in typical family trees.

Family trees, photo albums, and grandparents are often the go-to sources of information for people curious to know who their relatives were. Genetic ancestry is also a useful tool, but these measurements typically provide data on percentages of different populations in a person’s ancestry, not on specific people. Now, a new study led by researchers from Stanford and the University of Southern California introduces a new way to think about genetic ancestry, revealing information that approximates the number of people from a source population.

The researchers apply this new approach to the genetic and genealogical history of African Americans from the 1600s to the present to estimate the number of African and European ancestors who appear in a randomly chosen African American person’s genealogy. The authors provide context for their results by using a historical book written about several generations of the family of Michelle Obama, the former first lady of the United States, as an example.

You can read more in an article by Holly Alyssa MacCormick published in the Stanford.edu web site at: https://news.stanford.edu/2023/07/10/new-genealogy-method-helps-fill-gaps-african-american-ancestry/.

The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG). Reminder: you can attend webinars from anywhere in the world:

FREE BCG-SPONSORED WEBINAR

“Andiamo! Finding Your Italian Family” 

by Margaret R. Fortier, CG

Tuesday, July 18, 2023, 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

Why did your Italian ancestor have five cousins all named Joe? Why did married women travel under their maiden names? Was Sally really Serafina? This presentation explores the factors that pushed and pulled Italians to emigrate, what they found when they arrived, Italian naming patterns and name changes, and how to start your search. Knowing what their life was like in Italy helps us to understand their choices and behavior when they emigrated: why they were slow to naturalize, why the family was the most important institution, and why food was a source of celebration.

Named for her grandmothers and inspired by her mother’s phenomenal memory, Margaret R. Fortier, CG, is a genealogical researcher, lecturer, and writer. Her research focuses on French-Canadian, Italian, and Portuguese immigrants. She is co-editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. She is a facilitator for the Certification Discussion Group and serves as a mentor for program alumni. She holds an MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley University and serves on the board of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG).

BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “Andiamo! Finding Your Italian Family” by Margaret R. Fortier, CG. This webinar airs Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 8:00 p.m. EDT.   

When you register before July 18 with our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars (http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=8108) you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Anyone with schedule conflicts may access the webinar at no charge for one week after the broadcast on the Legacy Family Tree Webinarswebsite.

“We appreciate the opportunity to present these high-quality educational webinars,” said President Faye Jenkins Stallings, CG. “At BCG, our purpose is to promote public confidence in genealogy by supporting uniform standards of competence. These webinars help to achieve that by providing educational opportunities to family historians of all levels of experience.”

Following the free period for this webinar, BCG receives a small commission if you view this or any BCG webinar by clicking our affiliate link: http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=2619. 

To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2023, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard at https://bcgcertification.org/bcg-2023-free-webinars/.  For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (https://bcgcertification.org/learning).

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has unveiled a searchable database of over three million names in an innovative partnership with the high-profile genealogy online platform Ancestry.

Approximately 3.2 million name indexes, relating to valuation records for the period 1864 to 1933, are now free to access with an Ancestry.com account.

The exciting development, which will benefit genealogists across Northern Ireland, the island of Ireland and the wider Irish diaspora, is a key component of PRONI's 100-year anniversary dating back to its establishment in June 1923.

Acting Director of PRONI, David Huddleston hailed the release of searchable names by the Public Record Office as an "invaluable substitute" for pre-1901 census records which were destroyed in the Four Courts fire during the Irish Civil War in June 1922.

He added: "The new data set of searchable name indexes will also provide a rich genealogical source for those interested in tracing their ancestors.

"The indexes represent a major enhancement to existing digitized records that have been available on the PRONI website, but which were previously only searchable by geographic location.

"We have been delighted to work with Ancestry to make these indexes freely available to local communities and the wider Irish diaspora."

You can read more in an article published in the 4NI.co.uk web site at: https://www.4ni.co.uk/northern-ireland-news/298563/proni-unveils-new-searchable-names-database. 

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

Here's the bottom line summary of this article: Archival-grade optical discs like M-DISC promise to last hundreds or even thousands of years. Tape storage lasts for a few decades, while hard drives and Solid-State Disks (SSDs) can be trusted for 5-10 years, but it all depends on how well you treat and store them.

Ok, now that you know the bottom line, you might want to learn a few details to see how to extend the life of your disk drives for as long as possible.

Perhaps you might need to hold onto data for a long time. Maybe you have some old documents or records that you’d like to pass down to future generations, or perhaps you need to keep financial records and other necessary paperwork around for legal reasons. Even if you’re trying to preserve your personal memories, like photos or videos, you’ll need to figure out a way to store all that stuff.

You could choose high-quality paper or film designed to last a long time. However, it will have to be acid-free paper. Did you know that most paper sold today contains acids? 

According to Wikipedia:

"Acid-free paper is paper that, if infused in water, yields a neutral or basic pH (7 or slightly greater). It can be made from any cellulose fiber as long as the active acid pulp is eliminated during processing. It is also lignin- and sulfur-free. Acid-free paper addresses the problem of preserving documents and preserving artwork for long periods."

Acid-free paper is a MUST if you want to save that paper for many years. There are only two problems with acid-free paper: (1.) it is difficult to find and (2.) it is expensive.

If you really want to use paper, what you need is Alkaline paper.

Alkaline paper has a life expectancy of over 1,000 years for the best paper and 500 years for average grades. Those numbers assume that the alkaline paper is storred in a facility with rigid temperature and humidity controls. Storing the paper in that environment will be expensive over a period of many years. 

The making of alkaline paper has several other advantages in addition to the preservation benefits afforded to the publications and documents printed on it. Unfortunately, alkaline paper is even more difficult to find and even more expensive than acid-free paper.

Then there is the issue of inks.

The so-called ink used in today's inkjet and laser printers isn't really ink at all. 

In the case of laser printers, the "ink" called toner (powdered carbon or other chemicals) is used. A laser beam is projected onto a drum. Photoconductivity allows the charged electrons to fall away from the areas exposed to light. Powdered ink (toner) particles are then electrostatically attracted to the charged areas of the drum that have not been laser-beamed.

Inkjet printing works by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. An inkjet nozzle sprays ink in the size of about 0.003 inches.Fluids with surface tension may be water based, wax or oil based and even melted metal alloys.

The problem with both laser and inkjet printers involves fading. In both cases, the "ink" will start to fade within a very few years. It probably will become unreadable within less than 100 years. In most cases, it will fade in much less than 100 years.

In short, if you want the printed paper to last for more than 100 years, you cannot print it on inkjet or laser printers. What eise is there? Ink. Good, old-fashioned India ink. Applied with a fountain pen. 

NOTE: Don't even get me started with the expected lifespan of ballpoint pens!

So the bottom line is that if you want to preserve information for many years, it is not cost-effective for private individuals to publish on paper. So what else is there? Either on clay tablets, copper tablets, or electronically.

I will ignore clay tablets and copper tablets in this article. That leaves only one practical method: disk drives.

Publishing on Disk Drives

If you are thinking about storing digital data for the long term on disk drives, there are several challenges you should be aware of.

First, digital storage media like hard drives and Solid-State Disk Drives (SSDs) can degrade over time and eventually fail. (With one expensive exception I will describe later.) That means you must keep making new copies of long-term data before your storage devices fail.

Perhaps a bigger challenge is file format obsolescence. Some file formats may become outdated or incompatible with newer software as technology advances. That means even if your storage media survives, there may be no drives to read it, and even if there are, the details of the file formats you used to store that data might be lost.

On the other hand, every time you migrate your current data to a newer format to preserve it for a few more years, it might degrade in some way that won’t become apparent until someone tries to access it someday.

Hackers, malware, and natural disasters can all threaten your stored data, so it’s important to implement strong security measures to protect your information and to store the media in an environment that’s both safe for that media and offers long-term stability.In other words, make multiple copies and store each copy in a different place.

Perhaps a separate, but equally important, problem with file obsolesce is the issue of disk storage capacity. Only a few years ago, a hard disk drive capable of saving 100 megabytes of files was considered to be huge. Today, it is difficult or maybe even impossible to purchase a new disk drive with that limited about of storage space. 

Hard drives used in personal computers used to use the ST-506 or ST-412 interface. Today, those are no longer available, having been replaced mostly by IDE or ATA interfaces. 

If you save data today on some state-of-the-art disk drive will you or someone else be able to read it in 10 years? 50 years? 100 years?

The long-Term (but Expensive) Solution

In this rapidly-changing world it is difficult to predict where the technology will be in another 20 years. However, today's archival-grade optical discs, such as M-DISC, are designed specifically for long-term data storage. Unlike CDs and DVDs, they use a special type of data layer made of materials that are resistant to degradation over time, including UV light and moisture. Two factors are commonly responsible for “disc rot.” These discs can last for up to 1000 years or more—at least that’s what the various manufacturers claim. Obviously, it’s impossible to actually test this claim, but they can make an educated guess through testing.

You can learn more about M-DISC technology at: https://youtu.be/bQENbP8npsw

The big problem (today) is with disk drives capable of creating data on M-DISC. 

(NOTE: Don't confuse them with Blu-Ray drives. They are NOT the same thing!)

When preparing this article, I as unable to find a source for M-DISC drives. My suggestion is to start at https://www.mdisc.com/, the company that invented M-DISC technology and ask them for a source.

(NOTE 2: I happen to own an M-DISC drive but I certainly am not interested in selling it!)

Another Possible Solution

Perhaps a more effective solution is to not store your data on any sort of disk drive. A possible solution is waiting for you in the cloud. That will avoid all the problems with making sure the data remains readable.

Soting files in live storage in the cloud is available nowadays for modest prices per year. However, the main focus of this article is storing data for many years and those "modest" prices would soon add up to a rather significant price over the years.

In short, there is no cheap and easy solution that I know of with today's technologies.

So, what is the recommended procedure?

There are a number of options to choose from. However, the simplest and probably the cheapest solution has been in common use for quite a few years:make lots of copies top different hard drives and store the drives in different locations. Then, every few years, copy the data on the disk drives to new drives. Luckily, the price of disk drives has dropped like a rock in the past few years. This solution is not as expensive as it was just a few years ago. Thousands of data centers and even private individuals have been doing this for years and it has proven to be very reliable. 

The copy, distribute, and copy again method even has a name: Locks of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe, abbreviated as L.O.C.K.S.S. 

From help writing obituaries to texting with a simulation of a deceased loved one, the grief technology industry is on the rise. 

Carrie Rowell still misses the 7 a.m. phone calls from her father, who died six years ago.

He would use her nickname, "Toots," or ask, "Hey, babe, how's your morning going?"

"I would give anything to hear that again," Rowell said.

But interacting with a version of a departed loved one is now more accessible than ever, thanks to generative language models such as ChatGPT. Trained on a deceased relative's words — from a digital journal, videos or other content — a chatbot can reply to a prompt or question from a survivor with what it predicts the relative would say.

This might sound like the episode of the science-fiction series "Black Mirror" that explored a woman's use of technology to create a virtual version of her dead boyfriend, with disturbing implications. But this is the very real way technology is helping people deal — or maybe not deal — with death.

Funeral homes already are adding AI-powered obituary-writing services to the digital memorial webpages they create. An interactive app, HereAfter AI, lets a user preserve photos and memories for family members to access after the user has died. The Project December website offers to "simulate the dead" in a text-based conversation with anyone, "including someone who is no longer living."

You can read more in an article by Todd Nelson published in the Star Tribune web site at: https://tinyurl.com/54nf2p8z.