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

News stories over the past few years about the possibly unconstitutional actions of the National Security Agency (NSA) should serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Yes, there are many people and organizations trying to obtain information about you. From hackers in third-world countries, to companies trying to sell you products, to semi-secret agencies of the U.S. Government, it seems as if nearly everyone is trying to find information about you. This asks the question, “Is it Safe to Trust the Cloud?” Indeed, many people seem to have a phobia about storing their personal information on servers on the Internet.

What saddens me most of all is that the entire issue is so easily avoided: encrypt the information. When you leave your house, I suspect you lock the door. When you leave your automobile in a parking lot, you probably lock it up, too. The same should be true with your information. When you leave your information unattended, whether it is in your home when you are not present or someplace in the cloud, you should lock it up.

Simply put, encryption programs scramble data within the file or files that you specify so that no one else can access that data without the key that you keep. Security is under your control at all times because you have the key and you decide who gets copies of that key. Encryption is easy to do, requiring only a few seconds, and (in many cases) it is free of charge. 

I know that I am paranoid about security, but I worry about my personal information wherever it is stored–online or on flash drives. I also worry about data stored on my computer at home. There are thousands of hackers around the world running automated scripts that attempt to connect to individual in-home computers to access information, even information that is not stored in the cloud. This remote access is easy to block, but many people don't know how to do that.

Even higher risk is in-home physical access. Sure, I trust my family members with any information I have, but do I trust their friends who visit our home? Do I trust the plumbers, the electricians, the locksmith, the delivery drivers, and others who enter my home, sometimes when I am not there? They could easily access my computer, even if for only a few seconds.

I used to have a job fixing computers in homes and in offices. In more than one case I found viruses had been introduced to computers by babysitters. These same babysitters obviously had easy access to the entire computer's contents and could easily have copied information to a flash drive or sent it by email to another computer anywhere in the world. In most cases, the babysitters had plenty of time to do this.

I no longer have any need to employ babysitters or pet sitters, but perhaps you do. If so, you need to ask yourself if you trust that babysitter or pet sitter with all your secrets.

One simple solution will eliminate all this worry: encryption will lock out prying eyes from your data on your own computer at home as well as protect data stored on flash drives, on web servers, in the cloud, or elsewhere. 

Who cares if someone gets their hands on your encrypted files? Assuming the encryption is performed with current, state-of-the art software, nobody can read your encrypted files without knowing those magic characters that will unscramble the files–the encryption key. (NOTE: Multi-bit encryption keys are very different from simple passwords.) Luckily, there are dozens of encryption programs to choose from, and many of them are available free of charge.

Encryption is used by the military, civilian governments, and corporations to keep secret information just that: secret. The U.S. military uses advanced cryptography techniques to document war plans, inventories of atomic bombs, intelligence information, flight plans of bombers, and similar secrets. The banking industry uses encryption to safely transfer billions of dollars every day. If encryption meets the needs of these organizations, it will work for you.

To be sure, the encryption should be performed with one of the better encryption standards of today, which are available in many encryption programs available from many vendors. The secret files also must be made by using a lengthy, multi-bit key to encrypt data using cryptographic algorithm. The key length used in the encryption determines the ease with which a hacker could perform a brute-force attack; longer keys are exponentially more difficult to crack than shorter ones.

For most of us, there is no need to encrypt every file on the computer. In fact, I encrypt only a small number of files. I don't care if someone is able to find and copy my chili recipe or back issues of this newsletter or the schedule for my next airline trip. However, there are a few files that I do not wish to share with others: the list of my credit card numbers, my checking account information, the list of passwords that are too long to memorize, and similar, sensitive data. I have perhaps two or three dozen such files that I wish to keep private. Those are the only files that I encrypt. 

I encrypt those files on my home computer's hard drive, and I make sure that no plain text copy exists anywhere. Even that one copy on my hard drive is encrypted. The reason is two-fold: encrypting files on my local hard drive provides protection from babysitters, tradesmen, and that shady brother-in-law that I never quite trusted. In addition, a file that is already encrypted can be copied to any media—including flash drives, online backup services, or to the cloud—all without concern for security. If the file is properly encrypted, it will remain encrypted when copied elsewhere.

What happens if a hacker later obtains a copy of my encrypted file? Nothing.

However, any time I want to view the file, I can enter the encryption key and see the original contents. There are three caveats, however:

1. To later read the encrypted file on a different computer, that computer must have the same encryption program or a compatible one. That is, if I encrypted the file with program XYZ, I must later use program XYZ or a program that is compatible with XYZ to decrypt the data and display it on the screen. However, there are a few programs that will create self-extracting encrypted files; those files can be opened on the receiving computer with no encryption software. 

2. I can never, ever forget the encryption key. (A key is somewhat like a password. Actually, keys and passwords are not the same thing, but they are used in a similar manner.) If the original encryption key gets lost, the encrypted file becomes useless. There is no recovery method, and you will never read the information in that file.

3. The encryption key now becomes the most sensitive piece of information of all. I need to protect that encryption key from outsiders. 

NOTE: Public and private key encryption is a method that avoids some of the issues with keeping some keys private. However, it also adds some new complications that are equally complex, if not more so. I will skip over a discussion of public and private key encryption as that is an advanced topic that is beyond the scope of this article, and also because most private individuals have little need for a complex system simply to restrict access to a few files. If you have an interest in public-key cryptography, you can read several detailed articles about its inner workings on the World Wide Web. You might start at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography.

A quick search online will produce information about dozens of available encryption programs. Luckily, many of them are available free of charge. I haven't had a chance to try all of these, but all of the following enjoy a good reputation.

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/13286020.

Genetic testing company 23andMe announced on Friday that hackers accessed around 14,000 customer accounts in the company’s recent data breach.

In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published Friday, the company said that, based on its investigation into the incident, it had determined that hackers had accessed 0.1% of its customer base. According to the company’s most recent annual earnings report, 23andMe has “more than 14 million customers worldwide,” which means 0.1% is around 14,000.

But the company also said that by accessing those accounts, the hackers were also able to access “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry that such users chose to share when opting in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature.”

The company did not specify what that “significant number” of files is, nor how many of these “other users” were impacted.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/bd2b5tuy.

December 1, 2023—Bellville, Ohio: The Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS) announces a request for lecture proposals for the 2025 conference “Light Up Your Genealogy” to be held April 30-May 3, 2025, at Kalahari Resort & Conference Center in Sandusky, Ohio.

Topics being considered include but not limited to the following: immigration, census records, religious groups, migration, origins of early Ohio settlers, and the Old Northwest Territory, “movers and shakers” of early Ohio, the industrial age, utilizing land records, military records, technology (including usage mobile devices, apps, social media), DNA, organization, society management and development, and methodology, analysis, and problem solving in genealogical research, Ohio history and its records, archives and repositories.

The program committee is specifically seeking new, unusual, and dynamic proposals. Think outside of the box!

Interested speakers are strongly encouraged to submit multiple proposals for either one-hour general sessions, or two-hour workshops. There is no limit to the number of proposals a speaker may submit. The deadline for submission of lecture proposals is May 31, 2024.

Submit proposals in PDF format. Each proposal must include the following to be considered:

Submit all proposals via e-mail to ogsconference@ogs.org no later than Midnight EST May 31, 2024. Multiple proposals may be sent in one email. Please limit your emails to no more than two (2) emails. Speakers are required to use an electronic presentation program. Projectors will be provided by Kalahari Resort & Conference Center.

Compensation

Selected speakers receive an honorarium, travel compensation, conference registration, hotel, and per diem based on the number of days lectures are presented. (Sponsored speakers will only receive conference registration and syllabus materials. See more about sponsorships below.)

Sponsors

Societies and businesses are encouraged to submit proposals for sponsored talks. The sponsoring organization will cover speaker’s lecture(s) honorarium. Sponsored speakers will abide by all speaker deadlines. Sponsored speakers will receive complimentary OGS conference registration and electronic syllabus materials. The deadline to submit sponsored lectures is also May 31, 2024.

Additional information

Camera-ready syllabus material, due February 1, 2025 is required for each general presentation and will be included in the syllabus distributed to all conference registrants.

Invitations to speak will be issued by mid-June, 2024. Syllabus format guidelines will be sent to speakers at that time. The deadline for acceptance and submission of signed speaker contracts is July 15, 2025. Letters of regret will not be sent out until all invited speakers have responded.

About the Ohio Genealogical Society

The Ohio Genealogical Society, founded in 1959, is the premier Ohio family heritage resource and the largest state genealogical society in the United States. Our mission is to protect and share Ohio’s family history resources, develop engaging educational opportunities, and connect genealogists. The Ohio Genealogical Society uniquely creates a network of Ohio expertise that lets genealogists discover their families, so they feel personally enriched, and confident in their results.

Your participation as a speaker for the Ohio Genealogical Society's annual conference is greatly anticipated. We look forward to hearing from you.

The following is from the BillionGraves Blog:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the way BillionGraves transcriptions are done and we are so excited to tell you all about it!

Sooo Many Transcriptions. . .

A few years ago, if I uploaded my gravestone photos while at the cemetery, they would be transcribed before I could drive home! In just 15 minutes hundreds of the records would be transcribed! Seriously. Volunteers typed every name and date on every gravestone in just a few minutes. It was amazing! BillionGraves volunteer transcribers are AWESOME!

This was possible at that time because there were many more transcribers than photographers. But over the years, the photographers began to outnumber the transcribers. This change meant that when I uploaded photos, they often just sat there, waiting and waiting. Sometimes it was a year or more before the names and dates were transcribed!

Yes, I could have transcribed my own photos. But I live in an area where photos desperately need to be taken before the gravestones deteriorate so I felt that, for me, taking photos was a more important goal. I also love being outside in the cemetery.

I just hoped that others would transcribe my photos soon. Fortunately, there are others that LOVE to transcribe!

Angela Pecoraro of Meriden, Connecticut is one of BillionGraves’ top transcribers, having completed more than 68,500 transcriptions so far! But eventually, even Angela felt the weight of trying to transcribe so many headstones.

More than a year ago, Angela wrote to us with concern, saying, “The reality of over 2 million stones waiting for transcription is daunting. I’ve done 60,316 and helped 9,800 people as of today. As a genealogist I wish we could get more people to transcribe that’s for sure.”

Working Toward a Solution

BillionGraves’ tech team took the need for more transcriptions seriously and began to look at using artificial intelligence (AI) to help with the problem.

Eek! Did I just hear some of you in the background shouting, “NO, AI!!”

Oh, dear. I get it. It’s hard to adapt to new technology. Past generations have resisted giving up their horses for “horseless carriages” (cars) or giving up typewriters for computers.

You may have even heard on the news – or read on the internet – that some people have been using AI for evil purposes. That’s true. But it also can be used for good and pure purposes such as helping people find their ancestors and grow their family trees.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Transcribe Headstones

Besides, you have already been using AI for a long time, you know that right?

You tap on the microphone on your phone, speak, and your voice is converted into written text. That’s AI at work.

You type something on your computer a little too fast and it is spelled wrong. Then suddenly, without you doing a thing, it is spelled correctly. That’s AI again.

So why not use AI to transcribe headstones?

Is it Perfect?

AI still has a long way to go. It’s not perfect. But it is helping tremendously to be able to transcribe millions of BillionGraves’ headstones quickly and efficiently. In the first few weeks, AI had completed more than half a million transcriptions (including many of mine, hurrah!).

BillionGraves tech team is finding that the transcriptions are “spot-on” about 80% of the time. But the rest of the time, we need your help! Human volunteers are needed to do quality-control checks on the transcriptions that were done by AI.

Technically, It’s “Machine Learning”

Technically speaking, BillionGraves is using “machine learning” to transcribe. It’s a branch of AI.

Here is a dictionary definition of “machine learning”: “the use and development of computer systems that are able to learn and adapt without following explicit instructions, by using algorithms and statistical models to analyze and draw inferences from patterns in data.”

So every time you correct a transcription, you are helping the BillionGraves tech team to make the machine learning process better.

(By the way, there aren’t really robots sitting at computers transcribing. That’s just a picture I created using AI. But you knew that, right? Just checking.)

An Example Where Your Help is Needed

Computers are faster than human brains but human logic can do what machines will never be able to do.

The full article goes on for quite a bit longer. You can read the full story at: https://blog.billiongraves.com/artificial-intelligence-for-billiongraves-transcriptions/.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Canada, Military Honours and Awards Index 

This new set from Library and Archives Canada contains over 113,000 transcriptions, taken from a variety of medal award collections. For around 28,000 of them you’ll also find an original image. You’ll typically discover a name, regiment, rank, medal type, and the date it was awarded. The collection spans over 150 years, from 1812 to 1969. 

Canada, Courts Martial of the First World War Index 

Also new this week is an index of court martial records, recounting members of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces who were accused of military and civilian offences. You’ll find some detail of a person’s offence in these 11,000 records, plus their name, service number, rank, regiment and unit, and the date of the event. Some of the transcripts also contain further remarks to shed more light on each case.   

Newspapers 

Did your ancestors make the news? Two new titles, updates to a further 16, and over 218,000 new pagesmake up this week’s newspaper release.  

New titles: 

·         Kidderminster Shuttle, 1889 

·         Scotland on Sunday, 1988-2002 

Updated titles: 

·         Atherstone News and Herald, 1997-1998 

·         Carrick Times and East Antrim Times, 1994 

·         Coleshill Chronicle, 1991-1992, 1997-1998 

·         Crowthorne Times, 1987 

·         Croydon Post, 1997-1998 

·         Edinburgh Evening News, 1982 

·         Football Post (Nottingham), 1999 

·         Fulham Chronicle, 1990 

·         Gloucestershire Echo, 1986-1989 

·         Londonderry Sentinel, 1989, 1992-1994 

·         Lurgan Mail, 1990 

·         Peterborough Herald & Post, 1996 

·         Portadown Times, 1982-1997 

·         Protestant Vanguard, 1933-1934 

·         Skelmersdale Advertiser, 1987 

·         Western Evening Herald, 1999 

Have you made a surprising family history discovery? Whatever you've uncovered about your past, Findmypast would love to hear about it. You can now get in touch using this handy form. 

The following press release was written by the folks at the Library of Congress:

We hope you can join us on December 7th at 3 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time), via Zoom, for our Human Rights Day celebration. Please register here.

Dr. Sarah Cooper will provide this year’s lecture on scientific literacy and the law. Science helps the law to understand the world in which legal policy, including human rights standards like the right to a fair and public trial, must operate. Yet, it is widely recognizedthat law and science approach the world in different ways: law must provide finality and stability, whereas science is encouraged to embrace new ideas so that we can better understand the natural world. The criminal justice system’s use of forensic science shows how these differences can have consequences: law can misuse science, be skeptical about change, and construe what is rational in a narrow way.

Moreover, these issues can be exacerbated by lawyers having, generally, limited science education and training options. Lawyers, though, make key calls about scientific evidence at all stages of its journey through the criminal justice system — its selection, how it is presented and challenged, and how it will inform case strategy. Moreover, lawyers become judges, who then make other key calls, for instance about what precedent to follow or shape regarding admissibility, the boundaries of direct and cross-examination, and the tools lawyers can use in both pursuits. As such, lawyers need science literacy, but how much do they value it? To what extent do the structures that lawyers operate within support the development of science literacy? The National Academy of Sciences’ recommends that conceptions of science literacy within justice systems be expanded. Drawing on intersections between criminal justice, forensics, and wrongful convictions to illustrate, this lecture will present ideas for how we can work towards answering these questions and, in doing so, build a stronger justice system for all.

Dr. Sarah Cooper. Photo courtesy of Dr. Sarah Cooper.

Dr. Sarah Cooper is a professor of Interdisciplinary Criminal Justice at Birmingham City University’s College of Law, Social and Criminal Justice in the United Kingdom, where she serves as chair of the Faculty for the Business, Law and Social Sciences’ Research Degrees and Environment Committee, and site director for the Midlands4Cities Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership. Her research, which focuses on challenges that can arise when legal systems and agents interact with science, has been cited widely by scholars, judges, lawyers, and in treatises. Her current projects focus on juror decision-making and expert evidence, lawyers and science literacy, and compassionate release from prison procedures. She supervises a range of doctoral research projects, including investigations into neuroscience and juvenile justice; legal versus scientific causation; technology and smart cities; judicial referencing of agency science; and legal challenges relating to medical diagnoses. She has received several funding awards, including from the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy, and has held visiting scholar positions at the Arizona Justice Project, Amicus, Arizona State University, Pace University, and the Law Library of Congress.

Archaeologists at Cambridge University have reconstructed the “biographies” of hundreds of the city’s ordinary medieval residents by examining their skeletons in detail, using a wealth of scientific data to fill out the life stories of poor or disadvantaged people whose names were never recorded.

By examining the bones of more than 400 adults and children who were buried in the grounds of a medieval hospital between AD1200 and 1500, the researchers have built up a detailed picture of the lives, health and even appearance of those who lived and died in Cambridge in the period.

They also gained clues to how the charitable institution operated its medieval “benefits system” and decided who was worthy of help in what must have been an overwhelming “sea of need”.

The people buried in the hospital, they discovered, didn’t come from one social class but included orphan children, university scholars and a category of people they call the “shame-faced poor” – people who had previously lived in relative prosperity but had fallen on harder times, and who were deemed particularly worthy of charity.

The site of the hospital of St John the Evangelist was excavated in 2010, uncovering hundreds of unidentified graves. For the new study, experts in DNA and isotope analysis, human skeletal variation and a range of other disciplines examined up to 50 individual characteristics of each skeleton, to build what they believe is one of the richest such datasets ever compiled for medieval England.

You can read more in an article by Esther Addley published in TheGuardian website at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/01/archaeologists-life-stories-medieval-cambridge. 

I found an interesting story by Tom Teicholz and published in the Forbes web site:

Given current events, Jewish identity and Jewish history are very much existential issues occurring in real time.

However, documentary films such as Fioretta, directed by Israeli-American Matthew Mishory about Randol Schoenberg (known familiarly as Randy) and his 18-year-old son Joey’s travels to uncover their family history remind us of the perseverance and the flourishing of Jewish life before and after periods of destruction and upheaval.

If the name Schoenberg sounds familiar – there is good reason. Randy’s grandfather (Joey’s great-grandfather) was the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg who came to Los Angeles following the Nazi takeover of Germany.

Randy himself, a graduate of Princeton and USC Law School, achieved no small measure of fame himself as the attorney who won the “Woman in Gold” Klimt painting Holocaust restitution case, which was the basis for the movie of that name starring Ryan Reynolds as Randy and Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann, the rightful owner of the painting.

Randy is also well known in his native Los Angeles for his philanthropy and for having served as the executive director of Holocaust Museum Los Angeles. He is also a curator for the Jewish genealogy website Geni.com, where he focuses on the family trees of Holocaust survivors and their families.

As is evident, as the documentary opens, Randy is genealogy obsessed. Joey, not so much. However, together they embark on a journey that takes them to Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Italy in search of their ancestors.

No ordinary journey, no ordinary adventurers makes for no ordinary documentary – it is poignant, and at moments funny, and always personal and intimate. We meet the people they encounter on their journey, related or not, genealogy obsessed as Randy (or not).

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/59efcs2x.

Today is the first day of the month. That is a good time to back up your genealogy files. Then test your backups!

Your backups aren't worth much unless you make a quick test by restoring a small file or two after the backup is completed.

Actually, you can make backups at any time. However, it is easier and safer if you have a specific schedule. The first day of the month is easy to remember, so I would suggest you back up your genealogy files at least on the first day of every month, if not more often. (My computers automatically make off-site backups of all new files every few minutes.)

Given the events of the past few months with genealogy websites laying off employees and cutting back on services, you now need backup copies of everything more than ever. What happens if the company that holds your online data either goes off line or simply deletes the service where your data is held? If you have copies of everything stored either in your own computer, what happens if you have a hard drive crash or other disaster? If you have one or more recent backup copies, such a loss would be inconvenient but not a disaster.

Of course, you might want to back up more than your genealogy files. Family photographs, your checkbook register, all sorts of word processing documents, email messages, and much more need to be backed up regularly. Why not do that on the first day of each month? or even more often?

SaveOr is an easy-to-use Software Platform to document and manage the ownership, transfer, and history of your family's tangible personal property for estate planning purposes.  

Are you worried about what will happen to your parents' beloved possessions when they pass away? SaveOr is here to help. Our company was born from a personal experience when our founder's grandmother passed away without a clear plan for her belongings. It caused chaos within the family as everyone struggled to decide who would inherit what. 

We don't want anyone else to go through the same experience, which is why we created SaveOr. Our mission is to make it easy for families to document their favorite belongings and collaborate with each other to ensure that each item goes to the person who cherishes it the most. By using our product, you can preserve the memories behind each item and ensure that your loved one's wishes are fulfilled.

Do you find it difficult to bring up the topic of inheritance with your parents? Are there items you want but feel too uncomfortable to ask about? Or perhaps your parents have been pressuring you to take on their estate? We understand these challenges all too well, so we're here to help. Using SaveOr is an easier way to start this process and facilitate these difficult conversations. 

With SaveOr, you can plan in advance and focus on the positive memories of a well-lived life. Don't wait until it's too late – try SaveOr today and ensure your family's legacy is preserved for generations to come.

You can find SaveOr at: https://www.saveor.com.