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

NOTE: This article has nothing to do with genealogy. If you are looking for genealogy-related articles, I suggest you skip this one. However, it answers a question that a newsletter reader asked and I suspect that many other readers have similar questions.

Several years ago, I added another hard drive to my collection of hard drives installed on my computer. The new drive is to be available to be shared amongst all the computers owned by family members. In addition, any of us can access our files from anywhere in the world, using an Internet connection and a user name and password. 

In addition, anyone with an in-home local network also can share the Internet connection with multiple game consoles, VoIP telephones, cell phones (using wi-fi), tablet computers, home security systems, modern Internet-connected thermostats, FAX machines, and other Internet-compatible devices.

A newsletter reader recently wrote, "How can I use that if I don't have a local network?"

I suspect the reader does have a local area network in her home but probably doesn't know it. The same may be true for you.

Most broadband Internet connections these days include local area networks. If you only use your Internet connection on one computer, the installer probably never mentioned the network capabilities to you. There are a few exceptions, but I am guessing that 90% or more of all recently-installed, in-home broadband Internet connections include a local area network. If your broadband connection does include this capability, you can connect multiple computers, printers, hard drives, and more to the network and share them amongst family members. Depending on the software installed, you might be able to securely access your files from places outside your home if you enable this capability. Most Internet providers do not charge extra for using additional computers on an in-home network.

How to Discover if You Already Have a Network

First, are you using a wireless wi-fi connection to connect your computer to the router installed in your home? If so, you already have an in-home network installed. You can connect more computers to the same network by using wi-fi. You may have to call your Internet provider to configure the additional devices. You will need to know the SSID (a network address), password, and possibly some other parameters. These will vary from one Internet provider to another.

If you are not using wi-fi or if you want to add a non-wi-fi device to a wi-fi router, look at the back of your router. If you see four or five network connectors, you already have a network. See the picture below for an example:

The above is a picture of a router installed in a home. The network connectors are commonly called RJ-45 connectors. They look like oversized versions of the connectors used by most telephones in North America. 

Your router might be a different brand, and the arrangement of the connectors may be a bit different. However, if you see four or more of those connectors, you already have a local area network installed in your home, even if you are only using one computer. You can add computers and other devices by simply running a network cable from the computer or other device to the back of the router.

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/13409160.  A Plus Edition password is required to access that article.)

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. 

The following is an announcement written by Findmypast:

With updates to four existing English record sets, our collection has grown by 380,985 this week. 

The biggest update comes to our UK Electoral Registers and Companies House directors, to which we've added 376,089 records for 2024. We've also bolstered our Devon parish record collection with brand-new baptisms, marriages and burials from 1924. 

But that's not all - there's also a new English newspaper title and 50 updated publications for you to discover. 

Electoral Registers & Companies House Directors

There are 376,089 modern electoral registers and Companies House director records for you to explore this week. These new additions span across Britain, and document the information of voters and company owners in 2024.

Devon Baptisms

We updated our Devon parish records with 1,849 baptism records from across the county. 

These new additions are all from the year 1924, so if your Devonian ancestor was baptised a hundred years ago, you may just spot their name within this set.

Devon Marriages

Our collection of Devon marriages has also had an update this week. There are 481 new transcriptions from the year 1924 for you to explore.

Devon Burials 

Was your ancestor buried in Devon a hundred years ago? To round off our trio of parish church updates, we've added 2,566 burial records from 1924. 

Cockington Church, Torquay, c. 1900. 

These new transcriptions are from parishes across the county. They may help shed light on your family tree's Devonian branches.

New pages from Burnley to Buxton

From Burnley to Buxton, there are 304,934 new pages for you to explore this week. We've added a brand new English title - the Cleckheaton & Spenborough Guardian - and updated 50 existing publications.

Cleckheaton & Spenborough Guardian.

Here's everything we added this Findmypast Friday.

New titles:

Updated titles:

Last week, we added over 20,000 parish and workhouse records. Don't miss this release - explore it today.

Debra Messing and Amanda Seyfried were among the stars to discover shocking details about their lineage in the upcoming “Finding Your Roots.”

The PBS docuseries returns for another season Jan. 7 and kicks off with some very unexpected revelations. Harvard professor and host Henry Louis Gates Jr. uncovered the secrets of the stars’ family trees and stunned the ladies with his on-camera reveal.

Messing’s family discovery came as a huge shock — but Seyfried had a lot more to unpack when she discovered dark, sordid details about her roots.

Some juicy moments of Season 11 were revealed in a sneak peek shared by People.

Seyfried was completely caught off guard when Gates revealed a tragedy had occurred in her family. He shocked the famous actress by telling her that her third great-grandfather had been murdered.

She uttered “what!” and the rest remains undisclosed.

They kept the details out of the teaser, so fans will have to watch the episode to discover what really happened so many generations ago.

Gates went on to disclose some DNA matches that indicated a family connection. That’s when Messing discovered that she was related to none other than famous politician, Bernie Sanders.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 06: Actress Debra Messing attends SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations screening of “Will & Grace” at SAG-AFTRA Foundation Screening Room on December 06, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 13: Amanda Seyfried is seen at the NBCUniversal Upfronts at the Radio City Music Hall on May 13, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images) Getty Images

The teaser video promises many more surprises and features a star-studded guest list.

Kristen Bell, Laurence Fishburne, Dax Shepard, Joy Behar, Sharon Stone, Melanie Lynskey and Chrissy Teigen also appear in the upcoming season, and they have some pretty dramatic reactions to the information that they discover.

Lynskey realizes she is related to Questlove, and Fishburne at one point exclaims “It’s better than any movie script or television play I’ve read!” but there are no clues about what the big news was actually about. (RELATED: ‘My Mind Is Blown’: Famous Actress Julia Roberts Takes DNA Test, Discovers She’s Been Living A Lie Her Entire Life)

“It’s breathtaking. It’s breathtaking. I’ve waited 60 some odd years for this,” Fishburne says.

The Historical and Genealogical Society of Indiana County received an $8000 grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

The grant is part of the Cultural and Historical Support Grant Program.  The goal of the program is to provide operating support to museums and official county historical societies that are not supported by other state agency funding sources.

In a statement, State Representative Jim Struzzi said that the society has done an excellent job in preserving the county’s history thanks to the volunteers that help there, and that the grant money will help continue their mission.  Senator Joe Pittman said that the organization helps the future generations by teaching and preserving the past and that he looks forward to seeing how the $8000 will be used to help pass Indiana County’s history to future generations.

A project designed to transform how collections information is held, accessed and shared across the sector has been launched.

The Museum Data Service, a collaboration between Art UK, Collections Trust and the University of Leicester, is designed to bring together over 100 million museum records from 1,750 accredited museums and other collections across the UK. The aim is to gather together detailed object records and turn them into data that is findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable. 

Those partners say the Museum Data Service will unlock an invaluable resource for researchers, educators, curators and content developers.

The Museum Data Service was launched with an initial collection of 3,129,798 records from 21 museums. 

The project, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council, is designed to unlock resources for researchers, educators, curators and content developers.

For museums, the service should offer lots of opportunities for their staff to work more collaboratively. MDS should lead to opportunities to share information with colleagues in the same institution as well as the wider sector. The service is also expected to help museums make decisions over acquisitions and disposal issues.

“The website view of the data is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Kevin Gosling, the managing director of the Museum Data Service. 

“There’s a lot more going on in the back end, with innovative features that allow museums to manage their data securely and share it in a controlled way. Building trust across the sector is key, and the Museum Data Service is designed with that in mind.”

Andrew Ellis, Art UK director, said: “From neolithic axe heads and Roman helmets to fossils, masterpieces of art, and iconic fashion pieces, the sheer range of object records that the Museum Data Service will house is extraordinary and will revolutionise our ability to research our museums, make them more accessible and tell untold stories about what they hold. 

"This marks the culmination of a remarkable collaboration, reshaping the digital future for museums and galleries. Art UK is proud to be among the first to leverage this groundbreaking service, which has already begun transforming how we manage and present our records. We look forward to seeing museums everywhere embrace this new frontier.”

The Museum Data Services was launched with the records of 21 museums:

From an article originally published in the forensicmag web site:

In October 2016, the remains of an unidentified individual were found on the shore of Lake Huron near Port Albert, roughly 16 km north of Goderich, Ontario Canada. It was determined that the remains were that of a male wearing a lifejacket. An investigation was launched, and police reached out to the public for information in hopes of identifying the man.

In 2023, the Ontario Provincial Police in collaboration with Toronto Police Service, submitted forensic evidence to Othram in The Woodlands, Texas in hopes that advanced DNA testing could help to identify the individual. Othram scientists used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown man. Once the profile was developed, it was returned to the Toronto Police Service for use in a forensic genetic genealogy search to develop new leads in the case.

Using this new information, a follow-up investigation was conducted leading investigators to potential relatives of the man. This investigation led to the positive identification of the man, who is now known to be Garnet Michael Nelson.

A month before Garnet was found, Sootoday.com reporter Jeff Klassen recounted meeting a man who introduced himself as “Mitchell Nelson.” Nelson was pulling a canoe hitched to a bicycle along the side of the Trans-Canada Highway near Espanola, Ontario, heading west. In the article, Nelson shared that he was born in London and had moved to Alberta during an economic boom. The article concludes with Nelson's plan to pull his canoe to Manitoulin Island, then paddle across Georgian Bay and down the Lake Huron shoreline to visit his family in London, Ontario.

Although the news article had caught the attention of the Ontario Provincial Police, the investigation was anything but straightforward, according to Detective Inspector Randy Gaynor, the lead investigator. One major obstacle to definitively linking Nelson’s body to the man in the article was that he had used a different name during his interview with Klassen. Police said no foul play is suspected in Nelson’s death. Ultimately, it was Klassen’s article published in Sootoday.com combined with advanced DNA technology, that helped solve the mystery of the man’s identity.

The identification of Garnet Michael Nelson represents the tenth case in the Province of Ontario where officials have publicly identified an individual using technology developed by Othram. Most recently in Rockwood, Ontario, 41-year-old Tammy Eileen Penner, whose remains were discovered at a picnic area, was identified after nearly two decades.

Travelers come to Italy to seek out its splendid art cities and stunning resorts, but increasing numbers of visitors* with Italian heritage (60-80 million people worldwide can claim descent), are looking beyond the typical vacation itinerary to plan trips that will help connect them with their “roots.” (In the U.S. Italians are the fifth largest ancestry group. During years of peak emigration, many Italians also settled in Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Australia and various European countries.)

To help those with Italian lineage connect with their long-ago family histories, Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has developed a roots-based tourism initiative called Italea; its web platform, Italea.com (available in four languages), was launched earlier this year. Giovanni Maria De Vita, a counsellor at the Ministry, who heads up the Italea/Roots Tourism project, says the goal is to support “every step of the rediscovery journey—from family-historical research to organizing personal travel experiences in Italy.”

Italea has branches in each of Italy’s 20 regions (in addition to the national platform), he says, supported by genealogy experts, travel designers and tour guides to help ancestry tourists connect to their heritage. De Vita notes that the Italea site has had more than 75,000 registrations in the six months since its launch.

Italy designated 2024 as the “Year of Roots Tourism in the World,” which, in addition to the website debut, has been marked by a series of cultural events in more than 800 small towns throughout the country. The Italea platform has also been presented in various cities in the U.S., as well as in Toronto, Montevideo, São Paulo, and Melbourne. (In New York City, it will be introduced from October 9-15.)

Searching For Your Past

In an era of mass tourism, where one-of-a-kind experiences are high on discerning travelers’ must-have lists, a roots trip may well be the ultimate form of custom travel. “People are looking for a part of themselves through a place,” says Antonella Riccardi, head of tourism at Italea Liguria. “Over time we lost a lot of links, but now we hope to create new bridges to the past.”

The starting point, of course, is recreating a family tree. Civil records are readily available from the 1800s, but some town and many church documents go back centuries more, to the sixteenth century, the latter thanks to the Council of Trent (1545-1563), when Catholic Church leaders ordered parishes to register all births, marriages and deaths. Over the years members of my extended family and their researchers were able to source one branch of our family, with the surname Sforza, to 1545. (This was an independent project and not connected to Italea.)

State Archives in Parma. Many civil records are now available online. (Photo by Edoardo Fornaciari/Getty Images)

Scaling that family tree can take a while, although Italea says initial research might range from several days to weeks, depending on the complexity of the lineage and how far back someone wants to go. Italea provides time and cost estimates for requested ancestral projects upon completion of a form on the site.

Italea also gives suggestions on how to get started on a search (many records are now available online). Among the places to check out are FamilySearch.org, a free genealogical site with extensive resources, and the Ancestors Portal, or “Portale Antenati,” with a large collection of Italian civil records. But enlisting a researcher in the area who knows local archives well can save a lot of time and effort in not only finding the right records but also in deciphering them—the oldest documents were often written in Latin with beautiful medieval calligraphy.

It’s fascinating to watch a family tree grow. The results can be especially poignant, as you learn the particulars of relatives you will never know, but whose lives were integral to your existence. Keep in mind that the number of great-grandparents doubles with each generation, so you could potentially find 128 fifth-great-grandparents; 256 sixth-great-grandparents, and so on.

Planning An Ancestral Journey

Once you have information about where your ancestors were born, married, and died, you can request information from Italea about organizing a trip to the places that you feel will have the most resonance. You’ll be asked to indicate specific areas of interest for a trip, like additional genealogical research, potentially meeting with long-lost relatives, and preferences for broader sojourns to get to know the culture and history of your ancestral area.

In addition to the customized hometown itineraries, there are thematic roots tours to consider. For example, those whose ancestors sailed from Genoa to the New World might be interested in a two-day Italea itinerary that highlights the city through the perspective of its emigrants with stops in the city’s medieval centro storico; the port with its ancient docks where many ships left for North and South America; the Italian Museum of Emigration, MEI, with interactive exhibits chronicling the expatriation experience; and the Museum of the Sea and Navigation, to understand the conditions faced by emigrants as they traveled by steamship and ocean liners across the Atlantic.

Putting together a roots itinerary involves more extensive planning than for other types of travel to Italy, but Italea believes that the time invested will yield many benefits. Ancestral tourism can shed light on many lesser-known areas of the country, an important objective in a place where popular destinations are suffering from overtourism. “Our goal is to promote the variety and uniqueness of every corner of Italy, highlighting the particular traditions and culture that define each Italian region,” says De Vita.

There are the indelible pluses, too. “We’re trying to find a more humanistic side of travel,” says Antonella Riccardi. “Something more tucked into the soul.”

*According to De Vita, government travel reports estimated roots tourism at 10-15% of overall tourism to Italy before the pandemic. While 2023 data have yet to be confirmed, he says that early estimates are suggesting a significant increase, as much as 11% over 2019.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2nxvn684.

Want to learn more about your family tree? Check out the upcoming History and Genealogy Fair at the Jefferson County Historical Society.

The event is a partnership between the society and Flower Memorial Library.

Ashley Pickett from the library appeared on 7 News at Noon on Wednesday to talk about the fair.  You can watch the video at: https://www.wwnytv.com/2024/09/18/historical-society-host-history-genealogy-fair/.

The fair will be held on September 28 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Historical Society on Washington Street in Watertown.

Guest speakers include:

Admission is $5

For more information, call 315-785-7714 or look at: https://www.wwnytv.com/2024/09/18/historical-society-host-history-genealogy-fair/.

The NextGENeration: Discoveries conference, jointly hosted by the Family History Federation and the Society of Genealogists, is an exciting full-day online event spotlighting genealogists under the age of 35. Taking place on 5 October 2024, the conference features fifteen speakers from around the world who will present their unique research, the day will culminate in a panel discussion. Transitioning from Passion to Profession will feature prominent experts in genealogy and family history who will share insights on carving out a successful career in this field, everything from academic pathways to researching and speaking.

Join us for an exciting lineup of speakers who will share their innovative work, much of which reflects diverse cultures and national traditions. For more information and to support the future of genealogy, see https://members.sog.org.uk/events/66141a9f1fce380008a49ebe/description

Pay What You Can

The independent directors of genetic testing firm 23andMe said on Tuesday they have resigned from the company's board after not receiving a satisfactory take-private offer from CEO Anne Wojcicki.

Wojcicki, who has been trying to take the company private since April, proposed to acquire all outstanding shares of 23andMe not owned by her or her affiliates for $0.40 per share, in July.

"After months of work, we have yet to receive from you a fully financed, fully diligenced, actionable proposal that is in the best interests of the non-affiliated shareholders," said the seven directors in a letter to the company's co-founder and CEO.

A special committee formed by the company rejected Wojcicki's previous proposal, deeming it insufficient and not in the best interest of the non-affiliated shareholders.

"That we have not seen any notable progress over the last 5 months leads us to believe no such proposal is forthcoming," the directors added.

They also said the special committee is unwilling to consider further extensions, and that the company's board agrees with it.

Earlier this month, Wojcicki said she would be open to considering third-party takeover proposals for the company.

23andMe, best known for its saliva-based test kits that offer users a glimpse into their genetic ancestry, went public in 2021.