Latest News Articles

Everyone can read the (free) Standard Edition articles. However,  the Plus Edition articles are accessible only to (paid) Plus Edition subscribers. 

Read the (+) Plus Edition articles (a Plus Edition username and password is required).

Please limit your comments about the information in the article. If you would like to start a new message, perhaps about a different topic, you are invited to use the Discussion Forum for that purpose.

Do you have comments, questions, corrections or additional information to any of these articles? Before posting your words, you must first sign up for a (FREE) Standard Edition subscription or a (paid) Plus Edition subscription at: https://eogn.com/page-18077.

If you do not see a Plus Sign that is labeled "Add comment," you will need to upgrade to either a (FREE) Standard Edition or a (paid) Plus Edition subscription at: https://eogn.com/page-18077.

Click here to upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription.

Click here to find the Latest Plus Edition articles(A Plus Edition user name and password is required to view these Plus Edition articles.)

Complete Newsletters (including all Plus Edition and Free Edition articles published within a week) may be found if you click here. (A Plus Edition user name and password is required to view these complete newsletters.)

Do you have an RSS newsreader? You may prefer to use this newsletter's RSS feed at: https://www.eogn.com/page-18080/rss and then you will need to copy-and-paste that address into your favorite RSS newsreader.



Latest Standard Edition Articles

  • 18 Oct 2022 9:27 PM | Anonymous

    From the 23andMe Blog:

    In the latest update to 23andMe’s Ancestry Reports and features, we’ve added finer detail for customers with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry allowing them to trace their family connections back to seven genetic groups corresponding to regions within Eastern and Central Europe.

    Some of these regions overlap, but they map to areas with deep historical and cultural significance for people of Ashkenazi ancestry. The long history of pogroms, persecution, and the devastating horror of the Holocaust annihilated the connections for many of those with Ashkenazi ancestry to their families’ historical origins. DNA testing has the potential to offer hints to those connections where family history may be lacking.

    That is in part the purpose of this update, to offer customers with Ashkenazi ancestry a deeper connection to those historical regions and cultural connections.

    What is Ashkenazi Jewish Ancestry?

    People with Ashkenazi ancestry are connected to Jews who settled in Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. The word itself, “Ashkenazi” is thought to come from the name Ashkenaz, a descendant of Noah in the Hebrew bible.

    During their long history in Europe Ashkenazi Jews faced persecution and cultural isolation that in turn impacted their genetics.  Starting in the 11th century, Jews living in Europe began to experience intense persecution, which eventually led to their expulsion from many countries. This along with the plague that hit Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries decimated the Jewish population, which plummeted by close to 90 percent.

    Those forces that both isolated the population and drastically reduced its size created what is known in genetics as a “population bottleneck.” Bottlenecks can be caused by geographic barriers, disease, migration, or persecution that in turn isolates a population over generations. That is what happened among Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe.

    Scientists think that, because of this bottleneck, the 10 million Ashkenazi Jews who are alive today have descended from just a few hundred founding individuals.  Interestingly their modern descendants remain genetically more similar to other Jewish populations than to their European neighbors. In the twentieth century, amidst two World Wars, and the Holocaust, and after the war years, many Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to what is now Israel or to the Americas in search of greater cultural and religious acceptance. Today, over five million ethnic Ashkenazi Jews live in the U.S.

    You can read a lot more at: https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/detail-for-ashkenazi-ancestry/

  • 18 Oct 2022 11:37 AM | Anonymous

    Soon, The World Will Have Access To More Local California History.

    UC Riverside’s Center For Bibliographical Studies And Research will house 22 Southern California Community Newspapers — Preserving 150 years of local journalism that will be digitally accessible to the public by 2024.

    The Topanga Journal, Topanga Messenger, Whittier Star Reporter, Beaumont Gazette, Baker Valley News, Yucaipa Valley Mirror, Alpenhorn News from Running Springs, Tustin News in Orange County, and The Liberator, an early 20th-century paper documenting the African American Community in Los Angeles, are some of the publications included. Several papers are still running today, others were short-run publications; all will be archived and preserved on microfilm, then digitized and available via the center’s California Digital Newspaper Collection, or CDNC, website. The CDNC serves as the state’s primary online repository of digitized California newspapers.

    The project was made possible with a $58,000 grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. The project is part of the more than 25 million newspaper pages that have been archived and digitized with the support of other similar grants, said Brian K. Geiger, director of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research.

    “The center’s primary mission is to preserve California history via its newspapers,” Geiger said. “This project is unique in that these are family or community-owned newspapers that for decades, and centuries in some cases, have only been available in physical copy to residents and visitors of those communities. Nobody else. Now we get to share with the world and learn more of california’s rich history.”

    More than 100,000 pages are being scanned and placed on microfilm by backstage library works, a Pennsylvania-based company. Once this part of the process is complete, microfilm reels will be shipped back to UCR. The second part of the project is digitizing them in order to make them available online. This last leg is expected to take nine months to a year, Geiger said. The goal is to have all nine newspapers online by 2024.

    Once the project is completed, about 100,000-150,000 pages will be searchable online. The oldest newspaper copy is the Herald of Banning, from the 1880s.

    You can read more in an article by Sandra Baltazar Martínez published in the University of California, Riverside web site at: https://bit.ly/3eATU9P.



  • 17 Oct 2022 7:26 PM | Anonymous

    The Aeolian Islands are a group of seven islands situated north of Sicily. These include the islands of Lipari, Salina and Stromboli.

    From the late 19th century there was large migration from this archipelago to USA, Australia and other parts of the world.

    The seminar is being run in person and online from Melbourne Australia on 23 October 2022.

    Last year people from many countries attended live by zoom.

    Recordings are available (for a limited time) for those who cannot attend live.

    A flyer is shown below.

    The cost of AUD $45 is approximately $US 28.


  • 17 Oct 2022 12:25 PM | Anonymous

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

    (+)  A Single Server in a Data Center is not the Cloud!

    Authors: Sell Your Books on Amazon

    Registration Now Open for RootsTech 2023

    A Review of MyHeritage DNA

    Announcing a New Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIGG) company: IGGnite DNA, LLC.

    The Family History Show, London Declared a Success at Kempton Park

    Elgin County, Ontario, Archivists Are Putting the Old-Time News Online

    Tipperary Museum Digitises Its Collection and Launches Its New Website

    The Great Miramichi Fire

    Free BCG-Sponsored Webinar

    Irish Ancestry Unearthed - Every Census Since 1926 Online

    Living With the Dead in Madagascar

    ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Reboot In Limbo At NBC After One Season

    Findmypast Announces Brand New Military Wills, Service Records and More Released Online

    7 Websites to Create Obituaries and Memorials Online

    U.S. Education Department Launches Beta Site for Student Loan Forgiveness Applications

    Proton Drive vs Google Drive: How the Services Compare

    Google Fiber Launching 5 and 8 Gig Service in Early 2023 From $125/Month


  • 17 Oct 2022 11:11 AM | Anonymous

    The Thomas MacDonagh Museum in Cloughjordan has announced the Digital Memories Collection is a temporary exhibition accessible online on the museum’s new website, and in person in the museum from October 15 to December 31.

    The 32 objects in the collection were shared with the museum by members of the Cloughjordan community, and each one tells an interesting or unusual story.

    The collection contains many major themes including the social and cultural history of Cloughjordan since 1820; 20th century Irish politics on local, national and international issues; technological innovations in the home and in business; and international activism on social justice issues.

    You can read the full announcement at: https://bit.ly/3CBNJu5.

    The The Digital Memories Collection is available at: http://www.macdonaghmuseum.ie/


  • 17 Oct 2022 10:52 AM | Anonymous

    Note: This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, thousands of genealogists are taking my advice and storing backup copies of their valuable files "off site" in the cloud. This article is about a newly-announced cloud storage service:

    From an article by David Nield published in the Gizmodo web site:

    If you’re looking for somewhere to store your files in the cloud, there’s a new service to consider — alongside the many options that you’ve already got. The developers behind Proton Mail have launched a Proton Drive service that promotes security and privacy, so we’re going to weigh up its various features against one of the major incumbents it’ll be looking to take users away from.

    It’s worth saying right at the outset that we’re not expecting the just-out-of-beta Proton Drive to match up in every department to the 10-year-old Google Drive — but it might be useful, if you’re considering switching, to know about the various tools and features that are already available in the new challenger.

    Proton Drive vs Google Drive: the basics

    You only get 500MB of space for free with Proton Drive, so you’re going to have to pay to use it seriously: Subscribe to Proton Unlimited for $US12 ($17) a month, and that goes up to 500GB (it’s cheaper if you pay a year or two in advance). It’s worth noting that the Unlimited package does include perks across the other Proton products, including more email aliases in Proton Mail, and Proton VPN software you can use on up to 10 devices.

    You can read the full story at: https://bit.ly/3eDAOQm.

  • 17 Oct 2022 10:45 AM | Anonymous

    Note: This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, millions of Americans are impacted by this news so I am republishing it here as a public service for everyone:

    The U.S. Department of Education on Friday launched a beta test of its student debt relief application website. About 95% of Americans with student debt are expected to qualify for loan forgiveness under the Biden administration's plan.

    The beta site will be available "on and off" until the full launch, which is expected at some point later this month, according to the Education Department.

    Those who use the beta site will not need to reapply again after the full launch, the department said. However, "there's no advantage to applying before the full launch," the department wrote on the website.

    The application takes about five minutes to complete, the department said.

    President Biden announced in August that his administration is canceling up to $20,000 in student loan debt for millions of Americans. Nearly 20 million people will be eligible to have their debt fully canceled under the new plan.

    In a call with reporters earlier this week previewing the application, an administration official said the overall goal is to provide a form that is "short and simple."

    People will need their Social Security number to complete the application, but won't need to supply their Federal Student Aid ID or upload any documents, officials said.

    Borrowers who received Pell Grants, which are for low- and middle-income families, can get as much as $20,000 in debt forgiven, while other borrowers can get relief of up to $10,000.

    Only individuals who earned less than $125,000 in 2020 or 2021 and married couples with total annual income below $250,000 are eligible for loan relief under the program.

  • 14 Oct 2022 2:14 PM | Anonymous

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

    A newsletter reader recently posted a comment about some articles I have written explaining why the cloud is good for genealogy and for many other purposes. The newsletter reader protested, "You constantly tout that cloud storage is much more secure than local device based storage. Yet, we constantly hear about celebrities, companies and national and state governments whose files have been hacked and published."

    Yes, indeed, there have been major security problems with government and corporate data servers. However, these problems did not occur on cloud computing services. The problems all arose (to my knowledge) from hackers accessing old-fashioned servers in data centers, not from true cloud services that use encryption. In every case I have read about, the stolen files came from individual servers or banks of servers, not from the cloud. The cloud is not the same thing as a server in a data center.

    To be sure, cloud computing is not radically different from single servers. Instead, the thing generally called "the cloud" is an outgrowth, or advancement, of single servers. Many enhancements have been added to the concept of single servers, and improved security is one of the enhancements that is usually included. In most cases, a cloud-based service provides much higher security than does a single server or a group of servers in a data center. Improved security isn't automatic; the company providing the cloud services must add security to the service. However, given the large number of servers involved in a cloud service, improved security is almost always included.

    The US government apparently still uses many servers that are not cloud-based and are vulnerable to attacks from hackers around the world. Many corporations do the same. Use of cloud technology isn’t a perfect solution but it is far better than running single servers or even groups of servers in a non-cloud environment, the way that all companies and government agencies did a few years ago.

    Explanation

    Cloud computing means that, instead of using the power of your desktop computer, or the power of a server somewhere inside your company's network, the computing power is provided for you as a service, often provided by another company, and is accessed over the Internet, usually in a completely seamless way. Exactly where the hardware and software is located and how it all works doesn't matter to you, the user—it's just somewhere in the nebulous "cloud" that the Internet represents.

    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/12954466.

    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.


  • 14 Oct 2022 10:32 AM | Anonymous

    More than 160 years of community newspapers from Elgin County are going online, making the stories, advertisements and images readily available to anyone curious to learn about days gone by.

    Archivists have secured funding to digitize 36 different newspapers from St. Thomas, Alymer, Dutton, and places in between, with the first printed paper dating back to 1853.

    The St. Thomas Weekly Dispatch, billed as Canada West's conservative newspaper, was published until 1876 and is the oldest offering now available online. The Rodney Mercury, another paper that first appeared in 1887, is another gem that showcases the past.

    "I find it so interesting because you'll see a photograph, and then you can check the records and find out about a family. I'm also interested in the crime stories that you see," said Gina Dewaele, assistant archivist at the Elgin County Archives.

    You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3CYbsWJ


  • 14 Oct 2022 10:19 AM | Anonymous

    Note: This article has nothing to do with the usual topics of articles published here (genealogy, history, DNA, current legal affairs, etc.). However, I expect that many computer users who read articles here may be interested in this:

    Google Fiber has announced that it is launching 5 and 8 Gig service in early 2023. It continues a competitive ramp of activity and development from the Alphabet ISP in recent months.

    Google Fiber will offer symmetrical upload and download speeds at 5 and 8 Gig. The 5 Gig plan will cost $125 per month, while it is $150/month for 8 Gig. It will come with a Wi-Fi 6 router (people can also use their own), up to two mesh extenders, and professional installation.

    5 Gig will make it easier to upload and download simultaneously, no matter the file size. And 8 Gig will make sure that everything you are doing online is happening in near real time (without jitter and with low latency).

    At the moment, 1 Gig (which launched in 2010) costs $70/month and 2 Gig from 2020 is $100. Those speeds are increasingly being offered by competing ISPs.

    You can read more in an article by Abner Li at https://9to5google.com/2022/10/13/google-fiber-5-8-gig/.


Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter









































Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software