Tim Walz, Kamala Harris' vice-presidential candidate, has Luxembourgish roots. His great-great-grandfather, Nicolas Reiser, was born in Kehlen, Luxembourg and this connection makes Walz part Luxembourgish. 

Indeed, Tim Walz's maternal lineage traces back to Luxembourg. His great-great-grandfather, Nicolas Reiser, was born in Kehlen in 1836, according to Luxroots, the Genealogy Center of Luxembourg. Reiser moved to the United States at the age of 18 but returned to Luxembourg to marry Susanne Pütz from Septfontaines. The couple then emigrated back to the US, where they had 12 children, including John Francis Reiser who is Walz’s great-grandfather.

John Francis Reiser, together with Barbara Lucy Engelhaupt, had Mary Helen Reiser, who is Tim Walz’s grandmother. Mary Helen Reiser’s daughter, Darleen Rose Walz, married James Frederick Walz, and they had Timothy James Walz in Nebraska.

This makes the US Vice-Presidential candidate approximately 12.5% Luxembourgish! Additionally, Walz has German, Swedish, and Irish ancestry, according to EthniCelebs.com.

The man law enforcement officials say is responsible for the long-unsolved death of 15-year-old Danielle Houchins at a popular fishing access site a few miles south of Belgrade nearly 28 years ago has been identified. 

Investigators, family members and other sources with direct knowledge of the details of the case told Montana Free Press that cutting-edge forensic DNA genome sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy recently led authorities to the man they say killed Houchins: 55-year-old Paul Nathaniel Hutchinson, of Dillon.

Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer confirmed that at a 10 a.m. press conference in Bozeman that was streamed live on the department’s Facebook page. 

According to Springer, Hutchinson died by suicide on July 24, 10 hours after Gallatin County investigators approached him outside his office in Beaverhead County to interview him about Houchins’ death. Days later, DNA collected from Hutchinson after his death matched DNA evidence collected from Houchins’ body, providing what Springer described as “100% confirmation” that Hutchinson was the killer. 

Suspect Paul Hutchinson, 57, of Dillon, Montana Credit:Courtesy Gallatin County Sheriff's Office

Hutchinson, who authorities say was previously unknown to law enforcement, was a longtime fisheries biologist for the Bureau of Land Management based in the agency’s Dillon Field Office. An avid outdoorsman and family man with a 22-year marriage and two adult children, Hutchinson had been living beneath law enforcement’s radar about 100 miles southwest of the crime scene until new forensic DNA technology and a West Virginia-based genetic genealogist connected him to Houchins. 

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/4dBNO1K.

The following is a press release written by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs:

Release of the Historic Lahaina Photography Collection will go live on the one-year anniversary of the Maui wildfires

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will release the first of five digitized historic Lahaina collections on its Papakilo Database tomorrow, the result of a collaborative partnership with the Lahaina Restoration Foundation (LRF).

LRF was critically affected by the Maui wildfires that tore through Lahaina with eight historic sites owned by the foundation either destroyed or critically damaged, including the Baldwin Home Museum and the historic Lahaina Courthouse. Tens of thousands of objects and archives were lost.

In 2022, LRF marked its 60-year anniversary by agreeing to a partnership with OHA that would assist LRF with the digitization of various collections within its archives, including the Baldwin Family Collections, the Historic Lahaina Photograph Collection and the Pioneer Mill Collections. In return, the agreement would provide OHA with non-exclusive dissemination rights to feature selected collections within the Papakilo Database, a free online digital archive consisting of 1.2 million historical Hawaiian documents.

Fortunately, the digitization process was completed before the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires, which saw LRF lose roughly 95 percent of its collections including 100 percent of the physical archives involved in the OHA partnership.

“The digitization done with the OHA partnership literally saved irreplaceable handwritten personal thoughts, emotions and stories from Lahaina’s past,” said Theo Morrison, executive director of LRF. “My advice to others would be that safeguarding the tangible objects of the past with which we are entrusted needs to be a daily priority.”

The first of the five collections will go live tomorrow in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of the wildfires. The Historic Lahaina Photography collection consists of 298 historic photos of places and people in the Lahaina area ranging from 1900–1992. The photos range from a picture of the renowned Lahaina Banyan Tree in 1908 to a photo of the 1943 Lahaina Memorial Day Parade.

The release of the Historic Lahaina Photography collection will be followed by the Baldwin Photography Collection (80 records), Baldwin Letter Collection (167 records), Pioneer Mill Housing Maps Collection (74 records) and the Pioneer Mill Housing Records Collection (879 records). All the remaining collections are slated to be released later this month.

“While we are all devastated by the destruction caused by the wildfires, OHA’s partnership with the Lahaina Restoration Foundation serves as a timely example of the importance of digitizing historic documents for the purpose of preserving Hawaiʻi’s history to be accessed and treasured by future generations,” said OHA Board Chair Carmen “Hulu” Lindsey.

“The purpose of the Papakilo Database is to serve as a waihona (repository) of the life experiences and manaʻo of our kūpuna for the purpose of educating and guiding future generations. The collections that were preserved by LRF’s partnership with OHA will be one of the many foundational pieces that will support Lahaina’s residents as they rebuild and redefine their future.”

To view the Historic Lahaina Photography Collection, log on to www.papakilodatabase.com.

Join the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center for another awesome and insightful virtual genealogy program presented by Terri Meeks.  More popularly known as Orphan Trains, thousands of children were sent westward in hopes of a better life. Learn the history of this movement and the documentation associated with these children.

This program is free and open to the public. To register for this program please go to the museum’s calendar which can be located at https://www.canoncity.org/Museum to register for the event. Please register online or contact the museum for more information. This program will be held over Zoom from 9-10 a.m. on Saturday.

The Museum and History Center is located in the City of Cañon City’s former Municipal Building at 612 Royal Gorge Blvd. The hours of the Museum and History Center are Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  For more information, call the museum at (719) 269-9036 Colorado time zone or send an email to historycenter@canoncity.org.

The following is an announcement written by DigitalNC: 

Thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP), a batch of materials containing the university’s 2024 yearbook, newspaper announcement, and over 100 issues of our newest paper The Lumbee (Pembroke, N.C.) spanning from 1965 to 1969 is now available on DigitalNC! These newspaper issues provide an interesting look into the county’s history including a brawl with the Ku Klux Klan in Maxton in 1958 and education in Robeson County.

On February 20, 1969, The Lumbee published the desegregation plan submitted to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare by the Robeson County Board of Education. Divided into cardinal and ordinal directions, the county’s schools are discussed in-depth. The article includes the names of the schools, which race they originally served, conditions of schools, what schools were slated to close, and where children in the area were being transferred to.

The Lumbee, February 20, 1969, page 3

To learn more about UNCP, please visit their website.

To view more materials from UNCP on DigitalNC, visit their contributor page here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, visit our newspaper collection.

YouTube is testing an integration with Google Gemini to help creators brainstorm video ideas, titles and thumbnails. The Google-owned company announced the launch of the new Brainstorm with Gemini feature in a video posted to its Creator Insider channel.

A YouTube spokesperson told TechCrunch that the feature is available to select creators as a part of a small, limited experiment. YouTube will consider feedback from creators before deciding whether to roll out the feature more broadly. 

The new tool could give YouTube an edge over other social media video platforms frequently used by creators, as it offers them something that’s not available on these competing platforms. In addition, it makes sense for Google to incorporate its AI into its video platform in order to encourage creators to use its AI tools instead of other popular platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Brainstorm with Gemini is similar to another AI feature that YouTube launched in testing back in May, which is an AI-powered content inspiration tool that gives creators video topic ideas that their audience is interested in and then generates an outline of talking points to jump-start the creation process. 

The spokesperson told TechCrunch that creators now have the option to get the same sort of help, but with Gemini, which is the brand name for the family of AI large language models used in a lot of Google products. YouTube sees the new addition as a way to gauge whether creators prefer the inspiration tool, the Gemini integration, or both when it comes to getting help with content ideas.

Creators who are part of the experiment can open up YouTube Studio, type out a video idea into the search bar, then be presented with two options: the inspiration tool and the Brainstorm with Gemini feature. Although the inspiration tool already helps creators come up with video ideas, YouTube wants to test whether creators also find it helpful to brainstorm with Gemini as well.

While platforms like TikTok and Instagram are currently focusing on using generative AI to give creators the ability to build digital versions of themselves, YouTube is zeroing in on using the technology to help creators build their content. 

The following announcement was written by the folks at TheGenealogist:

To mark the 110th anniversary of the start of World War I, TheGenealogist is proud to announce the release of an extensive collection of military records featuring the global conflict. This significant release includes service records, rolls of honour, and books of remembrance from schools, places, and institutions, providing invaluable insights into the lives of those who served and sacrificed during the Great War.

The newly released records offer a look at over 25,000 individuals, giving details such as the service histories of soldiers, portraits, details of their schooling, and family connections, including poignant details of those killed or wounded in action. These records not only commemorate the bravery and dedication of those who served but also provide a rich resource for researchers and family historians.

A page from Portsmouth and the Great War

Included in this release are the following notable compilations:

• Birmingham, Service Record of King Edward School 1914-1919

• Whitgift Grammar School, The Book of Remembrance 1914-1919

• Memorials of Rugbeians Who Fell in the Great War, Volumes II, III, V, VI

• A Book of Remembrance of Old Boys and Masters of Watford Grammar School who Served in the Great War, 1914-1918

• Shrewsbury School, Roll of Service, 1914-1918

• Portsmouth and the Great War

• Swindon's War Record 1914-1918

• The Clan MacRae Roll in the Great War - Unveiling of Memorial Supplement

• 7th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Officers and Men Who Fell During the Great War

• London County Council Record of Service in the Great War, 1914-1918

• Phoenix Assurance Company, Ltd. - War Service List, 1914-1919

Also included in the release are two publications that give more context to the conflict, with stories and illustrations of the individual battles and notable heroic deeds:

• Children's Story of the War

• Deeds that Thrill the Empire

Mark Bayley, Head of Content at TheGenealogist, commented: “This release not only preserves the memories of the men and women who feature in these records, it also provides a window into the past for future generations. This adds to our extensive WW1 collections, providing a valuable resource for anyone interested in the personal histories and sacrifices of those who experienced the Great War.”

Researchers and family historians can access these records online at TheGenealogist's website, where they can explore detailed entries, including the years individuals attended school, information on family members, and personal stories of bravery and loss.

Read the feature article ‘Harold Ackroyd: MD to VC’ at TheGenealogist here: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2024/harold-ackroyd-md-to-vc-7556/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

Arizona detectives are seeking tips from the public more than four decades after a 25-year-old heiress was found shot to death near the Hoover Dam on the border between Nevada and Arizona. 

It’s been 45 years since the body of Marion Berry Ouma was found on an embankment near the highway, but no arrests have been made. Ouma inherited $40 million after her grandfather, Yellow Page founder Loren Berry, died, said the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigation Unit, the agency investigating the cold case. The sheriff’s office said Berry was worth $500 million and one of his grandsons pegged the company’s value at almost $1 billion when it was sold.

Authorities found Ouma’s body on Jan. 3, 1979. They believed she had been dead for less than 12 hours, said the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office. An autopsy revealed that the victim had been shot in the head and abdomen with a .38 caliber weapon, but investigators didn’t know her identity at the time. 

More than two years later detectives were notified by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department that a private investigator from Ohio had possibly identified the victim, the sheriff’s office said. The investigator showed a photo to detectives and the similarities were striking.  

Detectives contacted Ouma’s mother and stepfather, Elizabeth and Robert Gray, who identified the body. The identity was confirmed later with dental records and fingerprints. CBS News has contacted the Dayton Police Department and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for more information. 

Her parents told detectives that Ouma had gotten married in Africa, where she lived for a few years working as a physical education teacher. Authorities didn’t provide clarification on whether the husband was a suspect or if he returned to the United States with Ouma. (Gray is Berry’s daughter and sits on the family foundation’s board.)

Detectives traveled to Las Vegas to conduct interviews and spoke with a bank employee who said Ouma had come into the bank on Nov. 28 and Dec. 13 to withdraw money from her savings account in Ohio. They then went to her home at Sierra Vista Apartments in Las Vegas, where the landlord told detectives she rented an apartment in November 1978 after arriving in a taxi with her belongings. A month later she was asked to vacate the apartment due to nonpayment of rent, the sheriff’s office said. 

Detectives described Ouma wearing green sweatpants and a dark blue short-sleeve blouse at the time of her death. She was around 5’5″ and weighed 106 pounds and often wore her hair in a ponytail. Detectives said they are also looking for leads on a 1976-1977 powder blue Chevrolet Blazer or Ford Bronco seen in the area on the evening of the murder. 

Forensic technology is breathing new life into a decades-old cold case in Riverside County, California and now investigators hope the public will help them finally solve it.

The Riverside County District Attorney's Bureau of Investigations released pictures Tuesday morning of the victim, Jacqueline Danette Ebel. The 25-year-old was reported missing from the Long Beach area two days before Christmas in 1988.

Her body was found three days later near 330 E. 4th Street in Perris. For decades police were unable to identify the victim and the case remained unsolved. Then in 2022, the Riverside County Cold Case Team conducted Forensic Genetic Genealogy, leading to the victim's name.

Before her death, Ebel lived in the Long Beach and Bellflower areas. She was known as "Jackie" to her family and friends, investigators say. She also went by the last names "Yonkers" and "Palmer." Ebel had a tattoo of a horse and flower on her right shoulder blade, tattoos of "John" and a Harley Davidson eagle on her left shoulder blade, and a rose and "Stoney" on her lower abdomen.

"It is our greatest desire to grant dignity and justice this victim and her family," Senior DA Investigator Ebony Caviness said in a statement.

Forensic genetic genealogy has gained traction in recent years, helping crack some high-profile cold cases including the Golden State Killer, a serial killer and rapist who terrorized California for years. Thanks to DNA-matching information, investigators identified Joseph James DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer, arresting him in 2018 near Sacramento.  

The Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team is asking anyone who thinks they might have information about Ebel's death to call the Cold Case Hotline at (951) 955-5567 or email coldcaseunit@rivcoda.org.

Around 1,000 Jews from across the world will gather in Philadelphia from Aug. 18-22 for the 44th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.

Attendees from Israel to Argentina with all levels of genealogic experience will receive and share guidance on the tools, pitfalls and meaning of Jewish genealogy research.

The conference will feature 175 presentations, meetings, workshops and activities relating to Jewish genealogy. Attendees looking for resources and tips will have access to advanced research tools and the foremost experts in Jewish genealogical research.

Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History keynote speaker and renowned cookbook author Joan Nathan will be interviewed by Jewish genealogist Randy Schoenberg during the opening session on Aug. 18.

Nathan is known for her extensive research, storytelling and, of course, her recipes. “I hope people will bring their recipes with them and, if they want to find out more about their family, we can do it from there,” Nathan said.

For Nathan, food tells a story and connects people to tradition. Her books are filled with the stories of people, the ingredients and methods in a recipe that tell a story about the people behind it, how they lived and what ingredients were available.

Her latest book, “My Life in Recipes,” uses recipes to reflect on her life, family history and her quest to discover worldwide Jewish cuisine.“It gives people more strength to know that not just the language … but a recipe also has been carried down from generation to generation,” Nathan said.

Most of the conference will take place at the Sheraton Downtown, but attendees will also visit Jewish historic sites around Philadelphia and the Weitzman.

While many genealogy services offer documents and DNA analysis, there are some unique challenges to researching genealogy as a Jew, according to Jennifer Mendelsohn, a genealogist specializing in helping Eastern European Jewish families reclaim their history.

According to Mendelsohn, one of the unique challenges is tied to DNA. Because Ashkenazi Jews were largely endogamous, meaning they only married others within their community for a long time, having the same common ancestor may not yield as much information. “The first DNA test results made no sense. I just got incredibly frustrated,” Mendelson said.

Mendelsohn now uses her platform and a Facebook group with more than 13,000 members to help others decipher DNA results and highlight meaningful matches. She also co-founded the DNA reunion project, now called the Holocaust Reunion Project.

You can read more at: http://www.jewishexponent.com/philadelphia-to-host-major-jewish-genealogy-conference/.