Experienced American genealogists all “know” that the 1890 U.S. census is unavailable as it was destroyed in a fire in 1921. Sure, everyone “knows” that because it has been repeated time and again in print ever since. Unfortunately, that statement is not entirely accurate.       

Some years ago, I wrote a Plus Edition article entitled, “The 1890 U.S. Census: Not Everything Was Destroyed.” Since then, I have found that even more records from the 1890 U.S. census are available today.

To be sure, this is a small snippet of the available information: a list of black farmers in Delaware. Nonetheless, it is an excellent example of how presumed “public knowledge” can be inaccurate.

After the taking of the Twelfth Census in 1900, the Census Office published a variety of statistical reports based upon data collected in that and previous censuses. In 1901, Le Grand Powers was the Chief Statistician for Agriculture. In September 1901, Mr. Powers or clerks under his supervision drafted proposed Census Bulletin No. 100 on Agriculture in the State of Delaware, published September 30, 1901. It appears that, a few days before publication of this Bulletin, someone within the Census Bureau disagreed with or questioned the conclusions reached about "Negro" farmers. As a result, a search was undertaken to locate all African American ("Negro") farmers in the Twelfth Census of the United States (1900) for Delaware, and then to locate as many of them as possible in the Eleventh Census of the United States (1890) for Delaware.

Keep in mind these government employees of 1901 had access to the original 1890 census records since those records did not get destroyed until the fire twenty years later. While only about 25 per cent of the records were destroyed in the fire, the remaining records were damaged, either by heat or by water, and were soon decaying in the non-air conditioned storage facility in later months. (Keep in mind that air conditioning was almost non-existent in 1921, the date of the fire.) Most of the remaining original records were destroyed at a later date. This makes the surviving snippets of information extracted before the fire so valuable.

On December 28, 1901, the Chief of the Geographer's Division summarized the search results in a letter to Professor Walter F. Willcox, another chief statistician for the 1900 census. Of the 818 "Negro" farmers in Delaware in 1900, the Bureau was able to locate 454 in the 1890 Delaware population and agricultural schedules. The Geographer retained these lists in his files, which were accessioned into the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) decades later.

The NARA Microfilm Publication M1919 List of Selected African Americans from the 1890 and 1900 Federal Population Censuses of Delaware and Related Census Publications "Agriculture in the State of Delaware" (1901) and "Negroes in the United States" (1904) (1 roll) reproduces lists of selected African Americans from the 1890 and 1900 censuses of Delaware that are part of the Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group (RG) 29. In addition, selected Bureau of the Census publications relating to this subject matter have been reproduced from the Publications of the U.S. Government, RG 287.                       

A few unburned records from the original 1890 census were discovered in 1942 and still others in 1953. These had not been destroyed as ordered. These fragments, containing some 6,160 names from Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and the District of Columbia, have been reproduced as National Archives Microfilm Publication M407, Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890 (3 rolls), and are indexed by National Archives Microfilm Publication M496, Index to the Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890 (2 rolls). For more information, see Kellee Blake, "First in the Path of the Firemen": The Fate of the 1890 Population Census, Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring 1996): 64-81, Part 1 and Part 2.

These microfilms are available directly from the National Archives and can also be rented for a modest fee at a local LDS Family History Center near you.

You can read a lot more about these topics on the National Archives and Records Agency’s web site at:"1890 Census" at: https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1890. It lists:

(1) General population census schedules

(2) Schedules of Union Civil War Veterans or their widows

(3) Oklahoma territorial schedules

(4) List of selected Delaware African-Americans,

(5) Statistics of Lutheran congregations

(6) Statistical information for the entire United States

The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG). This is an online webinar and attendees can attend from anywhere in the world (however, check the time zone differences):

“Finding Fayette's Father: Autosomal DNA Reveals Misattributed Parentage”

by Jennifer Zinck, CG

Tuesday, August 16, 2022, 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

Traditional documentation clearly identified Fayette's father without conflict. However, the DNA results of Fayette's descendants told a different story. Learn how DNA evidence combined with a trail of clues and the application of the Genealogical Proof Standard revealed a secret from the summer of 1913.

Jennifer Zinck, CG® is a genealogical researcher, speaker, and educator who specializes in incorporating DNA results into genealogical research. Her traditional research focus is Connecticut and New England. Jennifer serves as the President of the Connecticut Professional Genealogists Council. She is a member of the faculty of the Boston University Center for Professional Education Genealogical Certificate Program as well as the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. Jennifer earned her credential from the Board for Certification of Genealogists in 2021.

BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “Finding Fayette's Father: Autosomal DNA Reveals Misattributed Parentage” by Jennifer Zinck, CG. This webinar airs Tuesday, August 16, 2022, at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

When you register before August 16 with our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars (http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=6795) you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Anyone with schedule conflicts may access the webinar at no charge for one week after the broadcast on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website.

“We are pleased to present these high-quality educational webinars,” said President LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, FASG. “The Board for Certification of Genealogists promotes public confidence in genealogy by supporting uniform standards of competence. We strive to provide educational opportunities to family historians of all levels of experience.”

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

To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2022, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard at https://bcgcertification.org/bcg-2022-free-webinars. For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (https://bcgcertification.org/learning).

The following is a press release from the 23andMe Holding Company:

First quarter revenue grew 9% to $64.5 millionConsumer revenue grew 17% year over year due to the addition of telehealth revenue
On track to achieve FY2023 financial guidance

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Aug. 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 23andMe Holding Co. (Nasdaq: ME) (“23andMe”), a leading consumer genetics and research company with a mission to help people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome, today reported its financial results for the first quarter (“Q1”) of its fiscal year 2023 (“FY2023”), which ended June 30, 2022. 23andMe is the only company with multiple FDA authorizations for over-the-counter genetic health risk reports, and in particular the only company FDA authorized to provide, without physician involvement, genetic cancer risk reports and medication insights on how individuals may process certain commonly prescribed medications based on their genetics. The Company has also created the world’s largest crowdsourced platform for genetic research, which it is using to pursue drug discovery programs rooted in human genetics across a spectrum of disease areas.

“During our first fiscal quarter, we continued to make progress in both our consumer and therapeutics businesses. In the consumer business, we continue to work on developing a genetic health service designed to integrate genetic health risk information into primary care with the goal of preventing or better managing disease,” said Anne Wojcicki, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of 23andMe. “In our therapeutics efforts, we’ve used our research platform to create a pipeline of more than 50 programs, backed by human genetic data, with two now in Phase 1 clinical trials. We believe the new therapeutics that come out of our discovery engine will eventually play a significant role in helping people benefit from the human genome.”

Recent Highlights

• • Began offering genetic report consultations with a Lemonaid Health clinician that can help customers better understand the potential impact of their genetic risk profile and discuss potential next steps.

  • Expanded customer database to approximately 13.1 million genotyped customers.

  • Launched three new reports for customers subscribed to 23andMe+, a membership service that offers insights and features to give members even more actionable information to live healthier lives. These new reports use machine learning to create a statistical model that estimates a person’s likelihood of developing a specific condition using thousands of genetic markers, along with a person’s ethnicity and birth sex. The new reports released in the first quarter were:

    • Glaucoma report

    • Psoriasis report

    • Rosacea report

  • Added an update to 23andMe’s Nonsyndromic Hearing Loss and Deafness, DFNB1 (GJB2-Related) Carrier Status report that adds six variants that improve the coverage of the test for people with East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian ancestry.

  • Published results from studies that provide further insights into long COVID, sarcoidosis and bipolar disorder.

“Our first fiscal quarter results were consistent with our expectations and keep us on track to achieve our previously-disclosed full-year financial guidance,” said Steve Schoch, Chief Financial Officer of 23andMe. “We continue to focus our efforts on creating a new consumer experience with our genetic health service and advancing our therapeutics programs, which we believe will provide our best opportunities to fuel future growth and progress towards profitability.”

FY2023 First Quarter Financial Results
Total revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2022, was $65 million, compared to $59 million for the same period in the prior year, representing an increase of 9%. First quarter revenue growth was primarily due to the inclusion of a full quarter of telehealth services and an increase in subscription revenue. These increases were partially offset by lower revenue in the other areas of Consumer & Research Services.

Consumer Services revenue represented approximately 87% of total revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2022, and Research Services revenue, substantially all derived from the collaboration with GSK, accounted for approximately 13% of total revenue.

Operating expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2022 were $115 million, compared to $72 million for the same period in the prior year. The increase in operating expenses was primarily attributable to increased labor costs and the addition of sales and marketing expenses from the previously acquired telehealth business. These were partially offset by lower R&D expenses due to decreased spending on the GSK6097608 (GSK’608) program following the company’s election to adopt the royalty option for the program from the previous cost sharing arrangement on development costs.

Net loss for the three months ended June 30, 2022 was $90 million, compared to a net loss of $42 million for the same period in the prior year. The increase in net loss for the three-month period ended June 30, 2022 was primarily driven by higher operating expenses (as noted above).

Total Adjusted EBITDA (as defined below) for the three months ended June 30, 2022 was a deficit of $50 million, compared to a deficit of $27 million for the same period in the prior year. The increase in total Adjusted EBITDA deficit was driven primarily by the increase in operating expenses, discussed above. Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended June 30, 2022 for the Consumer & Research Services segment was a deficit of $17 million, compared to a deficit of $1 million for the same period in the prior year. The decrease in this segment was driven primarily by the increase in operating expenses listed above.

Balance Sheet
23andMe ended Q1 FY2023 with cash of $479 million, compared to $553 million as of March 31, 2022. The decrease was primarily attributable to the Company's overall operating cash flow deficit.

FY2023 Financial Guidance
23andme reconfirmed its full year guidance following Q1 FY2023 results. Full year revenue for fiscal 2023, which will end on March 31, 2023, is projected to be in the range of $260 to $280 million, with a net loss in the range of $350 to $370 million. The full year adjusted EBITDA deficit is projected to be in the range of $195 to $215 million for fiscal year 2023. As a reminder, this guidance includes the full-year impact of the consolidation of the company’s acquired telehealth business into its overall consumer business as well as the current and anticipated effects of general inflation on certain of our costs.

Conference Call Webcast Information
23andMe will host a conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, August 8, 2022 to discuss the financial results for Q1 FY2023 and report on business progress. The webcast can be accessed on the day of the event at https://investors.23andme.com/news-events/events-presentations. A webcast replay will be available at the same address for a limited time within 24 hours after the event.

About 23andMe
23andMe is a genetics-led consumer healthcare and therapeutics company empowering a healthier future. For more information, please visit investors.23andme.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future performance of 23andMe’s businesses in consumer genetics and therapeutics and the growth and potential of its proprietary research platform. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included or incorporated in this press release, including statements regarding 23andMe’s strategy, financial position, funding for continued operations, cash reserves, projected costs, plans, and objectives of management, are forward-looking statements. The words "believes," "anticipates," "estimates," "plans," "expects," "intends," "may," "could," "should," "potential," "likely," "projects," “predicts,” "continue," "will," “schedule,” and "would" or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparable terminology, are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. These forward-looking statements are predictions based on 23andMe’s current expectations and projections about future events and various assumptions. 23andMe cannot guarantee that it will actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in its forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on 23andMe’s forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (many of which are beyond the control of 23andMe), or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained herein are also subject generally to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including under Item 1A, “Risk Factors” in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and in its subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. The statements made herein are made as of the date of this press release and, except as may be required by law, 23andMe undertakes no obligation to update them, whether as a result of new information, developments, or otherwise.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measure

To supplement the 23andMe’s unaudited condensed consolidated statements of operations and unaudited condensed consolidated balance sheets, which are prepared in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America (“GAAP”), this press release also includes references to Adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure that 23andMe defines as net income before net interest expense (income), net other expense (income), changes in fair value of warrant liabilities, income tax benefit, depreciation and amortization of fixed assets, amortization of internal use software, amortization of acquired intangible assets, non-cash stock-based compensation expense, acquisition-related costs, and expenses related to restructuring and other charges, if applicable for the period. 23andMe has provided a reconciliation of net loss, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, to Adjusted EBITDA at the end of this press release.

Adjusted EBITDA is a key measure used by 23andMe’s management and the board of directors to understand and evaluate operating performance and trends, to prepare and approve 23andMe’s annual budget and to develop short- and long-term operating plans. 23andMe provides Adjusted EBITDA because 23andMe believes it is frequently used by analysts, investors and other interested parties to evaluate companies in its industry and it facilitates comparisons on a consistent basis across reporting periods. Further, 23andMe believes it is helpful in highlighting trends in its operating results because it excludes items that are not indicative of 23andMe’s core operating performance. In particular, 23andMe believes that the exclusion of the items eliminated in calculating Adjusted EBITDA provides useful measures for period-to-period comparisons of 23andMe’s business. Accordingly, 23andMe believes that Adjusted EBITDA provides useful information in understanding and evaluating operating results in the same manner as 23andMe’s management and board of directors.

In evaluating Adjusted EBITDA, you should be aware that in the future 23andMe will incur expenses similar to the adjustments in this presentation. 23andMe’s presentation of Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as an inference that future results will be unaffected by these expenses or any unusual or non-recurring items. Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered in isolation of, or as an alternative to, measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Other companies, including companies in the same industry, may calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP financial measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of Adjusted EBITDA as a tool for comparison. There are a number of limitations related to the use of these non-GAAP financial measures rather than net loss, which is the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP. Some of the limitations of Adjusted EBITDA include (i) Adjusted EBITDA does not properly reflect capital commitments to be paid in the future, and (ii) although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the underlying assets may need to be replaced and Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect these capital expenditures. When evaluating 23andMe’s performance, you should consider Adjusted EBITDA alongside other financial performance measures, including net loss and other GAAP results.

***

Called The Men Who Built Britain, the archive will be hosted by the London Irish Centre, with support from O'Donovan Waste, a London company set up by one of those many Irish expatriates.

The archive will include an array of documents and recordings of the many Irish emigrants who became known as the generation that built Britain. It will be digitised from records and interviews already gathered by Irish historian Ultan Cowley for a book who wrote more than 20 years ago, chronicling the tales of those who crossed the Irish Sea to work in UK construction.

Irish construction workers at the time were widely labelled as ‘navvies’, the pejorative term used for the manual labourers who dug the canal network (the navigators) in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Details may be found in an article in the theconstructionindex.co.uk/ web site at: https://bit.ly/3P5EhDi.

I have written several times about the usefulness and ease of use of Chromebooks (see https://www.eogn.com/Sys/Search?q=Chromebook&types=7&page=1 for a list of my past articles about Chromebooks). I often wrote about how easy it is to convert an old Windows or Macintosh to become a Chromebook. (You can find that article, Turn Old Macs and PCs into Chromebooks, at: https://www.eogn.com/page-18080/12852743.)

Now Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor of ZDSNet, has written How I installed ChromeOS Flex in 30 minutes and has published it at: https://zd.net/3SxYlRW.

Steven Vaughan-Nichols writes:

"One of my favorite old PCs is a Dell Inspiron One 2320. This all-in-one (AIO) computer with a 2.4Ghz Intel Pentium Dual Core i5 processor, 6GBs of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT525M, and a 320GB hard drive is a great machine… for 2012. Ten years later? Not so much.

"But this one-time Windows 7 PC still has a good 23-inch HD display. What it can't do is run Windows 10 well, and let's not even talk about Windows 11."

He also wrote:

"I had left Windows 7 on this machine, which was a dedicated accounting system. I'd disconnected it from the internet, though, since running Windows 7 on an internet-connected PC is just asking to be hacked. Like most old Windows PCs, it had slowed to the point where it was essentially useless. Just booting it up would take -- I kid you not -- three minutes.

"But ChromeOS Flex, which is at heart a Linux system, can run on low-powered computers. How low can it go?"

Finally, Steven Vaughan-Nichols also wrote:

"On my older machine, it took me about 15 minutes from choosing to install it to running it."

If you are thinking of converting an old computer that is presently gathering dust in a closet or some similar place, I suggest you first read How I installed ChromeOS Flex in 30 minutes at https://zd.net/3SxYlRW.

Given to the university more than 20 years ago, the Langston Heritage Group Collection includes a wealth of historical information about Black churches, schools, civic clubs and organizations throughout Washington County from the end of the Civil War to the present.

Thanks to archivists at East Tennessee State University, the collection has been digitized and made available online to anyone interested in this history.

“The physical collection was first donated to ETSU in 2000, and it has since been accessed in the Archives’ reading room by dozens of researchers who have utilized the materials for scholarly and creative projects,” said Dr. Jeremy A. Smith, director of the Archives of Appalachia. “But digitizing and making this collection available online will push it out to a global audience, providing unprecedented access to this valuable resource while helping to draw attention to an essential but underrepresented part of Johnson City’s history.”

You can read more in an article published in the Rogersville Review web site at: https://bit.ly/3zypkDW and at https://archivesofappalachia.omeka.net/collections/show/135.

Appalshop has been a cornerstone of Whitesburg, Kentucky, since 1969, working to tell stories about Appalachian people through art, film, music and more with a focus on their voices. Its theater usually hums with actors portraying the experiences of the region; the community radio broadcasts music and local news; and its rich archive provides a huge repository of central Appalachian history.

But on Wednesday, as Alex Gibson, the organization’s executive director, stood inside the building that has housed Appalshop for four decades, all he could see was mud.

Water damage covered the walls of the radio station. Every chair in the newly renovated 150-seat theater was caked in sludge. Filing cabinets, tables, CDs and loose film strips were tangled together. And possibly worst of all, many of the contents of Appalshop’s archives were covered in mud and debris after devastating floods in the region last week left the building submerged.

You can read the rest of the sad news in an article by Remy Tumin as published in the Baltimore Sun at: https://bit.ly/3vJ8KQX.

Over 50 cassette tapes and two 8mm films with hours of history and stories were converted to a digital format.

Newly digitized recordings of the testimonials of Holocaust survivors are now available on the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation's website.

Jews undergo a selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Photo courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Federation's Jewish Community Relations Council teamed up with the Mahoning Valley Historical Society to digitize numerous analog audio and video recordings of these testimonies contained in the Dr. Saul Friedman Collection.

You can read more in an article by Zach Mosca published in the WFMJ.com web site at: https://bit.ly/3d7mxKx.

The following press release was issued by the Missouri State Archives:

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has announced the launch of a new YouTube channel curated by the Missouri State Archives, a division within his office. The platform offers the public unprecedented access to historic films created by Missouri state government, along with recordings of the State Archives’ Thursday Evening Speaker Series and other Missouri history-related content.

In celebration of the launch, the channel now features four new-to-the-archives films produced in 1931 by the Missouri Bureau of Public Information for the state’s Game and Fish Department, the precursor of today’s Missouri Department of Conservation and Missouri State Parks. The recordings — “Arrow Rock,” “Big Spring,” “From Whence the Rainbows Come!” (about Bennett Spring State Park) and “Meramec State Park” — were graciously donated, along with digital conversions, by Melissa Naylor Applegate. Originally created to promote the virtues of Missouri’s outdoors, they were all produced in black and white on silent 16mm film and are between six and eleven minutes in length.

For more information about the YouTube channel or the Missouri Game and Fish Department films, contact the Missouri State Archives reference staff at archives@sos.mo.gov or 573-751-3280.

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

Flash drives (also called jump drives or memory sticks) are a great invention. I use several of them to store and transport various data files. In fact, you can probably find dozens of uses for a flash drive. Today's flash drives are becoming cheap, and they are rugged—almost impervious to damage, other than driving over one with an automobile. I once accidentally sent a flash drive through the washer, and it continued to work perfectly afterwards. (That is not guaranteed by the manufacturer, however!) Today’s flash drives are generally cheaper, more rugged, and have higher storage capacity than CD-ROM disks. I just purchase three 32-gigabyte flash drives from Amazon for $4.49 (U.S.) each.

One of the best uses I know of is to take a flash drive in your pocket or purse when visiting a library or archive. Many libraries and a few archives have scanners and microfilm viewers that will save an image of a book or an old record to flash drives. Instead of feeding quarters into a photocopy machine, many genealogists prefer to save to a flash drive. Flash drives make it easier to transport the images home, copy them to a computer at your leisure, examine them, manipulate the images to improve readability, and easily insert their contents into genealogy programs, email messages, or that book you are writing.

However, there is one huge problem with flash drives: security. I often keep private financial records on a flash drive, including digital images of all my insurance documents. Those often contain my Social Security Number and other identifying information. Another problem occurs at the library, when you accidentally leave your memory stick in the library computer and it "disappears." I am speaking from experience here! What happens to the information stored on that flash drive when someone else later "recovers" it? Will someone else have access to all the information you stored there?

Luckily, there is a simple solution: 

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/12874958.

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.