It is said that true love stands the test of time.

For Carol Bohlin of Tinmouth, Vermont, it’s her parents' World War II-era love letters that proved indelible when they were gifted to her by a complete stranger who found them nearly 80 years after they were written. 

"I was really so surprised they found these," Bohlin, 76, told Fox News Digital. 

"I never expected this."

Bohlin, the daughter of Claude Marsten Smythe and Marie Borgal Smythe of Staten Island, New York, said she had no idea her parents had saved and hidden away their only means of communication while her father was serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

You could tell she opened them with care and cherished them," Kearney said. "Everything was still intact. Nothing was smudged, nothing was discolored. They were pretty amazing."

Kearney said she desperately wanted to return the letters to the family, but did not know how to track down the descendants of the couple.

"I couldn't find any contact information, where I could send them or who they belonged to," Kearney said. 

Twenty-eight years later, Kearney saw New York-based heirloom hunter Chelsey Brown, 30, on "The Kelly Clarkson Show." 

She realized she might have found someone who could help her locate the rightful owner of the World War II love letters. 

Brown, a New York-based interior decorator, has a passion for reuniting historical artifactswith long-lost family members.

Brown used her resources, including the MyHeritage.com database, to connect Kearney with one of Bohlin’s sons — and eventually with Bohlin herself.

"In the end, why did Carol’s parents hide those letters?" Brown said. 

"They wanted them to be found one day. Those letters were meant for Dottie [Kearney] to find."

You can read more in an article by Gretchen Eichenberg published at: https://tinyurl.com/yj5abvvj.

Students can license historical footage for their own work for free, while most filmmakers must pay to do so 

When filmmakers want access to historical footage of the Bay Area’s past, they turn to San Francisco State University, home to a massive and unique archive of local television news-film and documentaries from the 20th century. While Academy Award-winning films such as “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Milk” and “O.J.: Made in America” paid market rate to license the footage, San Francisco State students may do so for their own work at no cost.  

Based in the J. Paul Leonard Library on campus, the Bay Area Television Archive features more than 135,000 videos from Bay Area television stations. A visit to the new Bay Area Television Archive website is a YouTube-like rabbit hole of a time machine dedicated to the issues and events that gripped the region decades ago.  

The original daily news coverage allows one to learn how major events unfolded and how communities responded when the word was spread. Curated collections feature the civil rights movement (including the Third World Liberation Front student strike at SF State), the Zodiac Killer, 1970s adult entertainment, old-school hip hop and much more. One can watch speeches by Martin Luther King and Maya Angelou’s entire KQED-TV series “Blacks, Blues, Black” from 1968 — rediscovered and restored by Alex Cherian, the Bay Area television archivist on staff, after not having been seen for decades. 

Footage from the archive has been used in more than 1,000 documentary, television and community projects in the last 15 years, with dozens more coming out every year.

Film scanning equipment, funded by a donation from the Friends of the J. Paul Leonard Library, digitizes footage into 4K resolution.    

To inquire about licensing footage from the Bay Area Television Archive, visit the Using the Collections page or contact archivist Alex Cherian.  

You can read more in an article by Matt Itelson published in the San Francisco State University web site at: https://news.sfsu.edu/news/sf-state-bay-area-television-archive-treasure-trove-history-film-and-streaming-online .

Lincolnshire Baptisms 

We’ve added 216,638 new records to this existing collection, covering 1754-1812 and 269 churches and chapels across the county. Typically, you can find key biographical information for your ancestor, and often their parents’ names and the date of the baptism. 

Suffolk Marriage Index 

A further 52,387 records have been added to this set, covering 1813-1837 and over 500 churches. You’ll normally find your ancestor’s name, marital status and parish, plus that of their spouse, and the date and place of the marriage. 

National School Admissions Register 

5,709 records for Halifax, Yorkshire have been added this week, helping you uncover more about your ancestor’s early years. With these, you might find your ancestor’s address, father’s name and occupation, and even notes on their school days, such as exam results and reasons for absence.  

Newspapers 

Another 139,000 new pages, including new title the Special Financial, have been added to the newspaper archive this Friday.  

New titles: 

·         Special Financial, 1899 

Updated titles: 

·         Bristol Evening Post, 1976-1977, 1982-1983, 1985 

·         Dumfries and Galloway Standard, 1877-1878, 1881, 1909 

·         Eastern Mercury, 1903 

·         Finsbury Weekly News and Chronicle, 1910 

·         Glamorgan Gazette, 1991 

·         Hamilton Advertiser, 1921, 1930 

·         Holborn and Finsbury Guardian, 1909, 1916 

·         Irish Independent, 1940 

·         Kensington News and West London Times, 1889, 1909 

·         Richmond Informer, 1988 

·         St. Pancras Chronicle, People’s Advertiser, Sale and Exchange Gazette, 1900, 1905-1906, 1914 

·         Thomson’s Weekly News, 1902, 1908, 1910, 1917, 1921 

·         Wandsworth Borough News, 1908-1909 

·         Willesden Chronicle, 1923, 1942 

The following announcement was written by the Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS):

The Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS) announces a request for lecture proposals for the 2024 conference to be held April 9-14, 2024, at Kalahari Resort & Conference Center in Sandusky, Ohio.

Topics being considered include but not limited to the following: immigration, census records (especially the 1950), religious groups, migration, origins of early Ohio settlers, and the Old Northwest Territory, utilizing land records, military records, technology (including usage mobile devices, apps, social media), DNA, organization, society management and development, and methodology, analysis, and problem solving in genealogical research, Ohio history and its records, archives and repositories, and unique 1950’s topics.

The program committee is specifically seeking new, unusual, and dynamic proposals. Think outside of the box! Interested speakers are strongly encouraged to submit multiple proposals for either one-hour general sessions, or two-hour workshops. There is no limit to the number of proposals a speaker may submit. The deadline for submission of lecture proposals is May 31, 2023.

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

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

Sponsors

Societies and businesses are encouraged to submit proposals for sponsored talks. The sponsoring organization will cover speaker’s lecture(s) honorarium. Sponsored speakers will abide by all speaker deadlines. Sponsored speakers will receive complimentary OGS conference registration and electronic syllabus materials. The deadline to submit sponsored lectures is also May 31, 2023.

Additional information

Camera-ready syllabus material, due February 1, 2024 is required for each general presentation and will be included in the syllabus distributed to all conference registrants.

Invitations to speak will be issued by mid-June, 2023. Syllabus format guidelines will be sent to speakers at that time. The deadline for acceptance and submission of signed speaker contracts is July 15, 2023. Letters of regret will not be sent out until all invited speakers have responded.

Allan J. Pinkerton (25 August 1819 – 1 July 1884) was a Scottish American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Pinkerton emigrated as a young man to seek his fortune in the United States of America. A self-educated man, he had little formal training in any of the professions usually available to immigrants. However, that never slowed the ambitious young man.

He settled in Dundee Township, Illinois, fifty miles northwest of Chicago. He built a cabin and started a cooperage (making barrels). His home soon became a stop on the Underground Railroad, smuggling escaping slaves northward to Canada.

Pinkerton worked with the local sheriff to identify some counterfeiters who were working nearby. Soon he was appointed as the first police detective in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. In 1850 he partnered with Chicago attorney Edward Rucker in forming the North-Western Police Agency, one of the nation's first private detective services. The company later became Pinkerton & Co and finally Pinkerton National Detective Agency, still in existence today as Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, a subsidiary of Securitas AB. 

Pinkerton's business insignia was a wide open eye with the caption, "We never sleep." People in the area soon started referring to the company as "private eyes," a term still in use today.

Pinkerton's agency solved a series of train robberies during the 1850s, and he soon had all the business the fledgling company could handle. He never seemed to be afraid of danger. In many cases he personally chased down and arrested dangerous criminals. As a staunch abolitionist, he attended the secret meetings held by abolitionists John Brown and Frederick Douglass in Chicago along with abolitionists John Jones and Henry O. Wagoner. At those meetings, Jones, Wagoner, and Pinkerton helped purchase clothes and supplies for Brown. Jones' wife, Mary, guessed that the supplies included the suit Brown was later hanged in after the failure of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in November 1859.

During the first two years of the Civil War, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service and reportedly was involved in numerous dangerous undercover missions. He not only sent his men out as spies, but Pinkerton often personally became a spy himself. If captured, he undoubtedly would have been hanged.

After the Civil War, Pinkerton continued his pursuit of train robbers. He was hired to capture the infamous train robber Jesse James but failed at first. The railroad canceled the contract. Frustrated, Pinkerton refused to concede defeat. He continued to chase Jesse James at his own expense and even paid his employees out of his own pocket to continue the chase. He still failed and eventually gave up after James allegedly captured and killed one of Pinkerton's undercover agents (who was working undercover at the farm neighboring the James family's farmstead).

Allan J. Pinkerton continued to manage his detective agency and to find and apprehend outlaws, often doing the most dangerous work himself.

There is a bit of a question about the cause of Pinkerton's death. As an older man, he developed several ailments, including malaria, which he had contracted during a trip to the southern United States. He also suffered a mild stroke when he was about 65 years of age. However, the most common story is that this man – who had spent his life personally chasing many of the most dangerous outlaws in the country and being a spy in wartime – was walking his wife's poodle one day when the dog reportedly wrapped its leash around Pinkerton's legs. Pinkerton tripped, fell to the concrete, and severely bit his own tongue. He died of a gangrene infection of the tongue a few days later.

After Pinkerton spent a lifetime of danger, a poodle brought him down, something the most notorious badmen of the time had been unable to accomplish.

Allan J. Pinkerton is buried in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.

References:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Pinkerton

Encyclopædia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461110/Allan-Pinkerton

Works by or about Allan Pinkerton at the Internet Archive: http://bit.ly/2v3Svjw

The "Jews" archival series of the Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State—Section for Relations with States and International Organizations (ASRS)—is now fully available for consultation on the internet.

The series consists of 170 volumes containing requests for help addressed to Pope Pius XII by Jews, both baptized Catholics and many who were not, from all over Europe, after the beginning of the persecutions by fascist governments in the 1930s and 1940s.

You can read more in an article in the Vatican News at: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2023-02/vatican-secretariat-state-jews-archives-fully-online.html.

From an article by David Jackson published in the Newswire.net web site:

Family trees are big business right now - and with good reason. It can be fascinating to learn more about the people in our distant families, those long-forgotten ancestors who lived generations ago.

A hero from the war, a local legend from our home town - or the Holy Grail of family trees; a link to royalty - there aren't many people who wouldn't love to find some of these gems in their ancestral line.

Famous, Rich or Royal Connections

There are some people who just love the historical aspect of tracing their family origins. Perhaps they're keen to uncover a family mystery that has baffled relations for years. Or maybe they're curious about how some members of the family can be so widely spread across the globe.

It can be fascinating to learn more about our ancestors, and for many who get hooked on tracing their roots, it can even become an obsession - it's why sites such as ancestry.com are so popular, and why the new technology that allows for rapid genetic profiling has become such a booming industry.

For many people who are looking into their lineage, though, there's usually more than a little hope that they may uncover one of the ultimate prizes of a family tree; being related to someone rich, royal or famous - or even better, all three!

What could be more exciting to learn that you have links to a famous movie star, sports legend, historical figure or world leader? Or perhaps you'd prefer to uncover a long-lost relative that just happened to accumulate a fortune and then die with no heirs to share it with. Or maybe you're a history lover or you're obsessed with The Crown and would love nothing more than to learn that you have blue blood running through your family history.

It's amazing how often people do find these types of connections when exploring their family tree, if they go back far enough. After all, rich, royal and famous people all have families who also have families - they've got to be related to some people!

Ancient Royalty & Modern Celebs

It's not just us mere mortals who love to explore our ancestry and lineage in the hopes that we're related to a distant king or queen. Even celebrities love to find out more about their family tree, and who wouldn't be delighted to find a link to a noble Baron or a famous French monarch?

The popularity of shows like Who Do You Think You Are and Hello Magazine articles about celebrities with royal links show just how captivated this investigation can be. It's even more exciting when celebs discover that they do in fact have a family tie to someone they admire or a notable figure from history.

For example, did you know that Beyoncé, Angelina Jolie and Hilary Duff can all claim a connection to the royal houses of Europe? Whether it's a distant cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, or an ancestral link to the royal court of Versailles, these types of royal connections make for great conversations, so who can blame today's celebrity royalty for wanting to join the fun?

If you'd like to see just what exciting finds might be waiting for you in your family tree, you can start learning more by getting one of the many specialist apps that are available. Or if you're really keen, you could hire an expert who is particularly skilled at sleuthing out these ancestral links.

You can read more at: https://newswire.net/newsroom/blog-post/00255138-could-there-be-a-royal-title-in-your-family-tree.html.

The Genealogical Society of New Jersey (GSNJ) will be celebrating DNA Day at our 2023 Spring Conference in West Windsor on Saturday, April 22nd. The event features two nationally known speakers – Blaine Bettinger, world-renowned Genetic Genealogy expert, and Sydney F. Cruice, an expert in Mid-Atlantic genealogy. The dual-track event features four sessions on Genetic Genealogy/DNA along with four sessions on military records, probate records, church & cemetery records and land platting.

Registration includes catered breakfast and buffet lunch, syllabus and door prizes. The GSNJ Bookstore will be open.

PROGRAM INFORMATION & REGISTRATION: https://www.gsnj.org/gsnj-2023-spring-conference/

You can download a conference flyer here. 

Multi-year project includes every city and town in New Hampshire.

The UNH Library recently wrapped up a massive multi-year project that digitized and organized all known annual reports for every town in New Hampshire, an undertaking that essentially reached every municipality, past and present, throughout the state.

The New Hampshire City and Town Annual Reports Collection now boasts 35,491 volumes, including more than 20,000 added during the most recent blitz that began in 2021 thanks in part to a grant from the New Hampshire State Library.

When that portion of the project began, 20 of the 234 New Hampshire cities and towns were not represented in the digital collection. All 20 of those towns were added during the recent push, as was content from an additional eight village precincts and two extinct towns.

Given the reach throughout the entire state the project aligns perfectly with Embrace New Hampshire, one of four strategic priorities UNH President Jim Dean outlined for the university in January of 2019.

“We have touched every town in the state, including some towns that don’t even exist anymore, and that is going to have some really lasting impacts on our reputation as an institution that reaches out to New Hampshire,” Eleta Exline, scholarly communication librarian and the principal investigator on the project, says.

You can read more in an article by Keith Testa published in the unh.edu web site.

Comment by Dick Eastman: I want to read the 1976 to 1980 annual reports for Lebanon, New Hampshire. That is one of the several times in lived in New Hampshire. I read those reports when I lived there but I wasn't smart enough to save them.

From an article by Hallie Levine published in the LiveStrong web site:

If you go on Amazon or any other consumer shopping website, you'll most likely find hundreds of different direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests that promise to reveal everything from your family heritage to whether or not you have the ability to carry a tune or have a preference for sweet or salty.

These tests are everywhere these days: In fact, the use of DNA testing kits such as AncestryDNA, 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA has soared over the past decade, and about 100 million people had taken one by the end of 2021, according to the American Medical Association.

You can read a lot more at: https://www.livestrong.com/article/13776354-facts-about-dna-testing-kits/.