University of Arizona faculty and community partners have created a public archive of interviews with asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants incarcerated in Arizona.

A group of University of Arizona faculty members and their community partners are preparing to launch a public archive containing the stories of asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants incarcerated in Arizona.

The DETAINED: Voices from the Migrant Incarceration System project is a collaborative effort involving UArizona, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and Salvavision. The Florence Project provides free legal and social services to individuals in immigration detention in Arizona. Salvavision is a Tucson-based organization that provides aid and support to asylum-seekers and migrants displaced in the remote town of Sasabe, in Sonora, Mexico.

The DETAINED archive will be available online Wednesday, and a launch event will be held that night at the Blacklidge Community Collective. The collective, located at 101 E. Ventura St., is a community space that hosts a variety of local projects, events and resources. The event will include stations where people can listen to archived interviews, as well as digital projections of art and memorabilia collected from former detainees.

The archive grew out professor of art David Taylor's decades-long focus on the nature and changing circumstances of the borderlands – an interest he developed after moving from the East Coast and thinking about the tropes that make up society's conception of Western history. A photographer, Taylor said any story he told would not be that of a person who personally crossed the border or someone seeking asylum or work. Instead, he strives to let those people tell their own stories.

"My goal in all of this is to ensure that people's experiences do not disappear. These are people who don't get to write history. They don't usually have their say," Taylor said.

You can read more in an article by Logan Burtch-Buus published in the University of Arizona web site at: https://news.arizona.edu/story/uarizona-helps-launch-archive-sharing-stories-detained-immigrants.

RTÉ Archives could be made more open to the public under proposed new laws.

The current archive is “inaccessible and prohibitive” according to Green TD Patrick Costello.

Members of the public, as well as academics and other broadcasters, must request material which was broadcast on RTÉ television and may even have to pay a fee to obtain the footage or photographs.

However, the operation of the archives may be revamped if the Government decide to support Mr Costello’s bill and open it up to the public.

Academics will also have greater use of the archives to facilitate their research.

The RTÉ Archives website states video footage and photographs, owned by RTÉ, can be made available for broadcasting, research, educational use, private use or for other professional purposes.

For members of the public, the State broadcaster gives “limited access” to the archives through its Archive Sales team.

“Subject to copyright status and availability of resources, RTÉ provides limited access to RTÉ Archives through the RTÉ Archive Sales team. We can also supply photographic images from RTÉ Stills Library collection,” the RTÉ Archives website states.

“Material is made available on the strict understanding that it is for private use only.”

You can read more in an article by Gabija Gataveckaite published in the MSN web site at: https://tinyurl.com/3ax3zkt3.

Got a low-quality photo album that you want to upscale with the power of AI? Upscayl is what you need on your Linux machine.

With the latest generation of phones, we're used to having images automatically sharpened, upscaled, and otherwise polished to perfection by machine learning models and on-device neural nets.

Older photos or those taken without advanced hardware have suffered in comparison. Upscayl runs on your Linux machine and uses AI models to sharpen and upscale low-resolution images into ultra HD.

Camera technology has advanced immensely in the two centuries since the first heliographic engravings, and older images usually don't compare well with photos taken on the latest iPhone.

Most images in 2023 are digital and are viewed on screens where you can zoom in on the tiniest details. In analog photos scanned at even the highest settings available 20 years ago, the details can be unclear, and the pixel count is still lower than those taken by even some budget smartphones.

It's even worse with digital photos from the early 2000s. Those beautiful sunsets and wedding photos may have looked fabulous when 800x600 was the pinnacle of screen resolution, but today, they barely cover a corner of your 4k gaming monitor.

Zooming in or resizing renders the image ugly, and exposes compression artifacts that you don't want to see.

Upscayl Makes Your Old Pictures Look Fantastic

Fortunately, the same kind of machine learning and image enhancement carried out by high-end phones, can be carried out on your Linux PC.

You can read more in an article by David Rutland published in the MakeUseOf web site at: https://www.makeuseof.com/upscale-low-resolution-images-upscayl-linux/.

"Utterly breathtaking" historical documents dating as far back as 1695 may have been lost forever if not for a man who rescued the collection 30 years ago from a skip.  

NOTE: According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a “skip” is a commn word in Ireland and Great Britain meaning "a large metal container into which people put unwanted objects or building or garden waste, and which is brought to and taken away from a place by a special truck when people ask for it."

Limerick historian Dr Paul O’Brien said he is “blown away” by the discovery of the archive spanning most of Munster that he believes will “tell the story of land ownership in Ireland.” 

The Mary Immaculate College lecturer said he’s running out of words to describe its “phenomenal” sheer volume and geographical range. 

“It covers huge swathes of land up the country and just gives a lot of agency to tenant farmers and tenant voices that aren’t generally covered out there,” he said. 

A man found the documents about 30 years ago in a skip outside a house in Limerick but only managed to save 20%, or 28 boxes, out of the collection due to the sheer volume. 

You can read more in an article by Jack White published in the Irish Examiner web site at: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41073983.html .

I received an email message recently that is not terribly unusual. I have received a number of similar questions before. I did reply in email, but I thought I would also write an article about it as I am sure others have faced the same "problem." In fact, the resolution is simple, although perhaps difficult to prove.

This is the email message I received although I edited out the name of the person and the name of the DNA testing company in order to protect the privacy of both. In fact, this could have happened with any of the DNA testing companies:

I have a topic that has been bugging me lately. A certain DNA testing company is advertising about their "ethnicity" reports. My previous family history results show that I am over 80% British Isles and less than 5% German. However, I know that my father (he had his test done, too) is almost 50% German/Czech. Our family history research also shows that his father must have been close to 100% German. 

I understand that I get what I get - not an exact % split of DNA but a roll of the dice. However, their commercials imply that you will know that you are not German if the DNA test shows no German in the ethnicity profile. What gives? 

I think they are misleading people with those ads. What's your opinion? (I also think their ethnicity reports are not 100% accurate.) 

Thanks for your consideration of my question, and thanks for your newsletter. It has led me to several invaluable resources over the years of family records I would have never found otherwise.

Here is my (slightly edited) reply:

There are at least three possible reasons that the DNA results show non-German ancestry of the individual in question. The most obvious reasons are:

1. A mistake at the DNA lab where your test sample was accidentally swapped with a sample from someone else.

2. Even brothers and sisters (with the same parents) normally do not receive exactly the same DNA from each parent. It has been compared sticking a ladle into a container of soup on the stove. One person might pull out “components” of 40% British DNA, 35% German DNA, and 15% Swedish DNA. Meanwhile, that person’s brother or sister might use the same ladle and dip it into the same container of soup, but perhaps will pull out 65% British DNA, 25% German DNA, and 10% Swedish DNA. Almost no one ever receives exactly 50% of their DNA from each parent, the mix is almost always more or less than 50% from each parent. To be sure, the total is always 100% but almost never exactly 50/50.

3. Did his ancestors REALLY come from Germany and nearby regions? Sure, that’s what the records show, but were those REALLY HIS ANCESTORS?

One “mystery” that turns out to be very common in DNA research is that someone was quietly adopted into a family some years ago without paperwork and other family members kept it quiet (this happened often; I have several examples in my own family tree). 

Another possibility is what is humorously referred to as a “non-marital event.” That is, someone in your family tree spent at least one night with someone other than his or her married and documented spouse.

While we all smile when we say “non-marital event,” the fact remains that such liaisons were common throughout the years, even in the 1700s or later.

There is a book called “Sex in Middlesex” by Roger Thompson. The book is available from Amazon and probably other bookstores. It may be found on Amazon by searching for ISBN 0870236563.

In the book, Roger Thompson describes various sex “crimes” that were tried in court in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the early to mid-1600s: "Sex in Middlesex pulls its facts from the Middlesex County, Massachusetts, court records. Eleven chapters discuss court cases by categories such as “Fornication: Detection and Evasion,” “Courtship and Patriarchal Authority,” “Pregnant Brides and Broken Promises,” “Unfaithful Wives,” “Unfaithful Husbands,” and “Community Control.” Statistical charts include “Geographical Incidence of Sexual Misdemeanors [1649–1699]” (the winner is Charlestown with 60, next was Cambridge with 31), and “Incidence of Conviction for Sexual Misdemeanors.”

I am sure such events were not limited to one county in Massachusetts. Anyone digging through old records can find many similar court cases everyplace else. While we commonly think of our ancestors as straight-laced Puritans or others who would never do such things, the fact remains that they were human beings with the same weaknesses and challenges that modern-day humans face. The court cases reveal that unmarried couples or couples who were not married to each other had extra-marital affairs probably at least as often as do today's couples.

So, were your grandfather’s REAL ancestors from someplace other than Germany? Or did one of your ancestors have an extra-marital liaison that you do not know about? It is possible that the DNA results you have received may prove something about your grandfather's ancestry that perhaps even he didn’t know.

Luckily, the solution is simple, although a bit expensive. Have another DNA test taken by another DNA lab. (I have had my DNA tested by five different DNA labs, and I know of other genealogists who have tested with even more labs than that.) See if all the test results agree. In my case, the test results are similar but never exactly the same. 

If only one test result shows non-German ancestry, then the first assumption probably is correct: the lab made an error.

However, if all the DNA tests say that he had little to no German ancestry at all, then I would suggest that you have some new family history challenges ahead of you!

I can hear a collective gasp from everyone reading this article: "What? Not MY ancestors!"

But it was true many, many times.

So here's a question for everyone else: What's in YOUR DNA?

Many genealogists owe a debt to the many unsung heroes and heroines who convert  medieval documents from print to photography and finally to the internet where we all can read them while conveniently seated in our homes.

While Thomas Hoccleve was a 15th-century scribe, his workday complaints slipped into his poems: eyestrain from long hours staring at text, backaches from a lack of ergonomics, difficulty standing up straight.

His experiences aren’t that far removed from the teams who digitize texts today, which include librarians, curators, imaging specialists, conservators and preservation experts, catalogers and metadata specialists, technologists, project managers, production coordinators and sometimes students. As Hoccleve himself knew, copying texts is exacting and complicated work — and often unappreciated by readers.

That’s a dynamic that Binghamton University Associate Professor of English Bridget Whearty hopes to change. In her new book, Digital Codicology: Medieval Books and Modern Labor, she introduces readers to the digitization process and the highly trained professionals who perform this work.

“In medieval studies, we use digital copies constantly. If you’re a literary scholar, it’s really easy to pull up a copy of a poem you’re working on and see it in a 15th-century scribe’s handwriting,” she said. “But even though we use them, we don’t necessarily think about who makes them and how and why they’re made. And that’s funny, because we spend a lot of time thinking about those exact questions when it comes to the original copies.”

Whearty traces the preservation of manuscripts through media history, from print to photography and finally the internet, demystifying digitization along the way. To that end, she examines late-1990’s projects such as Digital Scriptorium 1.0 alongside late-2010’s initiatives like Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis, and world-renowned projects created by the British Library, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, Stanford University and the Walters Art Museum against in-house digitization performed in lesser-studied libraries.

She also traces the story of one manuscript: a book of Hoccleve’s poetry, created in the 1420s by his own practiced hand, which now resides at the Huntington Library in California. First printed in 1796, it was put on microfiche in the late 20th century and photographed for digitization in the early 21st century. During each rendering, editors, printers and copiers made choices about what needed to be represented and preserved.

You can read a lot more in an article by Jennifer Micale published in the Binghamton University web site at: https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/4095/modern-scribes-how-medieval-books-go-from-parchment-to-the-cloud.

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

(+) The Care and Maintenance of Tombstones

Presidential Ancestry

What We Found Out About 4 U.S. Presidents in the 1950 Census

Contributions of Black, Indigenous Soldiers Detailed in New Collection at Museum of the American Revolution

Historic Iwo Jima Footage Shows Individual Marines Amid the Larger Battle

Book Worth More Than $600 Stolen From Dayton, Ohio Metro Library

eBay for Genealogists

Association for Gravestone Studies 2023 Conference

Free BCG-sponsored Webinar, February 21, 2023

Findmypast Adds Two Brand New and Exclusive Record Collections

Recently Added and Updated Collections on Ancestry.com 

Black Death 700 Years Ago Affects Your Health Now

How to Cancel a Subscription Online Even When the Company Doesn’t Want You To

MyHeritage has an interesting article published in the company's blog. Amongst the highlights:

The current U.S. president, Joe Biden, was 7 years old in 1950.

The article describes family members that Biden lived with.

Donald Trump was 4 years old in 1950

He lived with 7 other people, all close relatives except for one Irish domestic worker.

Barack Obama is the only one of the past 5 U.S. presidents who hadn’t been born yet in 1950.

We will have to wait for the 2042 release of census records to learn about his living arrangements in 1970.

President Clinton appears in the 1950 U.S. census as 3-year-old William Jefferson Blythe III

He lived in Hope City, Arkansas at the time with his maternal grandparents.

You can read the full article at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/02/what-we-found-out-about-4-u-s-presidents-in-the-1950-census/.

Police are investigating after a book worth hundreds of dollars was stolen from a local library. On Jan. 28, a staff member at Dayton Metro Library’s E. Third Street location reported an unknown male had stolen a book from the genealogy department, according to a police report filed this week.

The book that was stolen was Catawba Confederacy by Richard L. Haithcock. The book is valued at $660, according to the police report.

Police looked over security video and saw the suspect take the book. He was caught on camera using a knife “to remove the stickers labeling it as Dayton Metro Library property.”

With Presidents' Day in the U.S. this week, this is a good time to look at the ancestry of the U.S. presidents. After all, if your ancestors have been in the U.S. for 100 years or more, there is a strong possibility that your ancestry intersects with at least one of the U.S. presidents. The same can be said for many others of Canadian, British, Scottish, or Irish ancestry, as well as a few from the European continent. 

You can find many sources of information about U.S. presidential genealogy. Probably the most scholarly resource is Gary Boyd Roberts' book, Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States. 

The Web is full of information about U.S. presidential ancestry, but with varying degrees of accuracy. Here is a list of some of those pages:

Presidential Genealogy and Family History:

http://www.presidentsusa.net/genealogy.html 

Ancestry of George W. Bush:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~addams/presidential/bush.html

Ancestry of George Washington:

https://www.archives.com/genealogy/president-washington.html

Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_family

Ancestry of John F. Kennedy:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=8108+john+f+kennedy

Ancestry of Richard Nixon:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=3502+richard+nixon

Ancestry of Lyndon B. Johnson:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=15671+lyndon+b+johnson

Ancestry of Gerald Ford:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=8007+gerald+ford

Ancestry of Jimmy Carter:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=12937+jimmy+carter

Ancestry of Ronald Reagan:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=15704+ronald+reagan

Ancestry of George H. W. Bush:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=3103+george+w+bush

Ancestry of Bill Clinton:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=15616+bill+clinton

Ancestry of George W. Bush:

https://famouskin.com/ahnentafel.php?name=3103+george+w+bush

Ancestry of Barack Obama;

https://www.thoughtco.com/ancestry-of-barack-obama-1421628