Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day, thus being the second day of Christmastide. Though it originated as a holiday to give gifts to the poor, today Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday. It originated in the United Kingdom and is celebrated in a number of countries that previously formed part of the British Empire. Boxing Day is on 26 December, although the attached bank holiday or public holiday may take place either on that day or one or two days later (if necessary to ensure it falls on a weekday).

A full description of the history of Boxing Day and its modern celebration may be found on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day.

The National Library of Australia is threatening to pull the plug on Trove, its free online service that provides public access to collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives.

In its recent Trove Strategy, the library has indicated that without additional government support, it will shut the service down by July next year:

The future of Trove beyond July 2023 will be dependent upon available funds […] In a limited funding environment, Trove may reduce to a service focused on the National Library of Australia’s collections. Without any additional funds, the Library will need to cease offering the Trove service entirely.

It’s been nearly seven years since the #fundTrove campaign, a response to budget cuts to the National Library of Australia in 2016. (These were part of the Turnbull government’s “efficiency dividend”, which cut $20 million from the budgets of six Canberra-based cultural institutions over four years.)

That campaign resulted in a government funding package for Trove intended to rescue the popular service, which was topped up with more cash last year.

But in recent months it has become increasingly clear the National Library of Australia was never cured of its funding ills, and Trove was just on life support.

You can read more in an article by Zoe Smith and published in The Conversation web site at: https://tinyurl.com/ymxnh9uh.

My thanks to newsletter reader Neil Murray for telling me about this story.

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

Many people who are unfamiliar with DNA will have a test conducted and then will believe the results are exact. Unfortunately, that isn’t true, especially when it comes to the ethnic origins of their ancestors. DNA estimates of ethnic origins are ESTIMATES or perhaps we should call them PROBABILITIES. 

If your DNA test says you have 60% Irish ancestry, then we can assume that you undoubtedly do have a lot of Irish ancestry but it probably isn’t exactly 60%. If your DNA test says you have 2% Middle Eastern ancestry, that means that you MIGHT have a little bit of Middle Eastern ancestry but even that is not guaranteed. It could be more than 2% or it might be zero.

First of all, any DNA test that says you have a specific percentage of ancestry from another country is to be taken with some skepticism. For instance, your  test results might say you have 60% Irish ancestry. While it is true that you do probably have a lot of Irish ancestry, the percentage will vary from one testing company to another. Even more confusing for newcomers to DNA is the fact that your brother or sister might have a DNA test taken and the results might report a different percentage of Irish ancestry. Once you understand how DNA works, the reasons are obvious. However, it is confusing for newcomers.

In the case of siblings, both of your parents contributed to the family’s gene pool. (I assuming both have the same father and mother. I am ignoring half-brothers and half-sisters. That’s a different topic.)  You and your brother or sister each got SOME of your DNA from your father and SOME from your mother but it is rare for both siblings to inherit exactly the same percentages from both parents. You never get exactly 50% from either parent. Instead, you might get 35% of your ethnic DNA from one parent and 65% from the other parent. The percentages are variable but obviously always add up to 100%.

One common analogy is that DNA ethnic origins are like vegetable soup. The soup contains a mix of different vegetables. When you dipped your ladle into the soup bowl, you might have pulled out 25% potatoes, 35% carrots, and 40% beans. Your brother or sister then dipped their ladle into the same soup bowl and pulled out the same vegetables, but in a somewhat different percentage of each.

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/13034415.

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.

NOTE: This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I believe that all computer users should be aware of the dangers of online advertisements and the solutions available.

I have been using an ad blocker for nearly a year and love it. It doesn't block all advertisements but it does block a lot of them, including most of the more obnoxious “pop up" advertisements.

From an article by Zack Whittaker published in the TechCrunch web site:

Research into the brutal shakedown of the Oʻahu Community Correctional Center in 1981, and the experience and backgrounds of delinquent girls and incarcerated women in Hawaiʻi are highlights of the work of former University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa women’s studies program director and professor emerita Meda Chesney-Lind, which is now available online. University Archives has made Chesney-Lind’s collection of research and academic work as a scholar and activist with a focus on women and crime available on ArchivesSpace.

Meda Chesney-Lind

Her extensive contribution to the field of feminist criminology has been recognized nationally, with a large number of publications and prestigious awards.

Chesney-Lind has been with UH Mānoa’s women’s studies department (renamed to the Department of Women, Gender and Sexualily Studies) since 1986. She also previously taught at Honolulu Community College as a lecturer.

Spanning from the 1970s to 2010s, the Meda Chesney-Lind papers provides valuable research materials, including material from various courses taught in juvenile delinquency, human sexuality, women’s studies, criminology, sociology of gender and sex roles; keynote addresses and presentations; and more.

“I have always been on the margins in terms of my work,” said Chesney-Lind. “Living in Hawaiʻi gave me a unique perspective on crime and justice, particularly around issues of race. Of course, being female in a predominantly male field was also influential, directing me to focus on the experiences of girls and women in a largely male oriented criminal justice system.”

You can find the entire article at: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2022/12/20/uh-criminologist-papers-go-online/.

The following announcement was written by the folks at Findmypast:

The Herald Digital Archive Project was first launched by the Farnham Herald in November 2019, but its progress was stalled by the Covid-19 lockdowns.

However, the lockdowns also prompted an increase in local interest for local newspaper archive material and the Herald has now got the project back on track.

With the help of volunteers over the past year, 80pc of the Tindle-owned Herald’s physical paper archives – totalling some 785 volumes of newsprint – have now been inventoried, while 99,000 photo negatives have been indexed.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/y48j6xc6.

The following announcement was written by the folks at TheGenealogist:

More than 185,000 new Lloyd George Domesday land tax records have been added by TheGenealogist to its Landowner and Occupier records. Consisting of records from the counties of Berkshire and the Buckinghamshire, this release provides researchers with the ability to discover owners and occupiers of property in the period 1910 to 1915.

IR126 Map of Ascot on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ 

Covering an area of over 800 square miles, researchers can use these records to see the size, state of repair and value of the house in which their ancestors had been the landlord of, or had lived in. 

TheGenealogist has linked all the records to the large scale Ordnance Survey maps that were used at the time.These detailed maps show each property plotted on detailed mapping that can be viewed with TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ tool. This interface will show the same coordinates on a variety of modern and historical maps. Using this allows house or family historians to see how the area they are researching may have changed over time and with it to then explore their ancestors' locality.

• Details of Individual properties can be found in these Lloyd George Domesday records
• Records are linked to extremely detailed maps used in 1910-1915 and viewable on the powerful Map Explorer™ 
• Ability to fully search the records by a person’s name, county, parish and street
• The Ordnance Survey maps zoom down to show individual properties
• Georeferenced to a modern street map or satellite map underlay the researcher can more clearly understand what the area looks like today

Areas covered in this release include:

Aldermaston, Aldworth, Amersham, Arborfield, Ardington, Ashampstead, Ashley Green, Barkham, Basildon, Beaconsfield, Beech Hill, Beedon, Beenham, Binfield, Bisham, Bledlow, Blewbury, Boveney, Boxford, Bradenham, Bradfield, Bray, Brightwalton, Brimpton, Buckland, Bucklebury, Burghfield, Burnham, Catmore, Caversham, Chaddleworth, Chalfont St Giles, Chalfont St Peter, Challow (East and West), Charlton, Chenies, Chepping Wycombe, Chesham, Chieveley, Childrey, Chilton, Cholesbury, Clewer Within, Clewer Without, Cold Ash, Compton, Cookham, Crowthorne, Datchet, Denchworth, Denham, Donnington, Earley, East Garston, East Ilsley, East Lockinge, East Shefford, Easthampstead, Ellesborough, Enborne, Englefield, Eton, Farnborough, Farnham Royal, Fawley, Fawley, Fawley, Finchhampstead, Fingest, Frilsham, Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Goosey, Grazeley, Great Coxwell, Great Missenden, Greenham, Grove, Hambleden, Hampden (Great and Little), Hampstead Marshall, Hampstead Norris, Hanney (East and West), Harwell, Hawridge, Hedgerley, Hedsor, Hendred (East and West), High Wycombe, Hitcham, Horsenden, Horton, Hungerford, Hurley, Ibstone, Ilmer, Inkpen, Iver, Kimble (Great and Little), Kintbury, Lambourn, Langley, Leckhampstead, Lee, Letcombe Bassett, Letcombe Regis, Little Marlow, Little Missenden, Maidenhead, Marlow, Medmenham, Midgham, Mortimer, New Windsor, Newbury, Newland, Old Windsor, Pangbourne, Peasemore, Penn, Princes Risborough, Remenham, Ruscombe, Sandhurst, Saunderton, Shaw, Shinfield, Shottesbrook, Slough, Slough, Sparsholt, Speen, St Giles, St Lawrence, St Mary, St Nicholas Hurst, Stanford Dingley, Streatley, Sunningdale, Sunninghill, Swallowfield, Taplow, Thatcham, Theale, Tilehurst, Towersey, Turville, Twyford, Upton, Waltham St Lawrence, Wantage, Warfield, Wargrave, Welford, West Ilsley, West Shefford, West Woodhay, White Waltham, Winkfield, Winnersh, Winterbourne, Wokingham, Wooburn, Woolhampton & Yattendon

Read TheGenealogist’s article: To the Cottage Born https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/to-the-cottage-born-1645/ 

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!

After Ross Chanin’s grandfather died, Chanin mourned not only him, but the fact that he’d never gotten a chance to hear more about his grandfather’s life. Over a conversation with a journalist friend, George Quraishi, it became clear to Chanin that Quraishi’s skill set — interviewing and audio editing — could be conducive to capturing a family’s history.

Chanin and Quraishi started conducting interviews for friends and family and recruited software engineers Martin Gouy and Moncef Biaz to build apps to make it easier to record remote interviews and play them back on the web. Convinced that they had the seeds of a business, Chanin and Quraishi decided to apply to Y Combinator and were accepted into the Summer 2020 batch.

Today, their startup — Artifact — has over 10,000 customers across 15 English-, Spanish- and French-speaking countries. It’s raised $5 million inclusive of a seed round led by GV, which had participation from Atento Capital, Goodwater and Offline Ventures and notable angels such as Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and former Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime. 

“Interviews are incredible storytelling spaces, but they’re generally reserved for the rich and powerful and are not about our parents, grandparents and children,” Chanin told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Our dream is that Artifact will become the place where families the world over tell and experience their stories.”

Artifact charges customers $149 to have an interviewer (mostly moonlighting journalists, according to Chanin) conduct an interview with a family member. Packages include one interview and an edit with a custom introduction, sound mixing by an audio engineer and a web page for listening and adding photos.

It’s a four-step process. First, Artifact customers tell the interviewer who they’ll be interviewing and what they’ll discuss. Then, Artifact invites the interviewee to choose a day and time for the interview, which happens via phone or videoconferencing. The resulting recording — usually 30 minutes in length, give or take 15 minutes — is edited down to a 20-minute “episode,” which can be shared via the web with loved ones or publicly.

Artifact aims to turn around episodes within five business days of an interview. Up to two guests are included in the price of a single interview, with a $35-per-guest charge for additional interviewees.

You can read a lot more in an article by Kyle Wiggers published in the TechCrunch web site at: https://tinyurl.com/3vas7e8z.