Kay Haviland Freilich, a genealogical records specialist, died on Sunday, March 20, 2022. She was 81.

In the late 1980s, she discovered her real passion for genealogy and became a board-certified genealogical records specialist in 1994 and then a certified genealogical lecturer. In 2012, she was elected as a fellow of the National Genealogical Society.

She was president of the Board for Certification of Genealogists from 2002 to 2004 and was also a trustee and a member-at-large.

Freilich authored several articles focused primarily on genealogical research techniques in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. In 2014, she and her husband authored Genealogy and the Law: A Guide to Legal Sources for the Family Historian.

Her obituary is available at: https://bit.ly/363Zb5i.

Lynn Turner has been named the new director of the FamilySearch Family History Library, FamilySearch announced Monday.

Turner has served as the assistant director for the last three years under the leadership of director David E. Rencher. Turner will replace Rencher, who will continue as FamilySearch’s Chief Genealogical Officer.

“You need somebody who understands family history and genealogy, and they need to be part of the genealogical profession because the genealogical world looks at the director as as one of them,” Rencher said. “Lynn fills that space but he also has an incredible business mind.”

Turner expressed gratitude for those who have helped him prepare for this new opportunity.

“I’m excited to stand on the shoulders of the giants that have come before me and paved the way,” he said.

Who was the previous Family History Library director?

Rencher has been serving as both the director of the Family History Library and FamilySearch’s Chief Genealogical Officer since the fall of 2018.

Rencher’s top focus as director of the Family History Library was to provide high quality customer service and help patrons to have a “heart-turning experience” as they discover and learn about their ancestors, he said.

Rencher and Turner also worked together in overseeing the latest upgrade to the Family History Library before it reopened in July 2021.

You can read more in FamilySearch's announcement of the promotion at https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/lynn-turner-new-familysearch-family-history-library-director.

From downstate to upstate, numerous African American burial sites dot New York. Some are in full view, while some are obscured. Yet all are reminders of both the rich history of Americans and the shameful past of segregation.

These sites include prominent ones like the African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan. Also in the ranks are ones hidden within larger cemeteries like Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. There are those forgotten for years until supporters stepped forward to preserve them like the Pine Street African Burial Ground in Kingston. Some are even buried literally by development like the African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery in Staten Island.

Two University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers are developing resources for studying the Deseret Alphabet, which was created by the Mormons and used briefly in the 19th century.

Linguistics professor Ryan Shosted and computer science professor Neal Davis created the Illinois Deseret Consortium to make available online searchable transcriptions of texts written in Deseret for researchers to study and also to help people rediscover the alphabet.

Their website, at go.illinois.edu/deseret, includes phonemic transcriptions of texts using a computer-readable script so researchers can search for the phonemic spellings without using the Deseret characters, as well as computer-readable transcriptions in the alphabet.

Shosted’s research interest is phonetics, and Deseret is a phonetic alphabet, using symbols to spell words the way they sound. Growing up in Salt Lake City, Shosted remembers his grandmother’s unique pronunciations. She and other members of her generation pronounced the “or” sound as “ar” – so “cord” sounds like “card” and “fork” sounds like “fark.” He wondered if texts written in Deseret would offer evidence of that way of speaking in the mid-19th century.

The Deseret Alphabet grew out of the Mormon interest in spelling reform and shorthand that began when they were headquartered in Nauvoo in western Illinois in the 1840s, Shosted said. They wanted to be able to quickly write down the words of church leaders and make them available to the public. Education was a priority for the Mormons, and they also were interested in making English easier to read, he said.

You can read more in an article by Jodi Heckel  published in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign web site at: https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/1858823463.

You have to wonder why anyone would do this.

Waxahachie police are searching for those responsible for vandalizing hundreds of gravestones in its city cemetery. There is a major fundraising effort underway for repairs.

Organizers say so far, they have only raised around a third of the money needed to get it back to what it once was.

It is the central location for the city. And for the past month, the sight has not been pleasant.

Headstones for Waxahachie’s founding fathers, like the first physician, first business owners, and many more need repairs after being deliberately destroyed last month.

You can read more in an article in the Local12 web site at: https://bit.ly/3vcVa7n.

The following is an announcement from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG):

FREE BCG-SPONSORED WEBINAR

“Proving Parentage Two Centuries Later Using DNA Evidence”

by David Ouimette, CG, CGL

Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 8:00 p.m. (EDT) 

Proving immigrant origins may seem daunting, especially when the family lived hundreds of years ago. This presentation shows how to navigate multiple border crossings, name changes, and cultural challenges and apply DNA techniques to trace a family of Canadian immigrants from town to town. The right combination of documentary evidence and biological evidence, coupled with sound methodology, reveals the origins of this family.

BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “Proving Parentage Two Centuries Later Using DNA Evidence” by David Ouimette, CG, CGL.  This webinar airs Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

David Ouimette, Certified Genealogist®, Certified Genealogical Lecturer℠, manages Content Strategy for Asia and the Pacific at FamilySearch, prioritizing records of genealogical value for digital preservation and online publication. His team prioritizes camera placement and targets records for preservation in national, regional, and local archives. David has researched in several hundred archives in over sixty countries spanning all continents. Previously, David was product manager at Ancestry.com, responsible for family trees, United States records, DNA testing, and the search experience. David regularly lectures at national genealogical conferences and institutes. He serves as a Trustee for the Board for Certification of Genealogists and has served as Vice President of the Utah Genealogical Association and on the board of the National Genealogical Society. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mathematics from Brigham Young University, has contributed articles to many magazines and journals, and authored Finding Your Irish Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide. David and his wife Deanna live in Highland, Utah are the parents of eight children, and have seven grandchildren.

When you register before April 19 with our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars (Proving Parentage Two Centuries Later Using DNA Evidence - Legacy Family Tree Webinars) 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: (Webinar Library - Legacy Family Tree Webinars).

To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2022, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard at Board for Certification of Genealogists Sponsors 2022 Free Webinars.  For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (BCG Learning Center).

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

Caution: this article contains personal opinions.

I often hear people moaning and groaning about the quality of genealogy information to be found online. Some claim that much of the online genealogy data is worthless. These comments seem to insinuate that people shouldn't place information online until they have verified it. I have heard a few exclaim, “We have got to stop those people!”

That is a lofty goal, although unattainable. People are people. New genealogists join in and post data much faster than we can educate them. The idea of requiring source citations for all data sounds wildly Utopian to me.

You know what? I don't care. I want to see the claimed information anyway. Yes, I even want to read the inaccurate information. When I am looking for the unknown parents of one of my "end of the line" ancestors, I want to see every possible clue, accurate or not. If someone else even thinks that he or she knows the parents of Washington Harvey Eastman, I want to know what that person is thinking. No, when first scanning for information, I don't care if their information is accurate or not because I am going to check it in any case. If possible, I'll contact the person who created the information and ask, "Where did you find that?" If they don't have a good answer, I still have a clue of a possible place or parents, clues that I didn't have before. I'll find out later if the information is accurate or not when I verify it in primary records. Only after I have verified the data will I believe it.

I do that for all unsourced information. I also do exactly the same thing for information that does contain source citations. I verify everything. So, what's the difference?

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/12700267.

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.

John Cardinal, owner of FamilyHistoryHosting.com, is well-known within the genealogy community. He has written several software products that add extra functionality to existing products that appeal to genealogists.

John has now upodated the Online Repository Assistant, or ORA for short. It is an automated software assistant for use with the U.S. census records when using online repositories including Ancestry, FamilySearch, and others.

ORA combines a Windows program with a web browser extension to extract data and streamline your use of popular online services. The browser extension is compatible with Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera.

Rather than my writing about ORA, I will refer you to an article that John wrote at: https://ora-extension.com/en/article-ora-and-1950census.htm. It provides a detailed explanation of both the purpose of ORA as well as instructions about how to use it.

"It's frustrating to use the search page for the 1950census.archives.gov site. The AI-generated name index leaves a lot to be desired compared to transcriptions created manually. To be fair, it's a difficult problem to solve with technology alone. Unfortunately, there are issues with the implementation of the search results page that exacerbate the challenges with the name index. ORA alleviates some of those issues."

You can read much, much more at: https://ora-extension.com/en/article-ora-and-1950census.htm

For even more information, see the Introduction slideshow or see the help pages.

ORA is sold as a subscription service, $24 USD per year.

The following announcement was written by MyHeritage. While the (unindexed) IMAGES of the 1950 U.S. census records were already added on April 1st, this latest news release describes the newly-added INDEXES:

Census indexed records (and their corresponding images) from Vermont and American Samoa. 439,893 historical records were added in this release for a total of 1,083,939 historical records in the collection. All of the records are available to search, view, and add to your family tree on MyHeritage for free!

Search the 1950 United States Census Index collection

Just yesterday, MyHeritage published the initial installment of the 1950 U.S. Census Index from the states of Wyoming and Delaware, and last week, MyHeritage became the first commercial company to publish a full collection of the 1950 U.S. Census images. Additional releases are expected in the days and weeks ahead until the index is complete. Our U.S. Census content hub and dedicated 1950 Census page remain great places to stay updated on all MyHeritage 1950 Census releases.

The 1950 Census contains information on the 150 million Americans living in the continental United States and its territories during April and May of 1950. Within it, you’ll find information on the names, ages, locations, households, relations, genders, races, education, places of birth, and other details of those who were enumerated.

Searching the 1950 U.S. Census on MyHeritage and viewing records is FREE.

You can read more in the MyHeritage Blog at: https://bit.ly/3v7gQkW.