When people think of Ireland, the rolling green hills, Guinness beer, and twisted Celtic knots might be what comes to mind. The small island nation has a storied history of resistance to oppression and perseverance through famine, but the most iconic piece of Irish history dates to the early medieval period. The Book of Kells—held in the library of Trinity College Dublin—is a masterpiece of medieval illumination and manuscript craft. The legendary volume is now available in new high-resolution scans for free online browsing.

The Book of Kells is a 9th-century devotional text. It contains the four Gospels of the New Testament, but it was likely meant to be displayed rather than read. The text was copied onto calf vellum by trained scribes, probably on the Scottish island of Iona. The text is rather careless with omitted words and repeated passages. However, the surrounding illumination—or intricate illustrations—are some of the most magnificent of the period. Known as Insular or Hiberno-Saxon illumination, this style was produced by confluences of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon culture in the British Isles and Ireland during what is often called the Dark Ages. It is characterized by intricate patterns and colorful images.

Sometime around the year 806, the manuscript was relocated due to Viking raids that threatened its monastery of origin. The book found its home in the Abbey of Kells in County Meath, Ireland. It rested there for centuries until Oliver Cromwell—English revolutionary and prolific destroyer of historic items—arrived in Ireland. The Book of Kells was sent to Dublin for safety. After the Restoration of the English monarchy (which ruled Ireland at the time), the book was donated to Trinity College Dublin, where it has stayed ever since. Today, it is on view in the library among other priceless works of human history.

You can read more at: https://mymodernmet.com/book-of-kells-online/.

The following is a press release written by OCLC:

OCLC and Google are working together to link directly from books discovered through Google Search to print book records in the catalogs of hundreds of U.S. libraries. This feature is part of Google's ongoing effort to connect people to their local libraries through Google Search.

The initial phase of this new program connects people using Google Search to the catalogs of hundreds of U.S. libraries whose books are cataloged in WorldCat, a worldwide database of information about library collections, and made available for discovery on the web. The program is expected to expand to more libraries and connect to more library resources in the future.

"People use Google to search the web billions of times every day," said Skip Prichard, OCLC President and CEO. "OCLC and Google are working to ensure that the rich collections of libraries are part of their everyday search for knowledge and information. This new program offers a direct link from Google Search results to books held in libraries near them. It's a significant step forward to bring local library collections closer to people through a simple search."

These links to library catalogs can be found in several different displays of Google Search results for specific books, including under "Get" or "Borrow" the book options in the knowledge panel, or within Google Books previews.

More than 500 million records representing 3 billion items held in libraries have been added to the WorldCat database since its inception since 1971. Libraries cooperatively contribute, enhance, and share bibliographic data through WorldCat, connecting people to cultural and scholarly resources in libraries worldwide.

OCLC has worked with Google for more than 13 years to increase access to information in libraries on the web. Currently, people using Google Search can access results from WorldCat.org, the website where anyone can search the collective collections of libraries and find what they need in a library close to them. This new initiative links from Google Search results directly to records of print books in academic, public, and cultural heritage institution libraries near the user.

OCLC member libraries included in this program receive expanded Google visibility as a benefit of existing OCLC subscriptions. Inclusion requires that eligible libraries maintain current WorldCat holdings and accurate address and catalog link information in the WorldCat Registry.

More about OCLC's web visibility program is on the website at oc.lc/visibility.

About OCLC

OCLC is a nonprofit global library organization that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs so that libraries can better fuel learning, research, and innovation. Through OCLC, member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the most comprehensive global network of data about library collections and services. Libraries gain efficiencies through OCLC's WorldShare, a complete set of library management applications and services built on an open, cloud-based platform. It is through collaboration and sharing of the world's collected knowledge that libraries can help people find answers they need to solve problems. Together as OCLC, member libraries, staff, and partners make breakthroughs possible.

Firefighters battle a blaze that destroyed the nearly 200-year-old Jagger Library on the University of Cape Town campus on 18 April 2021. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)

On 6 April, the South African History Archive was officially relaunched at Wits university by its Vice-Chancellor Zeblon Vilakazi. It will form part of an Archives and Research Hub that will give concerted attention to social justice archives. The devastating fire last year at UCT brought the general crisis of archives sharply into focus and it is clear that universities and civil society will need to be more active in this space.

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3xsXDgE.

From an article by Tony Marx, President of The New York Public Library:

"The New York Public Library’s mission is rooted in the principles of free and open access to knowledge, information, and all perspectives—in essence, the right to read. In light of recent, prominent efforts to ban books in communities across the United States, we have now partnered with publishers Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, and Scholastic to make a small selection of commonly banned or challenged books available to anyone who chooses to read them—all for free via our e-reader app, SimplyE. 

"The recent instances of both attempted and successful book banning—primarily on titles that explore race, LGBTQ+ issues, religion, and history—are extremely disturbing and amount to an all-out attack on the very foundation of our democracy. The American Library Association (whose Library Bill of Rights is in clear opposition to any censorship or book banning) recently tracked an unprecedented number of challenges to library, school, and university materials in 2021. Knowledge is power; ignorance is dangerous, breeding hate and division. All people have the right to read or not read what they want—we are all entitled to make those choices. But to protect those freedoms, the books and information must remain available. Any effort to eliminate those choices stands in opposition to freedom of choice, and we cannot let that happen.

"Since their inception, public libraries have worked to combat these forces simply by making all perspectives and ideas accessible to all, regardless of background or circumstance. With this project, the Library is doing just that on a larger scale to reach readers across the country."

You can read more at: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2022/04/13/books-for-all-nypl-supports-right-read-banned-books.

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG):

The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is pleased to announce having contracted with Chris Paton of Scotland to edit their monthly eNews and with Theresa McVean of Ontario, Canada, as advertising sales manager.

Chris Paton has spent three decades in communication industries, including twelve years as a television documentary maker in England and Scotland both with the BBC and Scottish Television. Originally from Northern Ireland, Chris has been a professional genealogist in Scotland since 2006. In December 2021 he volunteered to edit the eNews, allowing APG to resurrect this important communication tool.

Theresa McVean is a professional genealogist and co-founder of Ancestree Detectives. She is active in APG as chair of the Ontario Chapter and a volunteer on the marketing committee. She is also a marketing consultant with experience as director of advertising sales at Canadian media companies, as well as having been senior account manager in advertising sales at The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.

“We are very excited to welcome Chris and Theresa to our team of contractors. The eNews is our primary tool for communication to our members,” said Annette Burke Lyttle, APG president. “Chris has been doing a great job as interim editor, and we’re happy to have him continue. Theresa’s professional background in advertising sales will be a huge asset to the association.”

About the Association of Professional Genealogists

The Association of Professional Genealogists (www.apgen.org), established in 1979, represents nearly 2,500 genealogists in various genealogy-related businesses. APG encourages genealogical excellence, ethical practice, mentoring, and education. The organization also supports the preservation and accessibility of records useful to the fields of genealogy and history. Its members represent all fifty U.S. states, Canada, and forty other countries. APG is active on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG):

The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is proud to announce the recipients of its 2021 awards for excellence in the field of professional genealogy. At an online celebration on April 12, the following awards were presented.

The Laura G. Prescott Award for Exemplary Service to Professional Genealogy recognizes exemplary professionalism and continued encouragement to other professional genealogists. The recipient of this award was Francine Crowley Griffis, CG® of Massachusetts, who was honored for her many activities that encourage, guide, and inspire fellow genealogists.

The APG Honorary Lifetime Member award recognizes and rewards an excellent body of work in genealogy and for 2021 also recognizes service to APG that was truly above the call of duty. Mary Kircher Roddy, CG® of Washington was honored for her work in the field of professional genealogy and for outstanding service as APG treasurer from 2018 through 2021.

The Grahame T. Smallwood Jr Award of Merit recognizes personal commitment and outstanding service of a member to APG. The 2021 recipient was Kenyatta Deshira Berry, JD, of California, who has served APG in several capacities, including a term as president, from 2008 to the present.

The APG Professional Achievement Award highlights a record of exceptional professional achievement, contributing to the field of genealogy through individual excellence and ethical behavior. The 2021 recipient was Michael Ramage, JD, CG® of Pennsylvania, who has a long track record of giving selflessly to the genealogy field and providing education on professional ethics.

The APG Quarterly Excellence Award recognizes the outstanding article of the year.

The 2021 award honored Joseph B. Shumway, AG® of Utah, author of a two-part article, “Transforming Client Relationships from the Inside Out,” published in the June and September issues.

The Golden Chapter Award recognizes a chapter or special interest group that shows innovative and exemplary support of their members, APG, and the genealogy profession. The Colorado Chapter was recognized with this award for their recruiting efforts, which resulted in 19% year-over-year growth for their chapter.

Certificates of Appreciation recognize outstanding, continual, or unusual contributions to APG by a member or non-member. LaDonna Garner of Missouri was recognized for her contributions to APG as chair of the Professional Development Committee in 2021 and as technical coordinator for the 2021 APG Professional Management Conference. Shauna Hicks of Queensland, Australia, was recognized for her efforts to reopen APG’s Australia and New Zealand Chapter during the pandemic, which provided a crucial forum for genealogists in Australia and New Zealand who are affected by geographical isolation and have endured multiple lockdowns.

About the Association of Professional Genealogists

The Association of Professional Genealogists (www.apgen.org), established in 1979, represents nearly 2,500 genealogists in various genealogy-related businesses. APG encourages genealogical excellence, ethical practice, mentoring, and education. The organization also supports the preservation and accessibility of records useful to the fields of genealogy and history. Its members represent all fifty U.S. states, Canada, and forty other countries. APG is active on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

The following announcement was written by TheGenealogist:

Family historians with an aristocratic ancestor in their family tree will be pleased to hear that TheGenealogist has just significantly boosted the number of records in its Peerage, Gentry and Royalty collection. While many family history researchers believe that their forebears were simply ordinary folk, it turns out that many of us can find a link to a family that has a published pedigree. We only have to look at how Danny Dyer or Josh Widdecombe discovered their Royal and Aristocratic ancestors in their episodes of the Who Do You Think You Are? UK TV series.

While this relationship to the upper levels of society may be as a result of an illegitimate line, nonetheless a link to an ancestor that features in a pedigree is of huge help in tracing back many generations, as much of the work has been done for you by the compilers of the records.

Heraldic visitations, one of the records to be included in this release, were tours of inspection undertaken by Kings of Arms throughout England, Wales and Ireland. Their purpose was to register and regulate the coats of arms of nobility, gentry and boroughs, and to record pedigrees. A number of later books, while they can not precisely be described as Heralds Visitations, provide similar information and can likewise help the researcher to populate their family tree back through the ages and are also in this record release.

This latest release covers the following searchable book records:

Armorial Families, Arms Authorized by The Laws of Heraldry 1863, Boyle’s court guide 1888, Burke’s Handbook to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire 1921, Burke’s Landed Gentry Volume 1886, Debretts House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1887, Encyclopedia of Heraldry or General Armory of England Scotland and Ireland 1844, Genealogica Bedfordienses Landed Gentry of Bedfordshire 1538-1700, Grantees of Arms to The End of The XVII Century, Herefordshire Visitation Of 1569, His Majesty the King 1910-1935, Imperial British Calendar 1823, Index Nominum to the Royalist Composition Papers, Kelly’s Handbook To The Titled Landed and Official Classes 1909, Landed Gentry of Bedfordshire 1538-1700, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica - Third Series Vol IIIV, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica - Third Series Vol IV, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica Fourth Series Vol II 1908, Nottingham Visitation 1569 and 1614, Short View of the Peerage of Ireland 1759, Standing Council of the Baronetage Official Roll of the Baronets 1929, Suffolk Visitations of 1561 1577 1612, Sussex Visitations 1530 and 1633-4, The Pedigree Register for London 1907-1915, The Peerage of Ireland 1754, The Royal Kalendar 1786, The Royal Kalendar 1788, The Royal Kalendar 1796, The Royal Kalendar 1804, The Royal Kalendar 1820, Webster’s Royal Red Book Court and Fashionable Register January 1915, Worcestershire Visitation 1569

Read TheGenealogist’s article: The Castle Ruin and its connection to the Australian ‘King’

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/the-castle-ruin-and-its-connection-to-the-australian-king-1530/

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!

The Polish Genealogical Society of Massachusetts will hold a free spring Zoom Webinar on Saturday, April 23, 1 p.m. The topic, “The Polish Village, Town and Castle: Non-obvious Historical Sources to Enrich Your Genealogical Knowledge” by Jakub Jurek. Register at www.pgsma.org by Thursday, April 21. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

You can read further details at: https://bit.ly/3uFsnsO.

According to an article by Nicole Wetsman and published in The Verge web site:

"Consumer genetics and genealogy company Ancestry announced a new feature, called SideView, that will give customers information about which bits of their DNA — and which parts of their ethnicity — were inherited from each parent. The tool can do that without having genetic information from the parents, which Ancestry says is a first in the industry."

"Genetic information is packaged in pairs of chromosomes, and each parent contributes one copy of most chromosomes. DNA analysis, though, reads the sequence of genetic information without sorting out which half different sections came from. Usually, the best way to sort that out is by comparing sections to the DNA of one or both parents. But Ancestry developed a technique that uses the company’s large DNA database — which includes 20 million people’s genetic information — to find overlaps between each user and cousins or distant relatives also in the system. It uses those overlaps to sort each section of DNA by which parent it was inherited from."

The article also cautions:

"The database, though, is largely made up of people with European ancestry — the feature is less accurate for users who have other ancestry from other parts of the world, according to a scientific article from Ancestry describing the technique. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal. Blind spots around people of color are a longstanding bias in genetic databases and genetic research more generally. DNA tests like Ancestry’s that tie your genetics back to a particular ethnicity are also often criticized for giving people an incomplete picture of what genetic heritage actually means and conflating ancestry with race."

Also:

"Ancestry can have 95 percent precision for 90 percent of customers."

You can read more at: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/13/23021782/ancestry-dna-sort-genes-parents-ethnicity.

I have written often about the advantages of making backups online to file storage services in the cloud. However, I have never written about WHICH services are worthwhile so here is that article.

The following is a list of the more popular services and my opinion of the strengths and weaknesses of each. I am also including the amount of FREE file storage space each service makes available.

1. MEGA

Mega is perhaps the greatest offer of all that most people have never heard of. It’s also the one that offers the most storage for FREE: 20 gigabytes. In addition, You can even obtain even more FREE storage space by various achievements, such as installing the mobile and desktop apps or referring a friend, each of which nets you an added 5 gigabytes of space. However, this extra free storage space only lasts for a year. If you are using that space, you will need to pay for it beginning in the second year. The first 20 gigabytes remains free of charge, however.

Another advantage of Mega is that everything is encrypted inside your own computer BEFORE the data is stored on Mega. Not even the Mega employees will be able to read your information, not to mention hackers and spies who seek to find your personal information. Some of the other services listed in this article do the same thing but (1.) not all of them do and (2.) I couldn't find statements about encryption in all the services when writing this article.

2. Google Drive

No list of online cloud file storage services could ever omit mentioning Google Drive, the huge online service. It works well, is easy to install, and is used by millions of people around the world.

Google Drive offers 15 gigabytes of FREE storage space. You will need to make a free Google account and that includes a number of other services that you may or may not want, including a Gmail address and access to all of Google’s office-style products, like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

3. Microsoft OneDrive

Here is a service from another huge powerhouse: Microsoft. Like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive is part of a larger suite of apps and you access it through a free Microsoft account. If you own a Windows computer or use any other Microsoft products, including Skype, you already have one.

Signing up gets you 5 gigabytes of FREE storage space as well as access to a number of apps in the Office 365 package. However, I prefer the free Google apps and Google also offers triple the FREE storage space. (However, you might prefer the Microsoft Apps if you already use Microsoft Office.)

4. pCloud

pCloud is another online file storage service that many people have never heard of. However, its list of services appears to be top-notch. When you register for pCloud, you receive 2 gigabytes of FREE file storage space. You then can unlock up to 10 gigabytes for free by following the Beginner's Tutorial or with Invite friends. However, once you start paying for the service, you can never run out of file storage space. The service continuously accepts additional files although the storage fees will increase as you start to save more and more data.

A major advantage of pCloud is that the company is registered in Switzerland, which has strong privacy laws. As a result, I would trust pCloud to keep my files private more than I would trust Google, Microsoft, any other North American-based service.

pCloud also works with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Android, and Apple's iOS operating systems (most other cloud-based file storage services only work with Windows and Macintosh). Another feature of pCloud that will appeal to some is that you may (optionally) have all of your mobile photos and videos safely backed up to the cloud through the Automatic Upload feature on your mobile device(s).

pCloud also offers an (optional) Public Folder, a special folder in your pCloud's file structure, which allows you to create Direct links to files and folders. You can then provide access to other people to files stored in the Public folder. It works like a file server for static content, but without having to run a file server on your home computer.

5. Sync.com

While Sync.com offers a robust and secure service, there is little that is "the best" offer in the service with one possible exception: Sync.com does seem to be the best service for sharing files with others. That may or may not be important to you. Also, Sync.com only offers a measly 5 gigabytes of FREE file storage space.

6. IceDrive

IceDrive is a relatively new player in the cloud-based file storage services arena. It claims to be the most secure service available (although I was unable to verify that claim) and IceDrive also offers a 10 gigabytes of storage space for free. All you need to do is supply your email address to create an account and it’s all yours.

There are numerous other providers of cloud-based file storage services. However, I limited this article to the major players.

Honorable Mention: NextCloud

Technically speaking, Nextcloud is not an online cloud storage provider. Rather, it's a self-hosted file sync and content collaboration platform, which provides free software you can install on your own server, and administer cloud storage yourself. That server (or servers) could be located in your home, in your place of employment, or in the cloud.

The benefit of a self-hosted product is that you get to keep your data on your servers, offering complete control and faster performance. While this might seem intimidating for beginners, or futile for serverless users, the service offers preconfigured hardware that runs Nextcloud out of the box.

As free open-source software, you can download and install it at no cost, but need to factor in the cost of setting up, running, and administering your own servers. However, if you already have infrastructure in place, using Nextcloud instead of a commercial cloud storage solution could save you money.

I would recommend NextCloud only to experienced technical experts, not to computer novices.

You can learn more about NextCloud at: https://nextcloud.com.