Researchers, historians, and genealogy enthusiasts now have an expanded resource to explore the history of the whaling industry and the individuals who were part of the global enterprise, with recent additions to the Whaling History website (WhalingHistory.org), a joint project of Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

William Bradford, The Port of New Bedford from Crow Island, 1854, oil painting. New Bedford Whaling Museum, 1975.18

The data presented combines many sources including logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records. Users can find and trace whaling voyages and ships to specific logbooks, as well as the list of crew members aboard many of the voyages.

A popular feature of the site is a dialog where users can search crew lists to discover if they have a relative who shipped out on a whaling voyage.

The foundational fabric of Whaling History features three databases that have been stitched together – the American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, the American Offshore Whaling Log database, and an extensive whaling crew list database. All data is open to the public and is downloadable for any researcher to use with other tools and systems.

At the heart of the current site are seven interconnected databases. Three of them relate to American offshore whaling: one describing every known voyage from the 1700s through the 1920s, another transcribing location information from whaling logbooks, and the third containing crew lists for these voyages. Two of the databases relate to the British Southern Whale Fishery (1775–1859): one describing every known voyage, whaling or sealing, to the south of Britain, and one containing the corresponding crew lists. The sixth database describes whaling voyages from British North America, including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick from 1779–1845. And the seventh describes voyages from France.

Details may be found at: https://bit.ly/3tAs81C.

The Caribbean Genealogy Library has opened a window into history for U.S. Virgin Islands students of all ages with the launch this week of the TeachVIHistory.com website.

The website was developed to assist educators in teaching U.S. Virgin Islands history, and to encourage the use of digitized primary source material in the classroom, according to a press release announcing the launch.

“A primary source is a first-hand account of an event or topic. It’s something created by people who were present at the time in history you want to study. A primary source has not been modified by interpretation,” the release explained.

Primary sources included in the project include artifacts such as a stone ax and a St. John Market Basket. There are historical maps of St. Thomas and St. Croix. Posters advertising a meeting about the sale of the Danish West Indies for use in teaching about the 1917 Transfer of the islands from Denmark to the United States, and a political campaign poster of Lorraine Berry for research about elections and voting, according to the release.

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

The TeachVIHistory.com website can be found at: www.TeachVIHistory.com.

I suspect this seminar will interest many readers of this newsletter:

Sunday, April 3, 12-4:30 PM eastern (virtual) 

Does the invasion of Ukraine have you thinking about your Jewish roots there? Are you wondering how to learn the specifics of your family’s Jewish Ukrainian story? Are you hoping to better understand your own identity as a way of connecting more meaningfully to the current situation?

In this one-day, four-part workshop, we aim to show you how to reconstruct your family’s history in Ukraine and interpret it within the larger context of Ukraine’s history. Although the workshop is designed for newer researchers, there will be content for people with all levels of genealogy experience, taught by leading Jewish genealogists.

100% of all proceeds will benefit the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Razom for Ukraine, two leading non-profits providing extensive, on-the-ground support to Ukrainians affected by the current humanitarian crisis. Donations are tax-deductible where allowed by law.

The following is a press release written by Ancestry, Inc.:

The following announcement was written by Vivid-Pix:

Set to Open Late 2022 in Charleston, SC

Vivid-Pix Donates Memory Stations to be Used in the Study of African American Heritage in the Museum & through Community Outreach   Vivid-Pix Delves into America’s Past with Touring Vivid-Pix  “Tell Your Story” Workshops ­

­ March 23, 2022, Charleston, SC – Vivid-Pix www.vivid-pix.com,the leading provider of AI-powered image restoration software and educational services, announced today that it is sponsoring theInternational African American Museum (IAAM), slated to open late 2022 in Charleston, South Carolina. The museum will honor the untold stories of the African American journey at one of the country’s most sacred sites, Gadsden’s Wharf,one of the country’s most prolific slave trading ports where some historians estimate more than 45% of enslaved Africans entered the U.S.   Bringing these stories to light has been no small task. From the first time the IAAM was presented as an idea to then-Mayor Joe Riley at the State of the City address in 2000; to Congressman Joe Clyburn becoming the first board chair in 2005; to construction beginning in 2019, the museum has had its own journey. The museum explores the cultures and knowledge systems of Africans in the Americas; and the diverse journeys, stories, and achievements of these individuals and their descendants in South Carolina, the United States, and throughout the African diaspora. ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ IAAM Vivid-Pix is supporting the museum by donating many Memory Station scanning/software solutions to be used in studying the history of the African American journey through community outreach, museum operations, and for use by museum patrons. The Memory Station portable and stationary scanning and image improvement solution is already being used by IAAM curators at descendants’ homes to scan, restore, and analyze old photos and documents. “It’s our honor to be a part of obtaining and sharing these stories,” stated Rick Voight, CEO, Vivid-Pix. “Like most families and societies, America’s past has blemishes and bright spots. This tapestry is going to be further explained as IAAM opens this year.” “The museum is about a journey that began centuries ago in Africa. It is about the journey of millions of Africans, captured and forced across the Atlantic in the grueling and inhumane Middle Passage, who arrived at Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina and other ports in the Atlantic world. Their labor, resistance, and ingenuity and that of their descendants shaped every aspect of our world,” said Toni Carrier, Director, Center for Family History, IAAM. Vivid-Pix Holds Educational “How to Tell Your Story” Family History Programs throughout U.S. The Vivid-Pix Memory Station and RESTORE software solution are currently being utilized in libraries across America, such as Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the largest genealogy center in a public library in the U.S (www.GenealogyCenter.org). This library also houses an incomparable collection of Abraham Lincoln images in the world (https://acpl.lib.in.us/research/lincoln-collection). Vivid-Pix is touring the U.S. conducting educational “How to Tell Your Story” family history programs starting on March 29 at the Thrive Center in Louisville, Kentucky, March 31 at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and at genealogical society conferences throughout the U.S. The workshops are also available online. For more information and to register, go to: https://Vivid-Pix.com/events. Map of Vivid-Pix 2022 U.S. Tour About Vivid-Pix Vivid-Pix® helps people relive memories by using restored photos and documents to connect individuals, families, and friends with their most treasured mementos, restored through Vivid-Pix AI technology. The U.S. Patent Office has awarded two patents to Vivid-Pix for its image processing techniques used to automatically correct faded images.Vivid-Pix founders brought Kodak’s “You Press the Button, We Do the Rest” philosophy to the design of Vivid-Pix RESTORE. Vivid-Pix RESTORE is available at: https://vivid-pix.com/restore/buy.html, with a free trial at: https://vivid-pix.com/restore/free-trial.html. For more information about Memory Station, see: https://vivid-pix.com/memorystation, workshops: https://Vivid-Pix.com/events, and website: www.vivid-pix.com.   About The International African American Museum The International African American Museum (IAAM) explores cultures and knowledge systems retained and adapted by Africans in the Americas and the diverse journeys and achievements of these individuals and their descendants in South Carolina, the United States, and throughout the African diaspora. IAAM is a champion of authentic, empathetic storytelling of American history and is thus one of the nation’s newest platforms for the disruption of institutionalized racism as it evolves today. Set to open in late 2022, IAAM is positioned to honor the untold stories of the African American journey from Charleston, S.C., at the historically sacred site of Gadsden’s Wharf and beyond. For more information, please visit www.iaamuseum.org or call 843-872-5352.

Historic England has published more than 400,000 aerial photographs online for the first time, including hundreds of locations in the East.

The pictures include historic landmarks and cropmarks showing hidden archaeology beneath the surface.

Historic England hopes to add more than six million aerial images to its explorer tool in the coming years.

Tony Calladine, from Historic England, said the pictures, dating back to 1919, would help "unlock the mysteries of England's past".

One of the oldest photos in the archive is of Ipswich Town Hall and Corn Exchange, taken in 1921

The remaining 100,000 images come from the Historic England Archive aerial photography collection, which includes interwar and post-war images from Aerofilms Ltd and the Royal Air Force.

Mr Calladine said: "The remarkable pictures of the East of England give a fascinating insight into our local areas, allowing people to see how their street and their town centre looked when their great-grandparents lived there."

You can read more and view multiple aerial photographs in the BBC web site at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-60834666.

Researchers create massive genealogical network dating back 100,000 years.

Researchers using modern and ancient genomes have created the largest human family tree ever made, reports Jack Guy of CNN.

An international team of scientists combined genetic reports of 3,609 individual genome sequences from 215 populations around the globe to produce a massive family tree that identifies nearly 27 million ancestors and where they lived, per U.S. News and World Report.

“We have a single genealogy that traces the ancestry of all of humanity and shows how we’re all related to each other today,” Anthony Wilder Wohns, leader of a new study published in the journal Science, tells CNN.

Wohns, a postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., states the study uses ancient genomes from samples dating from more than 100,000 years ago.

“We can then estimate when and where these ancestors lived,” he says in a statement. “The power of our approach is that it makes very few assumptions about the underlying data and can also include both modern and ancient DNA samples.”

You can learn more in an article by David Kindy and published in the Smithsonian Magazine web site at: https://bit.ly/3isreOD.

A new article in The New Republic web site, written by Colin Dickey, caught my eye. I haven't yet read this book but it just moved up to the top of my "to read" list:

"It’s never been easier to piece together a family tree. But what if it brings uncomfortable facts to light?

"From an early age, I’d known that my grandfather had been an alcoholic, and the common wisdom that the disease skips generations burned in me, leading me to believe that the merest taste would doom me to a short life of addiction bound to end ignominiously in a ditch somewhere. This was an extreme response, perhaps, but I certainly wasn’t alone in how I let stories of my forebears determine my beliefs and behaviors, and in how for years I saw ancestry—with its heady mix of genetics and family lore—as nearly inescapable destiny.

"In the same way we talk regularly of certain diseases as hereditary, we also often allow the stories of our grandparents and great-grandparents to influence our behavior and identity. It’s this sticky web of expectations that Maud Newton’s Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation attempts to untangle, sifting through the anxiety of influence that is inheritance, genetics, and how they conspire to create a human life.""

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3iv0NHO.

An article by the New York Times asks a moral question: “The New York Police Department’s primary motivation for collecting DNA is to legally identify the correct perpetrator, build the strongest case possible for investigators and our partners in the various prosecutors’ offices, and put an end to the victims and their families.”

The city medical examiner’s office, which manages the database, said it complied with applicable laws and was operated “with the highest scientific standards” set by independent accrediting bodies.

However, civil liberties advocates and privacy groups are questioning the methods used to collect the DNA. The DNA database has come under fire in recent years for tactics used by police to collect DNA samples, often without a person’s consent, lawyers say. The department’s guide to detectives asks detectives to offer a bottle of water, soda, cigarette, gum, or food to a person being questioned in connection with a crime whose DNA is wanted – and recover the object once they are gone.

The civil liberties advocates and privacy groups have argued that progress comes at the expense of communities of color, infringes on the rights of people who have not been convicted of crimes and exposes them to a risk of wrongful conviction if mistakes are made.

“You can change your social security number if you are a victim of identity theft. You can’t change your DNA,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “You create this constant threat not for months, not for years, but the rest of your life, that you can be targeted by this information.”

You can learn more at https://bit.ly/3ixxiFe.

The live event is over, but the content continues to be available online for free. You can view 1,000+ sessions of various genealogical topics. From research methods to DNA, locations to languages, and everything in-between, there's something for everyone. View RootsTech at their site or by clicking here.