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  • 19 Dec 2023 11:16 PM | Anonymous

    JewishGen, a non-profit organization, was founded in 1987 by Susan King, a world-renown professional forensic and genetic genealogist and family legacy historian. Started as a Fidonet bulletin board, users dialed into the connection via telephones in order to access the bulletin board. At that time, there were 150 users.

    “Susan King sought to leverage what was then an emerging technology – online bulletin boards, and apply it to genealogical research. At that time, if you were interested in genealogy, you could join a genealogy society and attend meetings, where you would compare names and share information. Susan engaged the new technology to expand these opportunities to share and make connections. Databases and networking opportunities expanded, and in the early 1990s, JewishGen launched a website and a discussion group that’s a precursor to what we have today,” said Avraham Groll, Executive Director of JewishGen at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

    Today, JewishGen is the global home for Jewish genealogy, offering unique search tools and opportunities for researchers to connect with others who share similar interests. Avraham Groll said, “today, you can search JewishGen’s discussion groups going back thirty years, a searchable archive of over 500,000 messages. The resource is completely community driven. And, you can search listings for over 651,000 names researched by genealogists on the Family Finder, which allows researchers to connect with others who share their same research interests.”

    In 2002, JewishGen was acquired by The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, at the southern tip of Manhattan, and which today operates as the Jewish genealogy research division of the Museum. “The mission of JewishGen,” Groll explained,”is to preserve Jewish family history and heritage for future generations. It fulfills this mission in three primary ways: 1. The website provides access to more than 30 million records including vital records, census data, a Holocaust database, and burial registries. To enhance research, we have a number of search tools to help improve results, such as a Soundex system, which accounts for spelling variations. 2. The website provides historical and contextual information about how our ancestors lived, through resources like the JewishGen Communities Database, an encyclopedia of Jewish communities, and the translation of Memorial (Yizkor) books into English – a major, multi-year project. These Yizkor books, written in the immediate decades after the Holocaust predominately by survivors, include histories of Jewish settlement in towns, biographical sketches of Rabbis and famous personalities, details about daily life, education, holiday observance and celebrations, culture, and more. They capture the values which the inhabitants of these towns held most dear. These meticulously translated Yizkor books generally offer first-hand-testimony of the communities during the Holocaust. The translations are freely available on our website, and more than 140 books, also translated and are also available in hardcover via the JewishGen Press. 3. JewishGen offers educational and networking resources, such as online classes (24 courses offered throughout the year), the Family Finder, and the JewishGen Discussion Group and Jewish Genealogy Portal (on Facebook), which allow people to connect with researchers around the world in order to ask questions, share research advice, describe success, stay informed of news around the Jewish Genealogical community, and more.”

    JewishGen is offered as a free resource. Its database features important collections of historical records pertaining to Jewish communities across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and North America. Currently, Intensive expansion efforts are bringing many more records, tools, and resources to its collections. such as new programs like holiday companion publications, a fellowship program to train the next generation of Jewish genealogical leaders, and a neshama study/volunteer trip to Poland for those “out of school.” Additionally, over the past year, more than 2.7 million records have been added to their database, JewishGen has entered into two major significant partnerships, “Generations” the new Jewish genealogy themed TV show in partnership with JLTV and the Museum of Jewish Heritage

    You can read more in an article by Susan R. Eisenstein published in the JewishPress web site at: http://tinyurl.com/499ucut8.

  • 19 Dec 2023 4:54 PM | Anonymous

    The TUMO Center for Creative Technologies is expanding its multi-year initiative to capture detailed 3D scans of hundreds of Armenian heritage sites.

    In 2018 and 2019, TUMO students made their first 3D scans of Armenian historical and cultural heritage monuments in a series of special learning labs. They used laser scanning and photogrammetry to document sites including the Matosavank monastery in Dilijan National Park, Amberd Fortress on Mount Aragats, the Dadivank monastery in Karvachar, and Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi. Since then, the number of scanned sites has reached 230, and will now expand to include all of Armenia’s important monuments over the coming years.

    TUMO’s digital preservation initiative includes a large number of important monuments in Artsakh. In the weeks immediately following the 44-Day War in 2020, TUMO teams carried out high-resolution 3D scans of 46 historical monuments in Martuni, Martakert, Askeran and Berdzor. These included archeological sites such as Tigranakert, churches and monasteries such as the Tsitsernavank monastery, and historic monuments such as the Hak bridge. In November of 2022, TUMO scanned over 30 additional heritage sites in Artsakh and on Armenia’s borders.

    The resulting high-resolution 3D data sets and visualizations make it possible to document and study cultural monuments in detail, contributing to long term preservation. They also provide material for educational and cultural activities as well as digital media production. Just as importantly, they allow scholars and institutions to monitor cultural heritage sites and eventually carry out preservation and restoration projects as needed.

    You can read more in an article by Siranush Ghazanchyan published in the Public Radio of Armenia web site at:  https://tinyurl.com/ycxvccpx.

  • 19 Dec 2023 8:24 AM | Anonymous

    The following is a press release issued by the National Archives and Records Administration:

    WASHINGTON, December 15, 2023 – In celebration of Bill of Rights Day, observed annually on December 15, 25 people from 25 nations were sworn in as U.S. citizens in front of the nation’s Founding Documents, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

    refer to caption

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    On Bill of Rights Day, 25 people frorm 25 countries took the oath of citizenship in the Rotunda of the National Archives. (National Archives photo by Susana Raab)

    The National Archives traditionally hosts two naturalization ceremonies in the Rotunda each year, the first in September to mark Constitution Day and the second in December in honor of Bill of Rights Day. 

    Dr. Colleen Shogan, Archivist of the United States, served as the host for the ceremony. The Honorable Elizabeth L. Gunn, a judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, presided as the petitioners took the oath of citizenship. Students from MacArthur High School in Washington, DC, recited the Preamble of the Constitution.

    Shogan spoke to the new citizens about the importance of the Founding Documents to the country, and the rights they guarantee for all U.S. citizens. 

    “These three founding documents are a testament to the enduring values of freedom, justice, and equality that we continuously strive to perfect. They are living promises—a covenant between the government and its citizens,” she said. “You are now part of that promise, and as Americans, these documents belong to you.”

    Former First Lady of the United States Melania Trump, herself a naturalized citizen, served as the keynote speaker. She acknowledged the long journeys the new citizens had taken to get to where they are today.  

    “I applaud you for every step you took, every obstacle you overcame, and every sacrifice you made,” Trump said. “You are now a part of a nation with a rich history of progress, innovation and resilience. Though you all come from 25 different countries, your dreams and inspirations intertwine with those who came before you since 1776, and together, feed the future of this extraordinary country.” 

    The 25 new citizens are originally from Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Cameroon, China, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom. 

    Dinesh Prabaharan, a business analyst originally from Sri Lanka, was among those who gained U.S. citizenship. He expressed excitement and a desire to affect positive change in his new home nation.  

    “To say without restriction that this [country] is my home, is an indescribable feeling,” Prabaharan said. “As newly minted citizens, we not only have a duty, but the unique privilege to make our new home a better place than when we were first welcomed into it. This is something so profound, and I am very grateful for that!”  

    Carlos Javier Vaca Valverde, a tax professional originally from Bolivia, praised the United States for the myriad possibilities it avails to its citizens.

    “I think the opportunities this country provides are unparalleled in the world,” Vaca Valverde said. “I love its culture, its opportunities, its freedoms. It’s welcoming to all cultures. And I look forward to living here.”

    This year’s Bill of Rights Day commemorates the 232nd anniversary of the ratification of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Learn more online about the Bill of Rights through our public programs, family activities, and online resources.

    This program was presented thanks to a long-standing partnership between the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the Department of Homeland Security U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
    To view photos from this ceremony, visit the National Archives Flickr page.

  • 19 Dec 2023 8:10 AM | Anonymous

    Furthering the Independence Seaport Museum mission as a maritime museum focused on the Delaware River, its people and the environment and how it connects to the larger world, the museum is embarking on a new, multi-year project, “Breaking Uncommon Ground on the Delaware River,” an initiative that will collect oral histories from African-American Philadelphians who lived and worked along the Delaware River in the mid- to the late 20th- and 21st-centuries. These stories will guide further development and expansion of the museum’s flagship exhibition, Tides of Freedom: The African Presence on the Delaware River. When completed, “Breaking Uncommon Ground” will include an audio/visual component, an online presence through ISM’s YouTube channel and an online archive of the stories in the J. Welles Henderson Research Center there.

    Tides of Freedom opened in May 2013 and has been a cornerstone of ISM’s visitor experience ever since. Originally conceived by a committee of leading African American scholars and curated by Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, the University of Pennsylvania’s Lasry Family professor of race relations and professor of sociology and Africana studies, the exhibition enables visitors to explore the concept of freedom through the lens of the African experience along the Delaware River. Featuring objects from ISM’s collection and organized by four critical periods in America’s history—enslavement, emancipation, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement—Tides of Freedom urges guests to bear witness. “Breaking Uncommon Ground on the Delaware River” will extend the narrative of Tides of Freedom to present day through the stories shared by elders in the community and by creating a more intergenerational experience for visitors.

    “I believe that the only limit to our success with this project is time; with every obituary that appears in the newspaper, the stories of the African-American community in the last quarter of the 20th-century are lost forever,” said Peter S. Seibert, president and CEO of the Independence Seaport Museum. “This is why developing this oral history project has been so exciting and incredibly important for the ISM. Collecting and preserving the stories of this community will be the first and most critical step, and then returning those stories to the community through a number of different avenues, including as part of a substantial expansion of our permanent exhibition, Tides of Freedom.”

    You can read more in an article published in the artdaily web site at: https://tinyurl.com/yck29yc.

  • 19 Dec 2023 7:58 AM | Anonymous

    DNA is the building block of life, and the genetic alphabet comprises just four letters or nucleotides. These biochemical building blocks comprise all types of DNA, and scientists have long wondered whether creating working artificial DNA would be possible. Now, a breakthrough may finally provide the answer.

    The main goal of a new study, the findings of which were published in Nature Communicationsthis month, shows that scientists may finally be able to create new medicines for certain diseases by creating DNA with new nucleotides that can create custom proteins.

    Being able to create artificial DNA could open the door for several important uses. Being able to expand the genetic code could very well diversify the “range of molecules we can synthesize in the lab,” the study’s senior author Dong Wang, Ph.D., explained (via Phys.org).

    Wang helped lead the study alongside Steven A. Benner, Ph.D., and Dmitry Lyumkis, Ph.D.. Together, the three authors have shown that you can not only create artificial DNA but that the artificial nucleotides may also be able to help create custom proteins we could use to target specific diseases that are hard to combat.

    You can read more in an article by Joshua Hawkins published in the BGR web site at: https://tinyurl.com/26n5zff9.

  • 18 Dec 2023 8:11 PM | Anonymous

    Here is an article that is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I believe it is very important to the victims of this abuse and therefore should be publicized in all sorts of online places.

    Kurt Rupprecht was elated last spring when the Maryland attorney general’s office went public with its report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. But it left the Harford County victims’ advocate, a survivor of childhood sexual assault, wanting more.

    The “Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore” was just that: though it listed 156 clergy and staff who abused more than 600 children over eight decades, it covered only the church’s Baltimore jurisdiction, the largest of the three in the state. It did not address the Archdiocese of Washington, a territory that includes the Maryland suburbs of the nation’s capital and southern Maryland, or the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, which includes Maryland’s Eastern Shore counties.

    “People who don’t follow this story closely may think of the attorney general’s report as ‘The Maryland Report.’ But it’s not,” says Rupprecht, 53, who was abused in 1979 in Salisbury, which is part of the Wilmington diocese. “It’s crucial to the survivor community that people be able to grasp the statewide scope of the tragedy.”

    The Baltimore Sun has built the largest and only searchable database in the state, publishing Friday a list of 309 people with ties to the church who were accused of child sexual abuse or misconduct and lived or worked anywhere in Maryland, regardless of where the alleged acts occurred. It adds 107 names, researched by Sun reporters, to the people listed in the attorney general report issued in April.

    Since the crisis emerged into the public view more than 20 years ago, church officials and authorities have established policies to better investigate and hold offenders responsible. But amid efforts to heal, the church continues to be rocked by new revelations even as gaps in transparency persist, some stemming from church and law enforcement criteria about how to address information about accusations.

    You can read more in an article in the baltimoresun.com web site at: https://tinyurl.com/4skfeapp.
  • 18 Dec 2023 8:10 AM | Anonymous

    Former first lady Melania Trump spoke in uncharacteristically personal terms Friday about her experience becoming a US citizen and the challenges she faced traversing a complicated legal system as she made a rare public appearance during a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives in Washington.

    The former first lady applauded the 25 immigrants sitting before her who were poised to be sworn in as US citizens and outlined the many hurdles immigrants have to overcome to secure citizenship. She made no mention of her husband, former President Donald Trump, who has pledged a widespread expansion of hard-line immigration policies if elected again in 2024 that would restrict both legal and illegal immigration.

    “My personal experience of traversing the challenges of the immigration process opened my eyes to the harsh realities people face, including you, who try to become US citizens,” the Slovenian-born Melania Trump said.

    The former first lady, who became a US citizen in 2006, described the difficulties of trying to familiarize herself with immigration law, conducting research and painstakingly gathering information and paperwork.

    “The pathway to citizenship is arduous,” she said, adding that during that time, “My life turned into labyrinth of organizing paperwork.”

    Melania Trump’s appearance at the National Archives comes nearly two years after the agency asked the Justice Department to investigate her husband’s handling of White House records. The probe led to an indictment of the former president, who has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges. The trial in this case is expected to start in Florida in May.

    Despite this, a source close to the former president insisted that he was supportive of his wife’s decision to take part in the event.

    You can read more in an article by  Kristen Holmes and Kate Sullivan published in the http://kten.com/ web site at: https://tinyurl.com/2x9rcjjr.

  • 18 Dec 2023 8:00 AM | Anonymous

    Human sex chromosomes originated from a pair of autosomes, the ordinary or non-sex chromosomes that contain the majority of our genome and come in identical pairs. That ancestral pair of autosomes diverged to become two different chromosomes, X and Y. Even though X and Y have grown apart from each other and taken on unique functions—namely, determining sex and driving sex differences in males and females—they also retain shared functions inherited from their common ancestor.

    New research from Whitehead Institute Member David Page, who is also a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, and postdoc in his lab Adrianna San Roman sheds light on the sex chromosomes' shared role as influential gene regulators.

    The research, published in Cell Genomics on December 13, shows that genes expressed from the X and Y chromosomes impact cells throughout the body—not just in the reproductive system—by dialing up or down the expression of thousands of genes found on other chromosomes.

    Furthermore, the researchers found that the gene pair responsible for around half of this regulatory behavior, ZFX and ZFY, found on the X and Y chromosome respectively, have essentially the same regulatory effects as each other. This suggests that ZFX and ZFY inherited their role as influential gene regulators from their shared ancestor and have independently maintained it, even as their respective chromosomes diverged, because that regulatory role is critical for human growth and development. The genes regulated by ZFX and ZFY are involved in all sorts of important biological processes, showing that the sex chromosomes contribute widely to functions beyond those related to sex characteristics.

    You can read the full story in an article by Greta Friar published in the phys.org web site at: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-sex-chromosomes-responsible.html. 

  • 15 Dec 2023 5:34 PM | Anonymous

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

    For 50 to perhaps 75 years, many genealogists have provided a valuable “cottage industry” of publishing genealogy information. Sometimes this information is in the form of reprinting old, out of copyright family history books. Other services include the publishing of local tax lists, school records, census extracts, histories of towns or counties, and much more. Sometimes these publishing efforts are done by private individuals while others are offered as public services or money-making activities by local genealogy societies. Whatever the source, the goal of these efforts has always been to publish valuable genealogy information that is of interest to others.

    Many of these publications have been low-budget efforts, often photocopied manually and bound together with hand-stapled covers. Over the years, I have purchased a number of such publications and have found most of them to be valuable for finding information about my ancestors. Many times, I was able to find information in these “home productions” that was not easily found anywhere else.

    As the world moves to more and more of an online environment, we shouldn't be surprised to see many of these “cottage” publishers moving to an online environment. In some cases, the publishers continue to produce paper documents but have opened online “catalogs” that anyone can easily search. You place an order, and a book arrives in your mailbox a few days later.

    Perhaps even better, some producers of these small books have moved to online publishing. In this case, you can place an order and then receive access to the book within seconds. With books published online, you can read the pages online or save the entire book to your computer's hard drive or even print some of the pages of interest or perhaps print the entire book or a combination of these options. The choice belongs to the buyer.

    If you are a publisher of genealogy information or if you wish to become such a publisher, you may wonder, “Can I sell information online?” The answer is, “Yes, you can.” Self-publishing online can work both for you as an individual and for you as a member of a local genealogy society that has a fund-raising idea of publishing and selling local historical information. In both cases, the means exist for you to reach a much larger audience with less time, labor, and expense.

    I have been publishing information (this newsletter) and selling it online for years. During this time, I have experimented with several solutions and have talked with other publishers about their methods. Some methods worked well. Some did not. In this article I will share some of the lessons I have learned about what works and what doesn’t.

    I will assume that you have already acquired the material to be sold and that you already know how to create both paper and electronic versions. Those electronic versions might be on CD-ROM or on a web site – the choice is yours. I will focus on how to accept orders and deliver the information. 

    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/13291573.

    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

  • 15 Dec 2023 5:10 PM | Anonymous

    OK, this sounds creepy. However, anyone who owns an Amazon Echo device (often referred to as “Alexa”) will understand how it works.

    The Here After company in California has announced it is working on an Alexa-style “bot” that uses artificial intelligence (AI) software to let people “talk” with deceased friends and relatives. The device uses voice recordings made before a person dies to create the bot. Loved ones later can talk, joke, and reminisce with the bot, as if the friend or relative is still alive.

    The company begins by conducting interviews with clients, in which they are encouraged to talk about their lives. Simply by speaking, Here After users can hear the recorded replies of loved ones—their real stories, songs, and sayings; their actual voices. (Check out the video at https://youtu.be/bFR1BJGi6PU.)

    The Here After company states, “Our goal is to capture the true spirit of people and to enable their stories to become immortal.”

    Their responses are then edited, categorized and divided into sections such as “falling in love” or sentiments such as “happy” or “story about stressful moment”. This data is transferred to an app, which friends and family can access via a phone or smart speaker.

    You can learn more at Here After’s web site at: https://www.hereafter.ai.

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