Jay Mack Holbrook, 85, of Provo, passed away peacefully on May 17, 2022 of causes related to dementia. He was born on January 12, 1937 in Chesterfield, Caribou, Idaho to Lawrence E Holbrook and Mary Marjorie Boyatt. He was the oldest of eight children.

Jay Mack's interests were many and diverse: debate, theater, music, dance, poetry, gardening, languages, travel, and public speaking.

He was the founder of Holbrook Research Institute a.k.a. Archive Publishing, which collected, preserved, and published New England town records. He published some 300 titles, with his better-known works including "Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850; Connecticut Colonists; Vermont's First Settlers 1749-1803"; and "New Hampshire Residents 1633-1699". He sold his business to Ancestry.com in 2011 and now his work is available online and benefits genealogists and historians worldwide.

His obituary (which details many more accomplishments of his life beyond genealogy) may be found at: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/jay-holbrook-obituary?id=34782229

The following announcement was written by the American Society of Genealogists (ASG):

A $2500 grant has been awarded to William E. Cole of Gold River, California, toward three projects: preparation of a compiled genealogy of The Wife of John Cole of Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire: Frances ____, her siblings and parents; a compiled genealogy expanding on “The English Origins of Job, John, Daniel and Ruth Cole,” as published in Mayflower Descendant, vol. 69 (Winter 2021); and a narrative history of the trials and tribulations faced by nine Puritans for their non-conformist beliefs in the early 1590s within the Church of England and in England’s highest courts.” Mr. Cole is an in-demand genealogy presenter who will be speaking at the National Genealogical Society Family History Conference, The American Mosaic, in Sacramento, May 24-28, 2022.

A $2500 grant has been awarded to Al Sharp of Kittitas, Washington, to continue his “Henrico Project” of content notes from the Henrico County, Virginia, court records, of which fourteen volumes have been published. This grant will be applied towards the completion of “Court Minute Book 1752-55,” and “1755-1762.” Mr. Sharp has worked with the editors of the Papers of George Washington and James Madison at the University of Virginia in an Early American Studies seminar critiquing draft theses of graduate students. He was also instrumental in obtaining changes in the Virginia laws to allow digital access to Virginia court records.

For more information about the Grant Program e-mail acwcrane@aol.com or write to

Alicia Crane Williams, FASG, Chair
ASG Grant Committee
4 White Trellis
Plymouth MA 02360

Zack Daily-Anderson was conceived using a sperm donor. He later discovered 237 half brothers and sisters, all linked to the same man who donated his sperm.

When Cindy Daily and her partner decided to have a baby in the early 2000s, they knew it wouldn't be an easy path. After using a sperm donor and going through several rounds of IVF, their baby boy Zack Daily-Anderson was finally born.

Daily bought donor sperm from the Fairfax Cryobank in Virginia, one of the largest sperm banks in the country.

The popularity of DNA sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe causing their donor group number to skyrocket. Today, at 18-years old, Daily-Anderson has 237 half brothers and sisters that he knows of. Some live near him in Virginia, but others are spread out across the United States and the world. According to the family, all the siblings are linked to the same man who donated his sperm over many years.

During an interview, Daily said her family doesn't want to sensationalize their story, but wants to see some regulations in the industry that allowed their family to form. "You have a government that regulates us to death, but this is a loophole that they’ve never investigated," she said.

You can read more in an article written by Marcella Robertson and published in the WUSA9 web site at: https://bit.ly/3woW6XP.

A Facebook post has claimed that the investment management firm BlackRock owns 75% of the genealogy company Ancestry. This spawned other claims that BlackRock now owns the ANCESTRY.com DNA database and lots of other personal information of its customers.

Like many other claims posted to Facebook (now called meta.com), there is but one problem with the claim: it isn’t true.

Ancestry is actually owned by another investment management firm called Blackstone.

Ancestry was acquired back in 2020

We can see where the confusion might come from, but Ancestry was actually bought by a different, though similarly titled investment management firm, called Blackstone, back in 2020.

The deal saw Blackstone acquire the family history website and DNA testing service for around $4.7 billion, representing around a 75% stake in the company, according to multiple reports at the time.

Despite the similarity between their names, Blackstone and BlackRock are two separate asset management companies.

You can read more about this fairy tale in an article written by Hannah Smith and published in the Full Fact web site (which specializes in disproving false rumors) at https://fullfact.org/online/ancestry-ownership/.

Laird Charles Towle passed away peacefully at home on April 20, 2022. In 1962 he completed his formal education with a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia. He worked in that field for twenty years, principally at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

In 1968 he became seriously interested in genealogical research, later in genealogical book publishing. Laird and his wife, Marlene, founded Heritage Books, Inc. in 1977. Laird soon become well-known throughout the genealogy community.

Twenty-five years later, he sold the business to Craig Scott and settled into retirement; spending his time on his hobbies: genealogy, gardening, traveling, reading, boating, archeology and an appreciation of the arts.

I well remember a conversation I had with Laird many years ago in which he taught me about one of his professional interests: the viscosity of various lubricants in the -400 degree temperatures found in outer space. That was something he had worked on for the space program.

I knew absolutely nothing about that topic at the beginning of the conversation but Laird explained everything in such an interesting manner that I felt I was an expert after listening him talk for about a half hour. I will always remember him for his widespread knowledge and his manner of explaining the driest of topics in an interesting manner.

You can read Laird Towle's obituary at https://www.beallfuneral.com/obituary/laird-towle, although that will not mention the viscosity of lubricants in extreme cold conditions.

Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people knew Russ Worthington. He perhaps was better known as Cousin Russ.

I was amongst the many who knew and admired Cousin Russ. He seemed to be at all the genealogy conferences, helping others in the Family Tree Maker booth. When he wasn't in the booth, he was usually someplace else helping someone with a question they had.

I spent the last hour trying to write my thoughts about Cousin Russ. I failed. Then I found a eulogy written by Geoff Rasmussenin the Legacy Genealogy News web site that said everything I could not think of. I suggest you read Geoff's article at: https://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2022/05/cousin-russ-well-miss-you-and-thank-you.html.

Depending on who you ask, it stands for “Rich Site Summary,” “Really Simple Syndication,” or “RDF Site Summary.” Regardless of the acronym, it’s actually a very straightforward technology: whenever a website publishes new content, that content can automatically be put into an RSS feed.

Best of all, you can use an RSS newsreader (a bit of software) to quickly and easily check your favorite web sites to see what is new. "Your favorite web sites" might include news sites, the latest stock market prices, weather forecasts, just severe weather updates, your genealogy society's web site, a list of upcoming satellite launches, updates on airline flight prices, some job-search websites, a certain genealogy newsletter (ahem!), Hollywood gossip sites, or if you’re especially interested in one particular topic you can easily and quickly see what is new on that site. The sky is the limit.

HINT: The RSS newsfeed for Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter is: https://eogn.com/page-18080/rss

You don't use a normal web browser to read RSS news feeds. Instead, you use what is known as an RSS newsreader. That might be software that you install in your computer or you can use an RSS newsreader that is in the cloud (which means you don't have to install anything).

You can get web-based, desktop, mobile, and even browser add-on RSS newsreader versions, most of which let you subscribe to up to 100 sites before asking you to pay to upgrade your membership to access more features. There are dozens out there, but the following are a great place to start.

Feedly (my favorite web-based RSS newsreader (no software installation required!) plus Android and iOS versions are available) at https://feedly.com.

InoReader (Web-based plus Android, iOS, and Windows Phone versions at https://www.inoreader.com/).

NewsFlow (for Windows only) at https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/newsflow/9NBLGGH58S5R?hl=en-us&gl=US.

RSSOwl (Completely free for Windows, macOS, and Linux) at http://www.rssowl.org/.

NetNewsWire (completely free for Macintosh or iOS only) at https://netnewswire.com/.

Awasu An advanced RSS newsreader but for Windows only) at https://awasu.com/products.php.

Feeder (an add-on for the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge web bowsers plus free-standing apps are available for iOS) at https://feeder.co/

There are dozens more RSS newsreaders available but the above list is some of the more popular ones. I'd suggest you start with one of the above. It is possible that you will want to switch later to something else once you gain experience with the advantages of RSS,

RSS remains one of the best ways to make sure you see everything your favorite sites publish. It also allows you to check dozens of web sites much more quickly and easily than visiting each web site one at a time with a web bowser.

Dr. Don Cline was a fertility doctor who used his own sperm to inseminate patients without their consent, according to the Netflix documentary, “Our Father.” Jacoba Ballard began unraveling the truth of her ancestry and her siblings with a DNA test.

Cline fathered at least 94 biological children, according to the documentary, but the exact number of children conceived is impossible to know. Ballard took a 23andMe test in 2014, and learned she had seven half-siblings. She contacted the siblings to learn about their mysterious familial connection, and realized each of the mothers had seen the same fertility doctor.

As many more siblings began taking DNA tests, their information was added to the database and the number of siblings in the count grew. Each time a new connection was added to the database, Ballard prepared to break the news, she said on the documentary.

If you have a Netflix account, you can view the documentary at https://www.netflix.com/search?q=Our%20Father&jbv=81227735.

In a collaborative effort, Hunter Library at Western Carolina University has established an extensive, digital collection that will provide improved access to regionally focused materials of Southern Appalachia.

The Southern Appalachian Digital Collections was created with the University of North Carolina at Asheville through a Library Science and Technology Act grant. The partnership began in 2019 to specifically take advantage of combined efforts, such as sharing purchasing power for licensing a content management system and increased staff expertise.

“We are hoping to expand the collection with additional member institutions that reside within Southern Appalachia – Western North Carolina, north Georgia, eastern Tennessee, upstate South Carolina, southwest Virginia – that have a mission to support and preserve the literature, culture, music and historical heritage of the region, and contribute collections to digitize and/or accession into the shared content management system,” said Beth Thompson, assistant professor and head of  Content Organization and Management at Hunter Library.

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3wk1M5D.

One of the most dramatic differences between the traditional, analogue world of creation, and the modern, digital one, is the democratization that has taken place in this sphere. Until recently, writers, musicians, artists and filmmakers collectively formed a relatively select group that was hard to enter as a professional. Today, anyone with an Internet connection can spread the word about their work and make money from it. In effect, everyone who is online, to a greater or lesser degree, is a digital creator – even with the most ephemeral of posts on social media. The result is that genealogists, societies, bloggers, and many others now can find audiences for their messages. Although it is clear the creative field has been opened up enormously, details are hard to come by. That makes a new “Creator Report” from Linktree particularly useful. Linktree describes itself as:

a tool for connecting followers to your entire online world – not just one feed.

A Linktree not only points followers in the direction of your choosing – to your other social profiles, eCommerce store, or content you want to share – but it helps hold followers within your online ecosystem for longer. It allows users to share more, sell more, curate more and grow more.

Linktree claims to have over 23 million users worldwide, which means that it should be in a good position to observe how the new world of digital creation works.

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