The Digital Library of Idaho is a collection of digital libraries from across the state of Idaho, providing access points to the varied historical images, documents, and other media available to the public.

You can access the Digital Library of Idaho at https://www.digitallibraryofidaho.org/.

DNA testing giant 23andMe Holding Co. agreed to purchase telehealth upstart and drug-delivery service Lemonaid Health Inc. in a bid to make its personalized genetics approach part of patients’ primary care.

23andMe will pay $400 million for Lemonaid, with 25% of the purchase price in cash and the rest in stock, according to a statement Friday. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the year.

In a statement, 23andme CEO Anne Wojcicki wrote:

"We are acquiring Lemonaid Health so that we can bring true personalized healthcare to 23andMe customers. Personalized healthcare means healthcare that is based on the combination of your genes, your environment and your lifestyle - with recommendations and plans that are specific to you.

"Lemonaid Health is a pioneer in telemedicine and digital pharmacy. In Lemonaid Health we found a team of passionate, patient-obsessed people who want to bring better healthcare to everyone in an affordable, accessible way. Lemonaid Health’s focus on the patient and its philosophy of delivering individualized care fits perfectly with our mission of empowering people to take control of their health."

American Ancestors will host a free live broadcast from 3 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 28. The title is “The Basics of New England Research,” presented by Anne Lawthers.

“Whether your ancestors lived in New England in the 17th or the 21st centuries, this presentation will give you the basic information to begin — and advance — your research into New England records. In preparation for the release of the sixth edition of Genealogist’s Handbook for New England Research, this presentation will give you the basic historical context, general organization of records, go-to resources, and unique strategies that will give you a good foundation to succeed in tracing your New England ancestors. New England includes the present-day states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.”

To register, go to https://bit.ly/2XJkhSv and sign up.

If you have been reading this newsletter for several months or longer, you already know that I am a fan of Chromebook and Chromebox computers. These are low-cost computers that are surprisingly powerful and yet they meet most of the needs of typical computer users.

Chromebooks are laptop computers while Chromebox computers are essentially the same thing packaged as a desktop computer instead of a laptop. Most people simply call them Chromebooks when referring to either the laptop or desktop versions. These things have been selling like hotcakes, both for home use and office use in corporations. In fact, in recent years, Chromebook laptops have out-sold Windows and Macintosh laptops COMBINED!

Chromebooks aren’t like other laptops. They do not run Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, Linux (although they can easily have Linux added), or other well-known operating systems. Instead, they run Chrome OS, an operating system made by Google. They are powerful, so they can handle what’s important to you and designed in a way that makes them easy to use. They are super simple to use, never get viruses, automatically make backups, and therefore are suitable for use by computer experts and novices alike. They run almost all the computer applications needed by in-home users, including email, surfing the web, accessing Facebook, writing all sorts of documents, creating spreadsheets, and playing many computer games (although not all of them). They also operate well with about 99% of the cloud-based applications.

If the computer application you want to use requires you to log online, chances are it will work well on a Chromebook. You can learn more by starting at https://www.google.com/chromebook/.

I own both a Chromebook and a Chromebox. I travel a lot and the Chromebook is the system I usual travel with. I use it for reading and writing email, for surfing the web, for writing this newsletter, and for most every other computer task I need to use.

For a genealogist, the biggest drawback of Chromebook computers has been a lack of genealogy applications for Chromebook/Chromebox systems. Actually, Chromebook systems work well with cloud-based applications, such as MyHeritage.com, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Archives.com, Findmypast.com, USGenWeb, RootsWeb, WeRelate, WikiTree, Find A Grave, Billion Graves, (and, of course, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter).

However, a Chromebook does not allow for installing Windows, Macintosh, or Linux applications. As a result, you cannot use a Chromebook to run Family TreeMaker, RootsMagic, Legacy, Family Historian, Mac FamilyTree, Heredis, Reunion, or similar programs.

Now there is good news! rootstrust (always spelled with a lower-case “r”) now works well with Chromebook and Chromebox systems. It is a rather complete genealogy program that competes with all the Windows/Macintosh/Linux genealogy programs.

The following announcement was written by the producer of rootstrust software:

The Chromebook and Genealogy

Say, you want to buy a laptop computer for email, Facebook, web surfing and genealogy. You could get a MacBook for $2000+ or an HP Chromebook for one tenth the price. But what about the genealogy software? The big-name genealogy programs cannot run on a Chromebook, however now rootstrust can. rootstrust has always been able to run on Windows, macOS and Linux. Now Chrome OS, the operating system of the Chromebook and the Chromebox, has been added to its OS compatibility list.

Chrome OS and Linux

Early versions of Chrome OS supported Linux only in a dual boot environment. However, since the advent of Chrome OS, version 69, an implementation of Linux called Crostini is available as an app within Chrome OS. Since it is not enabled by default, you must turn it on before you can use it. Crostini is not a full-blown Linux implementation: all you get to start with is the Linux terminal app which provides you with a command line interface to Linux. By typing a few simple commands, however, you can set up a file manager with a graphical user interface on which you can install rootstrust the way you would on any other Linux system.

You can download a PDF file from the Download page of the rootstrust.com website that contains detailed, step by step instructions (with copious screenshots) for enabling Crostini Linux, installing a file manager and all the apps that rootstrust could invoke during its execution (LibreOffice, text editor, PDF viewer, image file viewer, video player, calculator, etc.). It also shows you how to install rootstrust and how to set up separate virtual desktops for Chrome OS and Linux.

The Linux File Manager and its Desktop

The apps that you install from the command line (LibreOffice, Text Editor, image viewer, etc.) do not have desktop icons the way they would on a full-blown Linux implementation. However, from rootstrust.com you can download a small set of clickable desktop icons (the ones you see in the following figure) that you can easily install on your desktop. Here is how the Linux Desktop will appear in nemo, the file manager app, after rootstrust and the supplemental icons have been installed:

In the figure above, you will see Konsole, Gimp and VLC. These apps are not used by rootstrust but can be useful. You too can install additional Linux apps from the command line, but you will have to create your own clickable icon files for your desktop. You might ask why we installed Konsole when we already had the Linux terminal app. When you launch the file manager nemo, you do it via the command line in the terminal. Thus, as long as nemo is running, the terminal is tied up, and you do not have access to the command line. Having Konsole on your desktop remedies that.

rootstrust on Chrome OS

The appearance and functionality of rootstrust on Chrome OS is virtually identical to rootstrust on any other operating system.

Chrome OS will remember rootstrust once you have run it. It will thereafter be available on the Google Search Bar that appears when you press the search button.

Cloud Storage and External Storage

Google Drive is integrated into Chrome OS, and its files are virtual, i.e., they reside in the cloud. Obviously, the advantage of that is they do not take up valuable file space on your Chromebook or Chromebox. The disadvantage is that if you have no Internet access, you cannot access to your files. Most Chromebooks have a micro-SD card slot. By storing your rootstrust File Cabinets (document and multimedia files) on an SD card, you potentially free up a large chunk of internal file space while ensuring that you can work with rootstrust even when you have no Internet access.

You can learn more about rootstrust at https://rootstrust.com.

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

It’s time to get rid of all the paper that is cluttering up your genealogy research as well as your need to keep receipts for income tax purposes, to keep copies of eyeglass prescriptions, to organize your warranties for the various items in your life, to keep copies of business cards, and for hundreds of other purposes where you might need to quickly and easily find a piece of "paper" in the future. Luckily, there are many software tools available for organizing your paper files by scanning them, saving the images to a database on your computer, and (optionally) throwing away the paper.

Remember when everyone talked about how we would someday become a paperless society? Now it seems like we use paper more than ever. Let’s face it – everyone still uses paper. We end up with piles of it – bills, receipts, financial and insurance statements, and much more. Still, the trend toward government and business entities wanting digital documents is growing. For instance, the Internal Revenue Service prefers that you file your taxes electronically. If an audit is requested, the I.R.S. strongly suggests you show up at the audit with electronic images of your receipts, not with boxes of paper. According to ruling Rev. Proc. 97-22 from the IRS, agency employees will accept digital documents. If you do insist on submitting tax forms and receipts on paper, the I.R.S. employees will simply scan all your paper and then throw that paper away! The agency doesn't have enough file space to store paper from all the taxpayers, but it has lots of available space for digital storage. In addition, I.R.S. employees can retrieve electronic images much faster than they can retrieve paper documents. Perhaps you should do the same. After all, this is the 21^st century!

I have written often about the advantages of genealogists going paperless. See https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Aeogn.com+paperless&t=hf&ia=web for a list of my past articles about going paperless. This week, I am experimenting with a new software tool that shows a lot of promise for anyone thinking of reducing clutter and simplifying the retrieval of needed information at any time in the future.

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/11773152.

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. 

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Findmypast have expanded their exclusive collection of Catholic parish registers with over 100,000 records covering 59 parishes across Cornwall, Devon & Dorset.

Published online for the first time in association with Diocese of Plymouth, this valuable new resource spans 1781-1921 and includes;

• • Over 55,000 baptism records
  • Over 16,000 marriage records
  • Over 15,000 burial records
  • Over 15,000 congregational records

Each record includes both a transcript and scanned colour image of the original document. The amount of information listed in these detail rich records may vary, although most results will reveal key biographical details as well as the date, parish, and location of the event that was being recorded.

Baptisms will reveal the names of godparents and parents, enabling you to uncover details of previous generations as well as the identities of family friends or relatives. Marriages will provide the name of your ancestor’s spouse, father and witnesses while burials allow you to discover the final resting place of your ancestors, their age at death, marital status and in some cases even cause of death. 

Congregational records are packed with other fascinating facts surrounding your ancestor’s relationship with the church such as details of their confirmation, first confession or even the location of their seat rental. 

As many of the original registers were written in Latin, Findmypast have applied a Latin dictionary to the name search field. This gives their search the capability to search for the English and Latin versions of a name when the name variants option is selected.

Today’s release marks just the latest update to the Catholic Heritage Archive, Findmypast’s ground-breaking digitisation project to bring millions of records from across Scotland, England, Ireland and American online for the very first time.

The Roman Catholic Church holds some of the oldest and best-preserved family records which, until now, have remained locked away for centuries. By working with partners at various Archdiocese, Findmypast has enabled millions of users across the world to explore their Catholic roots online.

Newspapers

This week’s Findmypast Friday update also sees 11 new papers added to the Findmypast newspaper archive along with updates to 18 existing titles. New arrivals include:

• • Cosmopolitan covering 1865 and 1868-1876
  • Illustrated Crystal Palace Gazette covering 1853-1854
  • Illustrated Midland News covering 1869-1871
  • Illustrated Newspaper covering 1871
  • London Illustrated Weekly covering 1874
  • South London Advertiser covering 1863-1866
  • Surrey Herald and County Advertiser covering 1826-1828
  • Tichborne Gazette covering 1872 and 1874-1875
  • Warminster Herald covering 1857, 1859-1869, 1872-1874, 1877-1880, 1882-1884 and 1886-1893
  • Westerham Herald covering 1883-1889, 1893-1896, 1898-1935
  • Wolverton Express covering 1901-1954

While additional pages have been added to:

• • Borough of Greenwich Free Press from 1857
  • Bury Free Press from 1997
  • Fenland Citizen from 1989
  • Grantham Journal from 1960-1967, 1981-1983, and 1995-1996
  • Haverhill Echo from 1994-1997
  • Herne Bay Press from 1898
  • Islington Times from 1858
  • Kentish Express 1878
  • Liverpool Albion from 1837, 1851, 1859 and 1865
  • Lloyd’s List from 1913
  • Music Hall and Theatre Review from 1902-1903
  • New Milton Advertiser from 1992
  • Newmarket Journal from 1997
  • Saffron Walden Weekly News from 1997
  • South Eastern Gazette from 1910
  • Spalding Guardian from 1957, 1961-1963 and 1995-1997
  • Suffolk and Essex Free Press from 1997
  • Wellington Gazette and Military Chronicle from 1879

The following announcement was written by the National Genealogical Society:

The National Genealogy Hall of Fame is an educational project sponsored by the National Genealogical Society (NGS). The entire genealogical community is invited to participate in this project – through annual elections to the National Genealogical Hall of Fame, we honor those individuals of the past who made significant contributions to genealogy and set the high standards by which we work today.

Would your society like to honor a genealogist whose unique, pioneering, or exemplary work lives on today? Perhaps there was a notable genealogist in your state or county whose name should be memorialized in the National Genealogy Hall of Fame. If so, NGS and the National Genealogy Hall of Fame would like to hear from you. They are seeking nominations from the entire genealogical community for persons whose achievements or contributions have made an impact on the field. This educational program increases appreciation of the dedication and useful advancements achieved by committed genealogists whose work paved the way for researchers today. This is an opportunity for your nominee to receive National exposure for their contributions to genealogy.

A nomination for election to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame must be made by a genealogical society or similar organization on the official nomination form and National Genealogical Society (NGS) affiliation is not required of nominees, nominating societies, or electors. Thirty-six outstanding genealogists have been recognized for their contributions since 1986. Those elected are permanently commemorated in the virtual Hall of Fame on the NGS website. See https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/hall-of-fame-members/

The formal Call for Nominations can be downloaded at https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/hall-of-fame/

Deadline for all submissions is 15 December 2021. Official nomination forms are available from the NGS website (https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/hall-of-fame/) or by contacting the National Genealogical Society, 6400 Arlington Blvd, Suite 810, Falls Church, VA 22042-2318; phone 1-800-473-0060.

The following announcement was written by the The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania:

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania – Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania has named James M. Beidler, a Keystone State native and longtime family history professional, as Interim Executive Director.

Beidler, who also served as GSP Executive Director from 1999 to 2003, has made a name for himself as an author, editor, and speaker during this 30 years of genealogy work. He recently co-chaired the successful virtual conference of the International German Genealogy Partnership after original plans for an in-person conference needed to be cancelled due to COVID-19. The IGGP conference drew more than 800 registrants from around the globe and was lauded as the first online genealogy conference to be successful in all aspects from program to exhibits.

“We are absolutely thrilled that Jim will be working with us," said Valerie-Anne Lutz, President of GSP. "His background and experience are perfect for GSP as we reimagine the organization and work toward a better future."

Beidler has been given the charge to take the renewed enthusiasm of the society’s passionate volunteers and kickstart activity by the society in a variety of directions. “It all began this summer after I rejoined GSP as a member,” Beidler said. “I had a Zoom call with the president and secretary just to let them pick my brain a little. Sometime later, I realized I might have more to offer than just some talking points.”

In addition to doing an inventory of all GSP’s resources—in terms of materials as well as human capital—Beidler will be helping the current board members and volunteers with everything from programming to publications to website improvements to grant opportunities, as well as recruiting more members, volunteers, and board members to help GSP become a state society that is the first stop for any genealogists with Pennsylvania roots, which is estimated to be about one in four Americans.

About Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania

GSP is a non-profit educational institution located at 2100 Byberry Road, Suite 111, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19116, and is found on the web at the URL, https://genpa.org

Founded in 1892, GSP is one of the earliest genealogical societies founded in the United States. Our mission is to provide leadership and support in promoting genealogy through education, preservation, and access to Pennsylvania-related genealogical information. GSP is committed to preserving and publishing primary source records and to helping people to search for their ancestors.

The following announcement was written by AGRA (The Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives):

Dr John Burt

Dr John Burt was an Associate of AGRA, who made a great impact with his enthusiasm and willingness to get involved. His sudden death earlier this year came as a great shock to all his colleagues, who very much wished to find a way of remembering him and his contribution to AGRA and to genealogy. We are therefore pleased to announce that Council has decided to institute an annual bursary award of £250 in his memory. This is to be payable to an AGRA Associate progressing to full membership, and will go towards the expenses of furthering their genealogical education.

Antony Marr, AGRA Chair, said: “John made a tremendous contribution to both AGRA and the wider genealogy world. We are all saddened at his death.

“This bursary is a fitting tribute to John, providing a lasting legacy to his passion for furthering genealogical knowledge.”

Dr John Burt, M.B., Ch.B., B.A., Cert. Archaeol., M.Sc., F.S.A.Scot., Q.G., was a retired general medical practitioner. Known as Jack by family and friends, he followed in his father's footsteps working for nearly 30 years as a local GP in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Educated at Edinburgh Academy and obtaining his medical qualifications at the University of Aberdeen, John was a keen climber having reached the summit of all the Munros in Scotland and even gained a Blue Peter badge as a child.

He had a passion and huge knowledge of military medals which he had been collecting since childhood. Researching the men named on Fife War Memorials enabled him to give knowledgeable talks on the First World War – a war both of his grandfathers had fought in and survived.

John loved researching and learning and relished the challenge of tackling a new project. He published a book on Pictish stones in the 1990s which remains the only work of its kind to date.

Following his retirement from medical practice he gained an M.Sc. in Genealogy, Palaeography and Heraldry with the University of Strathclyde. Researching the case notes of individuals in Roxburgh District Asylum for his dissertation enabled him to write two books for genealogists and historians on mental health in nineteenth century Britain, which were published by Pen & Sword History: 'Lunatics, Imbeciles and Idiots: A History of Insanity in Nineteenth Century Britain and Ireland' (2017) and 'Madness, Murder and Mayhem: Criminal Insanity in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (2018).

John endeavoured to make a positive difference to the lives of others through his work and research and was well-loved and much respected by both the medical and genealogy communities. It is therefore fitting this bursary will go towards making a positive difference to genealogists.

FURTHER INFORMATION: For further information please contact Jane Roberts, on tel 0771 4203891 (09:00-17:00 hrs) or via press@agra.org.uk.

On Sunday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a donation of $2 million to the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

The donation is to help Native American tribes learn more about their ancestral roots, according to the church.

Elder Kyle S. McKay of the Seventy, and several Native American members, presented the gift during a reception at the museum on Sunday.

The museum, which honors many Native American tribes, will use the gift to build a FamilySearch center and fill other needs. The center will include digital interactive exhibits for Native American families. Many will be able to learn more at http://FamilySearch.org,which is the Church’s nonprofit genealogy arm.

“Native Americans have been moved around so much from different places that a lot of our families have lost contact with each other. Having a center here is a way for us to connect our families together again,” James Pepper Henry, director of First Americans Museum, said.

You can learn more in an article by Genelle Pugmire and published in the Provo, Utah Daily Herald at https://bit.ly/3pl20Gk..