My grandfather owned a horse and a farm wagon, roughly the 1890s equivalent of the pickup truck of today. He traveled around the farming village where he lived at 3 or 4 miles per hour. When he needed to travel a longer distance, such as to the nearby city, he rode a train that reached speeds as high as 35 mph. Granddad never bought one of those new-fangled automobiles.

My father was of “the modern generation.” His first car was a well-used Model A Ford, and he went on to own an assortment of Fords, Plymouths, DeSotos, and Dodges over the years. Oh yes, one year when he worked a lot of overtime in the local factory, he bought a Cadillac. He drove most everywhere he wanted to go. He drove 50 or 60 miles an hour most everywhere. I don’t remember him ever taking a train.

Of course, I am of a still more “modern age,” and I love sports cars. I have owned a number of them, and I presently own a Corvette that is fast. Very fast. I am told it will travel 195 miles per hour although I cannot vouch for that from experience. Prior to that automobile, I owned others capable of similar speeds.

I used to commute to the city every day and sometimes drove a very powerful and very fast sports car to work every day, traveling down the local superhighway during the height of the rush hour. Many times I averaged 3 or 4 miles an hour for extended periods of time. The traffic into and out of the city often crawls at that speed for hours.

Driving a 6-speed manual transmission isn't much fun in stop-and-go traffic. I eventually gave up on driving the car to work. I started taking the train. The local commuter rail averages 35 mph on a daily commute.

I am more like my grandfather than I want to be.

Recently a researcher compared the travel times in the city of London through the years. He noticed that the amount of time it took to go from point A to point B in horse-and-buggy days was the same as it was after automobiles became common. Then he noticed that the time required today to travel the same routes is actually worse during rush hour than it was in horse-and-buggy days.

Newer and more efficient mechanisms attract throngs of people who then clog the system. The results nullify the improvements. The large amount of horse manure in the streets has been replaced by airborne hydrocarbons; both are unwanted byproducts of our transportation systems of the day.

Are we really better off?

Thanks to the permanence of stone tablets, ancient books and messages carved into the very walls of buildings by our ancestors, there’s a bias in our culture towards assuming that the written word is by definition enduring. We quote remarks made centuries ago often because someone wrote them down – and kept the copies safe. But in digital form, the written word is little more than a projection of light onto a screen. As soon as the light goes out, it might not come back.

"How would you adjust your efforts to preserve digital data that belongs to you – emails, text messages, photos and documents – if you knew it would soon get wiped in a series of devastating electrical storms?

"That’s the future catastrophe imagined by Susan Donovan, a high school teacher and science fiction writer based in New York. In her self-published story New York Hypogeographies, she describes a future in which vast amounts of data get deleted thanks to electrical disturbances in the year 2250.

"In the years afterwards, archaeologists comb through ruined city apartments looking for artefacts from the past – the early 2000s.

“I was thinking about, ‘How would it change people going through an event where all of your digital stuff is just gone?’” she says.

"In her story, the catastrophic data loss is not a world-ending event. But it is a hugely disruptive one. And it prompts a change in how people preserve important data. The storms bring a renaissance of printing, Donovan writes. But people are also left wondering how to store things that can’t be printed – augmented reality games, for instance."

You can read more about the dangers of losing current information in an article by Chris Baraniuk and published in the BBC web site at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210715-the-online-data-thats-being-deleted.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Findmypast Friday: new records from Scotland, Australia & Canada

Search new Scottish deaths & burials, Australian passenger lists, Canadian black history records and a huge updates to our collection of historical newspapers.

Does your family tree have roots in Scotland, Ireland or Australia? Dig deeper with thousands of new records and newspapers that could reveal valuable details about the lives of your ancestors.

Scotland, Modern and Civil Deaths & Burials 1855-2021

Do you have relatives that died in Scotland? Search over 62,000 new additions to discover the details of their death, burial, residence, occupation and next of kin in this growing national collection.

Now containing over 3.3 million records, this vast collection has been compiled from a number of sources, including local government burial indexes held by various councils and archives, volunteer & local family history society transcriptions, modern records of funeral homes and civil registers.

Australia, Inward, Outward & Coastal Passenger Lists 1826-1972

Discover your ancestors' immigration to Australia and their travel with over 25,000 new additions to a collection of passenger lists and migration records that contain movement to, from and around the country.

Each record includes a transcript and many also include an image of the original record. Passenger lists vary widely in size, length, and level of detail, as there was no standardised format. Some record only a minimum of information about the passengers, while others are quite detailed.

Canada, Black Nova Scotians 1784-1837

Search for Black and mixed race ancestors in this new collection from the Canadian maritime province of Nova Scotia.

The records are varied and naturally give varying amounts of information, depending upon who created them and for what purpose, and relate to this Black history in all its complexity. You will find individuals who escaped slavery in South Carolina and Virginia, but also the slaves of British Loyalists. You will find those who merely passed through, living their lives for a few years before moving on elsewhere.

Newspapers

Findmypast's newspaper collection continues to grow. This week's massive update sees one brand new paper, the Newark Herald (1873-1949), join the archive while updates have been made to 48 existing titles, including;

• • Alston Herald and East Cumberland Advertiser from 1875, 1877 and 1879
  • Arbroath Guide from 1961
  • Barrhead News from 1914
  • Birmingham Mail from 1877 and 1912
  • Blackpool Gazette & Herald from 1874 and 1876
  • British Standard from 1865
  • Court Gazette and Fashionable Guide from 1838
  • Dartmouth & South Hams chronicle from 1913
  • Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette from 1858-1874 and 1876-1879
  • East Kent Times and Mail from 1901, 1903, 1932, 1962-1963 and 1978
  • Eastern Counties’ Times from 1893, 1897, 1902, 1910, 1914-1915, 1921-1922, 1930 and 1933
  • Evening Star (London) 1842
  • Fermanagh Herald from 1914
  • Huntly Express from 1914
  • Indian Daily News from 1902
  • Kenilworth Advertiser from 1874-1876 and 1912
  • Kentish Gazette from 1877-1882 and 1885-1886
  • Lady’s Own Paper from 1866 and 1868-1872
  • Lancashire Evening Post from 1958
  • Leicester Evening Mail from 1910
  • Leven Mail from 1961
  • Liverpool Daily Post from 1895
  • Lloyd’s List from 1913
  • London Packet and New Lloyd’s Evening Post from 1809, 1815, 1821-1829 and 1833
  • Lowestoft Journal from 1914
  • Montrose Standard from 1961
  • Morning Herald (London) from 1818 and 1832
  • New Times (London) from 1819-1820, 1826 and 1829
  • Northern Chronicle and General Advertiser for the North of Scotland from 1913
  • Northern Scot and Moray & Nairn Express from 1914
  • Northern Weekly Gazette from 1868, 1872-1876 and 1898
  • Patriot from 1832-1857
  • Portsmouth Evening News from 1956-1959
  • Runcorn Examiner from 1870 and 1876
  • Satirist; or, the Censor of the Times from 1849
  • Southport Visiter from 1898
  • St. Helens Examiner from 1886 and 1893
  • Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser from 1911
  • Swindon Advertiser and North Wilts Chronicle from 1913
  • Teignmouth Post and Gazette from 1897
  • The Day from 1809-1810, 1813-1814 and 1816
  • The Referee from 1914
  • Warrington Examiner from 1876
  • Waterford Star from 1901-1902, 1905 and 1912-1913
  • Weekly Chronicle (London) from 1856
  • Weymouth Telegram from 1897
  • Widnes Examiner from 1876 and 1919
  • Windsor and Eton Express from 1914
  • Witney Gazette and West Oxfordshire Advertiser from 1913

 

The Social Security Administration's Death Index (SSDI) can be a boon to beginning genealogists. The Social Security number is the most valuable piece of information when seeking a number of other documents. It is essential for ordering paper copies of original death records, obituaries, and more. The SSDI is the first step in obtaining this information.

The Social Security Death Records information has not been updated for several years. However, the majority of genealogists are looking for information about people who passed away several years ago so that lack of current entries is usually not a huge drawback.

If you can only trace your U.S. ancestry back to your grandparents or possibly great-grandparents, the Social Security Administration can help you find where they were born, the names of their parents, and more. The SSDI can be especially helpful for those researching immigrants as the data often shows where the individual was born in "the old country." Sometimes it will show the exact location of the town or a country that no longer exists, although that is not guaranteed.

The Social Security Administration was created by an act of law in 1935 as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. The act laid out a retirement system for many Americans, although not all. The act also created a new governmental agency to manage the program. The Social Security Administration has since become one of the largest agencies in the U.S. Federal Government.

The Social Security Administration's Death Index (SSDI) originally was a database of deceased persons who received Social Security Benefits. The Social Security Administration started computerizing records in 1962. This made it possible to produce an index of people who had Social Security numbers and are deceased. Most death records prior to 1962 were never computerized and therefore do not appear in the SSDI although a few exceptions do exist. Some online Web sites advertise that the data they possess will contain information about deaths "as early as 1937," but that claim is a bit misleading; 99.9% of the information is for 1962 and later.

Initially, the Social Security Administration only recorded the deaths of individuals who were receiving retirement benefits from the Administration. Those who died before reaching retirement age were not listed. Neither were those who had different retirement systems, such as railroad workers, school teachers, and other municipal, state, and federal employees. In the 1970s the railroad and many other retirement systems were merged into the Social Security system. Deaths of those retirees then started appearing in the SSDI.

In the late 1980s and after, all deaths in the U.S. were reported to the Social Security Administration and recorded in the SSDI. You can find deaths of children and non-retired adults listed for the 1990s and later, but not for earlier years.

Because legal aliens in the U.S. can obtain a Social Security card, their names may appear in the SSDI if their deaths were reported, even if the death occurred overseas.

The online SSDI databases contain the following information fields:

Social Security number

Surname

Given Name

Date of Death

Date of Birth

Last Known Residence

Location of Last Benefit

Date and Place of Issuance

You can access the Social Security Death Index at no charge on a number of Web sites, including the following:

New England Historic Genealogical Society https://www.americanancestors.org/search/category-search/344/vital-records-incl-bible-cemetery-church-and-ssdi

Ancestry.com: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/3693/

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) offer the Social Security Death Index on their popular Family Search site at https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535

Keep in mind, however, that the online SSDI database is only an index -- an abbreviated listing. The Social Security Administration holds additional information that can be a genealogical jackpot. The index listing of an ancestor is merely your ticket to this jackpot.

From 1936 on, anyone who has applied for a Social Security Card filled out an application form (SS-5) that the U.S. Government keeps on file. This application form (SS-5) contains the following information:

Full name

*Full name at birth (including maiden name)

*Present mailing address

Age at last birthday

Date of birth

*Place of birth (city, county, state)

*Father's full name "regardless of whether living or dead"

*Mother's full name, including maiden name, "regardless of whether living or dead"

*Sex and race

*Ever applied for SS number/Railroad Retirement before? Yes/No

*Current employer's name and address

*Date signed

*Applicant's signature

The items marked with an asterisk are not available in the online SSDI database but are available in the original SS-5 applications.

The SS-5 form is obviously much more valuable to the genealogist than the limited information shown in the online death index. The Social Security Administration can supply photocopies of the original Social Security application form (the SS-5) to anyone who requests information on a deceased individual. You can obtain a photocopy of the SS-5 form by writing to the Social Security Administration.

The SSA charges $21 for each individual SS-5 copy if you can provide the Social Security number of the deceased person, $29 if you cannot provide the number. (A computer extract is available for $16, but those extracts do not include the names of the individual's parents nor the place of birth.) The SSA is not in the business of doing genealogical research and cannot, by law, expend Social Security Trust Fund money for purposes not related to the operation of the Social Security program. The $21 fee is intended to offset the cost to the government whenever SSA provides information from its files for non-program purposes.

To obtain the photocopy of the original SS-5, you must fill out Form SSA-711, the "Request for Deceased Individual's Social Security Record," available at https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-711.pdf.

There is a fee of $21.00 U.S. for most records requests. Send your request and check to:

Social Security Administration

OEO DEBS FOIA

P.O. Box 33022

Baltimore, Maryland 21290-3022

If you want to obtain the SS-5 forms for more than one person, it is suggested that you mail multiple forms individually (in different envelopes) and include separate checks. Be patient. You may have to wait several months for the response to your request(s).

Social Security Numbers

It is interesting to note that you can tell where a Social Security Number was issued simply by looking at the first few digits of the number. This does not tell where the person was born, only where he or she was living when the number was issued. Nonetheless, it can be a valuable clue as to where to look for additional information.

The Social Security Account Number (SSAN) is divided into three sets of digits. For example, let’s take 123-45-6789. The 3 digits in the first group indicate the state or territory in which the number was originally issued. The second group of 2 numbers is used to define the people within the state. The third group of 4 digits is simply issued in numerical sequence.

The following list shows the area indicated by first 3 digits:

001-003 New Hampshire

004-007 Maine

008-009 Vermont

010-034 Massachusetts

035-039 Rhode Island

040-049 Connecticut

050-134 New York

135-158 New Jersey

159-211 Pennsylvania

212-220 Maryland

221-222 Delaware

223-231 Virginia

232-236 West Virginia

237-246 North Carolina

247-251 South Carolina

252-260 Georgia

261-267 Florida

268-302 Ohio

303-317 Indiana

318-361 Illinois

362-386 Michigan

387-399 Wisconsin

400-407 Kentucky

408-415 Tennessee

416-424 Alabama

425-428 Mississippi

429-432 Arkansas

433-439 Louisiana

440-448 Oklahoma

449-467 Texas

468-477 Minnesota

478-485 Iowa

486-500 Missouri

501-502 North Dakota

503-504 South Dakota

505-508 Nebraska

509-515 Kansas

516-517 Montana

518-519 Idaho

520 Wyoming

521-524 Colorado

525 New Mexico (also 585 below)

526-527 Arizona

528-529 Utah

530 Nevada

531-539 Washington

540-544 Oregon

545-573 California

574 Alaska

575-576 Hawaii

577-579 District of Columbia

580 U.S. Virgin Islands

581-585 Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa

585 New Mexico (some 585 numbers)

586-699 Unassigned

700-729 Railroad Retirement Board

730-899 Unassigned

A few Social Security Numbers beginning with a 9 have been issued, but these are very rare.

Whether you’re just getting starting on your family research or picking up on details of lines of descent, Social Security Death records can provide you with information and leads that speed and validate your findings.

Here is a tip for everyone who uses the World Wide Web: You can control font sizes.

I often receive e-mail messages from readers stating that the fonts on www.eogn.com or other web sites are too big or too small. As you surf the web, you will undoubtedly find some sites that have fonts too big or too small for your monitor.

Are you aware that YOU control the font sizes as displayed on your screen?

When I ask, I find that some people are using tablet computers with 5-inch display screens, others are using14-inch monitors, still others are using 32-inch monitors, and still others use everything in between as well. Resolution sizes vary from 800-by-600 pixels to very high resolutions. No wonder these folks have problems with fonts; there are so many different monitors and video cards in use.

Font sizes specified by web designers are only the default values. The default values are compromises as it is impossible to select one size of font that is appropriate for all sizes of monitors, all resolutions, and the vision preferences of all users. In all cases, YOU are the one who has the final control of the font sizes displayed on your monitor.

For the majority of Windows, Macintosh, Chromebook, Linux, and other computers, to INCREASE the font size, hold down the CONTROL key (Macintosh users hold down the COMMAND KEY) and then press the PLUS Key. Press the Plus key more than once to increase the font size more than once.

For the majority of computers, to DECREASE the font size, hold down the CONTROL key (Macintosh users hold down the COMMAND KEY) and then press the MINUS Key. Press the Minus key more than once to decrease the font size more than once.

This works on the majority of web browsers but it is always possible that the web browser installed in your computer might be an exception. Check the documentation (help files) to see what the keystrokes are for your web browser.

University of New Orleans history professor Mary Niall Mitchell is collaborating with New Orleans public school teachers, museum directors and other community leaders to develop a K-12 curriculum using Freedom on the Move’s (FOTM) database of advertisements seeking runaway enslaved people.

University of New Orleans history professor Mary Niall Mitchell is a lead historian for the digital database Freedom on the Move and director of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Study at UNO.

The digital database, which Mitchell is a lead historian, is the largest digital collection of newspaper advertisements for people escaping from North American slavery. Culled from 18th- and 19th-century U.S. newspapers, the ads, placed by enslavers, are used to document the lives of people escaping bondage.

The goal of the public engagement history pilot program, according to FOTM historians, is to take learning “into the streets, to help students engage with the histories of enslaved people that can be tied to both the environment and the particular topography of the city of New Orleans and its environs.”

Following classroom instruction students will explore New Orleans and the region to visualize the social, spatial and cultural histories of enslaved people and then develop their own public-facing projects, including maps, visual art, spoken word, digital and video pieces.

FOTM received a nearly $150,000 grant in May from The National Historical Publications and Records Commission, an arm of The National Archives, to create a pilot program that could be replicated nationally.

With cost sharing from UNO and its partners, the pilot engagement program is a $300,000 project, said Mitchell, who is also director of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Study at UNO. The Midlo Center is administering the grant.

The pilot program is expected start in the fall of 2021 with professional development training.

The collaboration brings together historians, curriculum innovators, teachers, museum professionals and urban planners with the support of the Midlo Center, community spaces and artists.

Each of the groups will play a vital role in helping students engage with the advertisements in the FOTM databases and the stories of enslaved people that it contains.

You can read more in an announcement published in the University of New Orleans web site at: https://bit.ly/3zmS5lr.

Several times a year for almost three decades, D.C. resident Calvin Osborne has suited up in a Civil War uniform to reenact the stories of Black soldiers who fought for the abolition of slavery.

Ever since he saw the 1989 movie “Glory,” about one of the Union Army’s first Black regiments, Osborne said he has felt a calling to honor Civil War troops of color.

“That movie shook my soul,” said Osborne, 59, who is the associate director of the D.C. Office of Federal and Regional Affairs. “Until that time, I didn’t know that Black soldiers had fought for their own freedom.”

Osborne joined the District’s Black Civil War reenactment group, Company B, and is now president of the volunteer organization. He said he has found purpose in researching the lives of Black Civil War soldiers, most of whom were once enslaved.

But then last year, he found out about an even more personal connection to the Civil War: He learned his great-great-grandfather, William Lacy, had escaped slavery at age 14, then fought in the Civil War.

You can read more in an article by Cathy Free published in the Washington Post at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/21/civil-war-black-soldier-grandfather/.

The following announcement was written by the North of Ireland Family History Society:

This September sees the return of the popular DNA School run by the North of Ireland Family History Society and this time it is online. Previously it was held in-person at the society’s research library near Belfast and the society frequently got comments from people living overseas wishing they could attend. The society hopes that the new online DNA School will attract the Irish and Scots-Irish diaspora or indeed anyone wanting to make the most of the opportunities that DNA research allows. There is huge interest these days in using DNA to help with genealogy research and the aim of the school is to make the whole subject more understandable by helping attendees improve their skills and knowledge.

A spokesperson said that the society is very pleased that Jonny Perl, the developer behind the popular DNA Painter tool, will be a speaker this year. Jonny has family roots in Northern Ireland where the society is based so he is an ideal instructor. American genealogist David Allen Lambert recently said:

“What Jonny has done for genealogy and DNA analysis never ceases to amaze me”.

Classes will last for around 90 minutes – usually a one-hour talk followed by a question and answer session. All four types of DNA will be covered (X, Y, mitochondrial and autosomal). Classes will provide practical advice to allow concepts to be understood and new skills to be learned. There will be a focus on making progress on DNA research within Ireland, however, classes are suitable for anyone using DNA research to trace their roots. There are two sessions each day, at 3pm and at 7pm BST, so 10am and 2pm ET for anyone wishing to “zoom” across the Atlantic.

As a bonus, attendees will be invited to the NIFHS monthly DNA interest group, where a wide range of DNA topics are discussed. These meetings are a great way of keeping up to date with DNA developments throughout the year and are an opportunity to ask questions.

The DNA School will be held from Monday 6th to Friday 10th September. The full class list is:

· Achieving Success with DNA
· Using DNA Painter
· Using X Matches in your DNA Research
· The Advantages of Y-DNA
· The Advantages of mtDNA
· The Leeds Method
· The DNA Family Matching Tool
· Stories from the Ballycarry and Islandmagee DNA Projects
· Using the Chromosome Browser Effectively
· Ethnicity Estimates

The classes are £10 each or all 10 classes can be booked together at a discounted rate of £80.

To book online and to find more details, please visit www.nifhs.org/courses

Genealogists love scanners. I often get asked, which is the best scanner? Or the best portable portable scanner? Occasionally, I get asked which is the best scanner for use on photographs?

As a single person writing lots of articles daily, I find it impossible to answer that question. I would have to purchase a number of scanners and then spend hundreds of hours testing all of them. As a sole author, I find that to be impractical. HOWEVER, there are other sources of data that have done exactly that with their teams of employees.

I am always leery of may "reviews" published online proclaiming that one product or another is the best. Many of these so-called "reviews" are actually thinly-veiled advertisements, written by someone who is actually promoting his or her employer's product.

Two sources I do trust for publishing factual and accurate online reviews or PCMag.com and Wirecutter.com. They seem to always be impartial and describe things accurately. (Wirecutter is owned by the New York Times.)

To read about recommended portable scanners, take a look at https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-scanners, https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-photo-scanners, and at: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-portable-document-scanner/.

American schoolchildren always learn of the United States Declaration of Independence, printed July 4, 1776. They are also told that a copy (not the original) is on view at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

The same schoolchildren may or may not be told that 200 copies were printed on July 4, 1776. What they usually are not told is that at least 26 copies are known to still exist. What fascinates me is that three of those copies are held in one place: The National Archives in Kew, Richmond, Surrey, England.

Yes, The National Archives of Great Britain has more original 1776 copies than does the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

In 1776, one copy was officially entered into the Congressional Journal and the additional copies were distributed, some by horseback, throughout the colonies to be read aloud to colonists and the militia. In addition, one copy was sent to King George III. I guess the Colonials felt they should notify the King that his subjects in the 13 North American colonies were rebelling.

Two other copies came from senior officers of the British Army and Navy who were commanding troops in North America at the time. It isn’t clear if the documents were sent directly to the officers or if they obtained the copies from captured documents.

I saw the documents in Kew (a neighborhood of London) on a trip I made a few years ago. They certainly looked the same as the copy I had seen at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. a few years earlier!

You can read more in Wikipedia at 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_history_of_the_United_States_Declaration_of_Independence.